Vegetarianism and Militancy

Violent protest and militancy seem to go hand-in-hand with left-wing movements. Such movements are heavily populated by vegetarians and vegans.

Earth First! PETA and other militant organizations often will attack restaurants which serve meat such as McDonald's or KFC. Have you ever seen meat-eaters attack a vegetable stand? The majority of these protesters are vegetarians.

Animal rights activists (vegans) have been murdering and attempting to murder high profile individuals for decades and the press barely mentions the fact that they are left wing vegetarians.

Starting from Charles Manson (a vegan) and his girlfriend Squeaky Fromme (who attempted to kill President Ford) to people like Fran Stephanie Trutt who attempted to murder the president of US Surgical there has been a litany of vegan killer lunatics that continues to this day.

As we know, when it needs food, our body indicates this to us with the feeling of hunger. But there are also other signals if specific nutrients are deficient. Meat is the best source of several nutrients. When our bodies are deficient in these, we become irritable and aggressive. This is a perfectly natural signal built into our genetic make-up over our evolution: our bodies are telling us to go out and kill something to eat. This is why strict vegetarians tend to be so vociferous. It is a trait that was recognised long ago; it was, after all, the vegetarian Cain who killed the carnivorous Abel, not the other way round. The vegan Kikuyu tribe in Kenya were the perpetrators of the murderous Mau Mau in the 1950s, not their wholly carnivorous, but peaceful, neighbours, the Maasai.

When man made the transition from a hunter-gatherer to an agrarian who farmed the land, not only did he need to begin building fences, but this necessitated the conquest of more land and in place of slaughtering animals, he began slaughtering his fellow humans.

Many hunter-gatherer societies around the world were pushed to extinction by agriculturalists and farmers who ate a largely vegetarian diet.

Vegans and vegetarians will protest fast food chains and even butcher shops. Some of these protests have resulted in vandalism and worse. They protest the killing of cute little cuddly animals, yet these same protesters protest for abortion, or the killing of human babies!

But they are more moral than we are. Right.

So if it's wrong to kill baby animals, why is it right to kill baby humans?

Do you think these young vegan lads could answer you?

The second sign which is partially obscured by the "Euthanize Christians" statement proudly says "Baby Killer".

Notice the lack of leather on these two vegans.

They are probably very kind to animals and the environment. From the looks of their scrawny physiques, they haven't eaten meat in ages. Judging from their display of aggressive militancy, one could safely conclude that they are vegans.

Islamic Terrorism - Organizations & Acts (2)

Lebanon

Hezbollah

Hezbollah is a Shi'a Islamist political and paramilitary organisation based in Lebanon. Hezbollah is also a major provider of social services, which operate schools, hospitals, and agricultural services for thousands of Lebanese Shi'a, and plays a significant force in Lebanese politics. Many governments, including Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, have condemned actions by Hezbollah while Syria and Iran have stated they support it. The United States, Egypt, Israel, Australia and Canada, regard it in whole or in part as a terrorist organization.

Hezbollah first emerged in 1982 as a militia in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, also known as Operation Peace for Galilee, set on resisting the Israeli occupation of Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. Its leaders were inspired by the ayatollah Khomeini, and its forces were trained and organized by a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its three main goals as "putting an end to any colonialist entity" in Lebanon, bringing the Phalangists to justice for "the crimes they [had] perpetrated," and the establishment of an Islamic regime in Lebanon. Hezbollah leaders have also made numerous statements calling for the destruction of Israel, which they refer to as a "Zionist entity... built on lands wrested from their owners."

Hezbollah, which started with only a small militia, has grown to an organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite television-station, and programs for social development. Hezbollah maintains strong support among Lebanon's Shi'a population, and gained a surge of support from Lebanon's broader population (Sunni, Christian, Druze) immediately following the 2006 Lebanon War, and is able to mobilize demonstrations of hundreds of thousands. Hezbollah alongside with some other groups began the 2006–2008 Lebanese political protests in opposition to the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. A later dispute over Hezbollah preservation of its telecoms network led to clashes and Hezbollah-led opposition fighters seized control of several West Beirut neighborhoods from Future Movement militiamen loyal to Fouad Siniora. These areas were then handed over to the Lebanese Army. A national unity government was formed in 2008, giving Hezbollah and its opposition allies control of eleven of thirty cabinets seats; effectively veto power.

Hezbollah receives its financial support from the governments of Iran and Syria, as well as donations from Lebanese people and foreign Shi'as. It has also gained significantly in military strength in the 2000s. Despite a June 2008 certification by the United Nations that Israel had withdrawn from all Lebanese territory,[134] in August, Lebanon's new Cabinet unanimously approved a draft policy statement which secures Hezbollah's existence as an armed organization and guarantees its right to "liberate or recover occupied lands." Since 1992, the organization has been headed by Hassan Nasrallah, its Secretary-General.

