I think we all agree that what has happened in London, and keeps happening again and again has more to do with a bunch of ideological zealots rather than the majority of their religion. It happens with all religions. Whether you agree with the basic principles of anyone's religion or not, when it comes into the hands of people with power or zealots, that's when the trouble starts. It's no good scapegoating the hundreds of people that rightfully, and for the most part, go about practicing their day to day religion. The way some of our "leaders" have handled the situation has been a tad short sighted. I agree with the poster that said that what happened in London is no more important than all the Iraqis killed in the "War on Terror". But we put human life in a pecking order don't we? None of us are likely to want to go backpacking and temping in Iraq. But let's not go burning witches and neighbours at the stake.

Garra,

Give me back the Berlin Wall, Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another foetus now,
we don't like children anyhow,
I've seen the future baby,
It is murder.
Things are gonna slide........

Quite dark the Man, but spot on. Move over nuns with guitars!

Extract from The Humanist Party UK press release -

Today, before anything else, we denounce the mindless acts of terrorism
that took place yesterday in London. 24 hours after experiencing the
elation of being given the wonderful possibility of bringing the world
to London in 2012 for the Olympics, London was plunged into the horror
of violence and death on their way to work. This violence did not
affect white, British, Christian, capitalists who represent a system or
a government (if this was ever the target): this violence affected,
Christian, Jew, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, black, white,
male, female, young and old, alike without discrimination because this
is the population of London.

We strongly denounce this violence and reject any justification of it.
The responsible ones are the ones who committed this atrocity and the
people who inspired and trained these people to commit these acts: these
terrorists, who appear to claim some link to al-Qaeda.
An end to violence is possible

We, Humanists, know that there is a cure for violence and this cure
comes with the understanding of what violence really is. Violence takes
many forms, not just terrorism. Lack of social justice is the greatest
form of violence that people in the world are experiencing at this time.
Billions of people around the world are in the ideal condition to
become terrorists because they live in conditions that generate feelings
of hopelessness and non-meaning. For many of these people it is neither
here nor there if they live or die. Their families are hungry, their
children cannot go to school, and they cannot access health care or
clean water. For many people, they are discriminated against; they
cannot move around freely; they cannot provide a better future for their
loved ones. In these conditions, charismatic leaders can appear, who,
supposedly inspired by a fundamentalist or an extremely nationalistic
ideology can convince people that it is legitimate to inflict violence
on others, to kill others.

Continued next post..

Humanist UK press release continued...

We know that these people are psychopathic and there will always be
psychopaths in the world. But ordinary people do not follow the erratic
ideologies of psychopaths when social justice is a reality. People who
can care for their families, who have access to good quality health-care
and education, who experience security in their old age, do not follow
psychopaths. People who are free to believe and practice whichever
religion they choose do not follow psychopaths. People who feel that
the value of their life is more important than money do not follow
psychopaths. Therefore, an end to violence comes with an end to social
injustice.

G8 summit
Of course the timing of the bombing is not a coincidence. At the same
time as we witness these terrorists acts the UK hosts the meeting of the
G8 leaders plus a host of other leaders talking about the issues facing
the world today. In this case we talk of climate change and poverty.
These leaders have the responsibility to end the violence. They have it
within their power to bring an end to poverty  1 trillion dollars spent
last year on defence is enough. They have it within their power to
bring social justice to everyone. But they will respond with more wars,
with more exploitation and more violence.

Sadly, we know that these leaders have no intention of bringing social
justice to the world. Therefore, their words of condemnation of the
violence mean nothing. They stand their condemning others as if they
had never been responsible for the deaths of anyone. They know what
they have to do and they will not do it.

It is the task of humanists around the world to unite, spread and
humanise this beautiful planet.

Swilkie
I appreciate your obvious attempt to bring some reason and understanding of the London Bombings.
Unfortunately, much of what that post contained was misguided and naive in the extreme. A lot was pure sentimentalism and wishful thinking, strong characteristics of the Humanist approach to life.

