Their latest scuffle was over whether a Greek Orthodox monk should be allowed inside the Edicule (a structure built on the alleged site of the resurrection) during an Armenian procession.  This religious disagreement ended up with the Israeli riot police armed with assault rifles filling the church, 2 monks in handcuffs and one Greek Orthodox monk with a cut next to his left eye caused, he says, by an Armenian monk who pushed him from behind and broke his glasses.

That’s not the first time they’ve fought however, in April they were at it again, this time on Palm Sunday after a monk was accused of spending too long at the shrine.  Perhaps predictably, that event ended up with the riot police being beaten back with palm fronds.

Apparently there’s been a ladder on a ledge over the entrance to the church which has been there since the 19th Century since no-one can agree who has the authority to take it down and attempts to add a fire exit have met with inevitable deadlock about where it should be located.

The keys to the church have been held by two Muslim families since 1178 in an attempt to keep the peace, but it sounds to me like the People’s Front of Judea are still alive and well in Jerusalem.  Splitters!

It seemed particularly odd being addressed to an audience in London who, I would imagine, were largely old-school Eddie Izzard fans and are pretty unlikely to have the sort of closed religious fundamentalist opinions he seemed to be attacking.

To me, attacking organised religious belief is like shooting fish in a barrel.  It’s easy to dismiss as founded on ancient myths and legends in the 21st Century if you take a logical viewpoint.  The days where this was a controversial issue were surely buried in the middle ages.  I did wonder whether spending time in the USA, as presumably he does these days, it’s closer to the surface and perhaps I’m misguided in my judgement that the intelligent majority these days are largely non-religious.  Certainly skeptics I’ve met over there are very fond of preaching to the choir to demonstrate their own non-religious superiority.

I will accept that the rise of fundamentalist Islamic belief is a cause for concern, but I still think that it is the beliefs of a relatively small number of people which are being inflated as being much more important than they actually are by religious leaders anxious for power and control.

If you’re a comedian and you want to make jokes about religion, go ahead, it’s a subject ripe for parody, but don’t insult the intelligence of your audience by preaching at them, that’s just lowering yourself to the level of the evangelists.  Be funny – that’s what people have paid for.