There is nothing sacred in these tomes. They may indeed have postulated some wonderful life lessons, but sacrosanct they ain't.
And to those that think that 21st century slaughter is no worse than 14th century slaughter are merely cut from the same cloth, albeit in a different time capsule.
Scary as it may sound to the McCarthyists, Marx was correct, religion IS the opiate of the people(s).
Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that veil of tears of which religion is the halo.
In the 15th century and onwards, Christians discovered new lands full of unbelievers, and they did to the Africians and to the American Indians exactly what they did to the European unbeliever, but there was one difference. Christian artwork had depicted Satan and his demons as black. Not suprisingly Christians decided that Africans and Indians were a lot closer to Satan than white skinned Europeans, and they (Christians) acted accordingly to protect themselves from the "pollution" of contact with dark skinned people.
People should avail themselves and read Historian, Forrest. G. Woods' Book "The Arrogance of Faith" for an in depth exploration of the Christian origins of Racism, Slavery, and Segregation.