The Ol' "Atheist commies killed people more than religion" argument....

[AlbertCat]

.... is raging (if that's the right word) again over in "that other forum" again.

I know...yawn! But after being asked for proof that more people have died because of religion I looked for some proof.

So I post it here for those who might want it in the future. Anyone have better (and I'm sure there is better), post it too! Though of course it has made no difference to the true believers. But at least here are some numbers....

*******************

"I heard a while back that more people had died in the name of Jesus than in the name of Hitler. I’d always wondered if it was true, it seemed perfectly plausible given the persistence and viciousness of the Vatican during the Crusades. Unfortunately, I had found it difficult to find a number of deaths from the Crusades. But, I found in Google Answers, this webpage that chronicles numerous human conflicts and includes a category for religious conflicts. The numbers are hazy, of course, when we’re speaking about conflicts hundreds or thousands of years ago when death tallies were not a priority or of mild interest like they are today.

In short, 809 million people have died in religious wars. That’s nearly a billion people.

Oftentimes, a retort is that secular ideals and Godless Communism have killed many more. It is true that Stalin, among others, slaughtered his own people by the millions during the industrialization of Soviet Russia. By comparison, 209 million have died in the name of Communism. Some 62 million died during World War II, civilian and military, on all sides. Conclusively, more people have died in the name of religion than in the name of Communism or Hitler, or the two combined times two."

from: http://www.bookrateblog.com/2006/07/22/deaths-over-history-religious-vs-nonreligous/



Because the above is only Religious conflicts, be sure to add:

Human sacrifice and ritual suicide

This section lists deaths from the systematic practice of human sacrifice or suicide.
Lowest estimate Highest estimate Description Group Location From To Notes
300,000 1,500,000 Human sacrifice in Aztec culture Aztecs Mexico 14th century 1521 Up to 250,000 sacrificed yearly

13,000 13,000 Human sacrifice Shang dynasty China BC1300 BC1050 Last 250 years of rule
7,941 7,941 Ritual suicides Sati Bengal, India 1815 1828
3,912 3,912 Kamikaze suicide pilots Imperial Japanese AF Pacific theatre 1944 1945
913 913 Jonestown murder-suicide The Peoples Temple cult Jonestown Nov 18, 1978 Nov 19, 1978 The event was the largest loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the September 11, 2001 attacks.

I don't want to format the chart... so if you want to see the actual chart it is here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll

a little more than halfway down the page.

[rexcat]

1. There are some...

Last edited Tue Dec 18, 2012, 09:43 PM - Edit history (1)

posters in the religion forum that are not worth responding to and the one you referenced is definitely one of them. Just be glad he is banned here! We don't have to read his dribble.

[AlbertCat]

2. We don't have to read (h)is dribble.

Indeed.

But I thought having some real numbers might help if it comes up anywhere.

[JoeyT]

3. I suspect the largest numbers are going to be uncountable.

The number of lives lost due to religion holding back medical advancement and the lives lost by religion keeping monarchies in power.

The former meant centuries longer of believing witchcraft or evil spirits were responsible for your family or animals getting sick. (Or just bad weather) Which meant that whatever peasants survived this plague, they'd go right on ahead and start a new one by doing exactly what caused the last one.

The latter would be pretty much everything that happened to the peasantry(including famines) who were generally afraid to strike back because the nobility had been put there by god.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Stalin didn't murder people because of his atheism

Deaths caused by Stalin can't be ascribed to atheism. Deaths in the Crusades, for example, can be ascribed to religion. That's the big difference.

[Warpy]

7. Most of the deaths attributed to Stalin

were due to bad harvests produced by a combination of bad weather and collectivization, the former more important than the latter.

They weren't murdered so much as they starved.

Dead is dead and his hamfisted collectivization plus his idea of settling the unsettled Siberia with convicts were big contributors to the toll, but they were dwarfed by starvation and the diseases that found a reservoir in the starving.

I'm afraid that's too nuanced for a Christian soldier, though.

