Why I think religion is inherently bad. [POLL ADDED]

[Of the Free Socialist Territories]

I don't interpret, I take statements at face value. Like these:

1 Samuel 15:2-3.

²This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. ³Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

As well as Joshua 6:21.
²¹They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

And Joshua 10:40.
⁴⁰He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded.



Deuteronomy 8:3
"He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."

What I'm getting from that is that a Bible-based faith is Biblical.

The reasons behind these is that the Israelites were carrying out God's judgement and these people would have turned the Israelites towards false Gods. Don't agree with it, just giving you why they did what they did.

Also, regardless of whether the Bible says "So sayeth the Lord" the Bible was written by men... I'm not saying everyone abused religion but it's plausible that someone in a position of power would say that "God said so..." to get something they wanted done.

2 Peter 1:20-21 “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”

That sounds an awful lot like the Bible claiming its own inerrancy and that therefore all in it is the will and word of God. Including the exhortations to genocide.

[Libertas Liber]

I would like to add this to the list of the ''oh so moral religion of Christianity''

Some lovely facts about Christianity:

Ancient Pagans
As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer."
Pagan services became punishable by death in 356.
Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues.
According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities.
The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.

Mission
Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded.
Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany.
Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered.
15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown.
16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".
Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage.
Crusades (1095-1291)

First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]
9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]
Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]
after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35]
Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents—save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
(In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]

Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.

Heretics

Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
The Albigensians...viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]
Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).
Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Witches

from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.
in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]
incomplete list of documented cases:
The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars

15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]
1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews

Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.
In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]
Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]
Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]
1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.
1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]
1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]

(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.

Native Peoples

Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]

Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]
On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]
What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
"The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72]
Or, on another occasion:
"The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]
The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]
"And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
"When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95]

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka.

Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]
In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).
"Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]
On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.
When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked.
Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.
The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]
So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].
Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow:
"Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)
Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]
Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time)
In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]
The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]
Other tribes were to follow the same path.
Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!"
"Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]
Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]
In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]
In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]
To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.
All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.
A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious events in US history

Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241]
Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.
From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131]
More gory details.
By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities

Catholic extermination camps
Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children!

In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]
Catholic terror in Vietnam
In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]

Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism.

The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:
"Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].

To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life....

Rwanda Massacres
In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.

Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated:

"Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.

According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.

In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]

Ok that was pretty random....

You could've renamed that to terrible things done by people who happen to be Christian.

[Vortropolis]

Ok that was pretty random....

You could've renamed that to terrible things done by people who happen to be Christian.

Not really.

[Mushet]

This is essentially what I think of religion

“Religion is, in reality, living. Our religion is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think - all these things - twenty-four hours a day. One's religion, then, is ones life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived.

Religion is not prayer, it is not a church, it is not theistic, it is not atheistic, it has little to do with what white people call "religion." It is our every act. If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion; if we experiment on living animals, that is our religion; if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion.” ― Jack D. Forbes, Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Imperialism, Exploitation and Terrorism

As for organized "religion" I think it depends on how one interprets and practices it

Sounds nice but it is ultimately nonsense... he has essentially taken a well defined word and replaced its well established meaning to "if something is nice it is religious" which is simply not true.
In short whilst poetic, in that statement we can literally replace the word religion with cyborg, panda, urine or Tupac and it has the same validity and meaning.

No he didn't, read the bold, those aren't nice things are they?

What he's essentially stating is that religion isn't about what holy book or whatever else that we may claim to be representing. Our religion is defined by what we practice, what we actually do. Take the christian missionary colonizers, they may have claimed Christianity, they may have twisted the Gospel's words to justify their actions, but what they were practicing was genocide and bigotry, often rape and murder, that was what their real religion was, that's what they really believed and did

[ConnorR]

Religion is good when intelligant people use it. When idiots control it, it gets bad. Like people wanting to kill all those who don't worship their god.

(Crusades, Jihad, etc)

[The Victorious Dragon]

2 Peter 1:20-21 “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”

That sounds an awful lot like the Bible claiming its own inerrancy and that therefore all in it is the will and word of God. Including the exhortations to genocide.

It is interesting that you should mention that first quote seeing as that's exactly what I'm trying to say. It's not for personal interpretation and that includes you. I am in no way denying the usefulness of scripture. You seem to be claiming that the bible claims its own inerrency before it was even compiled. Why do atheists go by the protestant doctrine of scripture alone, even though it is unhistorical, unbiblical and unworkable?

On another note, this thread is becoming unreadable with all the quotes of quotes of quotes.

