De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Obviously, I am utterly appalled by the violence in Paris. But I am also appalled by the violence in Syria, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. Yes I am cross about the people who have been killed for poking fun at Islam, the gloating gunmen shouting "We have avenged Mohammed" as they make off, but I am also cross about the "collateral damage" and innocent people killed in Muslim countries. War begets war, violence begets violence and despite the fact that, at the time of the 7/7 bombings in London, Tony Blair stated that the violence we are suffering was not "in response to a particular policy", what we see time and time again is Muslims making the claim that it is: This is not an isolated opinion. Twitter is rife with such statements this morning: Muslim friends have tried to tell me before that Muslims like this are not Muslims. Or that Islamic violence is not motivated by religious zeal but by political motives (see here ). Is the Charlie Hebdo atro...

Today, Aljazeera is running this story: UK Muslims gather to promote tolerance I'm rather cross that Ahmadiyya is being portrayed here as British Islam. It is not. I would argue it is probably what British Islam should be, but the reality is that the opinion among ALL Muslims as to the fact that Ahmadis/ Qadanis are NOT Muslim is unanimous. As such they are NOT allowed entry into any of Islam's holy places, nor participate in prayers or rituals. This is because one of the basic dogmas of Islam (agreed upon by ALL Muslims regardless of denomination) is that the prophet Muhammad (saws) was the LAST and FINAL prophet: the seal of the Prophets. This is in stark contradiction to the Ahmadi belief that Mizra Ghulam Ahmad was a prophet, a messiah, and the mahdi; another contradiction to the belief of ALL Muslims which is that the Messiah and Mahdi are two separate people. In reality, the sad truth is that Ahmadis are being tortured and martyred on a weekly basi...

I am listening to the debate which continues to rumble on about religion in schools subsequent to the Trojan Horse affair , this morning on Radio 4. The effect of the discovery of an extremist agenda within certain schools with a Muslim majority has led to a renewal of calls to remove all religion from schools and instead pursue a secular liberal agenda. The justification is that despite the reality of an established Church in the UK, organised religion is virtually a thing of the past, and more and more people are secular and liberal. Religion is no longer relevant for them. From a Catholic perspective of course, this is strange, given the broad success of Catholic Schools, and their tendency to be over-subscribed. If we don't want religious schools, how do we deal with this inherent dichotomy? From a secularist perspective, faith schools should be abolished and secularism enforced. The issue is a separation of private belief from the delivery of a public good. That is w...

The Pope in Jordan Interesting that this side of the Pope's Middle East visit has not seen much light. Also interesting when you consider that we have seen yet more evidence of Islam's need to isolate itself from the rest of society rather than integrate, and to peddle retrograde fundamentalist ideology. For an example , take the library books at Olive Tree Primary School in Luton which promoted stoning. Naturally, this and the whole " trojan horse " scandal, has led to a public outcry which broadly advocates that all faith schools should be shut down and promotes a secularist agenda which separates private belief from the delivery of a public good. But who sets the agenda? Who says what is a public good and what is not? What if your idea of a public good includes teaching my seven-year-old about homosexual acts and abortion, and my idea of public good is diametrically opposed to that? In an effort to be balanced, the BBC has done its best to find an equally e...