Fatah al-Islam

Fatah al-Islam is an Islamist group operating out of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. It was formed in November 2006 by fighters who broke off from the pro-Syrian Fatah al-Intifada, itself a splinter group of Fatah, and is led by a Palestinian fugitive militant named Shaker al-Abssi. The group's members have been described as militant jihadists, and the group itself has been described as a terrorist movement that draws inspiration from al-Qaeda. Its stated goal is to reform the Palestinian refugee camps under Islamic sharia law, and its primary targets are Israel and the United States. Lebanese authorities have accused the organization of being involved in the 13 February 2007 bombing of two minibuses that killed three people, and injured more than 20 others, in Ain Alaq, Lebanon, and identified four of its members as having confessed to the bombing. consider it, or a part of it, to be a terrorist group responsible for blowing up the American embassy and later its annex, as well as the barracks of American and French peacekeeping troops and a dozens of kidnappings of foreigners in Beirut. It is also accused of being the recipient of massive aid from Iran, and of serving "Iranian foreign policy calculations and interests," or serving as a "subcontractor of Iranian initiatives" Hezbollah denies any involvement or dependence on Iran.

In the Arab and Muslim worlds, on the other hand, Hezbollah is regarded as a legitimate and successful resistance movement that drove both Western powers and Israel out of Lebanon. In 2005, the Lebanese Prime Minister said of Hezbollah, it "is not a militia. It's a resistance."

-------------------------------------------------------

Israel and the Palestinian territories

Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades

Hamas

Hamas, ("zeal" in Arabic and an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya), began support for attacks on military and civilian targets in Israel at the beginning of the First Intifada in 1987. As the Muslim Brotherhood organization for Palestine its leadership was made up of "intellectuals from the devout middle class,... respectable religious clerics, doctors, chemists, engineers, and teachers.

The 1988 charter of Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel, and it still states its goal to be the elimination of Israel. Its "military wing" has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in Israel, principally suicide bombings. Hamas has also been accused of sabotaging the Israeli-Palestine peace process by launching attacks on civilians during Israeli elections to anger Israeli voters and facilitate the election of harder-line Israeli candidates. For example, "a series of spectacular suicide attacks by Palestinians that killed 63 Israelis and led directly to the election victory of Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party on 29 May 1996."

Hamas justifies these attacks as necessary in fighting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, and as responses to Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets. The wider movement also serves as a charity organization and provides services to Palestinians.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by the European Union, Canada, the United States, Israel, Australia, Japan, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and Human Rights Watch. However Russia does not consider Hamas a terrorist group as it was democratically elected.


Islamic Jihad

Islamic Jihad is a Palestinian Islamist group based in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and dedicated to waging jihad to eliminate the state of Israel. It was formed by Egyptian Fathi Shaqaqi in the Gaza Strip following the Iranian Revolution which inspired its members. From 1983 onward, it engaged in "a succession of violent, high-profile attacks" on Israeli targets. The intifada which "it eventually sparked" was quickly taken over by the much larger Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas. Beginning in September 2000, it started a campaign of suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians. It is currently led by Sheikh Abdullah Sheikh Abdullah Ramadan.

The PIJ's armed wing, the Al-Quds brigades, has claimed responsibility for numerous militant attacks in Israel, including suicide bombings. The group has been designated as a terrorist organization by several Western countries.

-------------------------------------------------------

North Africa

Armed Islamic Group

The Armed Islamic Group, active in Algeria between 1992 and 1998, was one of the most violent Islamic terrorist groups, and is thought to have takfired the Muslim population of Algeria. Its campaign to overthrow the Algerian government included civilian massacres, which sometimes wiping out entire villages in its area of operation (see List of Algerian massacres of the 1990s; notably the Bentalha massacre and Rais massacre, among others.) It also targeted foreigners living in Algeria killing more than 100 expatriate men and women in the country. The group's favored technique was the kidnapping of victims and slitting their throats although it also used assassination by gun and bombings, including car bombs. Outside of Algeria, the GIA established a presence in France, Belgium, Britain, Italy and the United States. In recent years it has been eclipsed by a splinter group, The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), now called Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.

-------------------------------------------------------

Southeast Asia

Abu Sayyaf Group

The Abu Sayyaf Group also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya is one of several militant Islamist separatist groups based in and around the southern islands of the Philippines, in Bangsamoro (Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao) where for almost 30 years various Muslim groups have been engaged in an insurgency for a state, independent of the predominantly Christian Philippines. The name of the group is derived from the Arabic, abu ("father of") and sayyaf ("Swordsmith").

Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, rapes, and extortion in their fight for an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago with the stated goal of creating a pan-Islamic superstate across southeast Asia, spanning from east to west; the island of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, the island of Borneo (Malaysia, Indonesia), the South China Sea, and the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar).

The U.S. Department of State has branded the group a terrorist entity by adding it to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Islamic Terrorism - Organizations & Acts (1)

South Asia
The major countries affected by terrorism in South Asia are India and Pakistan.

Lashkar-e-Toiba
Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Taiba is a terrorist group that seeks the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir's accession to Pakistan. It has committed mass terrorist actions against Indian troops and civilians Indians. The Lashkar leadership describes Indian and Israeli regimes as the main enemies of Islam, claiming India and Israel to be the main enemies of Pakistan. Lashkar-e-Toiba, along with Jaish-e-Mohammed, another terrorist group active in Kashmir are on the United States’ foreign terrorist organizations list. They are also designated as terrorist groups by the United Kingdom, India, Australia and Pakistan.

