[Solace]

Getting back to the original issue for this thread, essentially, how do Christians rationalize all the killing, raping, pillaging, and other nasty stuff frequently demonstrated in the Bible? Well, here's a simple, unorthodoxed, dare I say, laughable, even, way that I would rationalize it (bearing in mind that I don't claim to fit any criteria of "Christian", and as such, my rationalization wouldn't likely find much support among those who do consider themselves Christian...) but here's what it boils down to, "If you're not with us, you're against us." This notion that everyone is God's child and that all men are equal in God's sight is a relatively new idea. The people who wrote the scriptures, and the people who lived in those days, even, believed they were unique, set apart, basically, better than other people. So they had no qualms about killing, raping, pillaging, or any of that other fun stuff.

Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not advocating this way of thinking. All I'm saying is that it's how these people believed. In fact, if you look at history, and not just Christian history, but pretty much any history where different cultures/religions clashed, a whole lot of people throughout history have held similar views that they were better, or that their way of doings things was superior, and thus granted them the right to mistreat other people.

So unless you actually are better than other people, I don't recomend mistreating others. Of course, if you actually are better than other people, you probably wouldn't. Sort of a catch-22.