[Libertas Liber]

You could've renamed that to terrible things done by people who happen to be Christian.

Not really.

Most of those actions are for political reasons. People playing the religion card to unify their nation. The Emperors and Charlemagne... Charlemagne converted to Christianity and had the Pope crown him, it was purely political to unify the nation. I'm sure some of those people were more concerned with their social status than God.

As for my first comment, regardless of religion and ideology, you could make a list like that for almost any group of people.

White supremacists used to lynch blacks.
Mao and Stalin killed millions.
Hitler did too... and oh look, a man who said he was Catholic but no one would call him a "Godly man."

That list simply puts Christians into the same boat as intolerant psychos who want control.

[Vortropolis]

Not really.

Most of those actions are for political reasons. People playing the religion card to unify their nation. The Emperors and Charlemagne... Charlemagne converted to Christianity and had the Pope crown him, it was purely political to unify the nation. I'm sure some of those people were more concerned with their social status than God.

As for my first comment, regardless of religion and ideology, you could make a list like that for almost any group of people.

White supremacists used to lynch blacks.
Mao and Stalin killed millions.
Hitler did too... and oh look, a man who said he was Catholic but no one would call him a "Godly man."

That list simply puts Christians into the same boat as intolerant psychos who want control.

Oh.

[Martean]

See? I was in another thread, where it said North Korea claimed they had discovered unicorns, and EVERYBODY was laughing at them, spme of them, obviously, religious.

But what many people dont't understand it's that it sounds even wors the idea that a man who no one has ever seen yet controls the universe, created humans... etc. (even though every single thing the church claimed has been discovered to be wrong: The shape of the earth, the heliocentric theory, evolution...) and now that same people who believe all this laugh at what North Korea says? I think it's totally insane....

[Martean]

Not really.

That list simply puts Christians into the same boat as intolerant psychos who want control.

Maybe they should be included.

[Sentinel XV]

That list simply puts Christians into the same boat as intolerant psychos who want control.

Maybe they should be included.

There are plenty of Christians who would never harm the hair on your head, much less commit mass murder. Don't judge the whole on the actions of a small few: this goes for all religious sects.

[The USOT]

Sounds nice but it is ultimately nonsense... he has essentially taken a well defined word and replaced its well established meaning to "if something is nice it is religious" which is simply not true.
In short whilst poetic, in that statement we can literally replace the word religion with cyborg, panda, urine or Tupac and it has the same validity and meaning.

No he didn't, read the bold, those aren't nice things are they?

What he's essentially stating is that religion isn't about what holy book or whatever else that we may claim to be representing. Our religion is defined by what we practice, what we actually do. Take the christian missionary colonizers, they may have claimed Christianity, they may have twisted the Gospel's words to justify their actions, but what they were practicing was genocide and bigotry, often rape and murder, that was what their real religion was, that's what they really believed and did

Bit of a word fail on my part, when I was talking about nice things I was talking about the way it was written which I apologise for.

And what im saying is that it still isnt religion. Practicing genocide is not religion. Religion may cause it, but that is not religion.
Oxford for instance defines it as "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods: ideas about the relationship between science and religion".
The only context in which it has become "religious" is the modern bastardisation of the word in which people to sound interesting call capitalism/socialism a religion to show that people are devoted to it.
You can take practice as a definition of religion sure, but then you boil down the word religion to so useless a word as to render it pointless.
In this sense, my game design is a religion, my love of reading a good book on the loo is a religion, my enjoying cheese is a religion, my neurosis of panic if I am not sitting/sleeping next to a wall is a religion etc.

I also disagree with the idea that just because somebody does an act which is considered negative that they are not practicing their religion. Hilariously the bible actually encourages rape and genocide on multiple occasions, but even if it did not that wouldnt mean that they were not religious, just that this was a side practice that had nothing to do with their religion.

[Obamacult]

Maybe they should be included.

There are plenty of Christians who would never harm the hair on your head, much less commit mass murder. Don't judge the whole on the actions of a small few: this goes for all religious sects.

Word.

But yeah, haters try to label someone who keeps them from money, ass, ego, and power. Next, they dehumanize them. Then they kill them. It is crazy dude, but the OP said 809 million were killed because of religion, but what he failed to tell us was that many of the dead were persecuted because of their religion. And the most killing was done by wars or pogroms started by secular governments and leaders like Nazi Germany, Stalin, and Mao.

