Hang on, at what point did we start talking about God?

The internet is a free platform for imbeciles who happen to be religious. The comments sections of the Times' website seems to be their medium of choice.


In the comments section below a story about Rio's teenage gangs, Jaheed Jayeel (from "Londonistan") seemed to have copied and pasted a universal comment in, before adjusting it to fit the story:


"God willing, the young motorcycle-martyrs of Brazil will avenge the down-trodden peopoles(sic) of Afghanistan and Iraq. God be praised."


If you took out the words "motorcycle" and "Brazil" but left room to fill those blanks with another proper noun and place name, you can reuse that comment as many times as you like, causing just as much controversy and ill feeling every time.


Also, Jaheed manages to mention God twice in two sentences, which makes me think that he's probably not much fun on a night out. Saying that though, the second sentence only exists to include the word "God" again.


Yes, it may be someone's idea of a joke, but a very obscure one.

Jaheed's religious views could be the thing that alienates him from the majority of us, to such an extent that we can call them "radical", but really in this case the first thing which makes us disagree with him is that his views are completely out of context with the point of the article.

And that's because he hasn't read the article.

I'll be honest, there have been times before where I have formed an opinion on something I don't really know about. There have been times before where I have formed an opinion based on just the title of the article in question. But justice prevails and I end up looking like a complete tool when I then try and voice said opinion to someone who has read the article, or can understand the real issues surrounding a topic.

But what are the chances of Jaheed's unconsidered opinion being opened up to scrutiny? What are the chances that Jaheed will hear an alternative opinion from someone that he respects?

Well considering that Jaheed's views were probably conditioned by his upbringing or the social circle that he's a part of, I'd say pretty slim.

And for all the good intentions that the founders of the largest two religions first set out with, they have inadvertently created the social barriers which stop Jaheed from hearing an alternative opinion with the kind of perceived credibility that will actually stand a chance of changing his mind.

Anyone with a link to Christianity won't change a radical Muslim's mind, and neither will anyone with a link to Islam change a radical Christian's mind.

I've used Islam as an example, and probably unfairly so. But really I think that Christianity is just as bad, and over the last 500 years has been responsible for far more bloodshed and evil than what the Christian West blames Islam for today.

Which handily proves my point, always read the entire article before thinking about forming an opinion...