Jaish-e-Mohammed
Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammed (often abbreviated as JEM) is a major Islamic terrorist organization in South Asia. Jaish-e-Mohammed was formed in 1994 and is based in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The group's primary objective is to separate Kashmir from India, and it has carried out a series of attacks all over India.
The group was formed after the supporters of Maulana Masood Azhar split from another Islamic militant organization, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Islamic terrorist Masood Azhar was freed in exchange for hijacked passengers of an Indian Airlines flight. On achieving his freedom, the murderer set about killing thousands more to achieve his goals of a Kashmir free from India. The group gets considerable funding from Pakistani expatriates in the United Kingdom and the UAE. The group is regarded as a terrorist organization by several countries including India, United States and United Kingdom. Jaish-e-Mohammed is viewed by some as the "deadliest" and "the principal terrorist organization in Jammu and Kashmir". The group was also implicated in the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen
In Bangladesh the group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh was formed sometime in 1998 and gained prominence on 20 May 2001 when 25 petrol bombs and documents detailing the activities of the organization were discovered and eight of its members were arrested in Parbatipur in Dinajpur district. The organization was officially banned in February 2005 after attacks on NGOs, but struck back in August when 300 bombs were detonated almost simultaneously throughout Bangladesh. Dhaka international airport, government buildings and major hotels were targeted.

-------------------------------------------------------

Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin forces, are reported to have "sharply escalated bombing and other attacks in 2006 and early 2007" against civilians. During 2006 "at least 669 Afghan civilians were killed in at least 350 armed attacks, most of which appear to have been intentionally launched at civilians or civilian objects. An additional 52 civilians were killed in insurgent attacks in the first two months of 2007."

-------------------------------------------------------

United States
An FBI report has shown that, contrary to popular opinion, only a small minority of terrorist attacks in the United States from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamist extremists.

Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a worldwide pan-Islamic terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden now operating in more than 60 countries. Its stated aim is the use of jihad to defend Islam against Zionism, Christianity, Hinduism, the secular West, and Muslim governments such as Saudi Arabia, which it sees as insufficiently Islamic and too closely tied to America.
Formed by bin Laden and Muhammad Atef in the aftermath of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, Al Qaeda called for the use of violence against civilians and military of the United States and any countries that are allied with it. Since its formation Al Qaeda has committed a number of terrorist acts in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Although once supported by the Taliban organization in Afghanistan, the U.S. and British governments never considered the Taliban to have been a terrorist organization.
Specially some events such as Twin Towers bombing in 1993, the 9/11 event and further much more events. Muslim popular opinion on the subject of attacks on civilians by Islamist groups varies, but most Muslims living in the West and most Muslim governments denounced the September 11th attacks on the US.

-------------------------------------------------------

Europe
Major lethal attacks on civilians in Europe credited to Islamist terrorism include the 1995 Paris Metro bombings, 11 March 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid, where 191 people were killed and 2,050 wounded, and the 7 July 2005 London bombings, also of public transport, which killed 52 commuters and injured 700. According to EU Terrorism Report there were almost 500 acts of terrorism across the European Union in 2006, but only one, the foiled suitcase bomb plot in Germany, was related to Islamist terror. In 2009, a Europol report also showed that more than 99% of terrorist attacks in Europe over the last three years were, in fact, carried out by non-Muslims. In terms of arrests, out of a total of 1,009 arrested terror suspects in 2008, 187 of them were arrested in relation to Islamist terrorism. The report also showed that the majority of Islamist terror suspects were not first generation immigrants, but were rather children of immigrants who no longer identified with the culture of their parents and at the same time felt excluded from Western society, "which still perceives them as foreigners," thus they became "more attracted to the idea of becoming ‘citizens’ of the virtual worldwide Islamic community, removed from territory and national culture."

-------------------------------------------------------

Russia
Politically motivated attacks on civilians in Russia have been traced to separatist sentiment among Muslims in its Caucasus region, particularly Chechnya. Russia's two biggest terrorist attacks both came from Muslim groups. In the Nord-Ost incident at a theater in Moscow in October 2002, the Chechnyan separatist "Special Purpose Islamic Regiment" took an estimated 850 people hostage. 39 hostage-takers were killed by Spetsnaz troops and at least 129 hostages died during the rescue, all but one killed by the chemicals used to subdue the attackers. Whether this attack would more properly be called a nationalist rather than an Islamist attack is in question.
In the September 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis 1,200 schoolchildren and adults were taken hostage after "School Number One" secondary school in Beslan, North Ossetia-Alania was overrun by the "Caucasus Caliphate Jihad" led by Shamil Basayev. As many as 500 died, including 186 children. According to the only surviving attacker, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, the choice of a school and the targeting of mothers and young children by the attackers was done in hopes of generating a maximum of outrage and igniting a wider war in the Caucasus with the ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic Emirate across the whole of the North Caucasus.

-------------------------------------------------------

Turkey

Turkish Hezbollah
Unrelated to the Shia Hezbollah of Lebanon, this Sunni terrorist group has been credited with the assassination of Diyarbakr police chief Gaffar Okkan, and the November 2003 bombings of two synagogues, the British consulate in Istanbul and HSBC bank headquarters, killing 58 and wounding several hundred.

