Yep. It was pretty brutal stuff.
Not that the pagans don't have their share of blood on their hands either, though...
You know, I was thinking about this after I arrived at that statistic. 1 in every 2000 Muslims are on the Terrorist Watch list. Because there are more than 2000 people in my community here. So I started thinking to myself... who's the terrorist? Now first off... let me caveat this by saying that I don't know anyone who is actually violent or plotting. But two people came to mind. The first is this crazy old Egyptian man that sits in the mosque and spouts off stuff like, clapping is a sin because the West came up with it and Muhammad never did it. Like he calls the Imam a hypocrite because he gives his sermon from a podium and the podium is a Western innovation, not Islamic. He's a hard nosed Salafi and everyone in the community knows and warns people not to listen to him. The other is a guy is a recent convert who romanticises terrorist violence... and sometimes it's spooky. I know more than a handful of people who think he's a government plant, because is family is all bureaucrats. I don't believe this because I've seen how he lives, where he works, etc. I've taken it upon myself to get close to him, and attempt to redirect his thinking. And if he ever proposed any kind of plot I'd turn him in in a heartbeat.
I've been thinking about this compaired to my old pagan community, which was only about one tenth the size. But I can think probably 10 people from those days that romanticised violence the way this guy does, mainly targeting Christians. I saw alot of resentment toward Christianity for medieval forced conversions... weird. Anyway, the worst of them actually spoke as if he planned to renew an old Native American tradition (which I think he fabricated) of sending out your warriors until they reached a village that spoke a different language and then killing everyone and returning with their wealth and women. He wanted to build a compound and Arizona, and there were a handful of people who liked the way he spoke. It was never going to happen, but the propensity was there. As a rival community leader I took it upon myself to sew the seeds of discord in his "family." Today we're still friends and he's mellowed out alot since having children.
But to me it begs the question, if there were 2 billion pagans in the world would they be more or less violent than Muslims? How would that resentment manifest if guys like this had a critical mass of followers?
I'm not suggesting paganism is inherently violent. I find it to be one of the most peaceful and tolerent perspectives on the planet. I just have theological disagreements. I'm just wondering if isn't enevitable to flind lunatics with followers in any demographic of 2 billion. What would we see in a world with 2 billion atheists? We have a very insulated view of Christianity here in the US... I wonder if we'd even recognize the Christianity in places like Sudan and Ethiopia.
Just thinking out loud.