There was a report on the news last night about two Muslim terrorist suspects on trial for allegedly plotting the blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub, among other atrocities.

A tape recording of the two men discussing their potential targets had been captured by an MI5 bug, and the news report carried a few disturbing excerpts of their conversation.

Discussing blowing up the Ministry of Sound club, one of the men can be heard saying, "Nobody could say they were innocent, those slags dancing around..." Seemingly, part of the justification for religiously-inspired MASS MURDER is the "loose morality" of women who dare to wear skimpy clothing or dance in a suggestive manner.

Err... yeah.

So far, so typically demented.

And I was thinking... much of this Islamist rhetoric puts me in mind of a manifesto for a fantasy political party headed by the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliff.

---Ripper for Prime Minister.

---Short skirts and revealing tops: disgusting and immoral!

---Blood, disintegrated skulls and flying limbs: perfectly acceptable and moral.

Didn't Sutcliff also believe he was on a mission from God to "clean up the streets" by "killing whores" with his knife and his claw hammer?

Similar motivation then (i.e., fighting perceived decadence by, umm, killing lots of people), just different weaponry and approach.

As to what lies behind the motivation itself, Sutcliff had schizophrenia and paranoid delusions, while the terrorists have a dogmatic religion that rules their every thought and action. Their ideology leads inevitably to violent struggle against a society at odds with their own bizarre inner-world.

Schizophrenia is a tragic illness that strikes people down almost at random, but it can't be caught like a germ.

But religious ideologies, particularly uncompromising brands like Islam or Christian Fundamentalism, sadly are catching and infectious. They are systematic belief-systems passed from generation to generation in written form and via parent-to-child indoctrination.

Although we all place great emphasis on free will in our culture, there's hardly an element of actual choice involved, of course. The religion that most people follow simply comes down to an accident of their Birth. If you were born into a Christian Fundamentalist family in America's Bible-belt, you are now likely to be a Christian. If, somehow, you were born in Iran tomorrow, you'd be 99% likely to end up Muslim.

No infant ever says, "Mommy, can you indoctrinate me into Mormonism please?" Yet that infant WILL become a Mormon if mommy has any say in the kid's upbringing at all, and she'll use every atom of guile she has to make sure her daughter becomes Mormon to the core!

But, as to Islam... what then separates extremists like the 9/11 hijackers or the shoe-bomber Richard Reid from other members of the Muslim faithful, who are apparently not plotting to immediately kill all "whores" and infidels?

Quite simply, the extremists take their religion more literally and seriously than the average follower of Mohammed.

Most moderate people, who consider themselves religious, tend to ignore particular parts of their Bible or Koran (or whatever) that would make day-to-day life in the modern world almost impossible.

For instance, there is a verse of the Koran that urges Muslims to "kill pagans wherever you may find them."

Nowadays paganism is legally on an equal footing with any other belief-system you could mention. Being a druid is perfectly accepted by the establishment (and is probably quite fun in some respects). Hunting down pagans and cold-bloodedly slaughtering them is not only very illegal now but also downright impractical for the average Muslim, even if hunting and killing pagans is a directive from Almighty Allah Himself. There are businesses to run and jobs to keep. Murderously tracking down harmless druids would be too risky and take up too much time out of an average day.

Similarly, there are parts of the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) that nobody today could follow, such as stoning immoral women to death (what is it with women and the Abrahamic religions anyway?) or cutting off your own legs if they cause you the slightest offence.

The faithful often rationalize the beliefs they were lumped with during childhood. Perhaps that bit of the holy text was allegorical. Maybe this bit isn't very serious or not all that important. Perhaps I can believe this bit, but not act on that belief, because that would just seem crazy. Maybe all that matters is the general message of the religion, not the specifics, even if that means supporting a backward and irrational belief-system that others will take far more literally.

Meanwhile, these poor Fundamentalist loons of any given religion have taken their dogma far more seriously and personally. They've been much more successful than the casual believer in believing absolutely every single passage or verse of their Book. They probably memorize and focus on those particular lines that put them at absolute odds with the society they inhabit, rather than shy away from these "inconvenient" bits of scripture. All doubt that may once have lingered deep down in their heart has been eradicated. To these guys, the verses are always right. There is no question and no doubt. If the society doesn't match the verses, the society is wrong and needs to be changed. Religion, the only pure "truth" in a dirty-dirty universe (imagine the Islamic variant of Catholic guilt), is all that matters to them.

Islam appears to be a particular problem at the moment in the sense that there isn't much difference between the average "moderate" Muslim and the "extremist" in terms of sheer implacable belief and certainty. They all support the same basic, very backward, belief-system.

It is a crime against Allah to even question the alleged truth of any Koranic verse in Islam. So, once you have that belief system in place, it is forbidden and sinful to ever question it - at all. What chance does that give any convert of finding any rational ground or thinking outside such a narrow box? A lobotomy could not be much more permanent.

The Koran is viewed as a work of literal truth by virtually all Muslims. All Muslims believe that the Koran is the word of God. To even question the veracity or meaningfulness of any Koranic verse is blasphemy in Islam.

So, if any society contradicts any verse of the Koran... it is the society that must be replaced, not the verse. The Koran is viewed as the immutable Truth, much in the same way as other Fundamentalists view the Bible as the immutable Truth - even the odd Book of Genesis, whose sometimes vague and rather unspecific claims contradict much of established scientific fact.

The Koran teaches hatred and scorn towards "immoral" women, even worse towards homosexuals, and urges Muslims to kill the infidel everywhere the infidel can be found. So: the true believers, the "extremists", do what they believe Allah (God Almighty) wants them to do. Then comes much death and devastation on our streets, in the name of fighting immorality.

In the same way, Fundamentalist Christians can be found fire-bombing abortion clinics, making death-threats against doctors, peddling homophobic propaganda, or even campaigning for the death-penalty in cases of adultery (what, you thought that was just an Iranian way of doing business?).

By the way, I'm not denying that a lot of politics are involved in Islamofacism, and other terrorist ideologies.

But ask yourself: what informs the politics of the average young Muslim (for example) who spends everyday at his religious school, day in day out, learning to recite the Koran forwards and backwards? When he gets home, his parents preach Islam at him. And his spare time is spent at the mosque.

And, btw, before anyone tries to accuse me of racism here (the usual stupid response to anyone who objects to anything Islamic at all), that is seriously barking up the wrong tree.

There is no race called Islam. It is a belief-system, a religion, and nothing more. Many Arabs follow this religion for the same reason that many white Europeans follow Christianity - the quirks of history and the spead of those "memes" through particular countries and regions.

Those who try to silence debate by playing the race card, evoking racial tolerance, miss the point entirely.

Anyone who hates an Arabic person just for being Arabic is a drooling fool, imo. But does being critical of Islam make me anti-Arabic?

If I frown upon the Pope's policy on condom-use in Africa, does that make me anti-Italian, anti-Roman, or anti-European?

Such ploys and racial game-playing are deeply fraudulent.

In the West, we make much of our stance towards the freedom of religion.

But maybe we, as a species, ought to think about seeking some kind of freedom FROM religion.

Rather than our politicians trying to make it illegal to poke fun at Mohammed or Jehovah or Zeus, perhaps all of us should encourage everyone to question - and even ridicule - the patently ridiculous aspects of religion.

Other than stark-raving insanity, religion is the only thing on earth that can make a person kill purely on the basis that an invisible Super Being demands such action.

If that's not absurd and worthy of mockery, then I'm not sure what is.