Israel Under Attack?

[Woeler]

[quote="Tora"][quote="Juliette"]
As if the Bible doesn't have violent verses.

Exodus 32:27 "Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.'"

Just because there's violence in the book doesn't mean the people who follow the religion are all violent. I have met several Muslims in my life, all of whom were more peaceful than most Christians I've met.[/quote]

You quote a verse from the time of Moses in which the Levites slaughtered those who would not repent. Those who openly defied God; who would rather worship idols than accept the God which had freed them. God exercised Judgement on them. For they refused not only to repent, but in their hearts they turned from him and were of nothing but evil. That is not to say that the Levites were home free. They became plagued. You know why today Christians don't live the verse today? Simple, Jesus came and taught mercy, forgiveness, and grace to the people. Jesus came and paid the price so we wouldn't have to. He taught us not to condemn people for we are not God, and if we condemn then we ourselves will be condemned.[/quote]
You try to explain it, which isn't valid because most people take religion literaly. Muslims will do tha same. Christianity took millions of lives so don't try to act like it is a wonderful thing. It is not. I don't care what your book means. I care what it says.

You act as if Islam is so much worse than Christianity. Let me just say what Christianity is responsible for in this age. Every human who had to suffer months and months because of an incurable disease in the western world. Every child whose mother was denied an abortion with a sucky life, abuse, neglectance or any other form of child abuse caused by this. The long time of persecuting homosexuals, women and black people. Thank you Christianity, thank you God. Amen

[Tora]

[quote="Juliette"][quote="Tora"]You quote a verse from the time of Moses in which the Levites slaughtered those who would not repent. Those who openly defied God; who would rather worship idols than accept the God which had freed them. God exercised Judgement on them. For they refused not only to repent, but in their hearts they turned from him and were of nothing but evil. That is not to say that the Levites were home free. They became plagued. You know why today Christians don't live the verse today? Simple, Jesus came and taught mercy, forgiveness, and grace to the people. Jesus came and paid the price so we wouldn't have to. He taught us not to condemn people for we are not God, and if we condemn then we ourselves will be condemned.[/quote]

The circumstances are irrelevant; there's other violent verses in there. Not to mention all the raping that was going on that no one batted an eye at. Just because those things are in the book doesn't mean all of the followers of the faith are violent or will do them, and that is the only point I was trying to make.[/quote]
No the point you tried to make is that Christianity is just as bad as Islam. Far from it. Christ tells no man to kill another. Christ tells no man to stone, to rape, to condemn, to judge. Muhammad preaches Violence. Christians follow Christ. The Muslims are to follow the teachings of Muhammad, and so they must or else their own religion states they should be killed. Show me where Christ says -Kill those who do not believe in me.- You won't find any. The closet thing you'll find is in a Parable in Luke 19 which is nothing more then Jesus illustrating that those without faith shall parish before the Lord. (Not trying to be offensive Julie if I come off that way.)

[quote="Woeler1"]You try to explain it, which isn't valid because most people take religion literaly. Muslims will do tha same. Christianity took millions of lives so don't try to act like it is a wonderful thing. It is not. I don't care what your book means. I care what it says.[/quote] That makes no sense. What it says is what it means. Read everything and understand. A book has words. A person must understand the words to even read a book. What it says is what it means. Misunderstanding comes from all things. You can't read one verse and take it to heart. You have to read it all. You place the blame on Christianity when the verse in questions comes from the old testament which is before Christ came. Christians follow Christ not Moses. The deaths, the killings all of which you blame on Christianity as whole comes from the Catholic Church. Blame not the Religion but the Church who used his name in vain. That's also not to say everyone in the Catholic Church is a psychopathic murder.

[Hana701]

[quote="Tora"]You should read the Qur'an Muhammad is quite clear.[/quote]
What is clear is that you have no idea what you're talking about. Muhammad does not say any of these. Allah does.
[quote="Tora"]Sura 8:12 - "Cut off their heads, and cut off the tips of their fingers"[/quote]
The correct translation w/ context: [Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, "I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip."
This is part of a story in which God asked his angels to help the Muslims defeat the disbelievers in a war in which they were greatly outnumbered. It was a command that is no longer relevant because it already happened.
[quote="Tora"]Sura 9:123 - "O you who have believed, fight those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let them find in you harshness. And know that Allah is with the righteous."[/quote]
Out of context quote. This only pertains to when disbelievers and Muslims engage in war.
[quote="Tora"]Bukhari 9.84.57 - "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him."[/quote]
This is not part of the Quran.
You did not read the Quran as you claim and probably copied these off some evangelical Islamophobic site. Next time, keep your hateful comments to yourself

[Woeler]

I'll make my superhuge argument when I get back home. This is gonna be fun.