[bobclark86]

10. Oh, there were plenty...

killed in the gulags and deportations, but bad harvests were a HUGE part of it. As usual, more than just one factor.

[skepticscott]

17. In some cases

particularly the Ukraine "famines" of the 30's, they didn't just starve, they were starved. Their deaths were the results of a deliberate and premeditated campaign of political repression, and had nothing to do with their religion or Stalin's atheism at all.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. You are mentioning many Christian atrocities

in discussing the "religious" killing, but there are so many other religions that have had their own holy wars, including many of the recent wars and killings related to Islam. And even the Holocaust can be considered a "religious war", since it was perpetrated on the Jews because they were Jews.

What war in history was perpetrated by atheists? (And don't you dare answer "the war on Christmas"!) There have been wars started by people who were atheists, but that had nothing to do with the reason for the war---which was always power/empire building/territory.

[AlbertCat]

8. You are mentioning many Christian atrocities

Really?

Where?

The Aztecs?

The Japanese AF?

Besides, I was cutting and pasting from other web sites, like Wiki.

[trotsky]

6. I especially love how the millions of Russians who died of starvation...

because of the horrible famines caused by central planning in the Soviet Union are somehow due to Stalin's atheism, too.

I don't even see his posts anymore thanks to DU's wonderful ignore feature, but I know who you're talking about.

[Arugula Latte]

9. Yeah, & you'd think if god existed it would step in and help a bit during famine, ya know?

How anyone can worship an absent psychopath like "god" is beyond me.

[Laochtine]

13. The famines caused by the scorched Earth policy

To stop the Germans from pillaging supplies had a lot to do with the peasants dying during the 40's.

[cleanhippie]

11. Nothing you could do, say, post, or argue, will ever change the humble one's tune about Stalin...

Mao, or the dreaded MILITANT ATHEISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


It's become, no he has become, a joke right up there with Ray Comfort and Ken Ham and whats-his-face from Growing Pains, Kirk Cameron.

That and the "other ways of knowing" schtick, while humorous, are old, stale, and tired. I recommend not feeding the trolls, but just pointing and laughing.

[AlbertCat]

12. Of course, think logically....

.... which is of no importance to the religious... but if you take their argument to its logical conclusion:

In the 20th century you have 2 or 3 communists "groups" who have killed a lot of folks, directly and indirectly, because of their "Communist manifestos" of which atheism is only one part.

But there are no "Communists" from the 19th century on back. So that leaves all governments with some religious component to their philosophies and claims of leadership for all those centuries from the 20th century on back... into BCE centuries. I don't think one as to add up the individual deaths to safely conclude the number is more, way more, than the number of 2 or 3 "groups" in a single century no matter how big that sample is.

But the minute one included "logic" into the mix.... one lost the religious.

[Warren Stupidity]

37. You also have WWI - one of the bloodiest conflicts ever, and all sides

were militant christianist nations.

Going back a bit the Mongol conquests of the 1200's were astoundingly bloody affairs, typically involving the systematic slaughter of all inhabitants of cities that resisted conquest, and those Mongols were highly religious.

[nglf]

14. d

This is a good post but like another poster said, the minute you bring logic into it you have lost the religious!
Surely the point is that religion shouldn't have killed anybody. It's the hypocrisy of the religious which gets to me. All this holier than thou attitude, and they are right up there in the statistics killing in the millions.
What's the point if religion if it only adds to the death toll?

[TeamPooka]

15. welcome to DU!

[arely staircase]

18. there has been oppression in the name of all religions

and oppression in the name of atheistic ideologies. I (a Christian) think all oppression is wrong and so does every atheist I know.

[Gore1FL]

53. Of what Atheist "ideologies" do you speak? n/t

[Iggo]

19. Trashing thread.

Nothing against you.

It's just that I'd rather keep this shit where it belongs...in the shithole.

[amuse bouche]

32. Why does it belong "in the shithole"?

Do explain

[AtheistCrusader]

20. The wehrmacht's belt buckles read "Gott Mitt Uns"

I'll let you guess which god.

