​When I was immersed in religion, the Bible god's atrocities, like killing the first-born of an entire nation, were just excused as moral lessons about obedience to god. It's amazing what the mind can justify in service to a belief.
 
Today, Muslims following the god of the Qu'ran and Hadith can kill women for speaking to a man without permission. That can be done by having her throat cut, drenching her with gasoline and setting her aflame, and stoning or shooting her. If a woman is raped and she doesn't have male witnesses who will testify on her behalf, she may be accused of fornication or adultery and then be either killed or imprisoned.
 
The Qur'an's god says people who do not accept Islam are to be killed. Islamists who convert to another religion are to be killed. Those who question doctrine are to be killed. The Afghan Taliban amputated limbs and executed accused Qur'an violators in front of soccer stadium crowds shouting "Allahu Akbar" (god is great). The blood-soaked fields had to be excavated and restored to prevent players slipping. The majority of Muslims (by some reports, 70% or more) believe suicide bombings are holy acts that efficiently transport martyrs to paradise where a bounty of virgins awaits men and virile men await women.
 
The Bible, which was the template for the Qur'an, states that any who worship gods other than Yahweh are to be slaughtered: "Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants . . . with the edge of the sword . . . and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword." (Deut. 13:15,16) "All therein" includes women, children, old folk, and the poor. Those who don't do the killing in the name of the Bible god are also to be put to death.
 
The Old Testament Bible god also demands death for numerous other transgressions, such as taking the Lord's name in vain, homosexuality, working on the Sabbath, cursing one's father or mother, adultery, being a non-virgin when married, etc. (Lev. 24:16; Ex. 31:15, 21:17; Lev. 20:10) Today, Judaism and Christianity put such Bible commands aside. However, the Bible presents no real choice since those who "add to or take away from" it (do not follow all of it to a tee) are worthy of death. (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; 13; Proverbs 30:6; Matthew 5:17; Revelation 22:18-19)
 
The New Testament, today thought to advocate only love and peace, has been interpreted differently through the ages. Jesus exclaimed that he came to divide and likens heretics to branches to be burned: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." (John 15:6; Matthew 10:34) Christian verses can also be found to lay the groundwork for persecution of nonbelievers. (1Corinthians 1:10-13, 3:3, 11:19, 14:33; Galatians 5:19-21; 2Peter 2:1; Romans 16:17; Philippians 4:2; Jude 19)
 
Acting out such admonition, the Catholic Church did not withdraw its judgment of deicide (killing Jesus) against the Jews until after World War II. This stance justified the killing of millions of Jews up to that time.
 
In 1348, King Philip of France consulted Bible clerics about how to fix a pestilence. They told him it was due to blasphemy among the populace. To fix that he made the penalty for one blasphemy the loss of one lip, the second infraction would result in slicing off the other lip, and with the third infraction, the tongue would be removed.
 
To make sure the disease disappeared, the Christian clerics also told Philip to forbid black clothes, showing any grief (which could be interpreted by god as not being happy about the punishment he was visiting on people), working after noon on Saturday, swearing, living in sin, or gambling. (The dice makers quickly turned to rosary making.) Nevertheless, Philip was evidently not hard enough on the folks. Twenty-five thousand died anyway.
 
In 1095 CE, Pope Urban II ordered the first Crusade in order to reclaim the Holy Land. Muslims, Jews, heretics, pagans, and atheists were targets. The rallying cry was "Deus vult," meaning "God wills it" As an incentive, the pope promised salvation by way of indulgences. These, he promised, would reduce the amount of punishment the Bible god would exact for sins. Since everyone knew they had sinned, avoiding hell and purgatory was motivating. Additional bonuses were earthly rewards, including plunder from conquest, the forgiveness of debts, freedom from taxes, fame, property, and political power.
 
From Europe, the tens of thousands of Crusading pilgrims and knights traveled by sea or by foot more than 2000 miles over snowy mountains and across deserts. About one in twenty survived.​When I was immersed in religion, I ignored the holy book problems outlined in the previous chapters. The Bible god killing the first born of an entire nation, telling Jews to stone disobedient children and slaughter unbelievers but keep the young maidens for pleasure, were just glossed over as some sort of moral lesson about obedience to god. Again, I must say, it's amazing what the mind can justify in service to an ideology.
 
But awakened by the inconsistency of holy book words with the true nature of the Creator, I reflected on how religions act out.
 
Today, Muslims following the god of the Qu'ran and Hadith can kill women for speaking to a man without permission. That can be done by having her throat cut, drenching her with gasoline and setting her aflame, and stoning or shooting her. If a woman is raped and she doesn't have male witnesses who will testify on her behalf, she may be accused of fornication or adultery and then be either killed or imprisoned.
 
The Qur'an's god says people who do not accept Islam are to be killed. Converts to Islam who convert to another religion are to be killed. Those who question doctrine are to be killed. The Afghan Taliban used half time during soccer games to butcher fornicators, adulterers, and thieves. The majority of Muslims (by some reports, 70% or more) believe suicide bombings are holy acts that efficiently transport martyrs to paradise where a bounty of virgins awaits men and virile men await women.
 
