Of swords and plowshares ...

Religions start out embodying the best of human aspirations: peace, generosity, kindness, love -- that stuff. Then humans with ambitions notice how much power those ideas have, and they slowly move the religions around until they're all about Being Right. And the people who are not Right are Wrong, and what do we do with wrong people? We smite them! Smiting is good for them. Also, once they're smited, we get to keep their land. - Jon Carroll