What was your reaction when you read that 244 people had been killed during the annual Muslim holy pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia? It was a gruesome tragedy that made you shudder at the sheer scale of the carnage. At the same time, there was an awful, underlying sense that, in the circumstances, another response might have been more appropriate.

If you take a strictly unsentimental, religious view of things – and to a large extent that includes a Christian as well as a Muslim view – for those involved, the tragedy was a good thing.
Think about it. As part of the hajj, the individuals concerned travelled to Mina, just down the road from Mecca, to pay their respects to the God of their choice by engaging in the local ritual, during which stones and insults are hurled frantically at three pillars, representing Satan.
When they perished, the pilgrims passed into the next life, in what Christians would call a state of grace – they were engaged in expressing their love for Allah by symbolically stoning Satan. They were almost certainly in the best condition of their lives to go to their collective death.
The most fundamental objective of a Christian life – in the real heel of the hunt – is to pass on, in good nick and with the minimum required diversion into the fires of purgatory, to that better place commonly known as Heaven.
There might be some quibbling about the name, but in the hereafter Muslims are aiming for a similar destination. If you haven’t done anything that might justify being stoned to death along the way, and you display your commitment to Allah, Mohammed and the instructions of the Quran with sufficient zealotry, then the gates of paradise will open for you, and an eternal life of physical pleasure and spiritual prosperity is guaranteed in your own personal Janaah. Well, hallelujah, here we come!
Imagine the scene:
“We’ve got 244 newcomers in the arrivals lounge, Mr.God.”
“Tell them they’re welcome to my kingdom. And arrange for the carnival of pussy that the men expect – 72 virgins each, please. We don’t want to keep such stout devotees waiting.”
You gotta admit that lots of guys would see that as a hell of a prospect – the sooner the better, eh?

Actually Mr.God may have been more involved in organising the cull in Mina than might at first be assumed. Let’s hear what Iyad Madani, the Saudi hajj minister, had to say on the subject of the stampede, in which the 244 perished, and as many again were injured.
Did he take responsibility himself, or even divert it onto the man in charge of security, in the way that people around these parts would if a similar catastrophe occurred at, oh, say the Slane Castle festival? He did not. He placed the blame firmly where it undeniably lies…
“All precautions were taken to prevent such an incident but caution isn’t stronger than fate,” the cleric said (and he should know). “This is God’s will.”
When you hear mention of God’s will, you generally know that things are getting sticky. Thinking about this bizarre instance of mass annihilation – orchestrated by God or otherwise – I was reminded of the 22-year-old Palestinian mother of two, Reem Raiyshi, who recently became Hamas’s first woman suicide bomber.
Raiyshi, who had an 18-month-old daughter and a three-year-old son, blew herself up, taking her own life and that of four Israelis. In a video made before the bombing, and shown after her sacrifice had been completed, she wore the traditional hijab covering, and was photographed holding an assault rifle and standing before two green Hamas flags as she declared her lifelong dream of becoming a suicide bomber.
“I always wanted to be the first woman to carry out a martyr attack, where parts of my body can fly all over. That is the only wish I can ask God for,” the young mother said. She had a smile on her face as she spoke.
The spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, commented afterwards that the use of a woman bomber was unique for the Islamic group – but holy war “is an obligation of all Muslims, men and women.”
There are those who imagine that this whole notion of blood sacrifice is unique to Islam – but it isn’t. You don’t have to look any further than Northern Ireland to see that the idea of martyrdom is still very much alive in the context of a struggle that has a religious, sectarian basis.
But then the idea of blood sacrifice is at the heart of Christianity, the central metaphor – and image – of which is Christ dieing on the cross to purge the sins of mere humans.

You want to know what I think? Christian or Muslim, Jew or Jehovah’s Witness, Hindu or Satanist – adherents of any and every religion are all just about equally wrong. Viciousness, aggression and the ability to justify the most appalling atrocities are not the sole province of believers, of whatever kind – but it is something in which people who claim a special relationship with God seem to specialise. And their influence on the world is frequently a horribly negative one as a result.
The truth is that there is no God – and there will be no heaven. This is all there is, what you see going on around you, and we need to make the most of it – not just for ourselves, but for everyone who is disadvantaged, underprivileged or suffering.
Why do so many of us seem to need the motivation of the prospect of a place in heaven to want to be good, or do good? Why not just do it because it is the right thing, and fuck the promised reward? Why get hung up on a chimera when there is such a terrible need to focus on what is wrong in the here and now, and to go about putting it right as best we possibly can?
It is time for people to recognise that there is nothing in this God lark except different shades of superstitious hocus pocus. Believe me, I’ve nothing against Christians, or Muslims either – it’s just the bogus beliefs of their respective religions, and the appalling things that too often flow from them, that get me worked up.
A world without the tyranny of religious belief would be a far better place. That’s what we should be striving for.
Amen.