[arely staircase]

21. I think killing or persecuting anyone because of their religious beliefs, or lack

Last edited Mon Jun 3, 2013, 09:58 PM - Edit history (1)

thereof is an abomination.

[AlbertCat]

22. I think killing, persecuting, or ridiculing anyone because of their religious beliefs, or lack

Killing and persecuting certainly.

But, get real....Mormons and Scientologists deserve all the ridiculing they can get. There's simply no excuse for such foolishness. (Except money)

[arely staircase]

23. their beliefs, no

but if their beliefs lead them to act in such a way that they don't give their kids medicine or whatever, sure.

[AlbertCat]

24. their beliefs,

I'm sorry, but some beliefs don't deserve respect. Like crop circles are from outer space, or blacks are inferior, or vaccines are really dangerous, or Barack Obama is a Muslim fascist commie socialist, or that anyone goes to anyplace like hell after they die....

[arely staircase]

25. i will edit to remove the ridicule part

you make a good point.

[AlbertCat]

26. One trouble with religions (and other things too)

There's a thing Susan Blackmore calls a "memeplex". It's a group of memes (ideas) that travel along together and get spread together. A religion is a memeplex with many good ideas and MANY BAD ONES that all travel along together.

[LiberalAndProud]

27. The loss of life that should be attributed to regressive Christians is incalculable.

I experience deep and ponderous grief that the Church fomented the destruction of Library of Alexandria, caused the vicious torture and murder of Hypatia and then canonized Cyril. The cumulative cost to the human endeavor is not knowable. Our societal and scientific evolution has been set back by generations repeatedly in human history by religious zealots. It has happened in our past, and if the Church has its way, it will happen again

and again

until the end of days, which will be hastened by the superstitious fear and loathing of the Christian endeavor.

[AlbertCat]

28. caused the vicious torture and murder of Hypatia and then canonized Cyril.

Now now...

Christians have come a long way since then. They don't flay people alive with oyster shells anymore....

They shoot them in church or at their clinic.

[LiberalAndProud]

30. Right?

Yet, for liberal Christians, the institution must be divorced from its abhorrent past, accepting no responsibility, offering no apology. "It wasn't us" is good enough. Or even worse, it was justified and directed by God. WTF? If that is God, they can keep it; I want no part of it. Destructive, classist, misogynist, social engineering bullshit from beginning to end.

[onager]

29. Come over here and gloat with me...

Before Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria was another one of those Great & Learned Fathers of the Church - Athanasius.

E.M. Forster, in his very entertaining book "Alexandria: A History and a Guide," describes Athanasius somewhat differently - as a sleazy con man and thug.

He hired gangs of street brawlers to attack his "heretical" enemies, the Arians. And when their leader Arius died, Athanasius is said to have danced for joy thru the streets of Alexandria.

Even Wikipedia notes: There were allegations of defiling an altar, selling Church grain that had been meant to feed the poor for his own personal gain, and for suppressing dissent through violence and murder.

Anyway, after Athanasius died circa 373 CE, Alexandria got a big church named for him...

...until 641 CE, when a Muslim army came along and a brand new god took up residence in the city. Ever since, the former Church of Athanasius has been known as the Attarine Mosque.

Gloat, gloat, gloat...though it would have been a lot better if the Church had been turned into a library. (I lived in Alexandria from 2005-09 and often walked thru this part of the city. Nowadays it's full of interesting antique/junk shops.)

Attarine Mosque:

[LiberalAndProud]

31. I appreciate the brief history, though I can't share the gloat.

I truly believe that if the history of religion were conscientiously taught, our world would be blighted by far fewer fanatics, and there would be far fewer believers on the whole. or maybe not?

[5isyphus]

33. Disproving the point

Albertcat,
The link is very interesting but it completely disproves the notion that religious wars killed more people than any other reason. The religious section adds up to less than 1.6 million. And including kamikaze pilots is a mistake as the direct cause of these deaths were a result of imperialist expansionism not religion.

