They say, "By their fruits, you will know them,"
but what of these fruits—these blistering, bitter seeds?
Where nations were bathed in the red streams of certainty,
and children wept beneath the boot of divine decree.
What is written in the annals of conquerors and madmen
is mirrored in scripture—line for line, blow for blow.
Pol Pot: "To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss."
And Deuteronomy hums in agreement,
"Show them no mercy, leave none alive."
Swords unsheathed over trembling villages,
cries muffled beneath holy war's advance.
The difference? A dictator's words crumble in death.
The Bible's linger, etched into stone,
immortal as iron shackles and inquisitor's racks.
Mao burned fields of dissent,
but so did Yahweh scorch the Canaanites,
commanding his chosen people to cleanse the land
like rats from grain stores.
"Utterly destroy," says the Lord,
as mothers are dragged by their hair
and infants are dashed against walls,
the air heavy with divine approval.
Tell me, whose voice truly echoes here?
And Hitler—Hitler built a kingdom of ashes,
believing in purity, a cleansing fire.
But is it not the same inferno from Leviticus,
declaring the unclean unworthy of breath?
"Stone the adulterer, the disobedient child,
the man who loves another man."
Where is the moral gulf between his camps and this desert edict?
In both, flesh becomes kindling for a cause.
Where do you draw the line—if the Book says it is love?
These prophets and tyrants speak the same language,
slaughter justified by higher purpose,
whether in blood-soaked ideology or righteous wrath.
What comfort can you find in the difference,
when the graves are dug just the same?
"Blessed are those who take your infants
and dash them against the rocks."
Tell me: Who is blessed in this ruin? The stones? The hands?
The Crusades were not aberrations,
nor witch trials or manifest destiny,
but the fulfillment of promises scrawled on brittle parchment.
Slaves taken in love—"possess them forever,"
the Lord says, forever.
How many owners whispered those words
as backs cracked beneath the lash?
How many masters kissed the pages,
believing their cruelty was sanctified?
It is not men who create these horrors.
The horrors were always here, waiting in scripture.
You cannot blame them for merely opening the book
and doing what was written.
Look deeper, they say,
Find the good parts—the love, the mercy.
But mercy bought with genocide is a counterfeit grace,
and love that makes room for rape and slaughter
rots like spoiled meat wrapped in silk.
"I make peace, and create evil," declares the Lord.
No tyrant could have said it better.
Strip away the hymns, the Sunday dresses,
the pastoral sermons soothing as warm bread.
Strip it bare, down to bone and sinew.
There lies a manual of conquest,
a hymnal of blood debts and holy rage.
This is not divine wisdom;
it is man's shadow, reflected on a cosmic scale,
the worst of us given wings and robes.
This is where it comes from:
of fear, greed, hatred disguised as justice.
The Bible is no different from the manifestos
of emperors and dictators—
only the throne is higher,
and the killing fields stretch farther into eternity.
