When they light up the fire under your feet, that will be a comfort I'm sure.
Jesus Christ was executed by the state.
Again, if you want to make the point that people are human, and that the totalitarian instinct runs deep, I'm not going to argue with you. If you want to point out that other religions and other movements have used force and intimidation to squelch dissent, you are very right. If you want to point out that in other times and other places it was good catholics getting torched, rather than good catholics doing the torching, then go for it. There probably are plentiful examples to choose from.
If you want to make the point that, all things being equal, getting torched by the state for your beliefs is not that unusual in the overall scheme of things, this last century proves you right.
If you want to make the claim that the guys doing the torching did so under the urgings of the Holy Spirit, or that the ones who turned them over to the state to be torched did so in obedience to the Holy Spirit, then no. Don't go there.
Hostility between Christian sects is, to me, tragic, but it was baked in early back when dissenting could get you killed. Thank God, and I mean it, that religious dissent between Christian brothers these days nets you some snarky comments on an internet board. You wouldn't believe it sometimes to read the commentary, but we actually (mostly) like each other. There was a day, though, when it wasn't like that.
I wouldn’t presume to speak for the Holy Ghost on this. But I would note that blasphemy, idolatry, breaking the Sabbath, and witchcraft are all crimes punishable by death in the Old Testament. If you have a civilization that truly believes in the divine nature of its religion, it only stands to reason that a person who murders people’s souls is as guilty of a heinous crime as someone who murders the body.
We have lost sight of the horror of heresy I think. We tend to minimize it as simple disagreement of beliefs, and we don’t realize the heavy cost we pay for this attitude in society.