There are many examples
of evil committed in the name of “God”,
“Allah” or other alleged “Supreme Deities” such as India’s goddess “Kali” or the Sun God of the ancient
Aztecs
called “Tonatiuh”; perhaps you prefer
Re, also spelled Ra, the ancient Egyptian god of the sun and creator god.
Throughout history
religion has been used as an excuse, or driving force, for some of the worst
atrocities imaginable. From pre-history to modern history, religion is, for
many folks, just a glorified excuse to kill other folks.
In truth the history of
religion is a horror story. If anyone doubts it, just review this brief chronicle
of religion’s gore during the last 1,000 years or so:
You’ll probably be
surprised to know that as recently as the 1850’s Human
sacrifices were still occurring in Buddhist Burma. Cases in point, when the
capital was moved to Mandalay in 1857, no less than 56 “spotless” men were
buried under the new city walls so as to “sanctify and protect” the city. Shortly
thereafter two of the burial spots were found empty, so royal astrologers
decreed that 500 men, women, girls, and boys, should be killed
and buried at once, otherwise the capital must be abandoned. Fortunately to
some, the condemned only included about 100 folks; they were actually killed
and buried before British governors of the time stopped the ceremonies.
Members of India’s
Thuggee sect strangled people as sacrifices to appease the bloodthirsty goddess
Kali; this practice didn’t begin
until in the 1500’s. The number of victims has been estimated to be as high as
2 million. The professional assassins or organized “Thugs” were claiming about
20,000 lives a year in the 1800’s until the British rulers successfully stopped
the atrocities. At a trial in 1840, one such Thug was accused of killing 931
people. Even today, a few Hindu priests
sacrifice goats to the goddess Kali
in the stead of humans.
The Medieval
Inquisition is actually a series of Inquisitions beginning around 1184. It was
in response to the large popular movement throughout Europe perceived to be sacrilegious
to the Christian way of thinking.
On May 15th
of 1252 Pope Innocent IV issued a papal
bull which first authorized the use of torture by inquisitors. Since the Inquisitors were forbidden to afflict
the accused with methods that resulted in bloodshed, mutilation or death, one
of the more common forms of medieval inquisition torture was known as “strappado”;
wherein the hands of the indicted were bound behind the back with a rope, and
the victim was suspended in this way, dislocating the joints of both arms. To add insult to injury, weights were often
added to the legs dislocating those joints as well. Otherwise, screaming
victims were typically pierced, stretched, burned, and broken on fiendish pain
machines to make them confess to their “false beliefs” and to identify fellow
transgressors.
When the “Black Death”
swept through Europe from 1348 to1349, rumors alleging that it was caused by
Jews poisoning wells ran a muck. So naturally, hysterical mobs slaughtered
thousands of Jews in several countries. The prince of Thuringia, a federal
state of east-central Germany, announced that he had burned his Jews for the
honor of God.
In the 1400’s, the
Inquisition shifted its focus to witchcraft. Priests tortured untold thousands
of women into admitting that they were witches who flew through the sky and
engaged in sex with the devil. Lest we forget, when the Puritans settled in
Massachusetts in the 1600’s, you could say they created a religious “police
state”; nonconformity to there doctrine could lead to flogging, branding,
hanging, the cutting off of ears, or simply boring through the tongue with a hot
iron. Most anything “non-puritan” was considered a
capital offense. No less than four stubborn Quakers defied this rule of law and
were hanged. Then in the 1690’s the fear of witches clutched the colony. Result:
Twenty alleged witches were killed and 150 others imprisoned.
The Aztecs began their
elaborate theocracy or government with “divine” guidance in the 1300’s and
brought human sacrifice to, shall we say, a golden era. About 20,000 people
were killed each year so as to appease several gods — especially the sun god
Tonatiuh,
who required a daily “nourishment” of blood. The heart of the sacrificed
victims was ceremoniously cut out and some bodies were actually eaten ritualistically.
The lucky victims were simply drowned, beheaded, burned or dropped from great heights.
In a rite to the rain god, terrified screaming
children were slain at some sites so that their tears might bring rain to the region.
As a sacrament to the maize goddess,
a young virgin was forced to dance for 24 hours, before she was killed and peeled;
her skin was then worn by a priest to continue the dancing rite.
