[bryantm3]

we have to remember that religion, not G-d is what has caused so many wars, deaths, and so much pain and sorrow. G-d never once said in the bible or qu'ran "kill everyone who disagrees with you". In fact, let me quote this reading from Jonah from Yom Kippur, I really think it suits. Excuse the old English translation, there are many different translations, none of them exactly right, but this one keeps the story intact and it has a kind of rythymic flow to it.

And the word of HaShem came unto Jonah the second time, saying: 'Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and make unto it the proclamation that I bid thee.' So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of HaShem. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he proclaimed, and said: 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'

And the people of Nineveh believed G-d; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. And the tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying: 'Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing; let them not feed, nor drink water; but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and beast, and let them cry mightily unto G-d; yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knoweth whether G-d will not turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?' And G-d saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and G-d repented of the evil, which He said He would do unto them; and He did it not.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed unto HaShem, and said: 'I pray Thee, O HaShem, was not this my saying, when I was yet in mine own country? Therefore I fled beforehand unto Tarshish; for I knew that Thou art a gracious G-d, and compassionate, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy, and repentest Thee of the evil.

Therefore now, O HaShem, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.' And HaShem said: 'Art thou greatly angry?' Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

And HaShem G-d prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his evil. So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd. But G-d prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that G-d prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said: 'It is better for me to die than to live.'

And G-d said to Jonah: 'Art thou greatly angry for the gourd?' And he said: 'I am greatly angry, even unto death.' And HaShem said: 'Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night; and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?'


This is one example of how humans think so much differently than G-d does... and on several occasions such as this one, he tried to communicate that mercy and love, not revenge and hate, is the most important thing. Sadly, people have twisted the words of G-d into something they are not to serve their own means.