So, just what are we talking about?

[Taem]

But also, correlation does not indicate causality.  "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely".  When I look in the history books I see that most often when coalitions of humans wield power, they use it against their opposition minority.  This was also true in ancient Chinese, and Indian histories that predate western histories by thousands of years.  Sometimes the coalition is based on a common religion, but more often it is based on racial, geographic, or secular rule.  So, I think that persecution occurs in the enforcement of morality, or the enforcement of a philosophy, or the enforcement of unjust laws.  The common ground is the enforcement of "The Majority" beliefs upon the minority individual.

Tis true. I'm not arguing that most historical incidents occurred to oppress a minority or were using religion as a facade. I'm trying to point out that people who claim to be doing things “in the name of god” aren't always holy. This original thread was started on the premise of two friends bickering over The Passion of the Christ, and I thought to myself, how foolish is it that a movie made by a man, not god himself, causes people to fight over what is right and what is wrong with the movie. If they want truth to their own belief, they can pick up their own bibles, read them, and formulate their own thoughts on what happened, not argue over someone else’s viewpoint. I used the “science” and “historical reference” bit to point out that even if Mel Gibson claimed god himself handed him the script, it doesn’t make it holy if he couldn’t prove it because there are plenty of things done in gods name that aren’t holy.