If religion is responsible for creating ethical behavior, why did Christians murder millions?

Question

The Christian Church has a very long and well-known history of murdering anyone that didn't agree with their opinions. It wasn't until the development of Democracy and Free Speech that rational people were able to speak out against the human atrocity called religion. If following the bible and loving God inspired Christians to slaughter millions in the numerous Crusades and Inquisitions, wouldn't todays Christians still be burning people at the stake if they had their way? Why or why not?

Answer 1

the early church is an abomination to Christianity today. there's no denying the past but it was mans doing and not based on any scripture to persecute other religions. man has used religion to gain power; does that make religion bad or man bad ?

Answer 2

Good question...but you have to narrow the term "Christian" down... Catholics and Protestants are both called Christians. But only one is a true Christian. Christian in its literal sense means follower of Christ. Protestants match that definition better then Catholics do, and your cited reference about the crusades proves my point. The Catholics were the ones involved in the crusades, NOT the Protestants...

Let me ask you a question... Did Jesus ever go around burning the churches and homes of those that didn't believe in him? Did Jesus go around burning those that taught different then Him? Did Jesus go around terrorizing all those that didn't whole-heartily follow him? Let me answer those questions for you... NO HE DID NOT!

The Catholics were not following the teachings of Christ when they were involved in the crusades and the inquisitions. They were following the teachings and desires of their pope/leaders.

The crusades were fought primarily by knights who were called upon to fight for the Catholic Church... It was not a "Holy" war... It was a war to gain land and riches for the church.

Would they still be doing it today if there were no laws against it? Well, I don't know... probably... not to justify their actions, but wouldn't everybody be doing as they pleased if there were no laws against what they wished to do.

In summary... The Catholics fought the holy wars, not the protestants (true Christians). They were not following the teachings of Jesus when they did fight those wars. People have to learn that there is a difference between Protestants and Catholics. Look back into History and you will find that all the brutality was carried out by the Catholics. With the exception of a few true Christians that were harsh to those that disagreed with their teachings. Which, no matter who does it, is wrong.

Answer 3

Scuse me, don't you study history? Ever hear of Mao Tse Tung? Josef Stalin? Adolph Hitler? The first wasn't even Christian, but he managed to bring about the painful demise of more than 45 million people in ONE lifetime: forget about centuries!

Stalin offed more than 36 million with his policies and in just about that many years. And we all, I think, know about Hitler. These were men who barely gave lip service to Christianity and dropped even that like a hot rock as soon as they came to power. Christians do NOT have a corner on the nasty market!

Why not ask why ALL human beings succumb to the universal predilection for violence against others?

And democracy is what Mao claimed he was offering, btw. The Democratic People's Republic of China. Stalin gave eastern Europe the Soviet Socialist Republics.

Now let's talk about totally NON-Christian baddies. Tamerlane (Timur-y-Leng), Genghis Khan, Antiochus, Herod the Great, Attila the Hun, all non-Christians who did a remarkably thorough job of destroying lives by the multitude.

Being rotten is a HUMAN thing, twit, NOT a Christian thing or a Jewish thing, or a Muslim thing or any other religion thing.

It is to most whose IQ's are higher than that of a begonia, prima facie evidence of the contention that humanity is fallen in nature and NEEDS salvation, or total extinction. Personally, I prefer the former. How 'bout you?

Answer 4

Religion is exactly that but it is not religion that killed people, it is the interpretation of its followers that did it and to think that's how many hundreds of years ago? Even nowadays, there are still religious persecution and the Catholics have already graduated and have matured from that. So who is doing it now? The self proclaimed modern day Christians who only see the fault and not the faith? At least, during those times they were only burning the flesh but now the self righteous ones are burning the soul? So, who's worse?

Answer 5

Ironically, the original preacher of christianity preached love and tolerance. Quite a different behavior is observed in the average christian of today. My opinion is that the idea is good but the people that follow it are not.

As an atheist, most people are surprised when I say that I hate organized religion but I don't mind religion. Organized religion means that either one man or a group of them holds influence over the congregation. Religion means that men can believe what they will and need no one to tell them how to do it.

Answer 6

Religion does NOT create ethical behavior, as history has shown again and again. Christians can deny this all they want to, but the record is there for anyone to see. They will say that those people weren't REAL Christians, as if they have any right to make such a judgement. If a guy calling himself a Christian is threatening to pour acid down your throat (one particularly nasty form of Medieval torture for heretics), you tend not to question his religious convictions or make a distinction between "real" and "not real." A Christian is a Christian.

The way religion works is by creating an "us vs. them" mentality. WE are God's chosen ones, he likes us best, we're his favorites, everything that happens is for our sake, etc. Those who are not God's chosen ones are viewed as lesser humans and it's okay to treat them with disdain, contempt, and even violence. Read the Old Testament for evidence of this. God gave laws to Moses stating that it was okay to take slaves of the surrounding nations, but not of the native Israelites. Why? Because the Israelites were chosen, the other nations were not. God also frequently gave commands to the Israelites to destroy the Midianites, the Canaanites, etc., and to show them no mercy. They were often ordered to kill everyone, including infants and pregnant women. God did not love the other nations or care about them, he only cared about Israel because that was his chosen people. It was "us vs. them" on a grand and horrifying scale, and always approved by God.

Christians nowadays are no different. They still speak of themselves in terms of being "chosen" by God for a special purpose--and if they are chosen, that means others are not...and that means that God loves them more than those others. It then becomes easy to dehumanize the non-chosen ones, to regard them as less than worthy of God's love. This "us vs. them" mentality can hardly be said to be ethical if it leads to such atrocities as the Inquisitions, the witch hunts, the Crusades, the Holocaust, abortion clinic burnings, and harassment and murder of gays.

Answer 7

You couldn't be more accurate about the killing part, and in particular this is true of the Catholic Church. Not a bias, but an historical fact.

As for current Xtians, the Fundamentalists among them want to burn homos at the stake right now, and Muslims, and "liberals, whatever they are.

Religion: God made in man's own image.
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Answer 8

A lot of people love to kill those who disagree with them, both now and in ancient times. Simply 'cause medieval Christianity was the easiest way for people to gain power doesn't mean it's Christianity itself that wanted to kill people. It's not that the church made people kill other people, it's that people made the church kill other people.

Remember that behind every organization is humans.

Answer 9

The majority of religious people don't want to take responsibility for their actions, the problem is every one thinks that they are right , if would take the time to disagree in a peaceful matter they would learn something instead of everyone should think like me to be right.

Answer 10

Christians had to create the evil behaviors and convince everyone else to behave in that manner so they could change and then take responsibility for fixing the world's problems.