Quote:Dawkins and Hitchens always bring up historical atrocities too, which isn't really an argument against anything, they start by pointing out that x believed y and also did horrible things but then say therefore y = cause of x, which is just poor reasoning.
Hmmm.....Hitchens' book is about 'how religion poisons everything'. God is a secondary consideration. Religion certainly does exist and when religious people torture and kill others specifically because they believe in a different sky-daddy then I disagree with you. The reasoning is apparent. When Cardinal Torquemada had people killed for being heretics it most definitely is because of religion. Sometimes you have to take people at their word.
Quote:Wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of the Saracens [Muslims] were beheaded ... Others were shot with arrows, or forced to jump from the towers; others were tortured for several days, then burned with flames. In the streets were seen piles of heads and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere amid the corpses of men and horses. In the temple of Solomon, the horses waded in the blood up to their knees, nay, up to the bridle. It was a just and marvelous judgement of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers.
-- Raymond of Aguilers
Praise fucking jesus!
