Quote from darkhorse:
I think perhaps the crusade / atheist debate misses a more important point.
If millions were murdered in the name of the crusades, and millions were murdered in the name of communism (Stalin), and millions were murdered in the name of fascism (Hitler, Japan), and millions were murdered in the name of racial superiority, and millions were murdered just for sport (it was considered lawful to hunt aborigines in Australia for much of the 20th century), then what is the common thread?
The common thread is that there are people out there who tend to support, and participate, in mass murder on a large scale for various reasons that appear to be statistically interchangeable.
The broader lesson here is that it makes no more sense to say Christianity intrinsically supports mass murder than it does to say communism supports mass murder or that democracy supports mass murder. The "in the name of" is an add-on, because every mass murderer in history would say that their actions were for the good of ____ (fill in the blank).
The debate usually comes up because an atheist points a finger at a Christian and talks about how awful the crusades were. But this intrinsic assignment of blame misses the point that the event itself is not necessarily connected to a religious philosophy, and indeed misses the point that more people have been murdered, in sheer numbers, under the guise of materialistic and nationalist philosophies. If there were no finger pointing towards the crusades, the general response that Stalin and Mao were murderers too would not be forthcoming.
Because the tendency to dominate and kill is intrinsic to human nature, there is no safety, and no necessary benefit, to stamping out religion. A modern, "civilized" society that was completely devoid of all spiritual consideration could still easily decide to take a genocidal course of action if it were deemed to be in their best interest.
