Which religion (inc Atheism) is responsible for more death?

[kepha31]

From my perspective, over the last 1400 years or so hundreds of millions of Christians have committed 250-300 Million murders in the name of Christianity, and in that same period hundreds of millions of Muslims have committed 250-300 million murders in the name of Islam.

Of course the Christians and Muslims will tell me that all those hundreds of millions of religious murderers "got it wrong", and that religions don't do that. While it seems to me that, of course religions are responsible.

But the defense of religion goes on and on and on...

"250-300 Million murders"? This is hate propaganda, it has no basis in reality, unless you can provide primary or secondary source documentation, or at the very least, an analysis from a reputable historian supporting such an wild claim. A Jackkk Chickkk comic is not a reliable source, neither is the Baptist "Trail of Blood" which is a common source of so much disinformation. Modern Baptist historians reject it as revisionism.

According to the Encyclopedia of Wars of the 1,763 major conflicts in recorded history, only 123 of them were classified as having been fought over religious differences. That’s just under 7 percent. The encyclopedia also explains that the number of people killed in these conflicts amounts to only 2 percent.

Jim Akin explains it best:

Religion is a powerful motivator, and thus is often invoked in wartime, but the real reasons most wars have been fought have nothing to do with it. Instead, they have to do with political control—either allowing certain political leaders to gain or remain in power (e.g., who is the rightful heir to the throne) or they have to do with gaining political control of resources (e.g., land, money, food supplies, transportation and trade routes) or they have to do with a particular leader’s ambitions (i.e., being remembered as a great man, or not being remembered as a weak man). When leaders aren’t being totally naked about those things, they dress them up with national pride or religion, but ultimately they are not at the root.
www.catholic.com/blog/jon-sorensen/is-religion-really-the-number-one-cause-of-war
​

The ISIS is a case in point. Their leaders are using Islam to fuel fanaticism to support their power. An average of 100,000 Christians are being killed per year. I don't see Christians beheading Muslim children, do you? Lumping Christians with Muslims using fabricated stats over a defensive war that happened 1000 years ago is hardly fair.

 

[icehorse]

Hi kepha31,

Let's start with the Hindu genocide that last over hundreds of years and is estimated to have killed 80 million Hindus. What's your take on that?

 

[icehorse]

I pretty much am proposing exactly that. People will do whatever they feel is right regardless. Religious people will follow a religion that is already consistent with their personal opinions (and variously interpret it in that manner too). None religious people can have temporal philosophies, individual or collective, that work in exactly the same manner. Even the best religion in principle could be misinterpreted, twisted or corrupted to support "bad" things. That wouldn't make the religion bad, it would make the people doing bad things but using the religion as an excuse bad. Why would it be any different switching the "bad" for "good"?

HonestJoe,

In MUCH of the world, children are indoctrinated into a religion at early ages and leaving the religion is not a viable option, because it's a major crime to leave. This is NOT a rare situation, it's disturbingly common.

 

[Brickjectivity]

"250-300 Million murders"? This is hate propaganda, it has no basis in reality, unless you can provide primary or secondary source documentation, or at the very least, an analysis from a reputable historian supporting such an wild claim.

I agree there. Also I agree it shouldn't be a blame game. The issue is not who do we blame but who will accept responsibility for a brother? Look at it from a non-Catholic perspective. When for instance will the Protestants own up to the fact that they have a responsibility for and to all of the Catholics? They've denied it for 400 years. Conveniently they think it excuses them from any responsibility for the conquistadors, for the inquisition, for the 'Bad' popes, for the 'Good' popes, for the iconography, for 'Mariolotry' and all kinds of things they don't want to be blamed for. They also deny responsibility for slavery in the South USA just two generations ago and for segregation one generation ago. Slavery in the Southern USA? Wasn't us! Heck, slavery isn't around anymore anyway, so its like it never even happened right? Forgive and forget. Responsibility -- that's for dead people!

So connecting back to the OP I don't think outsiders should say who is responsible, but I think insiders should accept responsibility for problems.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

It's like this: Atheists have no religion, no God, etc. But there are other things outside of religion. I remember a few years ago, some PETA people poisoning Turkeys in Canada during Thanksgiving time.