-------------------------------------------------------

Middle East / Southwest Asia

Iraq
The area that has seen some of the worst terror attacks in modern history has been Iraq as part of the Iraq War. In 2005, there were 400 incidents of one type of attack (suicide bombing), killing more than 2000 people – many if not most of them civilians. In 2006, almost half of all reported terrorist attacks in the world (6600), and more than half of all terrorist fatalities (13,000), occurred in Iraq, according to the National Counterterrorism Center of the United States. The insurgency in Iraq against the US and Iraqi government combines attacks on "Coalition troops" and the Iraqi security forces, with attacks on civilian contractors, aid workers, and infrastructure. Along with nationalist Ba'athist groups and criminal, non-political attacks, the insurgency includes Islamist insurgent groups, who favor suicide attacks far more than non-Islamist groups.
They include the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda affiliate; Al-Faruq Brigades, a militant wing of the Islamic Movement in Iraq (Al-Harakah al-Islamiyyah fi al-arak); Jamaat Ansar al-Sunna; the Mujahideen of the Victorious Sect (Mujahideen al ta’ifa al-Mansoura); the Mujahideen Battalions of the Salafi Group of Iraq (Kata’ib al mujahideen fi al-jama’ah al-salafiyah fi al-‘arak); the Jihad Brigades/Cell; "White Flags, Muslim Youth and Army of Mohammed" ; Ansar al-Islam, a Taliban-like, jihadist group with ties to Al Qaeda. At least some of the terrorism has a transnational character in that some foreign Islamic jihadists have joined the insurgency.

Christianity and Violence: Crusades

One of the most famous examples of religious violence in the Middle Ages is of course the Crusades - attempts by European Christians to impose their vision of religion upon Jews, Orthodox Christians, heretics, Muslims, and just about anyone else who happened to get in the way. Traditionally the term "Crusades" are limited to describing massive military expeditions by Christians to the Middle East, but it is more accurate to acknowledge that there also existed "crusades" internal to Europe and directed at local minority groups.

Amazingly, the Crusades have often been remembered in a romantic fashion, but perhaps nothing has deserved it less. Hardly a noble quest in foreign lands, the Crusades represented the worst in religion generally and in Christianity specifically. The broad historical outlines of the Crusades are available in most history books, so I will instead present some examples of how greed, gullibility and violence played such important roles.

Not all crusades were led by kings greedy for conquest, although they certainly didn't hesitate when they had a chance. An important fact often overlooked is that the crusading spirit which gripped Europe throughout the High Middle Ages had particularly religious roots. Two systems which emerged in the church deserve special mention has having contributed greatly: penance and indulgences. Penance was a type of worldly punishment, and a common form was a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands. Pilgrims resented the fact that sites holy to Christianity were not controlled by Christians, and they were easily whipped into a state of agitation and hatred towards Muslims. Later on, crusading itself was regarded as a holy pilgrimage - thus, people paid penance for their sins by going off and slaughtering adherents of another religion. Indulgences, or waivers of temporal punishment, were granted by the church to anyone who contributed monetarily to the bloody campaigns.

Early on, crusades were more likely to be unorganized mass movements of "the people" than organized movements of traditional armies. More than that, the leaders seemed be chosen based on just how in-credible their claims were. Tens of thousands of peasants followed Peter the Hermit who displayed a letter he claimed was written by God and delivered to him personally by Jesus. This letter was supposed to be his credentials as a Christian leader, and perhaps he was indeed qualified - in more ways than one.

Not to be outdone, throngs of crusaders in the Rhine valley followed a goose believed to be enchanted by God to be their guide. I'm not sure that they got very far, although they did manage to join other armies following Emich of Leisingen who asserted that a cross miraculously appeared on his chest, certifying him for leadership. Showing a level of rationality consistent with their choice of leaders, Emich's followers decided that before they traveled across Europe to kill God's enemies, it would be a good idea to eliminate the infidels in their midst. Thus suitably motivated, they proceeded to massacre the Jews in German cities like Mainz and Worms. Thousands of defenseless men, women and children were chopped, burned or otherwise slaughtered.

This sort of action was not an isolated event - indeed, it was repeated throughout Europe by all sorts of crusading hordes. The lucky Jews were given a last-minute chance to convert to Christianity in accord with Augustine's doctrines. Even other Christians were not safe from the Christian crusaders. As they roamed the countryside, they spared no effort in pillaging towns and farms for food. When Peter the Hermit's army entered Yugoslavia, 4,000 Christian residents of the city of Zemun were massacred before they moved on to burn Belgrade.

Professionalized Slaughter

Although I am tempted to laugh at the people described above, a glance at some of America's current religious leaders prevents me from imagining that we've progressed very far. Eventually the mass killings by amateur crusaders were taken over by professional soldiers - not so that fewer innocents would be killed, but so that they would be killed in a more orderly fashion. This time, ordained bishops followed along to bless the atrocities and make sure that they had official church approval. Leaders like Peter the Hermit and the Rhine Goose were rejected by the church not for their actions, but for their reluctance to follow church procedures.

Taking the heads of slain enemies and impaling them upon pikes appears to have been a favorite pastime among crusaders. I myself fail to find the fun in that, but I have been cautioned not to judge people living in another time by my own modern standards. Chronicles record a story of a crusader-bishop who referred to the impaled heads of slain Muslims as a joyful spectacle for the people of God.

When Muslim cities were captured by Christian crusaders, it was standard operating procedure for all inhabitants - no matter what their age - to be summarily killed. It is not an exaggeration to say that the streets ran red with blood as Christians reveled in church-sanctioned horrors. Jews who took refuge in their synagogues would be burned alive, not unlike the treatment they received in Europe.

In his reports about the conquest of Jerusalem, Chronicler Raymond of Aguilers wrote that "It was a just and marvelous judgment of God, that this place [the temple of Solomon] should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers." St. Bernard announced before the Second Crusade that "The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified."