The top six causes total 356 million and none of these could be classed as religious wars. If you scroll down many, most, of the large scale deaths weren't religious (napoleonic wars, American civil war, etc..). Even the thirty years war, which began on religious grounds morphed into a European power struggle. The African wars have been tribal, not religiously based wars, etc...

But thanks for the link.

[AtheistCrusader]

34. Math is hard.

I'm guessing you meant the wiki link, since the former link in the OP is so old (thanks for the thread necro) it doesn't work anymore.

Consider the 1.6m number you just specified.

"The French Wars of Religion (1562–98) is the name of a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise (Lorraine), and both sides received assistance from foreign sources."

Total: 2-4 million.

That's one aspect of one conflict in one nation.

"And including kamikaze pilots is a mistake as the direct cause of these deaths were a result of imperialist expansionism not religion."

Wildly ignorant of WWII Japanese culture, and also totally explains why they called it 'divine wind'. The emperor was, in their eyes, a god. Political military factions may have been running the show, but the people, and thus the rank and file military thought they were following the direct orders of their god. There is some great literature out and about that reflects how the Japanese people felt about their emperor, most of whom had never even heard his voice till the announcement of surrender. Japan was certainly engaged in imperial expansionism, but that doesn't change the religious devotion to the figurehead of the government directing traffic around the pacific rim.

Edit, out of curiosity, why would you spend your first post on DU, addressing a thread that was posted almost exactly two years ago?

[Gelliebeans]

36. Interesting indeed n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

38. I hate zombie threads.

[AtheistCrusader]

43. Drive-by thread necromancy by a sock puppet zombie.

I wonder who it actually was.

[LostOne4Ever]

45. I wonder if they did it while on a boat (nt)

[onager]

40. That devotion didn't exactly end in 1945...

The mayor of Nagasaki was shot by a right-winger in 1990 for criticizing Hirohito:

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/19/world/mayor-who-faulted-hirohito-is-shot.html

The fascinating thing about all this to me: it was a case where a god ceased to exist literally overnight. Hirohito went to bed a deity, and woke up just another human.

And yet, as we are constantly warned by the religionistas, Japan didn't collapse into a sinkhole of crime and general ickiness when a major religious prop was suddenly knocked away. Most people just sort of said "Meh" and went on with their lives.

I made a few work trips to Japan back in the 1990s. One of the funniest things I heard there: "One half of the Japanese people are Shinto. One half are Buddhist. And one half have no religion at all."

No, it doesn't add up. Which is what makes it funny IMO.

[LiberalAndProud]

41. Need a Venn diagram.

It's funny, but also probably true.

Think about it. In terms of career networking, what better place than a religious organization? Just because you don't believe doesn't mean you can't take advantage.

[onager]

42. Complicating the diagram further...

Many Japanese seem to be simultaneously Shinto AND Buddhist. They venerate their ancestors for Buddhist celebrations, and go wave at the Emperor on his birthday and New Year's.

But if you need a religiously-themed career in Tokyo - get thee to Asakusa Kannon Temple!

The biggest Buddhist temple in Tokyo and a real blast to visit. Reached by walking thru streets crammed with little shops selling every kind of Buddhist rick-rack imaginable: jewelry, incense, Buddhas of every size, books, etc. etc.

I've only been to one other religious site with so many opportunities to spend money clustered around it - the Vatican.

[LostOne4Ever]

44. Apparently while we do not believe in gods, we do believe in necromancery

I think I am going to quote a post from an non-DU forum:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2712012494

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Open letter to thread necromancers...[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Dear people who still don't know how forums work,

Thread necromancy is the practice of resurrecting threads that area already "dead". A dead thread is one that hasn't been added to in weeks, months, or in some cases even years.

Why do people do it? Some do it to troll, since necromancy is seriously annoying. Others feel that they for some reason aren't worthy of making their own thread and decide that bumping an old one is preferable. Still others subscribe to an erroneous idea that they should consolidate talks on a topic in one thread, and do necromancy if they can't easily find a thread on their subject.

