Muslim cleric gets 11 years in prison for burning Bible - (In Egypt)

Whilst I'm not in favour of anyone being jailed for burning a book of any description, it is undeniably true that such an action was a provocative act and an incitement to religious violence - which is something of a problem in Egypt and much of Islamic North Africa. Perhaps such acts would be illegal in the West if we had a recent history of widespread domestic religious violence.

This ruling does also rather pour cold water on some of the ignorant statements on here about how Islamic nations deal with anti-Christian (etc) prejudice - although it is also fair to say that Egypt is relatively progressive in matters such as this.

For me it seems entirely logical that Church and State should be seperate, but in reality it's a very idealistic notion. Here in the UK, and also in America, quite a lot of our law is formed out of religious concepts and morality - it's just that we've accepted them so much the origins have become a bit murky.

Whilst obviously not as rabid as in other countries, the simple fact that it would be very hard indeed to become President or Prime Minister in our respective countries without claiming some belief in god shows that religion is still an important part of our national lives.