Flashpoints USA . Discuss . God in America

We hear a great deal these days from the fundamentalist-minded administration in the White House about how religion brings out the best in people. We also hear from time to time from other sources about the downside of religion - but we never quite capture the enormity and horror of it all. To provide a bit more balance between those opposing points of view, here is a much abbreviated list of items in chronological order which I recently uncovered concerning religion�s dark side:

1). Beginning about 2000 B.C. and continuing for centuries according to the Bible�s Old testament (which religious Jews claim is an accurate account of their own history) Jewish tribes slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people in the name of their God, Yahweh. This is a pretty grim beginning.

2). In fact, according to the Bible the past is one long, grisly list of massacres, rapes and torture, all glowingly described in graphic detail. The following massacres were all approved by God (read from list totaling 45 entries) including:
� The entire population of the earth at time of Noah except 8 survivors. (Genesis 7:23).
� 120,000 Midanites (Judges 8:10).
� 500,000 men of Israel (2nd Chronicles 13:16-20).
� 120,000 Judeans (2nd chronicles 28:5, 6).
There are at least 40 more similar entries, but you get the picture.

While on the subject of the Bible we should mention that slavery is also supported by the scriptures. �Slaves � obey your masters with respect and fear just as you would obey Christ� (St. Paul, Ephesians 6:5). In fact, according to (Exodus 21:7) it�s OK to sell ones daughter into slavery.

3). In Alexandria in the year 415, Hypatia, the great female scientist and head of the Alexandria library was beaten to death by Catholic monks who considered her scientific work heretical. That library, containing most of the world�s knowledge was subsequently burned to the ground by religious zealots. Some question whether the Dark Ages might not have happened without this event.
Religion has generally been anti-science. Witness the suppression of the work of Keppler, Copernicus and Galileo. Even today, despite virtually undeniable evidence, religious fundamentalists continue to argue against evolution, and stem cell research to name just two areas. In some quarters the Catholic Church lies to its parishioners stating that condoms do not protect against HIV / AIDS in order to propagate and overpopulate the world.

4). Since the 7th century the number of people killed in �jihads� or holy wars waged by various factions of Islam can only be guessed at. Several million would not be out of the question and the number is increasing as we speak.

5). In 1095 when Pope Urban II launched the first crusade to take the Holy Land from the Muslims, the German Crusaders decided to �kill the infidels among us� and slaughtered thousands of Jews.

6). During this same time frame on another continent the Aztecs already had a long history of sacrificing people to their gods by ripping their hearts out. An estimated 20,000 victims were murdered each year. The Mayans and Incas executed as many as 200 children at a time to appease their gods.

7). In the year 1231 Pope Gregory set up the Holy Office of the Inquisition to seek out heretics and witches who were then tortured and killed. Thousands of people were twisted and ripped on fiendish pain machines until they confessed to unorthodox thoughts.

8). In the 14th century tens of thousands of Jews were killed by Christians for �causing� the Black Death. Reason? Because so many Jews survived the plague. Reason? Probably the Jewish rituals including weekly cleansing of the body and changing into clean clothes.

9). In 1572 in France, Catholics murdered thousands of Protestants in a single bloody day. It came to be known as the St. Bartholomew Day massacre.

10). Up until the 1800�s the Hindus in India sacrificed a male child every Friday for the goddess Kali. Kali worshippers killed an estimated 2 million people over 300 years.

11), In the mid-1800�s a Buddhist king in Burma ordered 500 people to be sacrificed to �sanctify� the new city walls of Mandalay.

12). In 1915 Christian Armenians and Turkish Muslims waged war on each other leaving an estimated 3 million dead.

13). Beginning in 1955 in the Sudan, Muslims and Christians waged a holy war lasting seventeen years which killed a half million people In 1983 the same war flared up again with the final total of one million dead in 24 years.

15). In 1978 more than 900 people of the religious group, The People�s Temple, died as victims of suicide / murders at their own hands, in Jonestown, Guyana, South America.

16). On September 11, 2001, nineteen Muslims flew two jumbo jets into the World trade Center, one into the Pentagon killing nearly 3000 people. Osama bin Laden hearing of this said, �Praise be to Allah�.

17). In 2002 full scale investigations erupted on a p