The Christian Crusades
(1095-1291):
Since the time of
Constantine the Great (Roman Emperor from 306 to 337) Christians had made
pilgrimages to the Holy Land. This became the norm even though Moslems established
rule in Jerusalem in 638; Christians during this era were allowed to visit the
city. In the 11th century, however, the situation changed. As fate might have
it, when the number and frequency of pilgrimages to Jerusalem was at new peaks,
the Turks took control of Jerusalem and prevented pilgrimages to the “Holy
Land”.
Pope Urban II
(1088-1099) was responsible for supporting Emperor Alexus I (1081—1118) of
Constantinople in launching the First Crusade. He made a rather
dramatic speech
calling for the Christian prince’s of Europe to go on a crusade to rescue the Holy
Land from the Turks. The speech was given at the Council of Clermont in France and
joined the ideas of “making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land” with that of “waging
a holy war against infidels”. This
resulted in the onset of the first of seven (some say nine) Christian Crusades.
The general consensus, in
the light of their original purpose: The Crusades were complete failures. They
made no enduring conquests of the Holy Land and they did not check the advance
of Islam. On the other hand, they fostered a harsh intolerance between Muslims
and Christians, where before there had been some measure of mutual respect.
They also introduced a rebirth of prejudice, hatred of, or discrimination
against those of the Jewish persuasion.
If you are curious
about the death toll; no exact official figure is given although according to www.middle-ages.org.uk, a very rough
estimate of the total death toll throughout all of the Crusades equals 1.5
million Christians, Muslims, and Jews.
When India finally won
independence from Britain in 1947, the “great soul” of Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t up
to preventing Hindus and Muslims from turning on one another which resulted in
a killing frenzy that took perhaps a million lives. You may recall that even
Gandhi was killed by a Hindu who thought him too pro-Muslim.
In Jonestown, Guyana,
in 1978, followers of the Reverend Jim Jones killed a visiting U S congressman
and three newsmen; but Rev. Jones didn’t stop there; apparently at the
Reverend’s direction and naturally in the name of God, cyanide was administered to men, women, and children in a
900-person suicide pact that shocked the world.
In Nigeria in 1982,
religious fanatics killed and mutilated several hundred people as
heretics and
infidels. Naturally as some fanatics do, they drank the blood of several of the
victims. When the militia showed up to subdue the violence, the religious cultists
sprinkled themselves with “blessed powder” that they were sure would make them
impervious to police bullets. It didn’t.
Hindu and Muslim
bloodshed erupts from time to time throughout India. More than
3,000 were
killed in the province of Assam in 1983. Would you believe that in May of 1984 a few
alleged Muslims had the audacity to hang dirty sandals on a Hindu leader’s
portrait; knowing no doubt that such a bold act was a religious insult. In-any-event, this act triggered a week of
arson & riots resulting in 216 dead, 756 wounded, 13,000 homeless, and 4,100 in
jail.
It seems clear that
folks who think religions of the world are a force for good are looking only at
Dr. Jekyll and ignoring Mr. Hyde completely. Apparently such folk fail to see
the superstitious savagery infiltrating both history and current events; keep in mind that this publication has not touched upon the various “Crazy’s” who kill at times,
randomly, simply because “God” told
them to.
Some say that during
the past three centuries, religion has gradually lost its power over life in both
Europe and America, and “church horrors” have ended in most regions of the
West. But if that’s true, the poison lingers.
It may be fashionable
among thinking folks to say that religion is not the real basis of today’s
strife in places like Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, India and Iran (to
name a few) and that sects merely provide labels for combatants.
Regardless, Religion, if
nothing else keeps such groups in hostile camps. Without it, divisions would in all
likely-hood blur with the passing of generations; our children could perhaps adapt
to new times and eventually forget ancient wounds. But religion keeps them
alien to one another.
In short: Anything that
divides people breeds cruelty and religion serves that ugly purpose.
Sources:
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/atrocities.html http://listverse.com/2008/04/02/8-atrocities-committed-in-the-name-of-religion/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonatiuh
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/492674/Re
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/crusades.stm
http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/crusades.stm
http://www.ask.com/question/how-many-people-died-in-the-crusades
http://infidels.org/library/modern/james_haught/holy.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=religious+atrocities&safe=active&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=K95SU4LWK8O1yASDt4DICg&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=596
