"If we want to know why people kill in the name of God, and why they have been doing so for thousands of years, we must face one simple and obvious fact that almost nobody wants to confront. The fact is this: the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- the God of monotheism -- is a terrorist. This is not mere hyperbole on my part; it is an easily verifiable fact. For example, the U.S. Department of Defense defines terrorism as 'the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate others in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.'"

"When we look at an event like the conquest of Canaan, the massacres of millions of women and children, we must not lose sight of the fact that these actions were carried out in response to orders from God. The Bible makes that absolutely clear. When we read the brutal Law of Moses, where people's brains are being bashed in with rocks for breaking the Sabbath, for having sex with the wrong people, for believing the wrong things: all of these atrocious laws can be traced back to God. And when we read in scripture about hell, about billions of unbelievers being tortured in fire for all eternity -- it is God who is orchestrating all of this. God employs the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear -- and he does it for religious reasons. In anybody's book, that's terrorism."