Religions ugliest/craziest side

I've maintained the position that religion is primarily driven by people seeking power. They use their "religious teachings" to gain political power (of course Machiavelli wrote about this at some length). The "teachings" gain momentum based on a combination of people's education, gullibility or desire to believe in some "cause" for their troubles and economic situation. (In rich countries it seems it is primarily based on the desire to believe in some "cause" for their troubles which are usual very simple such as they spend all there time in front of the TV so they have no friends and thus no joy).

In Africa the "teachings" haven't changed much since the 16th century. As seen by this incident where a children's aid conference was distributed by "150 members of the Christian witch-hunter Helen Ukpabio’s Liberty Gospel Church reportedly overpowered the non-combative participants, invading the conference and subjecting attendees to threats, violence and physical attacks." (emphasis added). Video

Modern day western religious people may scoff at witches and witch burnings/huntings as unenlightened. I find that odd since the core of their religion is at least a millennium (for Muslims, 1400 years for Christians and around 2400 for Jews) older!! It's like someone who started smoking cigarettes, moved to cigars and then changed their mind that cigars are unhealthy and unrefined so they went back to cigarettes... they are still smoking!

At least this puts things in perspective. When a redneck want to put the 10 commandment on a courthouse lawn at least he's not stringing people up calling them a witch and burning them to death.