The religious temperament has its puzzling contradictions. The Holy Inquisitors would have been hurt if told that they had repudiated Christ, would insistently have asserted their devotion to him. Yet for religious reasons they broke men's bodies on the torture wheel, tied them to the stake for burning. The gentle inhabitants of Tahiti shed tears copiously when Captain Cook flogged a thief on his ship, yet for religious reasons they practised human sacrifice while their priests killed their own children. A Jewish king in the early pre-Islamic Arabia persecuted those among his subjects who were Christians. Later Christian kings in Europe persecuted their Jewish subjects, while Muhammedan kings in the Middle East persecuted Jews and Christians alike!--all in the name of religion.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 4 : Problems of Organized Religion > # 123
