The following was originally a reply to a site called "Jesus was a terrorist" which seems now to have disappered in a .com version (a .net version seems to be more of a Christ-myth venue). Thus I have trimmed this essay a bit, since the claims are recopied by other sites.
One source for that site was a book titled "Apollonius the Nazarene" by one "Dr. R. W. Bernard, B.A., M.A., Ph.D." While this was about Apollonius of Tyana as a copycat Christ, it is noteworthy what else was written by Barnard.
This is taken from a Skeptical site (the critical parts of which I have confirmed in other sources):
In 1964, Raymond W. Bernard, an esotericist and leader of the Rosicrucians published The Hollow Earth - The Greatest Geographical Discovery in History Made by Admiral Richard E. Byrd in the Mysterious Land Beyond the Poles - The True Origin of the Flying Saucers. The book is out-of-print but available on the Internet. Bernard also authored Flying Saucers from the Earth's Interior. His real name was Walter Seigmeister. His doctoral dissertation was entitled "Theory and Practice of Dr. Rudolf Steiner's Pedagogy" (New York University, 1932). In his Letters from Nowhere, Bernard claims to have been in contact with great mystics in secret ashrams and with Grand Lamas in Tibet. He was, in short, another Gurdjieff. Dr. Bernard "died of pneumonia on September 10, 1965, while searching the tunnel openings to the interior of the Earth, in South America."* Bernard seems to have accepted every legend ever associated with the hollow Earth idea, including the notions that the Eskimos originated within the Earth and an advanced civilization dwells within even now, revving up their UFOs for occasional forays into thin air. Bernard even accepts without question Shaver's claim that he learned the secret of relativity before Einstein from the Hollow Earth people.
So before you take Bernard's word about "one of the most colossal frauds and deceptions in the annals of history" being perpetrated at the Council of Nicea, and his account of alleged textual changes there that removed things like vegetarianism from the original Gospels (using Gideon Ouseley as his source) make sure you read the word on it from a more credible source.
The site also made use of an editorial by Dan Barker identifying Timothy McVeigh as a Catholic. For a corrective to such, we have this from an online columnist, from a link now defunct:
On the two great state occasions McVeigh had, at his sentencing and his execution, Jesus made no appearance in his rhetoric. At the sentencing, McVeigh quoted from Louis Brandeis' 1928 decision: "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example." McVeigh's last public act before he was executed was to distribute copies of the 1875 poem "Invictus." It begins: "I thank whatever gods may be/ for my unconquerable soul," and ends "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul" -- sentiments that to a Christian are at least vaguely blasphemous....In a letter to the Buffalo News and in conversations with author Dan Herbeck, McVeigh said he had no firm convictions about an afterlife: "And he told us that when he finds out if there's an afterlife, he will improvise, adapt and overcome, just like they taught him in the Army," Herbeck said.
In May 2001, Esquire published 13 letters of McVeigh's. In them, he portrays himself variously as a patriot, a lover of "The Simpsons," a "Star Trek junkie," a fan of the movie "Unforgiven," a reader of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," an enthusiastic consumer of Hustler and Penthouse magazines. His only direct religious reference (other than a Christmas card) was a letter dated April 11, 1998: "Yesterday was Good Friday; tomorrow is Easter; and it's been so long since I've been to church (except Christian Identity) (kidding!)."
Another source now offline added:
For example, there is the book American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing (ReganBooks, 2001) written by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, who are staff reporters for the Buffalo News in New York...Michel and Herbeck also tell how during the Gulf War McVeigh lied about attending church: "On Sunday mornings, the recruits were required to either attend church services or spend an hour cleaning the barracks. McVeigh, an agnostic, chose to clean the barracks until he found out that nobody took attendance at church. One Sunday, he signed up for church and just slipped away from the rest of his platoon. He found a field of tall grass and lay there, a little worried about snakes, but enjoying the opportunity to relax in solitude. The following Sunday, McVeigh signed up for church again. This time, he sneaked into an old abandoned barracks to kill time."...Michel and Herbeck say that McVeigh would tell friends, "Science is my religion." To worship at the altar of science is, of course, idolatry and not Christianity.