The Bible god states that any who worship gods other than Yahweh are to be slaughtered: "Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants . . . with the edge of the sword . . . and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword." (Deut. 13:15,16) "All therein" includes women, children, old folk, and the poor. Any who would not do the killing in the name of the Bible god are also to be put to death.
 
The Bible god also demands death for numerous other transgressions, such as taking the Lord's name in vain, homosexuality, working on the Sabbath, cursing one's father or mother, adultery, being a non-virgin when married, etc. (Lev. 24:16; Ex. 31:15, 21:17; Lev. 20:10) The suffering and death of humans, such as when the whole world was destroyed by a flood, is said to have created a "sweet savor" for the god of the Bible. (Genesis 8:21)
 
I was led to believe that such Bible statements are symbolic and allegorical and can be interpreted more gently. However, the Bible presents no real choice since those who "add to or take away from" it (do not follow all of it to a tee) are worthy of death. (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; 13; Proverbs 30:6; Matthew 5:17; Revelation 22:18-19)
 
The New Testament, today thought to advocate only love and peace, has been interpreted differently through the ages. That's because Jesus is said to have exclaimed that he came to divide and likens heretics to branches to be burned: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." (John 15:6; Matthew 10:34) Bible verses can be found to lay the groundwork for persecution of nonbelievers. (1Corinthians 1:10-13, 3:3, 11:19, 14:33; Galatians 5:19-21; 2Peter 2:1; Romans 16:17; Philippians 4:2; Jude 19)
 
Acting out such admonition, the Catholic Church did not withdraw its judgment of deicide (killing Jesus=god) against the Jews until after World War II. This stance justified the killing of millions of Jews up to that time.

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​They had to carry food, water, hard money, armor, siege equipment, tents, and drive thousands of animals. The consequences of sieges lasting months and years were underestimated. Starving and dehydrated soldiers were called upon to engage in brutal hand-to-hand combat. Rotting bodies, waste, and feces piled up. People were reduced to drinking urine, eating grass and leather, and cannibalism. Disease flourished.
 
Godly plundering the countryside for supplies and loot left resident peasants to starve. People in cities who would not give over control were subject to siege and then slaughtered, raped, pillaged, enslaved, and tortured in every imaginable way. Human heads and putrefying horses and cattle were catapulted over walls into cities under siege. The vanquished may be blinded, and noses, lips, tongues, and ears sliced off as punishments for resistance. The slaughter by Crusaders created rivers of blood in the cities they entered. In the Albigensian Crusade, the battle cry of the papal legate was: "Kill them all, surely the Lord discerns which ones are His." Irreplaceable art and monuments were desecrated and melted for coin. Ancient libraries were destroyed. Muslims, tit for tat, did likewise. Both sides justified it in the name of their gods and holy books.
 
An estimated nine million people and countless animals died miserable deaths during the 200 years of the Crusades.
 
Vanity, greed, corruption, factionalism, power mongering, and internecine battles occurred within each religion. It seems their gods were fickle, wavering between which enemy or faction to starve, mutilate, torture, and slaughter.
 
The perfectly just Creator of the universe can't be found anywhere in these acts. Only people doing the evil they can do, particularly when the state merges with religion and people abandon conscience in favor of man-made religions. Where Muslim and Christian communities merged after a conquest or treaty and followed common decency toward one another, bishops would be sent to put an end to such devil's play. Christians who were enjoying the ungodly Mideastern custom of bathing were also set straight.
 
Cycles of religious revenge continue to this day with no denoument. The Crusades are thought to be the beginning of east gods meeting west gods and the current Mideast animosity. However, godly Persians, Greeks, Huns, Goths, Avars, Romans, and Byzantines warred and mutilated one another back and forth for thousands of years prior. Who struck the first blow thousands of years prior to the Crusades is unknown. But religious justification was always there.

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​The Inquisition was begun in 1184 by Pope Lucius III and continued into the nineteenth century. Truth became whatever could be elicited by a tortured confession (trial by ordeal), not what the truth naturally was. Even young children were tried and any accusation by anyone was permitted. Defenses were not tolerated. Crimes included changing bedding on a Friday, not eating pork, dressing in certain ways, wearing earrings, speaking in foreign languages, owning foreign books, casual swearing, criticizing a priest, and failing to show due reverence to the Inquisitors. The accused had to confess to sins even though they were not told what they were accused of. Torture continued until they guessed the right sin, went mad, died, or committed suicide.
 
The accused had to pay for all trial and torture expenses, including wine, meals, travel expenses, and fees for guards, judges, torturers, and executioners. What remained of the accused's estate usually went to the Catholic church. Children of accused rich people were left to beg and starve in the streets. This was so profitable that dead people were dug up, tried, and their heirs disinherited of possessions.
 
The shedding of blood was proscribed, but that made any other macabre and sadistic torture fair game. Disemboweling innocent people in front of their families could be done with little bloodletting. Squassation was also bloodless. In this godly torture, the accused's hands were tied behind the back, and then the victim was hoisted into the air by the wrists. Weights could be tied to the feet so that when the victim was released and then jolted to a stop before reaching the ground, the shoulders would be completely disarticulated.
 