Sometimes, atrocities were excused as actually being merciful. When a crusader army broke out of Antioch and sent the besieging army into flight, the Christians found that the abandoned Muslim camp was filled with the wives of the enemy soldiers. Chronicler Fulcher of Chartres happily recorded for posterity that "...the Franks did nothing evil to them [the women] except pierce their bellies with their lances."

Fatal Heresy

Although members of other religions obviously suffered at the hands of good Christians throughout the Middle Ages, it should not be forgotten that other Christians suffered just as much. Augustine's exhortion to compel entry into the church was used with great zeal when church leaders dealt with Christians who daredto follow a different sort of religious path. This was not always the case - during the first millennium, death was a rare penalty. But in the 1200s, shortly after the beginning of the crusades against the Muslims, wholly European crusades against Christian dissidents were enacted.

The first victims were the Albigenses, sometimes called the Cathari, who were centered primarily in southern France. These poor freethinkers doubted the biblical story of Creation, thought that Jesus was an angel instead of God, rejected transubstantiation, and demanded strict celibacy. History has taught that celibate religious groups generally tend to die out sooner or later, but contemporary church leaders weren't anxious to wait. The Cathari also took the dangerous step of translating the bible into the common language of the people, which only served to further enrage religious leaders.

In 1208, Pope Innocent III raised an army of over 20,000 knights and peasants eager to kill and pillage their way through France. When the city of Beziers fell to the besieging armies of Christendom, soldiers asked papal legate Arnald Amalric how to tell the faithful apart from the infidels. He uttered his famous words: "Kill them all. God will know His own." Such depths of contempt and hatred are truly frightening, but they are only possible in the context of a religious doctrine of eternal punishment for unbelievers and eternal reward for believers.

Followers of Peter Waldo of Lyon, called Waldensians, also suffered the wrath of official Christendom. They promoted the role of lay street preachers despite official policy that only ordained ministers be allowed to preach. They rejecting things like oaths, war, relics, veneration of saints, indulgences, purgatory, and a great deal more which was promoted by religious leaders. The church needed to control the sort of information which the people heard, lest they be corrupted by the temptation to think for themselves. They were declared heretics at the Council of Verona in 1184 and then hounded and killed over the course of the following 500 years. In 1487, Pope Innocent VIII called for an armed crusade against populations of Waldensians in France. Some of them still apparently survive in the Alps and Piedmont.

Dozens of other heretical groups suffered the same fate - condemnation, excommunication, repression and eventually death. Christians did not shy away from killing their own religious brethern when even minor theological differences arose. For them, perhaps no differences were truly minor - all doctrines were a part of the True Path to heaven, and deviation on any point challenged the authority of the church and the community. It was a rare person who dared to stand up and make independent decisions about religious belief, made all the more rare by the fact that they were massacred as fast as possible.

Christian Terrorism

Christian terrorism is religious terrorism by Christian sects or individuals, the motivation for which is typically rooted in an idiosyncratic interpretation of the Bible and other tenets of faith. They draw upon Old Testament scripture to justify violent political activities.

History

British journalist and politician Ian Gilmour has cited the historical case of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, a beginning of Roman Catholic mob violence directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants), as an instance of religious terrorism on par with modern day terrorism, and goes on to write, "That massacre, said Pope Gregory XIII, gave him more pleasure than fifty Battles of Lepanto, and he commissioned Vasari to paint frescoes of it in the Vatican". It is estimated that 2,000 to possibly 25,000 Huguenots (French Protestants) were killed by Catholic mobs, and it has been called "the worst of the century's religious massacres". The massacre led to the start of the "fourth war" of the French Wars of Religion, which was marked by many other massacres and assassinations by both sides. Peter Steinfels has cited the historical case of the Gunpowder Plot, when Guy Fawkes and other Catholic revolutionaries attempted to overthrow the Protestant establishment of England by blowing up the Houses of Parliament, as a notable case of religious terrorism.

Organizations and acts by country

Canada
The Sons of Freedom, a sect of Doukhobor anarchists, have protested nude, blown up power pylons, railroad bridges, and set fire to homes, often targeting their own property.

India
The National Liberation Front of Tripura, a rebel group operating in Tripura, North-East India classified by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism as one of the ten most active terrorist groups in the world, has been accused of forcefully converting people to Christianity.The insurgency in Nagaland was led by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) and continues today with its faction NSCN - Isaac Muivah which explicitly calls for a "Nagalim for Christ."

Romania
Anti-Semitic Romanian Orthodox fascist movements in Romania, such as the Iron Guard and Lăncieri, were responsible for involvement in the Holocaust, Bucharest pogrom, and political murders during the 1930s.

Russia
A number of Russian political and paramilitary groups combine racism, nationalism, and Russian Orthodox beliefs. Russian National Unity, a far right ultra-nationalist political party and paramilitary organization, advocates an increased role for the Russian Orthodox Church according to its manifesto. It has been accused of murders, and several terrorist attacks including the bombing of the US Consulate in Ekaterinburg.

Uganda
The Lord's Resistance Army, a cult guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, has been accused of using child soldiers and committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, porters and sex slaves. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Christian Holy Spirit which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations. LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.

