If people, when they speak of Christianity, include the virtues common to all religions, they should not give Christianity credit for all the good that has been done. There were millions of virtuous men and women, millions of heroic and self-denying souls before Christianity was known.
It does not seen possible to me that love, kindness, justice, or charity ever caused any one who possessed and practiced these virtues to persecute his fellow-man on account of a difference of belief. If Christianity has persecuted, some reason must exist outside of the virtues it has inculcated. If this reason—this cause—is inherent in that something else, which has been added to the ordinary virtues, then Christianity can properly be held accountable for the persecution. Of course back of Christianity is the nature of man, and, primarily, it may be responsible.
Is there anything in Christianity that will account for such persecutions—for the Inquisition? It certainly was taught by the church that belief was necessary to salvation, and it was thought at the same time that the fate of man was eternal punishment; that the state of man was that of depravity, and that there was but one way by which he could be saved, and that was through belief—through faith. As long as this was honestly believed, Christians would not allow heretics or infidels to preach a doctrine to their wives, to their children, or to themselves which, in their judgment, would result in the damnation of souls.
The law gives a father the right to kill one who is about to do great bodily harm to his son. Now, if a father has the right to take the life of a man simply because he is attacking the body of his son, how much more would he have the right to take the life of one who was about to assassinate the soul of his son!
Christians reasoned in this way. In addition to this, they felt that God would hold the community responsible if the community allowed a blasphemer to attack the true religion. Therefore they killed the freethinker, or rather the free talker, in self-defence.
At the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence; that is to say, the defence of the soul. If the founder of Christianity had plainly said: "It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest"—if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution.
If he had added to this: "You must not persecute in my name. The religion I teach is the Religion of Love—not the Religion of Force and Hatred. You must not imprison your fellow-men. You must not stretch them upon racks, or crush their bones in iron boots. You must not flay them alive. You must not cut off their eyelids, or pour molten lead into their ears. You must treat all with absolute kindness. If you cannot convert your neighbor by example, persuasion, argument, that is the end. You must never resort to force, and, whether he believes as you do or not, treat him always with kindness"—his followers then would not have murdered their fellows in his name.
If Christ was in fact God, he knew the persecutions that would be carried on in his name; he knew the millions that would suffer death through torture; and yet he died without saying one word to prevent what he must have known, if he were God, would happen.
All that Christianity has added to morality is worthless and useless. Not only so—it has been hurtful. Take Christianity from morality and the useful is left, but take morality from Christianity and the useless remains.
Now, falling back on the old assertion, "By its fruits we may know Christianity," then I think we are justified in saying that, as Christianity consists of a mixture of morality and something else, and as morality never has persecuted a human being, and as Christianity has persecuted millions, the cause of the persecution must be the something else that was added to morality.