[medved]

But only religion has claimed to kill on the direct command of God...

Check out my post #16 above. Granted it's a little bit more to try to read than some of the one or two-liners you see here but it explains what you see in the old testament. The people who were hearing God command them to fight wars, sacrafice children and otherwise kill people were experiencing the same kind of thing David Berkowicz/Son-of-Sam experienced, i.e. an inner voice which they could not escape from or disobey and that kind of thing, which now is rare and referred to as schizophrenia, a mental illness, was COMMON in old testament times and, prior to the time of Zechariah, viewed as fairly normal.

[BikerNYC]

The people who were hearing God command them to fight wars, sacrafice children and otherwise kill people were experiencing ... an inner voice which they could not escape from or disobey and that kind of thing, which now is rare and referred to as schizophrenia, a mental illness, was COMMON in old testament times and, prior to the time of Zechariah, viewed as fairly normal.

Why limit it to acts of violence? Couldn't the same thing be said about people who hear voices that motivate them to do what most consider to be good things?

[js1138]

Schizophrenia has always been with us. Not only that, but it tends to be more common among the more intelligent. Even more interesting, it is not incompatible with genuine genius.

From where I stand that means that us normal non-visionaries need to be careful. Visionaries should not be automatically dismissed, but we should not accept visions as coming from God.