The Religion of Violence

Kim Fabricus, in a typically bombastic post suggests the following bon mot to respond to an antagonistic atheist:

—Religion is inherently violent.
—You mean violence is inherently religious.

Which is a very interesting way of putting it.  Acts of violence do appeal to some essential understanding of the universe, whether it is the will to power, the right of self defence, or the reasonable response to unreasonable provocation, that holds some other thing more valuable than the command to love your enemy.  It is a decision, even if just for one special instance and under irrisistible pressure, to disobey Christ and serve another god entirely.  The iconoclasm of disfiguring a bearer of the image of God with violence is thus at once a moment of sacrilege and of idolatry.