Religion is a poison. It is a cancer that eats away a person’s empathy and love. Instead of trying to learn to live with your fellow man, religions like Islam demands that those who believe differently be destroyed. Devoid of mercy or compassion, these murderous fools are willing to destroy their lives, and the lives of others, in the mistaken belief that a bronze age god cares about the mundane details of existence. The so-called “religion of peace” should rather be given the moniker of “religion of pieces”, for it seems some of their members have a hard time holding themselves together.

If you want a bunch of examples from one country just this month, look no further than Pakistan. The country has been rocked by multiple incidents over the past few days. It began in the early days of October, when 11 people were killed in a mosque in Kyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A few days later, another 5 lives were taken in a separate attack. Now, more recently in the city of Mastung, 50 people have been slain during a celebration in a mosque, victims of an unidentified group that no doubt had some petty theocratic dispute.

It’s a confusing act for those of us outside the faith. We forget that there are far more internal conflicts within Islam than with the secular world. Religion is not monotheistic, and the various interpretations are not confined to mere intellectual disagreements. To these deluded fools, the stakes could not be higher in their deadly game of pretend. I promise you that until humans have the foresight to reject these violent and dangerously insecure faiths, these tragedies will continue to happen with frightening regularity.

Gary Smith was a friendly and popular religion teacher with a promising career, until four thugs, incensed by their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, decided to beat him to within an inch of his life to teach him a “lesson” for educating women about their nonsense religion.

Gary Smith, 38, was beaten as he walked to Central Foundation Girls’ School in Bow, east London, last July.

The gang left him unconscious after attacking him with a metal rod and a brick, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

The attackers, Azad Hussain, Akmol Hussein, Sheikh Rashid, and Simon Alam were each given a mandatory 5 year jail sentence for the attack. The Judge was also quick to reprimand these psychos for having been motivated by religious dogma, believing (not unreasonably) that they would continue their life of crime if they continued down this path.

The court heard how the men were only caught because Hussein’s car was being bugged on an unrelated matter.

Normally I might be a little freaked out at the idea of citizens being “bugged”, but it looks as though this was the right call with these psychos. If you read the amount of emotional and physical trauma the victim had to go through, you realize these guys weren’t fucking around. Turns out they were terrorism suspects, and considering the fact they were willing to attack an innocent man guilty only of educating young women, that doesn’t seem too far fetched.

The Security Service had placed a listening device in a car driven by one of the men as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist network in East London, sources told the Daily Telegraph.

Evidently these morons have a problem living in a society where women are treated as equals. Luckily for them, they’ll be in an environment of only men now. Wonder how that’ll work out…

I hate the use of the word ‘war’ in reference to any particular conflict. When I think of a war, I think of the innocents who suffer at the hands of sadistic and murderous zealots that would do anything for power. Wars bring out the very worst attributes of mankind; in conflicts we are cruel, barbaric, and savage. Because we often fear for our very lives, this removes our natural impulse to be cooperative and trusting. The very fabric of our society is often unraveled as we find reasons not to trust our fellow man.

Today we talk about the ‘War on Terror’, which is, ironically enough, a kind of politically correct term to refer to the West’s violent clashing with fundamentalist Islam. This conflict is the result of the growing marginalization of religion in secular society, and the clash of ancient traditions that are in opposition to many of our modern values. Islam seems unable to shed its 7th century clothing, and as such, the literal interpretation of the religion by conservative and often poorly educated mullahs fuel the mistrust their flocks have for the west. Slowly but surely, the foot soldiers of the ‘army of God’ are being recruited for what they think is a noble cause: the Islamification of the world.

Our response to such violent vitriol half way around the world is tame; we write books and publish editorial cartoons, only to become targets of threats and violence as a result. In an effort not to exacerbate the conflict, we relent; choosing to censor ourselves to avoid trouble. Recently, Sherry Jones learned the hard way what kind of courage we possess here in the West. Her publisher’s London home was recently firebombed in response to her book, The Jewel of Medina, a historical fiction novel about the life of Muhammad’s 6 year old child bride, Aisha.

Random House bought the rights to publish the book but by the due date of August 2008, they were having cold feet. Frightened their employees might be the target of violent extremists, they decided not to publish it. It was later picked up by Gibson Square, but shortly after one of publisher’s house was firebombed, which quickly prompted them to again delay publication in Britain.

We now live in fear of a native population that has a murderous need to defend their religion from anyone they consider a threat. The problem lies in the fact that although it is only a relatively small percentage of all Muslims that engage in violent tactics, there is little condemnation for these acts on the part of moderates. They too, fear retribution, and there are those who secretly support the violence and destruction brought on by these extremists. How else can you explain the deafening silence coming from the Islamic community in Britain over such violent blackmail?

We are not engaged in a war, for our enemy is not a person but an ideology. The principles of free speech and the rights of man conflict with the supposed ‘values’ of submission and obedience to God. So far we are losing; we are showing we are too timid and afraid to fight for our right to say what we wish. Do we really deserve freedom of speech when we cower in the face of opposition? How would those who died for that freedom feel about the fact we allow religiously motivated arsonists and murderers to tell us how to live our lives?

Can we all stop allowing Muslim extremists to bully us into silence, please? These are the same guys who want to make it a crime to disparage their religion. Clearly, this isn’t the kind of belief that takes kindly to criticism. Wonder why that is….

As the plot thickens after the arrests of 4 men suspected of trying to blow up fuel tanks at JFK airport, a number of experts have come forward explaining their terrorist plot would not have had the desired effect they were seeking: the complete destruction of JFK Airport. At best, these men could have set off a dangerous blaze, though nothing that would have endangered the lives of JFK’s daily commuters.

If you’re new to the story, here’s the recap: four Trinidadian Muslims, of some advanced age, had begun surveillance work on the airport allegedly in an attempt to ignite and explode the giant fuel tanks, as well as the pipeline. Although this may certainly sound both impressive and frightening, according to most experts, producing anything more than a fire would have been next to impossible.

I can’t say I’m entirely surprised, considering the fact that many of the suspected terrorists had lived for quite a few decades in America. How else could they possibly think a simple fire or a small explosion could create the necessary chain reaction to destroy an entire airport? It’s conceivable that the plot had been devised while watching Die Hard 2, or some equally far-fetched action movie (although in this instance, they would probably have rooted for the bad guys). One has to wonder why, out of the many different violent fantasies they undoubtedly had, they picked that one. Presumably, they wanted a big show.

This act is yet another example of the murderous impulse of faith; it is no coincidence these men were counting on the righteous hand of God to punish those they considered to be infidels. So willing were they to accept this fantasy that they felt the arrival of a 5th member (in actuality an informant) was an act of God. It never occurred to them that their actions were wrong, evil, and disgusting. To them, there was no greater show of piety than the destruction of innocent human lives.

I’m glad none of these men took the time to read a physics book, or even just watch a few documentaries instead of the show 24. Religious fundamentalists are incapable of duplicating the refined works of science; instead, their violent sectarian minds can only use these tools as a blunt instrument of destruction. In this case, they engineered a terrorist plot out of the contrived writings of B-movie scripts. It then only seems fitting that the ‘good guys’ stopped them in time; one good cliché always deserves another.