"What bile and hatred, "
Not really G.G. - it is the influence weilded by those in a position to spiritually blackmail us into doing their will and to accept what they hand out which does the evil, not what any particular spirtual group calls itself.
Religion can, and often is a power for good, it can be, and often is a massive power for evil - and it is evil to suggest, as has been here, that one persecutor is any worse or better than another, or that one spiritual ifluence is any more or less dangerous than another.
It is the power to spiritually manipulate that is the cause of all religious persecution.
Jim Carroll