Finally, in an interview, Lou Michel told me: No, Tim McVeigh was not a Christian - "though he acknowledged the possibility of a higher power. But, he didn't accept Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, so far as I know." Michel notes that, at the end, McVeigh did pray with a chaplain and receive the anointing of the sick, known as the last rites in the Roman Catholic Church. "But," says Michel, "I think he was just covering his bases." He didn't ask for the last rites until they were offered to him. Whether McVeigh really repented and had a true conversion no one can know. But either way, the event happened long after he had committed - as a non-Christian - his act of terror in Oklahoma City. . .'
The main claim of the site: "the Book of Exodus is where God himself became a terrorist". The site first defined terrorism from the dictionary as, "the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons". So when the colonists dumped tea in Boston harbor they were "terrorists"? (the unlawful use of force by an organized group against property to coerce government, after all).
The critic has three options: 1) Condemn the colonists that gave him the freedom he enjoys today; 2) admit that under certain circumstances, "terrorism" is indeed justified; 3) admit that the dictionary is defining the word too broadly.
I can take either 2 or 3 (see interesting discussion here); others define terrorism in terms of attacks on innocent civilian populations, but in that case, even Hiroshima was a terrorist act, and in the ancient world, every person was a soldier or a supporter of the society they lived in, so that this is still too vague to be of any use.
We leave the matter of definition aside at any rate, because the site's purpose was to prove that Moses/God are no different than Osama/Allah, and to this end, raised a series of parallels:
By itself this is an irrelevant point. It's like trying to establish connections between Lincoln and Kennedy (see here, and being raised in a situation of wealth and power has nothing to do with proving a person is or was a terrorist.
This yet again is a meaningless parallel. Numerous peoples have had "grievances" ("the British are taxing us too much"); the issue is, are the grievances valid, and then, is the reaction a necessary one? This requires evaluation of the validity of grievances for either side.
So then what of, "Give me liberty or give me death"? Issuing a warning is also hardly a specific marker of being a terrorist. .
Cutting off or poisoning food and water supplies has been a staple of war for thousands of years. In Moses' day most armies had to be content with blocking the river into a walled city, or maybe polluting it with their excrement or a dead horse or two. The point of sieges throughout history has been to starve out the people inside. So we just ended up defining out scores of military campaigns as "terrorism".
So when we bombed German railroad tracks, that was terrorism? Setting up roadblocks is terrorism too?
Anthrax was NOT used by the Muslim terrorists; that was traced to someone here in the States. But this also makes things like poison-tipped arrows by the Scythains, and Hannibal's launching of jars full of poisonous snakes at enemy ships, or even his use of elephants (!), "terrorism".
This is the first time that any of the parallels have any relevance at all; but does it hold true? In a sense it does -- but it represents a clash of values between worlds.
For the ancient person, there was no such thing as an "innocent" in the sense of a person non-involved. In a collectivist society one person is as important to the workings of the whole as any other, even the "innocent". The child represents a future solider against whom one will have to do war at some point when the inevitable vengeance is sought. Our modern sense of security finds such thinking hard to comprehend; but we do not live in a world on the brink of chaos and anarchy.
And to be fair, it has been argued that the WTC bombers viewed the average American the same way. The parallel does not hold, because the individualistic diversity of our society means that the bombers merely projected their collectivist values on us (in an ironic reversal to modern Skeptical views) and truly did kill contextual innocents.
But if anyone wants to object, the words "Hiroshima" and "Nagasaki" speak as well for merely issuing a blanket judgment on the "slaugher of innocent people." Thus again: It is not mere surface judgment that is enough.
This goes back to being of no relevance to proving someone is a terrorist. We also send humanitarian aid to India; is that a terrorist nation?
So taking military action against military targets makes one a terrorist? So when American colonists shot British soldiers, that means...?
So when we executed the Rosenbergs, we "turned on our own" and became terrorists? In fact, if we arrest or kill anyone for a crime we are terrorists?
So if Osama runs into some woods before being shot, does that mean he isn't a terrorist?
So in conclusion, it seems that Saddam's parallels between Moses and Osama amount to nothing. We may as well add these to assist the case:
-JPH