[Tora]

[quote="Hana701"][quote="Tora"]You should read the Qur'an Muhammad is quite clear.[/quote]
What is clear is that you have no idea what you're talking about. Muhammad does not say any of these. Allah does.
[quote="Tora"]Sura 8:12 - "Cut off their heads, and cut off the tips of their fingers"[/quote]
The correct translation w/ context: [Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, "I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip."
This is part of a story in which God asked his angels to help the Muslims defeat the disbelievers in a war in which they were greatly outnumbered. It was a command that is no longer relevant because it already happened.
[quote="Tora"]Sura 9:123 - "O you who have believed, fight those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let them find in you harshness. And know that Allah is with the righteous."[/quote]
Out of context quote. This only pertains to when disbelievers and Muslims engage in war.
[quote="Tora"]Bukhari 9.84.57 - "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him."[/quote]
This is not part of the Quran.
You did not read the Quran as you claim and probably copied these off some evangelical Islamophobic site. Next time, keep your hateful comments to yourself [/quote]

Enlighten me as to how anything I said was hateful.

[Woeler]

[quote="Tora"]

Enlighten me as to how anything I said was hateful.[/quote]

You clearly state that christianity is better than islam... Which is an absurd statement

[Tora]

[quote="Woeler1"][quote="Tora"]

Enlighten me as to how anything I said was hateful.[/quote]

You clearly state that christianity is better than islam... Which is an absurd statement[/quote]
Absurd? Hardly. It still contains no hate. I do not hate Islam or the people who follow it. I just find it wrong.

[Woeler]

First of all. I do not need ANY explanations on how certain verses should be interpreted. People do NOT interpret them how they should be interpreted. They take them literally. Here are some verses from the old and the new testament. I would like to add that I have read Mein Kampf, and the old testament is worse.

Some facts up front:
The new testament IS based on the old testament.
The church is part of Christianity.
The Pope is acknowledged as the legitimate leader of the church.
I do not mean to adress any individual, I adress the religion.
People from other religions please don't be like ''yeah, f*** Christianity, look at that''. Remember, yours is no better or worse.

Thank you.

Alright, where to start? Be warned, this is my field of knowledge, expect a LOT of text.

1. Human sacrifice
[quote]Genesis, the first book of the Bible, has Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son to God. "Take your son, your only son – yes, Isaac, whom you love so much – and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you." (Genesis 22:1-18)[/quote]
Abraham takes his own son up on a mountain and builds an altar upon which to burn him. He even lies to his son and has him help build the altar. Then Abraham ties his son to the altar and puts a knife to his throat. He then hears God tell him this was just a test of his faith. However, God still wanted to smell some burnt flesh so he tells Abraham to burn a ram.

Just to be clear if anyone told me to sacrifice my kid for the love of God I'd say: No [censored] you!

Even more peculiar is God's obsession with first-born sons. In Exodus 13:2 the Lord said "Consecrate to me every first-born that opens the womb among Israelites, both man and beast, for it belongs to me." Later it says that you can redeem (replace) an ass with a sheep and that you must redeem a child for an unspecified price. It is clear from the context that "consecrate" means a burning sacrifice.

In Leviticus 27:28-29, the Lord allows for no redemptions. "Note also that any one of his possessions which a man vows as doomed to the Lord, whether it is a human being or an animal, or a hereditary field, shall be neither sold nor ransomed; everything that is thus doomed becomes most sacred to the Lord. All human beings that are doomed lose the right to be redeemed; they must be put to death." I must admit that I am a bit confused by this contradiction, but it might only apply to slaves in your possession. Not that it makes any difference. A human sacrifice is a human sacrifice, and it is just sick.

2. Murder
Kill Witches
You should not let a sorceress live. (Exodus 22:17 NAB)

Kill Homosexuals
"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

Kill Fortunetellers
A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death. (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)

Death for Hitting Dad
Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)

Death for Cursing Parents
1) If one curses his father or mother, his lamp will go out at the coming of darkness. (Proverbs 20:20 NAB)
2) All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)

Death for Adultery
If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)

Death for Fornication
A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)

Death to Followers of Other Religions
Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed. (Exodus 22:19 NAB)

Kill Nonbelievers
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

Kill Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night
But if this charge is true (that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father's house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)

Kill Sons of Sinners
Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants. (Isaiah 14:21 NAB)

3. Christianity is 100% responsible for the hate against gays.
In the New Testament (NT) there are three passages that some purport to refer specifically to what today would be called homosexual activity: Romans 1:26–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, and 1 Timothy 1:9–10.