I thought peta protected animals?

 

[ChristineES]

I thought peta protected animals?

Sorry I wasn't going to post that, but it looks like this forum has a mind of its own. But that's a true story. What happened is that this forum saves things while you type so when I typed one answer this was saved from earlier when I decided not to post it and I didn't notice it was there for the next response. Embarrassing, but I've removed it. As you can notice, it is only part of a response and not a whole one.

 

[Underhill]

What I'm suggesting is that religions should hold themselves responsible, not that the law can place blame upon them. Even so, scale does hold I think. Unity comes not even through shared ideas or shared visions but through shared responsibility. It would be a huge subject and something for another thread.

The Boy Scouts apologized for that occurrence, because they are a unit. If they weren't a unit no apology would be necessary. I'm not saying that the Boy Scouts should be prosecuted, but they do share an ethical responsibility to help the victims. It is a responsibility created in their unity, therefore they take responsibility rather than having it placed upon themselves.

OK, so for argument lets accept the Boy Scouts are our standard now. Except that 'Religions' aren't merely the Boy Scouts, and they aren't merely institutions. No, because people pay with their own lives to be part of these religions. When you convert you pay so very much and count yourself as part of a religion, not just dues. Religions claim to be something better than 'Just the Boy Scouts'. If they refuse ownership for what is done in their names -- if they don't say sorry, and if they don't offer to help and don't accept some of the blame -- then the Boy Scouts are behaving better than they are and prove the religions unworthy of the Divine.

Okay, but expecting religions to be divine is in of itself a bit silly. The religion is not the faith. I agree with you that holding them responsible for how they respond to the actions of their membership matters. But it isn't the same as holding them responsible for the actions themselves.

I would even say I have no problem holding religions responsible for what they teach (if it is within an accepted doctrine) but even then you always will have outliers that are beyond their control.

 

[icehorse]

I agree there. Also I agree it shouldn't be a blame game. The issue is not who do we blame but who will accept responsibility for a brother? Look at it from a non-Catholic perspective. When for instance will the Protestants own up to the fact that they have a responsibility for and to all of the Catholics? They've denied it for 400 years. Conveniently they think it excuses them from any responsibility for the conquistadors, for the inquisition, for the 'Bad' popes, for the 'Good' popes, for the iconography, for 'Mariolotry' and all kinds of things they don't want to be blamed for. They also deny responsibility for slavery in the South USA just two generations ago and for segregation one generation ago. Slavery in the Southern USA? Wasn't us! Heck, slavery isn't around anymore anyway, so its like it never even happened right? Forgive and forget. Responsibility -- that's for dead people!

So connecting back to the OP I don't think outsiders should say who is responsible, but I think insiders should accept responsibility for problems.

Just so the context isn't lost... I placed equal blame on Christians and Muslims. Facts do not constitute hate speech. You can question the accuracy of the facts, but facts are just facts. Based on research I've read, BOTH religions have in the neighborhood of 250-300 million murders on their hands, in the name of the religion.

So, off the top of my head, 80 million Hindus, 50 million Africans, 20 million Europeans... and so on. Of course, I'm relying on history books, they could be wrong, but I'm not just tossing out random numbers.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Just so the context isn't lost... I placed equal blame on Christians and Muslims. Facts do not constitute hate speech. You can question the accuracy of the facts, but facts are just facts. Based on research I've read, BOTH religions have in the neighborhood of 250-300 million murders on their hands, in the name of the religion.

Yes Icehorse you are talking about Christianity and Islam (and any other religion including the dead ones) This would be a good place to relate your sources for those numbers, too.

So, off the top of my head, 80 million Hindus, 50 million Africans, 20 million Europeans... and so on. Of course, I'm relying on history books, they could be wrong, but I'm not just tossing out random numbers.

The ideas can be discussed, but a lot of the numbers you give are from the top of your head. Also many of the records are not in history textbooks but are in government records that are uncatalogued. Those who truly want to learn history have to dedicate a lot of time to it and even travel to get to the sources.

