Why has cruelty and religion gone hand and hand for over a thousand years ?

Well, the bible speaks of doing all kinds of horrible things to unbelievers/gays/witches. They sure don't teach all that stuff of God killing babies and children and torturing people in church. I don't think Christians even read the bible, and those who do apparently ignore the bad parts and cherry pick the good parts, and call their God loving. Their God isn't loving, but is a twisted psychopath. I mean who else would torture their own son for any reason?

Would there be a need for a heavy coat, to keep from freezing, if it wasn't cold outside?

Would there be a need for water if there was no thirst?

Would there be a need for food, if hunger did not exist?

Would there be any need for religion, any need for believing in God, if there was no Devil?

The reason things happen when religion is around, is because it is meant to be that way, making it seem as if the religion itself is the bad thing, when in reality, it is the work of Satan, who is causing all things to happen. And those who believe in God, are then blamed for it.

If there was no one to blame for things happening, perhaps most would not happen.

Would the nice kid in school get sent to the principal's office for fighting the bully, if the bully did not

cause the problem in the first place?

But yet, the bully makes the nice kid look bad, like.."hey, he is supposed to be nice, but look, he is fighting"

Cruelty and religion might appear to be happening around the same time, but it is only because religion is trying to stop the cruelty going on. And that action is then perceived by others, who want to make note of it, as "Bad religion". But they fail to mention the other side, which caused the problem in the first place.

That is called propaganda.

You seem to be ignoring the cruelty and brutality that seems to go hand in hand with all anti-theist societies for the last few hundred years - Communist Russia, China, Cambodia etc. The amount of death and suffering these societies inflicted on their people makes any bad religious regime look like a sunday school picnic.

In a way establishing religion and faith is understandable, because it gives people the fear of god. If they do something bad in life, they will burn forever. So in a way, it can be good for society.

However, if you hand an iPhone to a monkey, it won't know how to use it...probably will be destroyed. If you give religion to idiots who can't understand the meaning and purpose of it well enough, they'll be killing each other "in the name of god". That's their excuse, that they're fighting "for god". If there ever is heaven and hell, they'll be the first ones to burn.

I think religion has always been it's partner because religion was a way to justify cruelty and get the commoners to accept said cruelty.

Jesus Christ as the founder of Christianity gets to say what the requirements are. At John 13:35 he is very specific and says that you can identify his true followers if they have love among themselves.

My Dad served in WW2 and his church gave him a little canvas pocket Bible as he was going off to war. He thought that odd.

Most major Christian denominations (as organizations) fail the test of being Christian just even with their participation in World War 1 & 2 when mostly they were Catholic and Protestant going out and killing fellow Catholic and Protestant.

In Bible times there was a period when God would not even listen to people's prayers because they had blood on their hands.

(Isaiah 1:15) And when YOU spread out YOUR palms, I hide my eyes from YOU. Even though YOU make many prayers, I am not listening; with bloodshed YOUR very hands have become filled.

The blood shed of World Wars 1 & 2 WAAAYY outdid anything in the Bible so who would God listen to now ?

God deeply cares for us and wants us to benefit from his loving direction. If we worship him in the right way, we will be happy and will avoid many problems in life. We will also have his blessing and his help. (Isaiah 48:17) There are, however, hundreds of religions that claim to teach the truth about God. Yet, they differ greatly in their teachings about who God is and what he expects of us.

How can you know the right way to worship God? You do not have to study and compare the teachings of all the many religions. You need only learn what the Bible really teaches about true worship. To illustrate: In many lands, there is a problem with counterfeit money. If you were given the job of picking out such false money, how would you go about it? By memorizing every kind of counterfeit? No. Your time would be better spent if you studied real money. After you knew what real money looked like, you could recognize a counterfeit. Similarly, when we learn how to identify the true religion, we can recognize those religions that are false.

Many people believe that all religions are pleasing to God, but the Bible does not teach that. It is not even enough just to claim to be a Christian. Jesus said: “Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will.” To have God’s approval, therefore, we must learn what God requires of us and do it. Jesus called those who do not do God’s will “workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:21-23) Like counterfeit money, false religion has no real value. Even worse, such religion is actually harmful.

They do it all in the name of their god, or at least they is what they tell you

People abuse their freedom.