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There is no doubt that Mark Sears is a good and decent human being who does his very best to help his fellow man. What is troubling in his rebuttal, however, is the presumption that empathy and compassion are uniquely Christian traits or for that matter that they are virtues shared only by people of faith. Any student of history and anthropology knows that morality long predates religion, whereas religion -- especially Christianity -- has kindled horrific acts of inhumanity and barbarism. Think conquistas, colonialism and foreced conversions. Mr. Sears also seems to forget that the Crusades, The "Holy" Inquisition, the 30-Years War, the St. Bartholomew Massacre, the centuries-old strife between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, and various sectarian conflits -- some of which endure as we speak -- were and are spurred by presumptions of moral superiority by one group over another and carried out through the use of force. Last, seen as a whole, the last 1,710 years of Christianity ("established" around 325 C.E. at the Council of Nicea) were bloodied and stained by dynasties of corrupt, lecherous, deviant, greedy and power-hungry clerics, popes among them. Perhaps they were heeding, Jesus's own command (as reported by Luke, 19:27)... "But those mine enemies which would not that I reign over them, bring hither and slay before me.”

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