‘Lapsed or not, you do agree that it ain’t Christians who go around slicing the throats of disbelievers in the name of God, or persecuting anyone in their power who holds to a rival religion, or throwing gays off tall buildings, or murdering some poor young girl who looked twice at an infidel boy and calling it an “honour” killing, or stoning a woman to death in the street because she was forced by some a-hole rapist to be “unfaithful” to her husband? Whatever wrong things we might have done once upon a time in the name of the Christian faith, we left that kind of behaviour behind us a long time ago. Not like our dear, sweet Muslim friends, who go on acting like it’s the year 630.’

Ben said, ‘But you admit it’s possible to take or leave what it says in the book, and still call yourself a believer.’

Roth shook his head. ‘You’re getting it all wrong, buddy. The only reason we can allow ourselves to cherry-pick what the Bible preaches is because Christianity is weak and fading. It was already six centuries old when Islam hit the ground running, foaming at the mouth from Day One to attack, kill or enslave anyone who didn’t fall down and worship Allah. Pinning yellow badges on Jews? That was their invention, by the way. The Nazis only copied it, and that’s just a taste of what’s to come if we let our guard down for one minute. The Islamics have spent the last fourteen hundred years fighting for one purpose only, and they’re all fired up and ready for the next fourteen hundred. Ding, round two. Forget about the Bible. It’s had its day and it’s harmless now. The Qur’an is anything but.’

‘Only if a crazy radical chooses to interpret it that way.’

Roth replied, ‘Okay, so let’s say the majority of Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding citizens who happily ignore the call to arms that’s a central tenet of their religion, and have no desire to declare jihad on their neighbours and colleagues. Fine. I’m sure the vast majority of Germans in the nineteen-thirties and forties were peace-loving people too. Didn’t stop the Nazis from murdering fourteen million people in concentration camps, and costing the world sixty million lives. How about Russians? Lovely folks, most of ’em, right? Didn’t prevent the Soviet regime from wiping out twenty million of their comrades, and that’s a conservative figure. What about China? Hell, I’d lay down my life for some of the kind and generous Chinese people I’ve met. And yet a tiny minority of party motherfuckers under Chairman Mao managed to slaughter forty-five million men, women and children in just four years during their so-called Great Leap Forward. You want me to go on?’

‘I get the idea,’ Ben said.