The 'social justice' and economic conditions we enjoy in the West, were purchased at the cost of Empire, and the ruthless exploitation of millions, Indians, Sri Lankans, Malays, Indonesians, Africans- the places where all the colonial activity took place. Colonies were not established to 'enlighten' people, it was done to exploit them.

Even we ourselves are a permament "colony" on this continent.
If we were deprived of the economic opportunities we currently enjoy, its quite possible, dare I say probable, or even live dangerously and say DEFINITELY, we would have the same attitude of being hard done by and hate those who seem better off than ourselves and who got to that point at our expense.

Even if we took the Zacchaeus approach and restored 4 fold to all those we have cheated, it would not solve the problem, which is inherant in human nature "sin". The answer is not more education, not a redistribution of resources, it is plain and simple repentance.
We can put a lot of things right when our hearts are 'living for today' in the Biblical sense, not storing up layer after layer of luxuriant wealth, and seeking those we can economically consume.

Inequity is a by product of race, culture and language, but most of all, sin. Repentance is the only 'medicine' which can treat this disease across all those barriers. I've seen it, lived it, know it and hence I proclaim it.
New life in Christ is the solution.

Islamic terrorists as seen by Christopher Hitchens, a California, journalist. The terrorists war is within Islam and within Islamic communities

I think that there has been, for a good number of years now, a civil war—probably more than one—within Islam between, on the one side those who favour Sharia law and its imposition by Jihad, not just on all Muslims but on all non-Muslims too.

And on the other, the large majority of Muslims, I think, who don’t wish to return to the Caliphate or to the desert ... the Jihadist forces hope to win this war to subjugate their own coalitionists by exporting it to our societies—to places like, well, London, most recently, to Bali, to Amsterdam, to Madrid and of course most memorably to New York. And so we’re caught up in a civil war that’s raging within Islam and it’s now not so much an intervention from outside as New York was but an indigenous participation by supporters of Bin Laden who actually live in and come from what has hitherto been rather lazily called ‘western’ or ‘European society’.

Now why is that: because these are the wrong kind of Muslims, because they are not true Muslims, they’re not real Muslims.

Look at the massacre, for example, of the Hazara, the Shiite tribes people in Afghanistan. Look at the way in which senior imams are shot down outside their places of worship in Baghdad and in Karbala and Najak by the forces of Zakawi. Look at what happened to Algeria when the GIA, a Muslim terrorist group, basically ex-communicated the entire population of the country and went to war against them with fire and sword. They were beaten off by the Algerian government and people but at a terrible cost in blood and with the use of very some rough methods, I have to say, that’s what’s going on. People who think this is in some way payback for the Crusades or for Palestine are simply deluding themselves.
(Cont)

The other example I would give would be, for example, the incessant attacks on the secular and partly Hindu government in India by extremists sponsored from Pakistan. This is East versus East in the longest struggle that Jihad has been waging, not East versus West. Prime Minister Blair doesn’t seem to have understood the essential point: this is a war for civilisations. It is not a clash of civilisations and the main civilisation that is under attack is Muslim. And several Muslims in London will have discovered that by being blown apart at random in London, England.

Well it makes people have to decide. The immigration, say, of Ugandan Asians to Britain or Bangladeshis has been a huge success—everybody loves them. They’re hardworking, they’re charming. They’ve worked a lot harder and better than do most English people. They’ve changed our national cuisine for the better. They’ve changed the way English literature is written—the way that novelists like, say Salman Rushdie or Hanif Kureishi on every literate person’s shelf.

It’s been a marvellous thing, and these people have, obviously, an attachment to the dialectical relationship between Britain and their countries of origin. But there are some who don’t accept this and their only hope of making any headway is to make life so miserable that a dual loyalty question can be raised. And ultimately, in less developed countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, to make life so chaotic and miserable that people would look forward even to a Taliban regime as an improvement because it would bring law and order.

But the name for this is fascism? It is a deliberate attempt to play on superstition, on racial and confessional and ethnic differences by the cruellest form of violence and spread panic and paranoia and conspiracy theories in the hope of destroying the possibility of democratic discourse. And there can only be one response to that, which is to outlive them, and, in fact, to put it bluntly, to out kill them. If they want to be martyrs, then we have to help them.
(cont later)