United States
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, white supremacist Ku Klux Klan members in the Southern United States engaged in arson, beatings, cross burning, destruction of property, lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, and whipping against African Americans, Jews, Catholics and other social or ethnic minorities.
During the twentieth century, members of extremist groups such as the Army of God began executing attacks against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States. A number of terrorist attacks, including the Centennial Olympic Park bombing during the 1996 Summer Olympics by Eric Robert Rudolph, were accused of being carried out by individuals and groups with ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements; including the Lambs of Christ. A group called Concerned Christians were deported from Israel on suspicion of planning to attack holy sites in Jerusalem at the end of 1999, believing that their deaths would "lead them to heaven." The motive for anti-abortionist Scott Roeder murdering Wichita doctor George Tiller on May 31, 2009 was religious.
Hutaree was a Christian militia group based in Adrian, Michigan. In 2010, after an FBI agent infiltrated the group, nine of its members were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges of seditious conspiracy to use of improvised explosive devices, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.

Motivation, ideology and theology

Christian views on abortion have been cited by Christian individuals and groups that are responsible for threats, assault, murder, and bombings against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States and Canada, even though Christian scripture does not discuss abortion.

Christian Identity is a loosely affiliated global group of churches and individuals devoted to a racialized theology that asserts North European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, God's chosen people. It has been associated with groups such as the Aryan Nations, Aryan Republican Army, Army of God, Phineas Priesthood, and The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. It has been cited as an influence in a number of terrorist attacks around the world, including the 2002 Soweto bombings.

Christianity and Violence: Reformation

The Catholic Church was obviously corrupt throughout the middle ages - and this corruption resulted in regular calls for reform and improvement. Pope John XII had open love affairs. Urban VI tortured and murdered some of his cardinals. Innocent VIII proudly acknowledged his illegitimate children and heaped church riches upon them. Simony and nepotism were rampant. Most efforts ended in the reformers being called heretics and dying for their trouble.

In the 1100s, Arnold of Brescia was excommunicated, hanged and then burned. John Wycliffe of England translated the bible into English, and his followers were later hunted down and killed. John Hus from Prague was excommunicated then in 1415 he was captured and burned, despite the fact that he had a letter of safe passage from the Emperor.

But eventually the weight of the reformers grew strong enough to survive, but only at the cost of millions of lives as the Protestant Reformation battled the Catholic Counter Reformation in towns and fields throughout Europe. Martin Luther's 95 theses, nailed to a church door, set off a fire storm of violence and blood. German princes managed to fight Catholic armies to standstill by 1555, which resulted in the Peace of Augsburg. Protestant "heretics" were allowed to live in Germany, but that level of tolerance was not extended to other countries.

Unfortunately, that "peace" didn't last - from 1618 to 1648 Europe experienced The Thirty Years' War which left Germany a wasteland after millions and millions were slaughtered. Catholic armies under the leadership of Catholic Emperor Ferdinand II kept defeating Protestant armies, but then made the mistake of trying to eliminate Protestantism completely, engaging in terrible repression and persecution.

This caused new Protestant armies in foreign lands like Denmark and Sweden to be called up to oppose him. The result of all this was a victory for no one, and an estimated drop of Germany's population from 18 million to 4 million. With too few people left to work the field and trade for goods, starvation and disease ravaged the miserable survivors. Such are the fruits of European Christianity.

Catholics Killing Protestants

In France, the largest Protestant group was known as the Huguenots. They were mercilessly persecuted, and King Henry created a heresy court known infamously as The Burning Chamber because that was the standard punishment for heretics. On the night of August 24, 1572 - known as St. Bartholomew's Day - Catholic soldiers swept through Huguenot neighborhoods of Paris in a foreshadowing of what would happen to the Jews under Nazi rule.

Thousands were slaughtered in their homes and other massacres timed for the same night occurred in cities across France. In response to this, Pope Gregory XIII wrote to France's King Charles IX: "We rejoice with you that with the help of God you have relieved the world of these wretched heretics."

Pope Pius sent Catholic troops into France to aid in the repression efforts, ordering the army commander to kill all prisoners. Pius, unsurprisingly, was later canonized as a saint. In the Catholic Church, sainthood is an honor which goes not to the nicest person or to someone who has aided humanity, but to those Catholics who have done great deeds to advance the cause of Catholicism. As a result of such treatment, Huguenots fled France in large numbers. One group reached what would later become Florida - and when they were discovered by a Spanish expedition, all were killed.

In Flanders, all heretical Protestants were ordered executed and thousands were burned at the stake. But queen Mary was merciful to Protestants who recanted - instead of burning, the men would be killed by a sword and women buried alive. Philip II, Spanish king and also ruler of Holland and Belgium, was positively obsessed with eliminating Protestantism and ordered that all prisoners be killed so that there would be no chance that they might escape through neglect or mistakes. The Duke of Alva was sent in and began what became known as the "Spanish Fury" in which thousands of Antwerp Protestants were killed and almost all "heretics" in Haarlem were massacred.

Protestants Killing Catholics

Of course, Protestants should not be imagined as innocents in all of this. Attempting to abandon several centuries of developed church tradition, Protestant theology focused instead upon stricter adherence to scriptures. As an example, the harsher laws of the Old Testament developed greater prominence in Protestant lands than they did in Catholic lands. Protestant leaders also embraced some of the nastier doctrines of a few Catholic theologians, like Augustine's ideas about free will and predestination. Luther wrote in 1518: "Free will after the Fall is nothing but a word. Even doing what in him lies, man sins mortally."

