Jason Boyett

“To this faith, the world owes the modern institutional versions of orphanages, hospitals, and higher education, along with the intellectual revolutions of the Enlightenment. Renaissance painting and architecture, classical music, and the abolition movement, as well as the modern movements for workers’ rights, women’s suffrage, and civil rights, were all by-products, directly or indirectly, of Christian beliefs and actions. Despite Christianity’s positive influences in many areas, Christians were also responsible for the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty Years’ War, the genocide of native civilizations in the Americas, the Salem witch trials, American slavery and the slave trade, the Third Reich in Germany, “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland, the Rwandan genocide, and other atrocities. Clearly, Christianity has been both a positive and negative force in the world.”
― Jason Boyett, 12 Major World Religions: The Beliefs, Rituals, and Traditions of Humanity's Most Influential Faiths

“Before the Germanic peoples adopted the Latin alphabet, their written language consisted of runes—mystical carved symbols that represented far more than just letters of an alphabet. The runes were considered a type of magic, which Odin attained by hanging himself upside down from a branch of Yggdrasil and piercing himself with the tip of his spear. He spent nine days and nights on the verge of death before the sacred runes accepted his sacrifice and revealed to him their secrets. METHODS OF PRACTICE The physical world was thought to be a manifestation”
― Jason Boyett, 12 Major World Religions: The Beliefs, Rituals, and Traditions of Humanity's Most Influential Faiths