@Leadfoot,
You were alleging an impact on people's lives. There can only be two sources for such a claim--the anecdotal evidence of individuals, or the claims of Christian authorities. To allege that saying as much constitutes "playing to an audience" is nonsensical--there is no logical connection between the two statements.
In fact, i have always tried to address the issues of organized religion fairly when they constitute questions of the subject matter--i don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water. Certainly i will go after religious types--christian, muslim or jewish--when i think they are being pompous and bigoted. In such a case i will attack them and delight in taking cheap shots. But if somone simply asks a auestion, i try to answer it as best i can.
This thread can serve as an example.
As for playing to an audience, i have in fact alienated many ot the atheists here by denying some sinister role of religion in warfare and bloodshed. Although i once made similar allegations, as a student and
devoté of history, i realized that i could not sustain such claims. That is not to say that there haven't been times when christians (or muslims) have wreaked bloody slaughter on others because of their religious adherence, but specifically, it is true that full-scale warfare cannot be sustained without a political or economic motive--which are usually the same thing. So, for example, the papacy railed against the Cathars (an odd use of Greek) for quite a long time to no avail. No one was sufficiently bothered to give a damn, and certainly not enough to go to war, always an expensive and risky endeavor. However, when a papal legate was murdered, Innocent III called for France to take the cross against the Albigenses (another name for the Cathars), even though the alleged instigator of the murder, Raymond of Toulouse, was not a Cathar. But Innocent knew how this worked, so he got together with King Phillip of France and told him that he would declare the "heretics" apostate, and their estates forfeit, making those estates available to reward those taking the cross. So, although Popes had called for the suppression of the heresy since at least 1147, it was not until sixty years later that the Albigensian Crusade got off the ground. People don't make war because they are pious, but rather, because they are self-interested.
There is also the example of the so-called Thirty Years War (there was not actually a single thirty years war, but that is not important in this context). The middle phase was known as the Swedish phase (all of this is the fixing of names long after the event by academic historians, who are notoriously sloppy), when King Gustav II Adolf, known to history as Gustavus Adolphus, landed in northern Germany and promptly reversed the apparent settlement by the Catholic Imperialists. Unfortunately for German Protestants, Gustav II was killed in battle less than two years later. Now enters Cardinal Richelieu, the
de facto if not the
de jure ruler of France. Never mind that the Imperialists were Catholic, Richelieu did not want the Holy Roman Empire to unite and control Germany, a rather obvious threat to France. So Catholic France paid large subsidies to Protestant Sweden in the war against Catholic Austria. Political and economic considerations trump religion every time.
Many times over the years, i have contradicted atheists who have alleged that christians have started all manner of wars. Far from playing to an audience, i have been willing to set the record straight whenever i see what i consider to be bad history being promulgated. I apply the same standard to christians who attempt to allege that atheists are just as bad or worse because of the actions of the Soviet Union. There simply is no historical evidence to support such a claim.
So you can take that "playing to an audience" horsie poop and stuff it where the sun don't shine.