Really I just think that all the disparate groups are much too dismissive of each other, and part of it is a refusal to accept brotherhood with imperfect people. People aren't perfect you know? When somebody in your group does something wrong, that isn't a signal to dump them. Its a signal to reevaluate and to try to recapture that individual. The Reformation was no reformation at all. The break between the Shia's and the Sunni's is very similar, though the Muslims don't seem to see that. They are focused instead upon who was right or wrong, and around that have grown up new differences (now millennia of differences). And where is so much strife in the Middle East really coming from? Its from this attitude of cutting other people off isn't it? That's why there is such a misdirected hope in this ISIS group. Everyone strongly senses that there is something wrong with all of the division, and they hope ISIS is the way out of it. Unfortunately it is more of the same. So, yes it is an entity born of a misdirected religious expectation trying to repair division in the wrong way.

So do the religions bear responsibility? Oh, yes. They preach unity but practice division, therefore this is very much their responsibility.

 

[columbus]

I don't see where anybody has mentioned the obvious. It might be hard to tell which group is the bloodiest, but it is easy to tell which group is the least bloody. That is the atheism. There simply is nothing about atheism that is worth fighting or killing for. So, aside from the occasional mentally ill person perhaps, nobody has ever killed anybody for atheism.
That is not to say that atheists haven't instigated and participated in some of the most horrendous crimes against humanity ever. They have. But it was never for atheism. It was always when they were in pursuit of some cause or another, notably Communism. "Religiously zealous" in pursuit, one might say. The reason the bloodshed was so spectacular wasn't because they were especially zealous. It was because there were so many humans in the 20th century, and killing methods were so much more efficient. Atheists leaders like Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao quickly learned how to exploit the human weaknesses that religious leaders have used for all of history.
That is not the same as killing anybody for atheism. That just doesn't happen.

There is no religion responsible for death unless it says go kill people

It isn't that simple, friend OneAnswer. Religions teach lots of things that aren't specifically spelled out in scripture. I will stick to examples from Abrahamic religions, because they are the ones I know best.

These religious scriptures teach a tribal mentality, for one thing. There are "true believers" and there is everybody else. Even within the religions themselves this distinction gets made. This teaching helps people dehumanize other people, making murder easier. From the slaughter of the Amelekites, to the Crusades, to ISIS, this nothing new. Not all Abrahamic religionists admit that it is a fundamental teaching of their religion, but it is.

These religions also teach submission to human authorities, called "prophets" and clergy. Once a group has convinced enough people that someone is speaking for God, those people will find it hard to think for themselves and easy to accept whatever they are told by the authorities. It doesn't matter what the authorities tell them, disagreeing with those authorities means first accepting that they were wrong in accepting the authority in the first place. People find that sort of thinking very difficult.
So, from creationism, to "death to apostates", "don't worry about climate change, God will provide", once people take other humans as authorities on God and what God thinks or wants, there is no end to the madness.
This makes it easy for deluded leaders to get people to do evil things. It has been said, "Good people will usually do good things, and bad people bad things. But to get a good person to do bad things usually takes religion".
Religion teaches a lot of bad things, even when they don't come out and say so. Or take responsibility for what they teach.

Tom

 

[Sabour]

I don't see where anybody has mentioned the obvious. It might be hard to tell which group is the bloodiest, but it is easy to tell which group is the least bloody. That is the atheism. There simply is nothing about atheism that is worth fighting or killing for. So, aside from the occasional mentally ill person perhaps, nobody has ever killed anybody for atheism.
That is not to say that atheists haven't instigated and participated in some of the most horrendous crimes against humanity ever. They have. But it was never for atheism. It was always when they were in pursuit of some cause or another, notably Communism. "Religiously zealous" in pursuit, one might say. The reason the bloodshed was so spectacular wasn't because they were especially zealous. It was because there were so many humans in the 20th century, and killing methods were so much more efficient. Atheists leaders like Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao quickly learned how to exploit the human weaknesses that religious leaders have used for all of history.
That is not the same as killing anybody for atheism. That just doesn't happen.





It isn't that simple, friend OneAnswer. Religions teach lots of things that aren't specifically spelled out in scripture. I will stick to examples from Abrahamic religions, because they are the ones I know best.