There has been no ideology, ever that condemned homosexuality, excpet religion. Since Christianity is the biggest religion in the west it can be held responsible. among the 47% of the United States who are against gay marriage, 86% defined themselves as Christians. They can be held responsible for every single person who committed suicide due to bullying, oppression or any other form of discrimination happily endorsed by Christian zealots.

Many if not all religions condemn homosexuality. Religious people argue that God designed men and women and that traditional family order must be remained. In our civilized and western world the execution of homosexuals is illegal (Thank God?), but many countries, especially in the middle-east still execute thousands of homosexuals annually.
Since people are born gay there really is no argument that supports homosexuality as a choice. Therefore denying homosexual people certain rights is discrimination. The most popular example has to be the situation in the United States (The country with the lamest separation of church and state ever). The ‘’American dream’’, a thing wildly popular among Americans insists that "all men are created equal"
It says all men are created equal. ‘’All men’’ includes homosexual men, right? Not according to the Americans. Six out of fifty states allow same-sex couples to marry, that means that the other 44 states do not allow it. Discrimination is illegal, even in the United States… unless you discriminate in the name of God, that is legal.
Stephen Fry once said to a priest ‘’I’m a man made in the image of God’’, the priest replied ‘’Oh no, you’re not. You’re a [censored] and you can’t join the church and you can’t go to heaven’’.
A common argument against gay marriage are ‘’tradition family structure’’ and ‘’tradition family values’’. There is no such thing as traditional family structure. Given the prevalence of modern and ancient examples of family arrangements based on polygamy, communal child-rearing, the use of concubines and mistresses and the commonality of prostitution, heterosexual monogamy can be considered "unnatural” in evolutionary terms.


4. Let them suffer.
[quote]The Bible tells us that we are not to murder (Exodus 20:13). Murder is the unlawful taking of life, and killing is the lawful taking of life. Technically speaking, if a nation said that euthanasia was legal, then on a human level it would not be murder. But as societies often legislate moral issues in contradiction to the Bible, just because a society might say that euthanasia is good does not mean that it is. We are to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).[/quote]

Every single person who si suffering from an incurable disease and is denied euthanasia can thank the religious (again!). There is no other field of ideology or political reason to make euthanasia illegal. You own your life. God does not own anyone. My uncle had a severe form of prostate cancer and he requested euthanasia. Luckily he got approved and died peacefully. If I were to live in a country with a lawsystem based on bigotry he would not have had that right. His children an wife would have to watch him every single day, not being able to walk or speak. Laying in bed the whole damn day, as white as snow. Making horrific grunting noises that predict the coming of death. Not to mention the immense suffering this person had to go through, pain every goddamn day. He had the right to die. You can't just take someone's right to die ''becauser your skyfriend says so''.

5. Sex.
The church and by extension Christianity are obsessed with sex. They would say ''No you are obsessed with your rude jokes and open sexlives''. No, we have a healthy attitude, we like it, it's fun because it's a primary impulse, it can be dangerous and difficult. It's a bit like food in that aspect. The only people who are obsessed with food are the anorexic and the morbidly obesed, and that in erotic terms is Christianity in a nutshell.

6. Circumcision.
This may not be a primary doctrine of Christianity but still, it's perfromed by many religious cults, yes cults. This is a dogma widely practiced by religious people all over the world. Especially in Islam and Judaism. Nobody really knows its origin and neither do we know any real benefits of the procedure. 1 out of 500 circumcisions cause catastrophic complications. Now, one in 500 seems rather low, and indeed that is rather low. But why risk 1 in 500 children anyway? This procedure is useless and unnecessary. A child should not be mutilated like this. This is still legal in even the most developed countries. Do I think that the freedom to express religion includes the freedom to mutilate your child in a way it may not even want? No. This procedure should be carried out for medical reasons only, not for religious dogma that has already scarred hundreds of thousands of children over the past two millennia.
I mean what kind of argument for intelligent design is this anyway?’’Babies are not born beautiful, they are born ugly so they need to be corrected a bit because God’s handiwork is such garbage. Lets saw away some parts of their genitalia.’’ Who else could have given people this idea if not the godly…
It´s the child´s body, so let him choose. The child´s body, the child´s choice. However you need to be 18 to be able to make your own key decisions. This is what most religious people fear. Once the child is 18 years old they´ll probably not want a circumcision.
Let it be decided by the grown-up. It is not right, it is not moral, it is in fact wicked to submit children to this kind of mutilation without their full consent.
This procedure should be carried out for medical reasons only. If I were to start a religion which would believe in removing the appendix from 2 year olds I would probably have angry protesters at my doorstep all day long.
Is risking severe complications or even death in millions of children every year moral? Since we agreed that ‘’moral’’ corresponds to the well being of creatures, I don’t think so. circumcision conflicts with the child's right to autonomy and physical integrity.

