seconded. I vehemently disagree with Islams' thinking on gays, apostates, non believers, animal rights, freedom of speech, political violence, womens rights, etc etc.

But.... There are muslims with blonde hair & blue eyes. There are christians as black as Miles Davis.

to throw accusations of racism is ignorant. Religion is a belief system, which can be criticised in the cold light of day.

fundamentalism of all flavours begets violence. For sure the perpetrators of this latest madness in New Zealand were mental.

All religions are insane - including the christianity that may have driven this massacre.

Lets go moderate-secular all the way.

Christianity is NOT insane.

an all powerful god can only produce one son ? Even the boys in the ghetto can produce dozens.

He must give his son so that mankind can live ? how did an all powerful god produce a game so rigged against Himself ?

I do fear this massacre (saying tradegy suggests it was an accident to me) will mean yet more crackdown of open discission on radical Islam (e.g. this forum) and accelerate the introduction of Islamaphobia laws in the UK (which are as crazy as introducing a Catholophobia law). That would be very very bad for any remnants of social cohesion in this country.

Haven’t looked at the Guardian website today but I can imagine what the opinion pieces are going to look like in the coming weeks and months. They will be lobbying for a lot more than candlelit vigils I suspect. Their outrage only seems to travel one way.

Anyway RIP all this people and my condolences to the families affected by this. We do seem to live in an ever s***ter world and the people that run it need to be held to account.

To be fair the numerous massacres of Christians around the world probably do not help either.

For me it is a simple issue of this kind of attack being an assault on our civilisation. The right to both peacefully and safely worship are at the very heart of what any society worthy of calling its civilised.

I get why people are critical of Islam. A perfectly legitimate position to hold and proclaim. Ditto with Christianity, Buddism, Judaism and so on.

But people should assume an absolute right to peacefully worship without fear of attack or assault. The freedom of opinion and the freedom of worship can co-exist, and have to be strong core factors in how we all live together.

What happened in New Zealand was a disgusting act of terrorism. There can be no disagreement around that. And I hope the perpetrators(s) are punished to the 'nth degree.

And anybody who chooses to view the footage that is meant to be out there of this, needs to hang their heads in shame. We might not be able to do much as individuals to make this situation any better but we can deny the arseholes responsible for it the oxygen of publicity they so desperately crave.