20. What questions arise regarding religion and history?

²⁰ Certainly world history must give us pause and make us wonder what role religion has played in the many wars that have devastated mankind and caused untold suffering. Why have so many people killed and been killed in the name of religion? The Crusades, the Inquisition, the conflicts in the Middle East and Northern Ireland, the slaughter between Iraq and Iran (1980-88), the Hindu-Sikh clashes in India​—all these events certainly make thinking people raise questions about religious beliefs and ethics.​—See box below.

21. What are some examples of Christendom’s fruitage?

²¹ The realm of Christendom has been noteworthy for its hypocrisy in this field. In two world wars, Catholic has killed Catholic and Protestant has killed Protestant at the behest of their “Christian” political leaders. Yet the Bible clearly contrasts the works of the flesh and the fruitage of the spirit. Regarding the works of the flesh, it states: “They are fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct, idolatry, practice of spiritism, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, contentions, divisions, sects, envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and things like these. As to these things I am forewarning you, the same way as I did forewarn you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s kingdom.” Yet so-called Christians have practiced these things for centuries, and their conduct has often been condoned by their clergy.​—Galatians 5:19-21.

[Box on page 14]

Religion, Love, and Hatred

▪ “Religious wars tend to be extra furious. When people fight over territory for economic advantage, they reach the point where the battle isn’t worth the cost and so compromise. When the cause is religious, compromise and conciliation seem to be evil.”​—Roger Shinn, professor of social ethics, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

▪ “Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it . . . Where true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thousand.”​—Charles Caleb Colton (1825).

▪ “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”​—Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).

▪ “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”​—Blaise Pascal (1623-62).

▪ “The true purpose of a higher religion is to radiate the spiritual counsels and truths that are its essence into as many souls as it can reach, in order that each of these souls may be enabled thereby to fulfil the true end of Man. Man’s true end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever.”​—Arnold Toynbee, historian.