The situation in Sydney over the past couple of days had me angrily stomping about the house, vehemently condemning all followers of Islam and the way that its radical followers are totally f***ing up ‘civilised’ societies throughout the world and the cautious way we now have to live our lives, all for the sake of religion, which in my opinion is totally archaic regardless of the deity. Result - Two innocent victims, of whom my thoughts and condolences sincerely go out to.

I now have just turned on the news to discover that 135 innocents have been murdered in Pakistan by the Taliban, at least 100 of them being children. My initial feeling was ‘so what! that’s 135 less of them that can do harm to us in the future, let them carry on killing each other, they may be innocent now but in a few years they’ll probably be hefting an AK47 or sporting the latest line of Mohammed’s suicide vests all in the name of Allah….TBH, this very blinkered view left me feeling quite guilty, I mean, 100+ innocent children, however no matter how much I want to, I still cannot totally sympathise with their loss…does that make me as bad as the radicals that condone these barbaric acts of murder?

You should not feel guilty as you are acting in a perfectly natural manner. I summoned up the courage to watch Kenneth Bigley's beheading a few years ago as I felt that I could never offer an opinion on his killing without having had the guts to watch it myself. Other beheading videos were available and I watched four more. It was as though the horror of the videos had pumped adrenalin into my body and I was brave enough to stomach them. A day later I returned to the videos and switched the first one on. I continued watching it until the killer stepped forward to administer the butchery and in an instant I switched it off. I have never seen such videos since and feel that I cannot bring myself to do so, nevertheless I am glad I made the effort initially as I now appreciate the degree of inhumanity these worthless cowards display.

Too much of our news coverage, particularly in the UK, is sanitised and reference is made to atrocities without the public being made aware of the true horror of what has happened. A similar situation arises in cases of famine and disease in poorer countries with the result that the news is heard by the public but they are never made aware of the scale of suffering so that news "goes over their heads".

Today's massacre is much easier for the general public to appreciate. Even the most stupid person will not fail to realise the magnitude of the crime committed today. The death of so many innocent children will hopefully be a turning point when people all over the world will turn their hatred on these evil men.

I can remember celebrating the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi ) and I look forward to more joyous occasions like his demise in the near future. I am not the least bit ashamed of this.

The Pakistani Taliban claim the school massacre is revenge for Pakistani Army actions in North Waziristan where the Army is conducting a campaign against the P. Taliban.. This was an Army sponsored school evidently with Pakistani Army dependent kids attending it.. If anything, this will cause a huge expansion of the Pakistani military's offensive against these terrorists...

There is no short answer to how we feel about the killings , no matter where they are, if they are made in a name of a religion which to all intents and purposes is based on historical rules and regulations and punishments. The simple fact as I understand it, is that the Taliban, ISIS and otehr like minded odd balls have hi-jacked the religion for their own ends, they do not seek emancipation of women rather the opposite even though as I understand it the religion ISLAM is a generally peaceable religion, true it does have its bad bits but then so has the bible ( Old and New testaments )
We are in danger of condeming millions just becasue a few use that religion as an excuse. What saddens me is the vast majority of Non-violent Muslims stay silent, but then we are all guilty of that as we have learnt the yobs/Mods-Rockerss/ Hippies/ to name a few odd balls in our society, true some of them did not go all out to
rid the world of those that did not follow their ideology but some were not as nice as we would like. W"e still have few The far Right. Nationalists etc .

I do not feel guilty but just wish those who follow the same religion speak out against the bits that abuse it for their own ends, but then having said that it has taken the catholic Church centuries to admit to incidents which were done it its name and ion some cases are still occurring, do we then condemn all Christians because of that , NO we do not , but when it comes to a religion e do not understand it is easier to condemn than even begin to try to understand.

Seven odd billion on this planet, probably less than One Million are odd balls and involved in religious incidents like the one in Australia or Pakistan, what can we do ? That is the problem which besets every country on this planet. if the answer were simple it would be done, but it ain't.

I think we have been feed a line of bs by our elitist masters. I do not think the Ottoman Empire was a peace loving open minded society.

When you stick your hand in the hornets nets expect to be stung.