A little bit of facts for those who believe religion has been the number 1 killer

that's right. I thought so too. I am not a friend of organized religion. so i was pretty surprised to find out that communist athiesm and regimes that strongly discouraged religion have killed millions more than "religious" nations.
It's quite clear that athiesm is the most dangerous theology throughout human history:

I..total killed in history (excluding abortion) is 284,638,000 of that 151,491,000 killed in just last 100 years.

A:Christiandom:264,000 broken down to: Crusades/ ~58 to 133,000///Spanisish Inquisition/ from AD1480 to AD1808 31,912/// Witch burning/ ~30 to 100,000
B:Athiestic Communism: 110,000,000 which is over 1/3 of all people ever killed. if you add to that number just two other regimes where religion of any sort was strongly discouraged, Nazi Germany and Nationalist China, the number rises to 141,160,000. Almost 50% of all the killings in human history were committed in the past 100 years by regimes that either actively promoted atheism or strongly discouraged religion. We have not considered the over one billion abortions, where Christianity seems to be particularly unwelcome.
C:1937-1938 Japanese rape and pillage of Nanking during which they probably killed some 200,000 people.
D: Democide: Over 133,147,000 Murdered: Pre-Twentieth Century Democide
II 128,168,000 VICTIMS: THE DEKA-MEGAMURDERERS
4. 61,911,000 Murdered: The Soviet Gulag State
5. 35,236,000 Murdered: The Communist Chinese Ant Hill
6. 20,946,000 Murdered: The Nazi Genocide State
7. 10,214,000 Murdered: The Depraved Nationalist Regime
III 19,178,000 VICTIMS: THE LESSER MEGA-MURDERERS
8. 5,964,000 Murdered: Japan's Savage Military
9. 2,035,000 Murdered: The Khmer Rouge Hell State
10. 1,883,000 Murdered: Turkey's Genocidal Purges
11. 1,670,000 Murdered: The Vietnamese War State
12. 1,585,000 Murdered: Poland's Ethnic Cleansing
13. 1,503,000 Murdered: The Pakistani Cutthroat State
14. 1,072,000 Murdered: Tito's Slaughterhouse
there u go, i know a lot of you will argue about the untold millions murdered in the old testament...but that doesn'tt hold water, because you don't BELIEVE in the old testament any more than i do. so ther u go.
DO YOUR WORST.

Anything that has caused the death of 1 or more people, isn't something good in my opinion.

I dont support war but I dont blame all soldiers, most of them are just following orders from a nation's president, religious murderers follow orders from a guy who lives on a cloud (You know what I mean).





[edit on 2-4-2009 by aNdReSk]

Perhaps any 'opinion' which deliberately sets out to condition and indoctrinate people with the delusion that they are somehow more
special/chosen/superior to other human beings is inherently flawed and an affront to humanity as a whole.

Your statistics are incorrect, but that doesn't have a lot of bearing on the discussion at hand. This is an argument that recurs throughout the internet and beyond, and essential to it is a profound ignorance of just what atheism constitutes. It is not an ideology, a set of beliefs or opinions about the world, a guide for how to live or what course of action to take in situations x, y and z. It is merely a statement of disbelief in a god. That is all, nothing more--nada, zip, nothing to see here. The atheistic regimes responsible for committing atrocities did not use a lack of belief in god as their purpose, but rather the deification of their world leader(s) and the oppression of all bodies that presented an affront to that leader--this was a formation of a religious-type construct around a government head, the success of which necessitated the destruction of established religion, itself an enemy because it took power away from the leader.

[edit on 2/4/09 by paperplanes]

reply to post by paperplanes


NONSENSE.

In my PhD dissertation research, I received from MM O'Hare,

what was it titled . . .

THE AMERICAN ATHEIST.

or some such . . .

I was shocked. Startled and shocked.

Replacing a few keywords and phrases . . .

would cause the publication to read like a PENTECOSTAL CHRISTIAN PUBLICATION and very . . . thoroughly so.

Atheism and Scientism are "new" religions of all the usual garbage of

RELIGIONS of every kind.

There's DOGMA, PRIESTHOOD, CONDITIONING, PROSCRIPTIONS AND PRESCRIPTIONS ETC. ETC. ETC.

But, hey, nice to see the opposition so horribly wrong in their assertions.

Thanks.

You provide absolutely no refrences to support your statements and figures. It seems you pulled them out of a hat to get people rilled up.

Well here are official figures and source.

Biblical Atrocities mentioned in the Bible
Source: Your precious Bible

• Exodus 32: 3,000 Israelites killed by Moses for worshipping the golden calf.
  
• Numbers 31: After killing all men, boys and married women among the Midianites, 32,000 virgins remain as booty for the Israelites. (If unmarried girls are a quarter of the population, then 96,000 people were killed.)
  
• Joshua:
  
  
  
  • Joshua 8: 12,000 men and women, all the people of Ai, killed.
    
