Feel God's hate.
I like to look at atheist websites, as most of you know. I discovered one a few months ago called www.godhatesfigs.com. It's based on a few verses of the bible that appear less than flattering about figs, including the peculiar story of how Jesus cursed a fig tree because it was out of season when he wanted to eat from it. The story is told in St Mark Chapter 11 between verses 12-14 & 20-23 and also St Matthew Chapter 21 verses 18-20.

Call me na?ve but it was only yesterday that I discovered that the site, though based on genuine Bible verses, is actually intended as a parody of a religious and homophobic site called www.godhatesfags.com, which is run by a hate-filled minister from Kansas named Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Phelps sees himself as the final saviour of a corrupted United States - mainly corrupted by homosexuals. In fact the only country that he sees as being `correct' on the issue is Zimbabwe.

He hates George Bush for appointing an openly homosexual man as US ambassador to Romania.

He says that the attack on the US on September 11th 2001 was punishment from God for tolerating gays. He describes the heroic New York Fire Department as the Fag Fire Department for having a gay chaplin who died in the atrocity. He sees this as a fitting punishment. He pickets the funerals of noted homosexuals to declare that the deceased is burning in hell.

The most disgusting thing on his site is his page devoted to a lesbian who was killed by dangerous dogs: Click here! It shows a picture of her in flames and if you have the sound switched on you can hear a woman's voice scream in pain `Arghh. For god's sake listen to Phelps'. Depending on your mood, it's either hilariously funny or utterly sick.

The scary part is that he can support his revolting view with scripture. It makes you realise how fortunate we are to live in the present day, when few people form their views according to the written word of a more savage age. Once upon a time, people used to pay money to visit the lunatic asylum at Bedlam, to laugh at the deranged. Now, thanks to the internet, they are only a click away.