There is a religion out there. It’s one of the largest in the world, and it has a disgusting and violent history. And, quite frankly, I think Britain has had enough. And it’s about time we finally banned it. This is a religion which believes in taking over the world. It consumes cultures and will not stop until everyone is converted. It is so violent that so-called ‘warriors’ are sent to other nations ot punish people who do not live by their rules. It believes it has the right to police the morality of the globe.
This is a religion with so many fanatics, so many blind faithful that entire regions of the world have become hotbeds of sectarian violence for decades – violent troubles which have blighted neighboring nations, sometimes on only the smallest semantic differences between faiths.
This is a religion which lets the rape of young children go unpunished, a religion which has disgusting attitudes towards women in general, and a religion which tries to curb the rights of everyday people in the name of “modesty”. This is a religion with music that calls its “soldiers” to war, to fight and defend its relentless march into world domination.
The religion I am talking about is, of course, Christianity.
Okay, quick confession. I actually don’t think we need to be banning any religion. But I’m beginning to get really tired of the Muslim-bashing coming from some quarters of western society these days. Yes, Islam has some extrmely violent devotees but the people launching drone strike in Pakistan are Christian. Yes, there have been a couple of stories in the papers recently about “Muslim rape gangs”, but the vast majority of rape is committed by someone of the same race as the victim. Which means the religion young British white girls should isn’t Islam, but Anglicanism. And I’m not even going to mention the Catholic pedophilia scandal.
Yes, the Middle East is currently experiencing serious sectarian violence but Britain has no right to comment on sectarian violence for as long as there are still riots in Northern Ireland. And while Islam does have tenets about spreading the faith, let’s not forget that evangelising is a fundamentally Christian concept and missions of old have completely destroyed indigenous cultures and religions in South America, the Pacific Isles and huge swathes of Asia.
This isn’t superior “hurrr, I’m an atheist, aren’t I clever” posturing: some of the worst proponents of this sort of Islamophobic rubbish are other atheists (Dawkins, Maher, I’m talking to you). Ultimately, these guys aren’t motivated by anti-religionist sentiment but by purebred racism. They are afraid of this “other” religion and somehow willing to maintain that it is somehow qualitatively more violent or hateful than their Western society. I’m getting really bored of it, quite frankly.
Tim Ballantine's Blog 
I’m still into Jesus as much as I was when I was young, but I do think that religion can lead to some pretty bad behaviour. I think the worst and most dangerous kind of that is when people try to curry favour with whoever they follow by using radical acts as a justification measure or a proving ground. I’m totally against that and happy to criticise any of my own religions’ followers for taking that path. For Christianity, it was never supposed to be about show, even Jesus didn’t put up the show that his disciples were looking for at the time.
It’s probably coincidental, but your writing style, of telling a story so that it may shock an audience to think deeper about what is said, ends up reminding me of the way in which Jesus in the gospel tells his stories, and also reminds me of his hatred of dividing people groups into stereotype bad and good (like in the story of the good samaritan).
Yes – as you know Jeth, I went thorugh a religious phase. If I’m honest I’m more ashamed of the (short) anti-religious phase that followed when I became an atheist. As you say, religion can cause a lot of bad, but then bad isn’t restricted to the religious. Once we admit that most people are fundamentally good, we can move past petty tribalism and start treating one another with respect.
The real point of this post was tribalism. We (and by we, I mean ethnically Christian people) are very good at forgiving the evils of other people like us and comdemning the evils of people who are different. But in a world where all were held to account equally for their actions, I think it’s pretty clear the UK and US would hardly come out looking to good.
I personally find the hypocrisy of that kinda scary.
I think you’re right. Western countries are all for accepting foreign culture when it comes to usefulness and innovation, but morality for some reason seems more like an invasion of thinking to our society than an enrichment, which is a shame because I think it is there to enrich us.