These religious scriptures teach a tribal mentality, for one thing. There are "true believers" and there is everybody else. Even within the religions themselves this distinction gets made. This teaching helps people dehumanize other people, making murder easier. From the slaughter of the Amelekites, to the Crusades, to ISIS, this nothing new. Not all Abrahamic religionists admit that it is a fundamental teaching of their religion, but it is.

These religions also teach submission to human authorities, called "prophets" and clergy. Once a group has convinced enough people that someone is speaking for God, those people will find it hard to think for themselves and easy to accept whatever they are told by the authorities. It doesn't matter what the authorities tell them, disagreeing with those authorities means first accepting that they were wrong in accepting the authority in the first place. People find that sort of thinking very difficult.
So, from creationism, to "death to apostates", "don't worry about climate change, God will provide", once people take other humans as authorities on God and what God thinks or wants, there is no end to the madness.
This makes it easy for deluded leaders to get people to do evil things. It has been said, "Good people will usually do good things, and bad people bad things. But to get a good person to do bad things usually takes religion".
Religion teaches a lot of bad things, even when they don't come out and say so. Or take responsibility for what they teach.

Tom

Friend Tom, you are broadly speaking and painting all the religions with the same brush. What about a religion which would say to its people none of you shall be a believer unless you love for your brother what you love for yourself?. And by brother it means brothers in humanity.

That being part of the religion means you should follow that right? What implications does this simple sentence have on our daily life?

Perhaps it is not simple what difference does that make? Embracing a religion means truly following it right? What if ISIS KKK and crusaders were only claiming that they are following the religion and were not actually following it?

 

[Sir Doom]

ITT: Historical Hair-Splitting

 

[Neo Deist]

Praetorian said:

You're just playing with semantics.

Would you agree that beliefs have consequences? For example, if you get a phone call and you're told that a loved one was in an accident and is now in the hospital, would that belief affect your behavior? Would you decide to go the the hospital?

Next, is it fair to say that religion is passed from generation to generation largely through indoctrination? For example isn't it the case that most religious parents "declare" their children to be "of religion X"? And then those children go through religious indoctrination? In other words, at a young age children are taught to believe what "their" religion teaches them?

And isn't it the case that throughout history we have countless examples of millions of religious people murdering other people "in the name of religion X"?

Therefore, wouldn't Occam's razor lead us to the conclusion that religions are change-resistant containers for violent beliefs that are passed from generation to generation?

This seems like a simple straight line to me.

Semantics has nothing to do with it. There is no hidden meaning or understanding in what I said. Humans are inherently evil natured. Try as hard as we might, it is far easier to fall into chaos, bloodlust, and mayhem. We are a self destructive race.

There is a big difference between getting an emergency phone call and someone claiming (via religion) that we should believe X because some old guys from thousands of years ago, said so. The lies and deceit are kept alive by those who still cling to archaic religions.

 

[icehorse]

Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[kepha31]

Just so the context isn't lost... I placed equal blame on Christians and Muslims. Facts do not constitute hate speech. You can question the accuracy of the facts, but facts are just facts. Based on research I've read, BOTH religions have in the neighborhood of 250-300 million murders on their hands, in the name of the religion.

Again, another assertion. Document your "research" of Christians murdering that many people. This is the second time you propagate hate speech. Put up or shut up.

 

[icehorse]

kepha31,

What number do you think is more accurate?

 

[Renji]

Does the question actually make any sense?

 

[icehorse]

Does the question actually make any sense?

I've been told that 250 million is too high. I assume we'd all agree that zero is too low. So I'm asking kepha31 what number he thinks is accurate.

 

[McBell]

That is probably going too far. Unless you are proposing that religions should not be assigned any merits for encouraging virtue or quality of live either?

Most interesting how this was completely ignored....

 

[McBell]

it seems so be something that comes up a fair amount so i thought why not lets sort this out for once and for all.

First thing you will need to do is create a criteria as to how to assign the blame for each death.

For example, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where the deaths from those two incidents religious or secular?
How do you determine that?

I mean, are they Christian because the USA is a Christian nation?
Are they Christian because it was Christians in the plane the dropped the bombs?
What happens if it comes out that half the crew was Christian and Half was atheist?