Devices were invented that could be used to crush bones and heads and stretch mouths and joints to create as much pain as possible—without blood. Death and unconsciousness were the only things that limited pain.

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​Anyone could be accused of heresy, such as denying that god took the stars out of his treasure chest each evening to hang them from the dome of the heavens (Saint Philastrius). To make sure a person was telling the truth, they would be "put to the question." If under torture the contumacious heretic still denied the charge and refused to repent, and there was any evidence (like the word of an accuser) that they were guilty, they could then be put to death. For those who later withdrew their confession, they would be put to death at the stake as a relapsed heretic. Putting them high above the fire to slow roast was preferred.
 
If the persecutors could have found a way to torture someone forever, imagining they were emulating the Bible god's eternal hell, they would have gladly cranked the screws or stoked the fire endlessly.
 
Having gathered the always sure confession, the clerics would set the innocent and pathetic victims—no longer able to walk or even close their mouths from the fractures and disarticulations—in a collapsed heap on the street to succumb to disease and starvation.
 
Even the more reasonable philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, fulminated about heresy and sanctioned burning witches at the stake. He was sainted. What else could Aquinas preach, since the Bible god said, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18; Deuteronomy 18:10-12) Most everyone who was accused and then tortured admitted to the crime. As for the argument that torture can cause people to confess anything, the holy clerics had a perfectly logical reply: If people were telling the truth, god would give them the strength to not admit to a lie.
 
Some estimate eleven million women were killed as witches. The old, widowed, ugly, mentally disturbed and epileptics were fitting suspects. Burning witches saved the rest of the population from these mortal demons who shapeshifted into cats, and molded candles out of human fat to make themselves invisible. Besides, witches were going to end up being burned forever anyway, so why not help the Bible god by giving them a head start?
 
Other participants in this incredible brutality included the protestant, John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church, and Martin Luther.
 
The inquisitors reasoned that it was the evil, the sin they were punishing, not the person. How could one be too cruel to evil, sin, or the devil? Besides, what's a little torture and murder if you are saving a soul for eternity? A torturer didn't even need a thick skin since any cries of pain were just a ruse by victims to elicit sympathy, a mere ploy to free them so they could continue to do the devil's work. The impassible Inquisitors were never fooled. They knew better since all of the devil's minions were immune to pain.
 
One woman was thought possessed because she didn't make the sign of the cross before eating a head of lettuce. She explained that she did not know the devil was sitting on the lettuce. A priest took care of that by exorcizing the evil spirit off the head of lettuce, thus absolving the woman. Since the Bible says Jesus once put evil spirits in some pigs, then obviously creatures could be home to demons. A rooster was unaccountably found with an egg. He was tried in a solemn court of justice and burnt as a sorcerer. St. Bernard excommunicated a swarm of flies that irreverently interrupted his sermon.
 
Cats were viewed as agents of the devil and killed with impunity. An unintended consequence was the proliferation of rats carrying the Black Death that killed almost half of Europe's population in the Middle Ages.
 
The ill were persecuted for the impiety of seeking medical relief rather than paying for holy relics and using saints' bones. Illness and disease were thought of as divine providence, and trying to interfere with it would surely make the Bible god even angrier. Surgery was forbidden and believed unnecessary because the savior, not a knife, was the way to cast out demons. There was also the danger of fiddling with a bone residing somewhere in the torso that was the nucleus of the resurrection body. Imagine the disaster if a surgeon removed that by accident or shifted it out of place such that a patient might head off in the wrong direction after death. Anesthetics for childbirth were disallowed because experiencing Eve's curse of the pain of childbirth was a divine duty.
Railroads and telegraphs were pronounced as heralds of the antichrist. Natural gas was opposed because it was the noxious emanation from the bowels of the Earth where evil spirits resided. A petition presented to the American Congress in 1864 condemned the extraction of petroleum from the Earth since the Bible god was obviously storing it there as fuel for the conflagration of Armageddon. Life insurance was seen as an evil attempt to thwart the will of god.
 
Mennonite, Amish, Mormon, Jewish and other clannish religious groups suffer terribly due to the inbreeding that is encouraged (if not mandated) by their Bible god. There are some fifty genetic diseases endemic in these groups so far identified. The misery this misguided attempt at Biblical homogenous purity, racism, and supremacism has visited on families is incalculable.

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​There is a verse in the Bible that says "By their works you will know them." When this is applied inwardly to religious institutions and their history, the conclusion that they are human-made is unavoidable.
 
Modern religions set aside their past evils. You know, those folks way back then just didn't have the spiritual insight modern religions have. So, citing scripture, forgive and forget. Infallibility marches on.
 
However, a thinking person cannot forgive and forget an immoral tradition. Particularly is this so when the underlying sin and hubris of attributing holy book cruelty and injustice to the Creator persists.
 
Today, children are sent off to holy book classes that celebrate a god who takes joy in killing babies and commanding parents to stone to death children who backtalk. Religions create an ominous lingering potential for the resurgence of atrocities should the state ever unleash them to do as their holy books demand.