So you label, disrespect, dehumanize, misrepresent, propagandize, then you seize money, ass, ego, or power. But we have to remember that haters play a zero sum game. Whether we are religious or would rather drink beer and watch football on Sunday, we suck when when live or work in a home, neighborhood, school, dorm, or workplace where we have to bully and disrespect someone or some group to make us feel good.

Right?

I mean blessed are the meek and peacemakers for they are the children of an excellent society.

[The Victorious Dragon]

See? I was in another thread, where it said North Korea claimed they had discovered unicorns, and EVERYBODY was laughing at them, spme of them, obviously, religious.

But what many people dont't understand it's that it sounds even wors the idea that a man who no one has ever seen yet controls the universe, created humans... etc. (even though every single thing the church claimed has been discovered to be wrong: The shape of the earth, the heliocentric theory, evolution...) and now that same people who believe all this laugh at what North Korea says? I think it's totally insane....

Maybe you should check your facts. The church never claimed the earth was flat (that's a 19th century myth), Galileo's opposition was mainly scientific and the church only got involved when he wanted to change the interpretation of scripture to suit his (at the time) insufficiently proven theory (he couldn't answer the stellar parallax objection). As for evolution, I can't speak for others (although I can say that the catholic church supports evolution and never officially opposed it), but in my opinion atheists attempting to use evolution to disprove God, are partly to blame for the creationist sects which appeared in the early 20th century.

[The USOT]

See? I was in another thread, where it said North Korea claimed they had discovered unicorns, and EVERYBODY was laughing at them, spme of them, obviously, religious.

But what many people dont't understand it's that it sounds even wors the idea that a man who no one has ever seen yet controls the universe, created humans... etc. (even though every single thing the church claimed has been discovered to be wrong: The shape of the earth, the heliocentric theory, evolution...) and now that same people who believe all this laugh at what North Korea says? I think it's totally insane....

Agreed.
The analogy I like to give is what I call the leprechaun salesman. And I imagine (or at least would be suprised if otherwise) that most people would treat this man as a crazy person.

Imagine one day you get a knock on the door and open it to find a well dressed individual with a bright green hat.
He greets you kindly, then begins to ask you if you have felt the love of a leprechaun.
Most presumably at this point you are either confused, humoring the poor man or assuming that this is an elaborate joke on the scale of the pastafarian agenda.
He then goes on to tell you how the leprechauns created the world through holy jigs and how man was created from the armpit hairs of hobgoblins and that if you accept the love of the leprechauns and jig for joy every time they are mentioned that you will get to become a celestial leprechaun and jig across the universe.
Now im guessing at this point few people would take the claim seriously and would be a tad bewildered at the mans beleifs and either express humour or some non subtle means of expressing ridicule or concern for the mans mental wellbeing.
At this point the man, noticing your disbeleif and experiencing offence, tells you that if you do not accept the leprechauns into your heart, you and your loved ones will be raped by trolls for all eternity.
Now presuming I had entertained the man long enough to hear this part of it, my response would be an immediate fuck you and slamming the door on his face, but I like to think ive expressed the point by now.

Whilst the man may have seemed crazy, or like he was telling some elaborate joke, it is ultimately no more rediculous than any religious claim.

[Khodoristan]

Hell to the no. That dude scares me.

This fills with me an odd sort of pride.

God, no, he's following me! Someone call 911!

[Obamacult]

I think the problem is when religion gets involved in government or when government gets involved in religion.

When religion is about faith, charity, and hope and nothing else then it is cool and really good for society.

When government keeps its nose out of religion that is good too. But when you get government administering legal decisions with a heavy does of religion, then you know your screwed. When religion starts butting its nose in science or government, then you know your screwed.

In fact, when business butts its nose in government or religion, then you know you screwed. And when government butts its nose in business, then you need to bend over cuz it aint what they do best. An excellent society is where everybody does what they do best and they don't butt in where they don't belong.

Religion stick with faith, hope, and charity, stay the hell out of everything else (no pun intended).
Business stick with making a profit, don't mix in government.
Washington stick with Law and national defense, don't mix in religion or business.
Science stick with science, don't mix in politics.

Really, you know when something just isn't right is when one of these pillars of society starts meddling in stuff they shouldn't.

Sorry for the edit.

[Sentinel XV]

There are plenty of Christians who would never harm the hair on your head, much less commit mass murder. Don't judge the whole on the actions of a small few: this goes for all religious sects.

Word.

