I have read with interest this whole string (and even contributed (?) once to it). I find the debate typical, and a blatant example of why things on earth are the way they are. And to think that these present exchanges are taking place inside what I would consider an enlighten group...
When most people think of “crusades,” they think of the military expeditions, of which there were only seven principle ones, to Palestine. What most people forget is that the “crusades” from the 11th to the 16th century number in the hundred! Many were not sanctioned by the pope, but most of them were, against all sorts of “evil” people, as far as Scandinavia and the Caucasus. All were a joke, an excuse to slaughter, pillage, and rape. Look, for example, at the massacres of European Jews by the crusaders, as they passed through Europe: they were practicing, I guess. Or the “Children Crusade,” when the children who made the crossing and survived were sold as slaves to the locals in Palestine. One of the most famous crusades is the Spanish inquisition.
The whole story of humanity is a story of religious wars in the name of God. Which God? My God who is the REAL one. Etc, etc.
If Karl Marx ever said something of value for all ages, he wrote it in his Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes" (“Religion is the opium of the people"). And that goes fro ALL the religions, bar none.
Amen.