But the greatest joke of all...

...is on those to whom violence has been done "in the name of God":

The three thousand people who perished in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, and all who have suffered or died as a consequence of the resulting wars.
    The women in patriarchal societies the world over whose scriptures proclaimed that they were the slaves of men to be done with however pleased the men.
    The children who have been force-fed scriptural doctrine and ruled by stern, "because I [standing in for God] say so" parents.
    The blacks in the American South whose enslavement was taken to be condoned by the teachings of the Bible.
    The gays and other "deviants" who have been accorded their Old Testament due by fundamentalist enforcers.
    The oddballs in societies like that of Salem, Massachusetts who were drowned, hanged, or burned as witches.
    The innocent men and women who have been convicted by jurors so Biblically intent on taking an eye for an eye that they didn't bother to be sure they had the right person. Like Ray Krone, whose story is told in Jim Rix's 2007 book, Jingle Jangle: The Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out. The jury for Krone's second trial was predominantly Mormon, and the "bite mark expert" who presented his mistaken evidence as inspiring "a high degree of [scientific] confidence" was a deacon in the Mormon Church. Juror Rebecca said later, "I'm a Mormon. I had the jurors' names put in the prayer roll at the temple while we were in trial so that we could make proper decisions."
    The scientists (like Galileo) who were shown the instruments of torture by the Church to force them to recant their evidence-based findings.
    The doctors who have been gunned down outside their offices.

And on and on, with no pleasure being taken in the enumeration....