Why is this bad? It is very rare that the original posters in that thread are still around. You're cluttering up the front page by talking to people who aren't there to respond. Also, it is common that the issues in the thread are outdated or otherwise no longer relevant.

What should we do instead? Make your own thread or don't post at all. If you have a valid point concerning a topic, make a thread about it if there isn't already one on the first couple pages. That way, you can actually have relevant discourse concerning the topic. If you need help, make your own thread for it, since a necro'd thread will often get responses concerning previous posts in the thread or simple admonitions of your necromancy rather than actual aid. And if all you have to say is "I agree" or your post is otherwise dependent on building on someone else's old thread, consider not posting it at all. We don't need your stream-of-consciousness ramblings here. Consider getting a Twitter account.

Edit 7/19/11: While you're at it, please don't make threads consisting of Walls o' Text. Imagine that this entire post was one big paragraph. Would you have read it?

[AtheistCrusader]

46. Awise from your gwave

[Cartoonist]

47. I beg to differ

Spinoza wrote his stuff a long time ago. He's dead now. Does that mean no one should discuss his works? The new guy was asked why he chose that thread to re-open. I can't speak for him/her, but my experience was probably similar. Upon coming here for the first time, I saw a long list of threads. Some sounded more interesting than others. I don't recall which one I chose first to respond to, but it was probably something that is close to my heart. The date of it had no importance. Should I have started a new thread? Then there would have been a lot of repetition as we walked over the same ground.

[LostOne4Ever]

49. There is a difference between spamming posts and necroing dead threads.

Neither one is good internet etiquette, and there is actually a middle ground between the two that one can choose. Looking to see if there are somewhat new threads to post to before creating a new thread or necroing a thread that hasn't been responded in 2 years.

If there is already an active thread on Spinoza, for example, there is no need to create another one. But if the only thing you can find is a thread some 23 pages back written 3 years ago, then maybe the topic needs a new thread.

Necroing is bad because once a thread is a certain age there is a good chance that the person you are replying to is no longer posting on DU, or as in this particular case, the link no longer works. Similarly someone could be talking about something from a long time ago and we could confuse it for something current or information might have change.

Back when I posted on the forums I linked to above, someone had necroed a thread to blast another posters for advocating a certain game mechanic. When the OP made his comment he was very much correct, but the game was changed since then and by necroing that thread it made the OP look like an idiot when he was correct at the time of his post.

Things change all the time. This is especially true in the world of politics. A untested policy today might look promising but will appear totally moronic a few years later. Hindsight is 20/20 afterall. And I am not saying you can NEVER discuss an issue presented in an old thread, but that it might make more sense to start a new thread rather than confuse posters by necroing an old thread.

There are no spinoza threads currently, now would be a fine time to make one, but necroing an old spinoza thread from 3 years again will only cause confusion. This thread in particular I am nearly certain is talking about a poster who was PPR'd over a year ago.

[Cartoonist]

50. Flux

You make some good arguments both for and against necroing. Therefore I would not approve of a policy banning the practice, rather I would look at it on a case by case basis. This thread was given new life and has drawn fresh and interesting comments. I am glad for its resurrection.

[m-lekktor]

51. I disagree. the link in the OP no longer works

so the reference for the whole discussion is no longer there. it is best to start a new thread with a link to a source that is current. Thread necroing is bad form.

[mr blur]

52. Yes, but you didn't just drop in from nowhere,

and for your very first post, dig up a very old thread and make a passive-aggressive post in a tone which is all too familiar to many here to make a point in a fashion which is also all too familiar to many here, end with a snarky comment and then disappear completely.

[Gelliebeans]

35. Just "imagine"

How many people would be alive today if they hadn't been killed for that cause or because or that cause?

[Cartoonist]

48. The real record holder

I include religious inspired genocide in the numbers, not just wars. Christianity is responsible for the genocide of the Americas, Australia, and non-believing Europe in the Dark Ages. I would include Africa, but I would rather ascribe it to racism.

So what are the standings? While Hitler and Stalin count their victims in the millions, Christianity counts them by the continent. God counts them by the planet.