religion (be it Christianity, Islam or Judaism) is immoral

Religion shoved down your throat? OK Medieval Europe Islamic Khilafah Mormon fundamentalists Ken Ham's creation 'science classes' for children- there's even a song where its lyrics include 'Bible...100% true...because it is the word of God!' (sorry that I have to paraphrase it) Taliban Afghanistan or just general 'Bible studies' for children, while telling them it's all true etc. 'About Koreans... I believe God is omniscient...' Totalitarians always tell us how they are different from other equally totalitarian ideals, their lines of argument are always the same- 'oh our ideology is perfect. Past crimes, oh those are just aberrations of our perfect ideals. The opponents' ideals are wrong- we know the absolute truth.' Furthermore, every leader in a totalitarian regime, along with its fanatic supporters, will ruthlessly reject the legitimacy of the other regimes and denounce their enemies as 'false Gods'. The Christians crusaded against the Muslims in the middle ages, both of whom believe theirs is the true God and their holy book is the correct one- indeed similar but opposing totalitarian forces like Communism and Nazism faced brutal confrontation with each other. They believe each others God to be heretical- in other words, my imaginary godfather (excuse the pun) is better than yours. Notice I said religion as in both Christianity, Islam and Judaism, because every religion thinks theirs is the true God (except for Buddhism, which by definition is wrongly classified as a religion, which is not very dogmatic and is more open). Let me emphasise on that point. Imagine you're talking to a dogmatic Communist and ask why Communism is better than National Socialism and not as equally as bad. They will point to a passage in the Communist Manifesto and say, 'but Marx talked about class struggle and the eventual triumph of the working class ('workers of the world have nothing to lose but their chains, and a whole world to win'-Karl Marx). The Nazis wanted are different because they talk about race'. The so called 'perfect ideology'- is only different to the 'criminal ideology' by one word- class as opposed to race. The differences between totalitarianisms are very superficial- the practices of 'truth imposing' are the same. "You ...earth. So, after giving the Hebrews an opportunity to join God's side, God ordered the others who were worshipping idols to be killed. Is this a contradiction? No! It would be a contradiction if God had NOT order the idol worshippers to be killed. Killing under these circumstances is not murder, but justice. Even so, there will always be people who prefer justice to mercy. This still perfectly demonstrates the totalitarianism of religion. This is essentially begging the question here, to assume that the Bible is already true before its validity is being discussed. This is the problem with religion and the supposedly 'secular' totalitarian doctrines- 'this is the absolute truth because the book said so'. The last part when it says the people rejected God's mercy- just watch a North Korean execution to see how the victims rejected 'the generosity of the general' by defecting to the enemies. Perhaps Ghandi very poignantly pointed out 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind'. You said that God gave a warning when he send the Ten Plagues. Well, the Nazis had given the Jews advance notices when rounding them up for deportation to the ghettos in 1942. Also, if I say to you, 'I'll kill your son if you don't believe this...'- I have given advanced warning, but should the act be carried out it is still murder, with or without warning. Besides, they are children! Why should they be punished for the Pharaoh's sins, any more than a murderer's daughter be punished for her father's? Coming back to the North Koreans, let me tell you about some North Korean propaganda. Kim Il Sung was thought to have created the universe, the Koreans were the first humans; Kim the first can also supposedly create hand grenades out of pine cones. Kim can also allegedly create bountiful harvests, control the weather with his moods. Apparently, a new star appeared in the sky on the day of Kim Jong Il's birth, with double rainbows , birds singing in Korean welcoming him, who was born in a log cabin on Mount Baekdu. North Korean must live in accordance to the 'Juche spirit'- it is the absolute truth in North Korea- the truth is whatever the party wants them to say and believe. The North Koreans live highly regimented lives, praising the sham doctrine daily and fanatically hate the 'US imperialist' enemies, while almost totally blissful in their ignorant and deprived state. Now the Father, the Son and the Juche Spirit are no coincidence- North Korea's capital, Pyongyang was once 'the Jerusalem of the East'. Kim Il Sung was once a Christian who knew the miracles of the Bible- he was very meticulous and cunning in exploiting the pre-existing Christian superstition as well as imported Japanese emperor worship to control the people. North Korean morality is that 'the Great Leader is always right', just as the Christians and Muslims, unless secular enough to not literally interpret it, believe that the Bible/Qur'an to be 100% infallible. Now I promised to address the common misconception that Communism is Godless and antithetical to Christianity. When a French ambassador visited the Soviet Union in the 1930s and saw a massive mural of Stalin being paraded. He exclaimed, 'oh God!' to which the Soviet translator said, 'yes you're looking at him right now'. When Stalin took over the Soviet Union the Russians were very superstitious and had a cultural tendency of obedience to a strong leader who ruled in the name of God. Stalin took advantage of this, as well as keeping the Orthodox church close to control the people. Yes he did blow up churches, but so did Bloody Mary shut down non-Catholic churches- it was to suppress opposition (like Galileo's house arrest), not religion. Communism in the English language was supposed coined by John Goodwyn Bramby, who actually founded the Communist Church. The earlier record of its use was in the 16th century by Thomas More in his book Utopia (Thomas More was a Catholic and staunchly anti-Christian). But even this society he spoke of is radically different to the doctrinaire Christian and Communist views- it believes that there is no absolute truth or correct religion. The society advocates secularism and reasoning as opposed to pure faith to convince people into a certain religion. In fact, in the book, a Christian convert was imprisoned for shouting how all the other people will be damned- but that is not to say he is evil because he is a Christian. This also tells you a bit more about me- Christianity is part of our really history- it has influenced our culture and language. But to study its cultural impact is not the same as believing in its absolutist moral values. Having said so, it is not to say religious people are immoral- but the truly moral religious people have not taken the Bible too literally and selectively quoted it to justify good actions. Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Ghandi had all done good charitable works. That is not to say they did so because of religion- do I need to be told by a celestial North Korea to be good? Do atheists have no morality because there isn't a central doctrine guiding them? The only 'central doctrine' is the belief that there is no absolute truth, that by imposing our truths on people based on blind faith in favour of rational induction and experimentation is immoral. Religion overall tries to do good, I'm sure you are not unloving, but ultimately create totalitarian nightmares like medieval Europe or the Khilafah in trying to create their utopia- because oppositions are 'damned'. Remember- good and evil depends on context and perspective, not narrow, dogmatic absolutist convictions as religions do. For atheism and constitution- see my comments