Religion: Faith or Excuse

It seems like religion has just become an excuse to commit violent acts. When we hear about religion nowadays on the news, it is almost always in a negative light. Personally, I don't believe religion should be the cause of problems or suffering in the world. Religion should be about peace, helping others and just trying your best to be generous. People should not quake in fear at the name of a particular religion. Also, religion is not by force and salvation is personal. You cannot force belief down someone's throat. Dragging someone to a religious place does nothing to help them, especially if they don't believe in whatever you are preaching about.
Pretty nasty things have been done in the name of religion. I want to talk about some of them, both past and present. I am not castigating any religion, I am in fact Catholic. I will try my best to talk in an unbias manner about the religions I will highlight. If anybody feels I have been particularly unfair about a religion, then you can also comment about it.

1. Christianity

I could go on and on about this but I will only talk about a few. The false trial of Saint Joan of Arc, the witch trials which led to the widespread outbreak of the plague because the plague was spread by rats, but their natural predators cats had been excessively hunted because they were thought to be the familiars of witches. The Inquisition, The Crusades and so many other occurrences.
Yes, all these happened in the past but they still happened. The church sanctioned the torture of human beings, irrespective of man, woman or child over the most stupid of excuses.
2. Islam

The jihads which are holy wars but nowadays, the Holy part seems to be missing. That statement is paradoxical. Ethnic cleansing of kashmiri Hindus, terrorist attacks like the bombing of the Twin Towers in America and more.
There are so much more examples that go on in this vein.
3. Buddhism

Human sacrifices occurred in Buddhist Burma in the 1850's. Men, Women and children would be buried alive to appease the gods.
4. Hinduism

The thuggee sect in the 1800's used to strangle people and sacrifice them to the goddess Kali. Although it was abolished by the British rulers later.
5. Incan

At special religious ceremonies, 200 children would be slaughtered while a group of specially chosen women would be strangled.
All these examples above show that nobody has a right to judge. There are so much more examples, even more gruesome in Nature. So, let peace reign and let's stop using religion as an excuse to wreak havoc on our fellow human beings.

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