I know discussion of God and stuff is banned in this forum, so instead of saying anything about truth of religion, I'll only present the view of history of religion, hopefully I think not against rules. from my academic influenced opinion one thing I'll say: religion cannot be softened without anti-religion. in Europe, the Catholic Church spread it's terror until anti-Church Protestant Reformation and anti-religion Enlightenment didn't come along. now the Church is softening when all the people got sick of it's antics and left, and they couldn't stop people from leaving by burning them because the State became protective of rights, essentially against religions. without stiff opposition from equally fanatical opposition groups, all institutions and structures stary empowering themselves without limit. Protestants too did their own terror in USA but they were limited by Enlightenment influenced secular constitution. just see Saudi Arabia: is spread it's own version of Islam everywhere without any anti-religion, so now even more radical religious people threaten them. Saudi Arabia has seen multiple terror attacks and threats against it by the most radical. would you imagine?