But yeah, haters try to label someone who keeps them from money, ass, ego, and power. Next, they dehumanize them. Then they kill them. It is crazy dude, but the OP said 809 million were killed because of religion, but what he failed to tell us was that many of the dead were persecuted because of their religion. And the most killing was done by wars or pogroms started by secular governments and leaders like Nazi Germany, Stalin, and Mao.

So you label, disrespect, dehumanize, misrepresent, propagandize, then you seize money, ass, ego, or power. But we have to remember that haters play a zero sum game. Whether we are religious or would rather drink beer and watch football on Sunday, we suck when when live or work in a home, neighborhood, school, dorm, or workplace where we have to bully and disrespect someone or some group to make us feel good.

Right?

I mean blessed are the meek and peacemakers for they are the children of an excellent society.

If I may interject, and you are completely right about the tactics used to dehumanize groups, but the "secular governments" you listed aren't necessarily secular. Hitler was a Christian (source // whether he was an actual Christian or was simply using it as a tool is up to debate), Stalin was a psychopath despite his atheism (he just wanted to eliminate religion as a whole, so he was more anti-theist than atheist), and Mao's philosophy and regime were deeply rooted in religion.

[Xeng He]

No it isn't. I acknowledge our inability to detect branes or empirically prove Eternal Inflation. I have yet to actually state that therefore we should give up on questions concerning the beginning of the universe.

I did actually say that some people would buck that idea.

Which again has nothing to do with religion.

Believe it or not, religion is in fact a part of one's environment. A religion that encourages discovery and links discovery to power is a good influence if you want to encourage discovery.

For one, scientists still accept that you cannot accelerate past the speed of light. They are searching for ways around this though. Thanks for proving your own claims wrong.

You want to know why...at least some of them, assuming a few have my personality type, they're searching for ways around this? Because at some point in their lives, they believed that sci-fi could really happen, and they want that still. "One step closer to Star Wars/Star Trek" was one of your first explanations for why most people should care about the discovery of the Higgs, back when that thread was around.

Like it or not, the existence of possibilities is a huge draw to science for many people. Having a religion in place that states that those possibilities will happen is pretty beneficial.

[Mavorpen]

Believe it or not, religion is in fact a part of one's environment. A religion that encourages discovery and links discovery to power is a good influence if you want to encourage discovery.

A secular government which encourages discover and links discovery to power is an even better one.

You want to know why...at least some of them, assuming a few have my personality type, they're searching for ways around this? Because at some point in their lives, they believed that sci-fi could really happen, and they want that still.

Uh, no? The most common reason is because they would like to be able to escape the death of this solar system at some point. You ignored my point that they recognize that we have limits.

Like it or not, the existence of possibilities is a huge draw to science for many people. Having a religion in place that states that those possibilities will happen is pretty beneficial.

No it isn't.

[The New World Oceania]

Believe it or not, religion is in fact a part of one's environment. A religion that encourages discovery and links discovery to power is a good influence if you want to encourage discovery.

A secular government which encourages discover and links discovery to power is an even better one.

But secular or religious, an organisation which encourages Visa or Mastercard and links discovery to power is the best.

[Bosiu]

I'm agnostic but tolerant of other people's religions. Though I am less tolerant of Islam due to its recent violent history and 800 years of scientific backwater.

[Martean]

See? I was in another thread, where it said North Korea claimed they had discovered unicorns, and EVERYBODY was laughing at them, spme of them, obviously, religious.

But what many people dont't understand it's that it sounds even wors the idea that a man who no one has ever seen yet controls the universe, created humans... etc. (even though every single thing the church claimed has been discovered to be wrong: The shape of the earth, the heliocentric theory, evolution...) and now that same people who believe all this laugh at what North Korea says? I think it's totally insane....

Agreed.
The analogy I like to give is what I call the leprechaun salesman. And I imagine (or at least would be suprised if otherwise) that most people would treat this man as a crazy person.

Imagine one day you get a knock on the door and open it to find a well dressed individual with a bright green hat.
He greets you kindly, then begins to ask you if you have felt the love of a leprechaun.
Most presumably at this point you are either confused, humoring the poor man or assuming that this is an elaborate joke on the scale of the pastafarian agenda.
He then goes on to tell you how the leprechauns created the world through holy jigs and how man was created from the armpit hairs of hobgoblins and that if you accept the love of the leprechauns and jig for joy every time they are mentioned that you will get to become a celestial leprechaun and jig across the universe.
Now im guessing at this point few people would take the claim seriously and would be a tad bewildered at the mans beleifs and either express humour or some non subtle means of expressing ridicule or concern for the mans mental wellbeing.
At this point the man, noticing your disbeleif and experiencing offence, tells you that if you do not accept the leprechauns into your heart, you and your loved ones will be raped by trolls for all eternity.
Now presuming I had entertained the man long enough to hear this part of it, my response would be an immediate fuck you and slamming the door on his face, but I like to think ive expressed the point by now.

