Because I said this:

"It is aggravating, but not surprising, when the religious apologists chime in on cases like this with "it's not religion". Sorry, but it is. These people were not executed because of their perceived hostility to broccoli, or synchronised swimming, or the novels of Ernest Hemingway."

Joe O lumps me in with the more virulent anti-religious poosters, and replies with this:
   
"Yeah, OK, it's about religion - but what we object to, is the implication that it's about ALL religion. We are religious people, and believe it or not, we're not like that at all."


But in my post, I *also* said this:

"Religions are big, baggy discourses and they can be interpreted in many ways, and they often inspire people to do great things. They also, evidently, inspire people to do appalling things."

So I'd prefer not to be tarnished by selective quotation (although selective quotation from religious texts is a frequent device beloved by hard-core zealots - a category to which Joe does not belong, but you get my point, I hope).

The point I war aiming to make was those the in relgious lobby (or lobbies) can't have it both ways. You can't say religion causes great good, but when it leads to great harm, it's only a 'pretext' or some such phrase. If it's just a pretext in the bad cass, it's just a pretext in the good cases.

My favourite painter ever is El Greco, and I don't doubt for one second that the driving force of his astonishing art was a profound and sincere religious faith.

At the same time in the same place (17th century Spain), the Inquisition were torturing, mutilating and slaughtering their victims, motivated by the self-same intensely-held faith.

You just can't play the 'it's a prextext if we don't like the outcome' card. It just shows, as I said in my first post, that religious faith drives people in both hugely laudable and utterly despicable directions (stopping offand of course at various along the spectrum in between).

So I suggest to those of you 'with faith' that you don't pick fights which those of us who are contented non-believers, but with those who (in your eyes) mangle and misinterpret and discredit your system of belief.