(Terry Lane was a Churches of Christ minister in Australia, currently an atheist and well-known national broadcaster).

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Terry Lane "God: The Interview" (ABC; Sydney: 1993)

The first Christian to be murdered by other Christians was the Spaniard Priscillian. The bishops had him beheaded in 385 because he didn't subscribe to the right formula for the Trinity. And he also didn't believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I guess he was asking for trouble. p. 40

... when the tolerant is confronted with intolerance ridicule could well be your best weapon. p. 49

Here is a Jesus story which is so profound that the canon of scripture should be re-opened to find a spot for it. it is called The Dancing Fool, and this is how it goes: A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on earth to explain how wars could be prevented, how cancer could be cured. Zog brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing. Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap-dancing, warning people about the terrible danger they were in. TYhe head of the house brained him with a golf club. (Quoted for Kurt Vonnegut's "Fates Worse Than Death" Jonathon Cape; London:1991 p. 209)

Do you know why the Black death took such a terrible toll in Europe in the fourteenth century? Because the Jesuites had this amazing notion that their were witches everywhere and that cats were their familiars - so it wasn'[t enbough to burn the witches (thousands of them incidentally), they had to also stamp out the cats. so there were no cats to kill the rats, which brted like rodents and carried the infected fleas all over the place. pp.56 - 57

The method of examining expected witches is interesting. First the woman was asked if she believed in witches. If she said no, then she was by definition a witch and in league with the prince of Liars. on the other hand, if she said yes, she was immediately asked where she was on Thursday night when the storm broke and the cows died. p.57

The Waldenses objected to the Inquisition and to all forms of trial by torture and indeed, to all forms of shedding blood. You won't be surprised to hear that they werre excommunicated - and because they had got their pernicious ideas from the Bible a law was passed at the Synod of Toulouse in 1229 forbidding ordinry Christians to read the Bible because it could lead to all soprts of folly. ... Look, I could go on and on - there never was a time when there wasn't someone who knew better and was prepared to stick his or her neck out. The tragedy was that they tended to get short shrift in the Church. Given the choice between light ande darkness, the Church could usually be counted on to choose darkness. pp.61 -62

And a thing cannot be moral in a religious sense and immoral in a secular sense, can it? Truth is one. That which is true scientifically cannot be untrue religiously, can it? p.66

And consider this. If there were an outbreak of bubonic plague today, what would you do? Pray? Or start putting out the rat bait? Where would you expect your help to come from - heaven or the medical laboritories. pp.73 -74

... the Nuremburg principle is a good one. It is no excuse to say that you were only obeying orders. p.77

Joshua and Judges ... catalogues of the most appalling atrocities carried out by the invading Israelites. p.78

An auto de fe, literally, means 'act of faith'. In fact, what it was was the burning of heretics at the stake. It usually happened on a Sunday. The heretics were paraded through the town in funny smocks (called sanbenitos)

and hats and had to endure interminable sermons about orthodoxy while tied to a stake waiting for the faggots to be lit. If one of them had a sudden change of heart and repented his wicked ways he was granted a boon. He was strangled before the fire was lit. Those who were obdurate in their heresy, even after torture to near death, were slowly burned. It was looked upon as a rehearsal for judgement day. pp.80-81

Hitler had permission from both the people and the priests to go on the warpath. p.92

Any politician who tells you he is doing something good for the nation is almost certain to be lying - but that doesn't mean that he does not believe what he is saying. He does! And that's what makes him dangerous. p.94

Who is seriously going to argue that Martin Luther wasn't a real Christian? He even has a whole sect named after him. Or that the popes who revelled in the Inquisition weren't 'real Christians'. Or that the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, Tomas de Torquemada, was not a real Christian. He was such a real Christian that he sent 10 220 people to the staker and 97 371 to the galleys for various forms of heresy. You can't get any more real than that. ... They never tortured a heretic more than once - they merely suspended the process a few hours and then continued the same torture. But don't think for a moment they were not motivated by anything other than Christian love. The torture instruments were regularly sprinkled with holy water. pp99-101