Whilst the man may have seemed crazy, or like he was telling some elaborate joke, it is ultimately no more rediculous than any religious claim.

This is so LOL and so TRUE.

[Shofercia]

And my point is that it's usually used a scapegoat for rulers to acquire more power, just like gang pride can be used by landowners to acquire more land, and that land/power can be seen, heard, and defined. By attacking religion you're not attacking the actual problem. For instance, you blame religion for the Holocaust, (yeah, you're not living that one down,) and you let racism, the real problem, off the hook, or at least you're not being as vicious against it, as you should be. What's a more effective way to prevent another Holocaust? Make online posts about "hurr durr religion bad" or working to eradicate racism as best as you can? Really, it's not rocket science, and you only have a limited about of time.

Well, religion had some things to do with the holocaust, but many religious people also worked to shelter Jews from Nazi persecution. It goes both ways on that issue.

Not if you think about it. For instance, if you remove racism, there's no Holocaust, period. You didn't see rabid racists helping out the Jews, you just saw rabid racists executing them.

Wars are fought for resources.

Religion is about controlling people.

Patriotism, for example, is a religion that many people unknowingly follow. Also economics.

Without people to control it's not a war now is it.
What the soldiers are fighting for is incredibly important, more so even than the leaders, and religion provides a good reason to the plebs.

Fairly sure that if I do drone strikes on a bunch of people, they'd consider it a war, even though I'm not controlling any people. Additionally, there are plenty of excuses for war. If I want to start a war, I could easily do so without religion, if I have certain resources at my disposal. The most common reason for modern warfare is either power politics, i.e. "the Domino Theory" or "they're occupying our lands!" or "Human Rights". Indeed, if one follows the last wars, Human Rights have been used as an excuse way more often than religion. Should we ban all Human Rights?

I would like to add this to the list of the ''oh so moral religion of Christianity''

Some lovely facts about Christianity...

Aha, so according to someone named BushSucks, the Native Americans weren't killed over land; no, they were killed over religion. Oh the irony!

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall break the chain and pluck the living flower.
---
We can do poetry too, and ours isn't nonsense.

So when're you instituting the Thought Police? What's happiness for me, ain't happiness for you. Did you jump for joy when Kovy scored in 2008? You probably have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? Happiness for different people is different. I believe that one can't have Happiness without religion. You believe the exact opposite. But, no matter have many fancy-funny sounding words you throw in, I won't let others control my thought process, especially those who claim that they're just in it for my benefit, cause that sounds awfully like the snake-oil salesmen who sold "Trickle-Down Economics" to the masses. They also claimed it was really all for our benefit, ignored that different people are different, and offered no proof to support their faulty assertion. The results were the 1928 crash, the 2008 crash, etc.

The reasons behind these is that the Israelites were carrying out God's judgement and these people would have turned the Israelites towards false Gods. Don't agree with it, just giving you why they did what they did.

Also, regardless of whether the Bible says "So sayeth the Lord" the Bible was written by men... I'm not saying everyone abused religion but it's plausible that someone in a position of power would say that "God said so..." to get something they wanted done.

2 Peter 1:20-21 “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”

That sounds an awful lot like the Bible claiming its own inerrancy and that therefore all in it is the will and word of God. Including the exhortations to genocide.

You do understand that the term Scripture that was adopted by the Council of Nicaea, might have been different than the one used by Peter and Timothy, right?

Maybe they should be included.

There are plenty of Christians who would never harm the hair on your head, much less commit mass murder. Don't judge the whole on the actions of a small few: this goes for all religious sects.

^ This

[Xeng He]

A secular government which encourages discover and links discovery to power is an even better one.

And why is that?

Uh, no? The most common reason is because they would like to be able to escape the death of this solar system at some point. You ignored my point that they recognize that we have limits.

There are quite a few scientists who were inspired by sci-fi, actually.

Whole books have been written by them about the physics involved in such fiction, because they find it inspiring. Take...Michio Kaku, and the writer of "The Physics of Star Trek", for example.

It's perhaps true that some scientists aren't like that, but many are.

No it isn't.

Which of the two things I'm talking about isn't?