Four questions for Christians

[Consilius]

Religion has been used many times to control people with large-scale results. That does not take away from the integrity of religion or its ability to do good.

That is exactly what it takes away. To forget the ways that people have been manipulated into genocidal tendencies throughout history is very dangerous for us as a species.

To say that the first thing the Spanish monarchy thought of when she heard of an enormous landmass full of people across the sea was turning them into Christians would be like saying that the goal of the Crusades was to evangelize.

Christanity was used as a crutch to butcher 97 % of the population of South America with war and disease, the question of whether or not conversion was the purpose is actually moot considering conversion is every good christian's duty. Were there christians on the boats? yes. Did they build a church and start conversion shortly after they landed? It is reasonable to believe so.

They were weak labels that were given to get people's support.

And they still are.

"H.E.J. Cowdrey, a well respected scholar whom I often look to for council, claims Pope Urban II saw the defense of the Byzantine Empire as a primary reason for calling for the First Crusade. If our Christian brothers to the east can see how strong our faith is in the Lord, then they will be persuaded to adopt our views and be brought back into the light."

If it was defense then why did they murder 10,000 jews on the way to Jerusalem? This is along the lines of your argument that "Jew" applies to race along with religion to which I have to say I admire your skewed point of view, it must be so easy to accept everything according to your own rule. I don't see the difference. I find it hard to see a reality where Hitler didn't persecute the religion of the jews, but simply their race.

However, Hitler did have some Christian motives. He drew back on his Catholic upbringing and his German heritage to become an antisemite. It's not hard to use the Bible that way.

Yes, you are correct. I understand that people will do individual immoral things with or without god, but I am positing that exclusively with religion is the control of genocide on such an epic scale. 270+million dead under the cruel regime of christianity and you can't help but apologize for it because your god cannot. It's rather sad.

I'm not making up excuses for anything. Christianity has been used around the world to commit atrocities. And God was there, watching, this brings up the question of evil.
But I see something inspiring in the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used the same holy book that Hitler used to massacre by the thousands, that the Pope had used to separate Christians from 'heathens', to bring people together and make them into equals.
Under religion, people have died, and under the same banner, people have followed what is in the Bible to the letter. We see Hitler and Urban all the time because the monsters of history get our attention. For centuries after Jesus, people peacefully died in thousands because of the faith that Chrisitianity prescribed. Joan of Arc saved the nation of France. Maximilian Kolbe was a priest who died protecting Jews in the Holocaust. But under every king, thousands of people have lived and died doing what Christianity is, and that was by simple being the Christians God wanted them to be.