7. The afterlife and the stupidity of sin.
[quote]"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John 14:1-3[/quote]
The afterlife is a tricky case in religion. On one hand it will motivate us not to sin, but on the other hand doesn’t it take away our motivation to live? If the afterlife would have been a reward for acting moral it would have been a great thing. However, in many religions it is not used to make people moral.
What is sin in a modern sense, and is it even useful in our society?
A sin is an action which is –in religious sense—bad. God does not want an individual to practice such actions. Today sin is a mythical term that keeps people afraid and makes them lie to themselves for a whole lifetime. That is a lot of pain. Ask a normal mixed group of adult people: who has sex on a regular basis? Most people will raise their hand, some people will even raise both hands. Ask that same question in a religious group and nobody will raise their hand. We know they are lying because more than 80% of healthy people have sex on a regular basis. Lying to yourself all your life, that's a lot of unnecessary pain. People only do it because apparently it is a sin. Sex is in our genes and instincts. So apparently there is a creator who creates us sick and then on the costs of death, suffering and misery, orders us to be well again.

8. Condoms.
First of all, Don't want to be associated with the pope or the church? Don't support the Christian religion. It's as simple as that.

As you all know the lovely legitimate earthly leader of the Christian church, aka the pope went to Africa and happily spread the lie that condoms increase the odds of getting infected with the HIV virus. The stupid anti-anti-conception doctrines of this religion are responsible for the death, suffering and misery of millions of Africans.

9. Conflicts.
The KKK, The lord's resistance army, the Crusades, the Inquisition, thirty-years war, antisemitism, The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, the just-war doctrine etc.

10. Scientific advancement


I think that is clear enough

Conclusion.

So as a conclusion. Don't tell me "but I'm not like that''. Your fellow ''Christians'' are. Don't tell me that Christianity is the religion of peace. No religion is the religion of peace. Religious chauvinism is in my opinion even more stupid than religion itself. It is an evil that has taken too many lives already.

Most people that claim to be Christians do not practice the teachings at all. Martin Luther King gets to call himself a Christian because he actually loved his enemies, but people who rejoice in revenge, torture and war can not say they are a follower of the guy who explicitly said ''love your enemies'' and ''do good to those who hate you''. The next line isn't ''and if that doesn't work hate them''. Jesus said things like ''Do not repay evil with evil'' and ''Do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you''. (For those of you who are shocked by this truth: Really, it's in that book you hold up when you scream at gay people!)

Nonviolence was kind of Jesus' trademark. To not follow that part is like joining Greenpeace and hating whales. There is interpreting and there is just ignoring. It's ignoring if you're for torture, it's ignoring if you're pro deathpenalty, it's ignoring if you're pro war, it's ignoring if you're con gay marriage. Those people just completely reject the actual teachings of their faith and yet they call themselves Christians.

those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price.

If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a Mafia wife, with the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers.

The only truly moral book based on religion is Thomas Jefferson's The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth

When I say ''religion poisons everything'', I'm not saying that to look cool. I'm saying it because it infects us in our most basic moral integrity.

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.

[spoiler=But it does not end there]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][/spoiler]

[quote]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." [/quote]

[quote]"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."[/quote]

Praise [s]the lord[/s] the flying spaghetti monster. I'm finally done writing.

[Azdgari]

So perhaps the best metaphor is that religion is like a tool. A hammer can kill a man, or built him a shelter. Religion can drive one to war, or drive one to embark on an aid-giving mission.

So the question is, do you condemn the hammer? Or do you condemn the person who misuses it?

[Shadowfax]

I love how this has turned into a religion debate