The point wasn't to excuse any facets of religion, simply to point out that there are stronger similarities in operational tactics to totalitarian movements than there are to garden-variety religious organizations, which in the modern age tend to calcify around dogma rather than act as engines of motion via constant revolutionary purges.
Sure, now tell that joke to Giordano Bruno.
The left and the right today share so many traits with how religions operate that it freaks me out.