It was also behind unspeakable acts of massive cultural destruction, so there's that.

Oh if religion wasn't responsible for "massive cultural destruction" then mankind would have invented something else to do it (whatever is meant by "massive cultural destruction").

I disagree. When you are absolutely sure that God itself is on your side, then there is no atrocity to big to commit. I feel that religious zeal has led to some of the worst catastrophes in human history. I would put para-religious zeal in that category too, like dogmatic forms of communism.

You can substitute "Truth", "Most Rational Action", or "Reality" in for God in your sentence and still get the same meaning.

People can and will justify almost everything.

"We want their stuff" is a pretty effective travesty generator for sure.

So was the search for condiments.

The Spice must flow.

"The beauty of their women and the taste of their food made the British the best sailors in the world."

Source? Proofs?

Do communism and secular humanism count as "religions" here?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries

The Crusaides and literally all of British colonialism.

Do you not know anything about history?

The East India Company was motivated by religion?

You'll have a hard time justifying that unless you're some sort of hardcore Jewish cryptosupremacy conspiracy theorist.

The Crusades and colonialism can’t be distilled down to single causes, but even if you tried, religious reasons would not be the main ones. Political and financial motivations were far bigger factors in both.

I didn't judge. I just wanted to point out that religion has a tradition of using new technologies to help spread itself.