In Switzerland, John Calvin created a vicious theocracy in which morality police were employed to control people's behavior. Citizens were harshly punished for a wide variety of moral infractions, including dancing, drinking, and generally being entertained. Theological dissidents were summarily executed, like Michael Servetus who was burned for doubting the Trinity. It isn't surprising that some of the nastiest Christians in America today, like Christian Reconstructionists, are unabashed Calvinists

During the many Huguenot wars ravaging France, Huguenot soldiers hunted priests like animals and one captain is reported to have worn a necklace of priests' ears. In England, after King Henry VIII created the Anglican Church, he went after both Catholics and Protestants. Catholic loyalists like Sir Thomas More were quickly executed, but Lutherans who doubted retained doctrines like transubstantiation were also not spared. When his daughter Mary reached the throne in 1553 she became known as "Bloody Mary" because she attempted to reinstitute Catholicism through violence - but she only managed to make the country even more Protestant.

Unsurprisingly, not all Protestants were created equal - some wretched groups were uniformly hated by all parties. One example of this is the Anabaptists, who were martyred for their faith in huge numbers. Anabaptists briefly took the German city of Munster, but Catholic armies regained control, torturing to death Anabaptist leaders with red-hot pincers. Their bodies were hung in cages from a church steeple where they remained for many years as a visible reminder of what happens to those who dare to oppose church authority.

Once again, there is quite a lot more to cover on the topic of religious violence, but I think that we've seen even more now which should lead reasonable people to conclude that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, doesn't do a very good job at all in preventing human violence. At a minimum, it does a wonderful job at serving as a justification for violence. In many cases, however, religious beliefs and attitudes appear to form the basis for violent acts or movements. In these instances, the violence would not have occurred if it had not been for religion.

Religious Terrorism

The world's great religions all have both peaceful and violent messages from which believers can choose. Religious terrorists and violent extremists share the decision to interpret religion to justify violence, whether they are Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, or Sikh.

Buddhism and Terrorism
Buddhism is a religion or approach to an enlightened life based on the teachings of the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama twenty five centuries ago in northern India. The edict not to kill or inflict pain on others is integral to Buddhist thought. Periodically, however, Buddist monks have encouraged violence or initiated it. The primary example in the 20th and 21st century is in Sri Lanka, where Sinhala Buddhist groups have committed and encouraged violence against local Christians and Tamils. The leader of Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult that committed a lethal sarin gas attack in the mid-1990s, drew on Buddhist as well as Hindu ideas to justify his beliefs.

Christianity and Terrorism
Christianity is a monotheistic religion centered on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whose resurrection, as understood by Christians, provided salvation for all mankind. Christianity's teachings, like those of other religions, contain messages of love and peace, and those that can be used to justify violence. The fifteenth century Spanish inquisition is sometimes considered an early form of state terrorism. These Church-sanctioned tribunals aimed to root out Jews and Muslims who had not converted to Catholicism, often through severe torture. Today in the United States, reconstruction theology and the Christian Identity movement have provided justification for attacks on abortion providers.

Hinduism and Terrorism
Hinduism, the world's third largest religion after Christianity and Islam, and the oldest, takes many forms in practice among its adherents. Hinduism valorizes non-violence as a virtue, but advocates war when it is necessary in the face of injustice. A fellow Hindu assassinated Mohandas Ghandi, whose non-violent resistance helped bring about Indian independence, in 1948. Violence between Hindus and Muslims in India has been endemic since then. However, the role of nationalism is inextricable from Hindu violence in this context.

Islam and Terrorism
Adherents of Islam describe themselves as believing in the same Abrahamic God as Jews and Christians, whose instructions to humankind were perfected when delivered to the last prophet, Muhammad. Like those of Judaisim and Christianity, Islam's texts offer both peaceful and warring messages. Many consider the 11th century "hashishiyin," to be Islam's first terrorists. These members of a Shiite sect assassinated their Saljuq enemies. In the late 20th century, groups motivated by religious and nationalist goals committed attacks, such as the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, and suicide bombings in Israel. In the early 21st century, al-Qaeda "internationalized" jihad to attack targets in Europe and the Uniteed States.

Judaism and Terrorism
Judaism began around 2000 BCE when, according to Jews, God established a special covenant with Abraham. The monotheistic religion focuses on the importance of action as an expression of belief. Judaism's central tenets involve a respect for life's sanctity, but like other religions, its texts can be used to justify violence. Some consider the Sicarii, who used murder by dagger to protest Roman rule in first century Judea, to be the first Jewish terrorists. In the 1940s, Zionist militants such as Lehi (known also as the Stern Gang) carried out terrorist attacks against the British in Palestine. In the late 20th century, militant messianic Zionists use religious claims to the historical land of Israel to justify acts of violence.

Vegetarian Killers

Pol Pot - Vegan Despot and Mass Murderer

Pol Pot - a vegan - murdered some 2 million Cambodians in his lifetime.

Pol Pot wasn't just a killer. He also had organized an independent revenue source for the party in the form of rubber plantations in eastern Cambodia using forced slave labor.

His Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. A new government was formed and the name of the country was changed to Democratic Kampuchea. Phnom Penh was full of refugees from the war. The new government drove all the refugees into the countryside without regard to the human consequences of their actions. Pol Pot also drew up death lists of former government officials who were to be executed on sight.

Out of a population of approximately 8 million, Pol Pot's regime exterminated one quarter, or almost 2 million people.

