If a fathwa hasn't been called for this lawyer, it soon will be. Australian athiest lawyer Alex Stewart made his point over the weekend when her tore out pages from the Holy Bible and the Koran and smoked them.  In a 12-minute clip entitled "Bible or Koran – which burns best?" Mr Stewart, who works for the Queensland University of Technology, holds up the two religious texts before ripping them apart and lighting the rolled up pages. At one stage he inhales deeply from one of the roll-ups before blowing out the smoke and commenting: "Holy".

The video, which has since been deleted, was posted on the video-sharing site over the weekend, coinciding with the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.  Mr Stewart, a member of an atheist group in Brisbane, has begun a period of leave following a meeting with his employers today. He insists he wasn't smoking drugs in the video but had sprinkled grass cuttings into the rolled up pages.