Religion as the root of all evil?
There are plenty of non-believers busy telling me what damage Christianity has done throughout history. The Crusades. The Inquisition. The witch burnings.
And you know what? They are right.
Humans have abused religion to oppress other humans all through history. I don’t deny that. I have never denied that. I will never deny that.
But then let me take the rest of the ledger. The part they never mention.
Because there are also ideologies without God. And they have their own numbers.
Communism: around 100 million dead. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. In less than a century.
Nazism: an ideology built on race instead of God. Six million Jews. Millions of others.
That is more than all religious wars in history. Combined. Read that again!
And here is the pattern the critics refuse to see. Or refuse to admit.
Religion is not the problem. Man is. Give man an idea that can justify power, and some will abuse it. With a cross, with a crescent, with a hammer and sickle.
But there is one difference that means everything. When a Christian oppresses, he betrays his own teaching. “Love your enemy” is what it says. He has to break with the text to do it.
And that is why no tyrant in Christendom ever got away with it for long. The text itself worked against him. The king stood under God’s law, never above it. The prophet Nathan confronts King David with his crime - and the king has to bow. “We must obey God rather than men” sits in the Scripture like a bomb under every throne. A ruler could abuse the faith, but he could never own it. The text always belonged to a higher court - and sooner or later, someone read it aloud.
When communism killed, it followed its own texts. “The forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions” - that is the Manifesto’s own words. Liquidating the class enemy was not an excess. It was official policy.
And yes, religion is still being abused today. Christianity too. But in the Christian world it is the exception. The deviation. Something we ourselves condemn.
Why? Because Christianity went through reformation, self-criticism and enlightenment. It learned to separate God from power. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” was there from the beginning, waiting to be taken seriously.
Islam never went through that process. There is no separation between religion and political power. Sharia is not a private faith. It is a legal system. Always remember that! A LEGAL SYSTEM!
And how is that going?
Ask the women in Iran. Ask the Christians in Nigeria. Ask the Jews in Europe.
Never judge an idea by its traitors. Judge it by what happens when people do exactly what it says.🪽✝️❤️🔥