Anyone who criticisms Islam publicly can expect to be threatened with physical violence. If that's not terrorism, then what is it? In the world of th… - Pat Condell

It's often claimed that many people in the West are converting to Islam, and it's true that some are, but it's also true that many Muslims in the West are leaving Islam, but you don't hear so much about them for obvious reasons. Some of them have been brave enough to make themselves known, and reach out to help other Muslims who want to escape the tyranny of their religion, and, like them, it's the religion I have a problem with, not the people. So no, I don't hate Muslims — thanks for asking — I wish them well. Even the fanatics who stand at the roadside with their dopey little banners and bulging eyeballs, calling for death to the West — I even wish those boneheads well, in that I wish them good mental health, if that isn't too wildly optimistic. And of course I know that there are lots of moderate, peaceful Muslims. Indeed, many of them are so moderate and peaceful, they're invisible and silent, and that is part of the problem. And just because there are lots of peaceful Muslims, it doesn't mean the religion itself is not an aggressive, fascist ideology that threatens all our freedoms, nor does it mean that western governments aren't falling over themselves to make excuses for it, pretending that Islam has nothing to do with the violence inspired and sanctioned by its scripture, and repeatedly carried out in its name.

If Jesus really was crucified as per the Gospels,he didn't die for anybody's sins but his own. He died because he posed a threat to a group of people with strongly vested interests and very savage values. You may recall, he told the pharisees point blank where they could find the kingdom of heaven.Don't look here or there, he said, look within. But they didn't want to hear that any more than the modern pharisees want to hear it, because they knew very well what he meant, that the kingdom of heaven is a state of awareness in the here and nowthat doesn't require the stewardship of professional clergy, and that if we took his advice to seek it within, not only would we find it, we'd find the strength and the wisdomto put them and their whole bloodsucking fear mongering criminal racketpermanently out of business. And because they lived in the kind of brutal societywhere they could have him put to death for his words, that's exactly what they did, just as they would today in certain Muslim countries. But you don't have to feel guilty about it because you weren't there. You had no opportunity to influence events. You are entirely blameless. And the only guilt that you need to feelis maybe a little passing sheepish embarrassmentat ever having fallen for this insulting nonsense in the first place. Anyway, that's enough from me. I'm going back outside now to consider the lilies of the fieldand to plant a few potatoes in the good clean life-giving earth. Peace.

There's an ideological fervor about this prosecution that's almost religious in its intensity, because let's be clear, this is a heresy trial by any other name. They can't refute Mr. Wilders' statements, so instead they've resorted to the kind of cheap legal stunt we'd expect from the likes of Mugabe to shut their opponent up. They've accused him of being divisive and inflammatory, and yes, sometimes the truth can be divisive and inflammatory if it has been suppressed for long enough and has become sufficiently taboo, as it clearly has in the Netherlands, because according to the prosecution it doesn't even matter that what he says is true; what matters is that it's illegal. Well, when the truth is against the law, then there's something seriously wrong with the law, because when the truth is no defence, there is no defence, and the law has no anchor, so it will drift wherever the wind of political expedience blows, and this week it blew straight into a crooked courtroom in Amsterdam, where justice will now be made to fight for its life, starved of the oxygen of truth that gives it life.