Atrocities That Have Been Done in the Name of Religion?
Many atheists claim that religion is evil and, as such, cannot be from God. It is true that there are many examples of evil committed in the name of Christianity. In the past, those who disagreed with "official" church doctrine, such as Galileo were persecuted or killed.
Many other Christians were brought before the Inquisition because they were teaching from the Bible instead of from "officially sanctioned" Roman Catholic Church materials. In addition, the Crusades resulted in "holy" wars between "Christians," Jews, and Moslems.
In more modern times, wars have been fought between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. However, common to all this violence was an underlying struggle for power.
Today, some people kill abortionists in the name of God. Are these people unwilling pawns of religion or using religion to justify their own evil agendas?
Therefore, I absolutely agree with atheists and others who say that many atrocious things have been done in the name of God, and even in the name of Christianity. However, these atrocities were not perpetrated by God, but by evil human beings.
If we look at the history of democide (which includes genocide, politicide, and mass murder, but not war-dead) prior to the 20th century, we find that millions of people were killed by people groups who wanted the other people groups eliminated. Note that these numbers do not include those killed through wars.
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