Hundreds of thousands of people were taken out in shackles to dig their own mass graves. Then the Khmer Rouge soldiers beat them to death with iron bars and hoes or buried them alive. A Khmer Rouge extermination prison directive ordered, "Bullets are not to be wasted." These mass graves are often referred to as The Killing Fields.

Charles Manson - Vegan Animal Rights Activist

Manson: "I did it for ATWA! Air, Trees, Water, Animals!"

Charles Milles Manson (born 1934-NOV-11) is a person with an unusual ability to dominate others. He assembled a destructive, doomsday cult around himself, which the media later called The Family. At one time, it numbered in excess of 100 individuals at the Spahn Ranch some 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles CA.

Manson was an environmentalist and animal rights activist concerned about damage to the environment and pollution. He once commented: "Your water’s dying. Your life’s in that cup. Your trees are dying. Your wildlife’s locked up in zoos. You’re in the zoo, Man. How do you feel about it?"

The Manson "Family" later perpetrated a series of murders which shocked and terrified the nation.

Volkert Van der Graaf - Vegan Assassin and Murderer

Volkert van der Graaf's extra-legal activities as an animal rights activist include at least two murders.

Volkert is the assassin of Pim Fortuyn. He shot Fortuyn on 6 May 2002, at 18:00 hours in Hilversum, The Netherlands.

He is also the sole suspect in the murder of Chris van der Werken, a civil servant responsible for environmental policy in the North Veluwe, an agricultural part of the country, where both Volkert and van der Werken used to live and work. Like Fortuyn, Chris van der Werken was shot in the back by the perpetually angry, cowardly van der Graaf.

Volkert was also a member of a group called the "Furious Potatoes" (De Ziedende Bintjes), a group that carries out illegal, violent actions against fur breeders, companies that carry out animal tests and firms that operate in a way that they consider environmentally unsound.

Volkert, like most vegans is extremely intolerant of those with an opposing point of view. Intolerant enough to kill them.

Adolf Hitler - Vegetarian Megalomaniac Mass Murderer

Many vegans and vegetarians try to deny the fact that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, simply because they wish he wasn't.

Adolph Hitler became a vegetarian in 1932 upon the death of Geli Raubal. In 1928 Hitler asked his half-sister, Angela Raubal, to be his housekeeper. She agreed and arrived with her twenty-year old daughter, Geli Raubal. Hitler, who had now turned forty, became infatuated with Geli and rumours soon spread that he was having an affair with his young niece. Hitler became extremely possessive and Emil Maurice, his chauffeur, who also showed interest in Geli, was sacked.

The couple lived together for over two years. The relationship with Geli was stormy and they began to accuse each other of being unfaithful. Geli was particularly concerned about Eva Braun, a seventeen-year-old girl who Hitler took for rides in his Mercedes car.

Geli also complained about the way Hitler controlled her life On September 8, 1931, Hitler left for Hamburg after having a blazing row with Geli over her desire to spend some time in Vienna. Hitler was heard to shout at Geli as he was about to get into his car: "For the last time, no!" After he left Geli shot herself through the heart with a revolver.

When he heard the news Hitler threatened to take his own life but was talked out of it by senior members of the Nazi Party. One consequence of Geli's suicide was that Hitler became a vegetarian. He claimed that meat now reminded him of Geli's corpse.

Genghis Khan - Vegetarian Marauder and Rapist

It is said that one in 200 people on the planet carry the DNA of Genghis Khan - he was a prolific impregnator and rapist - when he wasn't murdering people.

His murder spree most likely began when he butchered his 13 year old brother, Bekhter. He is believed to have even poisoned his own son, Jochi. But at least he was a vegetarian!

Genghis Khan is said to have once killed 1,748,000 people in a single hour. But at least he did not eat animals.

Genghis did not only kill people...due to his prolific raping and procreational activities, his genes are the most widely spread in the world. Zerjal et al [2003] identified a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the men in a large region of Asia (about 0.5% of the men in the world).

PETA's New Pro-Violence Promoter

"Do not be afraid to condone arsons at places of animal torture."

"It's not about loving animals. It's about fighting injustice. My whole goal is for humans to have as little contact as possible with animals."

If an "animal abuser" were killed in a research lab firebombing, "I would unequivocally support that, too."

These are just a few of the outrageous comments spewed over the years by one Gary Yourofsky, formerly president of the animal rights group ADAPTT -- and now a national lecturer for PETA.

Saying getting a "request from [PETA's Ingrid Newkirk] is like getting a call from the Godfather's Don Corleone," Yourofsky joined PETA's ranks last week to spread his violent message. Despite PETA's insistence that it does not target children, "our goal now is to have DAILY lectures set up in schools across the U.S. when the fall semester begins next September," he says.

"PETA does not condone or commit violent acts, nor do we threaten anybody with violence," Newkirk claimed last year. But PETA's new national lecturer puts the lie to that -- as does PETA's donation of $1,500 to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). ELF has been called "the largest and most active U.S.-based terrorist group" by the FBI. And ELF and its sister group, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), have earned it. ELF and ALF took credit for 137 "actions" in 2001 alone.

These two groups commit arson, set off time bombs and incendiary devices, destroy research facilities, run online eco-terror "training camps," and much more. So, far from being something new, violence-booster Yourofsky should fit right in at PETA. PETA's Bruce Friedrich said last summer: "It would be great if all the fast-food outlets, slaughterhouses, these laboratories and the banks who fund them exploded tomorrow... Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it."