  • Joshua 10: Joshua completely destroys Gibeon ("larger than Ai"), Makeddah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir. "He left no survivors."
    
  • Joshua 11: Hazor destroyed. [Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (1987), estimates the population of Hazor at ?> 50,000]
    
  • TOTAL: if Ai is average, 12,000 x 9 = 108,000 killed.
    
  
  
  
• Judges 1: 10,000 Canaanites k. at Battle of Bezek. Jerusalem and Zephath destroyed.
  
• Judges 3: ca. 10,000 Moabites k. at Jordan River.
  
• Judges 8: 120,000 Midianite soldiers k. by Gideon
  
• Judges 20: Benjamin attacked by other tribes. 25,000 killed.
  
• 1 Samuel 4: 4,000 Isrealites killed at 1st Battle of Ebenezer/Aphek. 30,000 Isr. k. at 2nd battle.
  
• David:
  
  
  
  • 2 Samuel 8: 22,000 Arameans of Damascus and 18,000 Edomites killed in 2 battles.
    
  • 2 Samuel 10: 40,000 Aramean footsoldiers and 7,000 charioteers killed at Helam.
    
  • 2 Samuel 18: 20,000 Israelites under Absalom killed at Ephraim.
    
  
  
  
• 1 Kings 20: 100,000 Arameans killed by Israelites at Battle of Aphek. Another 27,000 killed by collapsing wall.
  
• 2 Chron 13: Judah beat Israel and inflicted 500,000 casualties.
  
• 2 Chron 25: Amaziah, king of Judah, k. 10,000 from Seir in battle and executed 10,000 POWs. Discharged Judean soldiers pillaged and killed 3,000.
  
• 2 Chron 28: Pekah, king of Israel, slew 120,000 Judeans
  
• TOTAL: That comes to about 1,283,000 mass killings specifically enumerated in the Bible. The battle of 2_Chron_13 is so much larger than all the others that we probably should doubt it.
  

Religious Martyrs

• David Barrett, Todd Johnson, Justin Long
  
  
  
  • World Christian Encyclopedia (2001): This book is the standard reference work for religious statistics of all kinds, and both Britannica and the World Almanac cite from it. It has a single page [gem-werc.org...] estimating the number of martyrs since the origin of each religion:
    
    
    
    • Muslim martyrs: 80M
      
    • Christian martyrs: 70M
      
      
      
      • 20th Century: 45.4M
        
      • At the hands of...
        
        
        
        • Atheists: 31,689,000
          
        • Muslims 9,121,000
          
        • Ethnoreligionists: 7,469,000
          
        • Christians: 5,538,000
          
        • Quasi-religionists 2,712,000
          
        • Mahayana Buddhists: 1,651,000
          
        • Hindus: 676,000
          
        • Zoroastrians: 384,000
          
        
        
        
      
      
      
    • Hindu martyrs: 20M
      
    • Buddhist martyrs: 10M
      
    • Jewish: 9M
      
    • Ethnoreligious: 6M
      
    • Sikh: 2M
      
    • Baha'i: 1M
      
    • Other religious martyrs: 5M
      
    
    
    
  • The book defines martyrs as
    
    
    
    1. Believers in Christ (U.O.N.)
       
    2. Who have lost their lives
       
    3. Prematurely
       
    4. In situations of witness
       
    5. As a result of human hostility.
       
  
  
  
• World Christian Trends by Barrett et al: Apparently this book gives more details about martyrdom statistics, but so far, I haven't found it in a library (even our local seminary), and I can't afford to buy it myself. (But see gem-werc.org...) Here are some of the major episodes that I've been able to scrounge from websites and articles. Some of my sources have been somewhat ambiguous in their wording, so I honestly don't know whether they mean to say that the Amerindians and Baghdadians, for example, are meant as Christian martyrs or Muslim or Shamanist, or whether the various subclasses who died at Soviet or Nazi hands are already included in the largest number or meant to be added to it.
  
  
  
  • Martyrdom at Soviet hands:
    
    
    
    • 1921-50: 15M Christians in prison camps
      
    • 1950-80: 5M Christians in prison camps
      
    • Orthodox: 14.5M k. by Stalin, 2.7M of them martyrs (1929-37)
      
    • Roman Catholics (1925): 1.2M martyrs
      
    
    
    
  • By Mongols
    
    
    
    • 1214: Genghiz Khan massacres 6M Christians: 4M martyrs
      
    • 1214: Diocese of Herat sacked by Genghiz Khan: 1M
      
    • 1258: massacre in Baghdad by Hulaku Khan: 1.1M
      
    • 1358: Tamerlane destroys 15-million-strong Nestorians: 4M martyrs
      
    
    
    
  • Conquistadors kill 15 million Amerindians: 2M martyrs (1560)
    
  • Christians executed by Nazis in death camps: 1M
    
    
    
    • Nazis exterminate 0.5M Gypsies
      
    
    
    
  • Khmer Rouge slaughter 2M (1975)
    
  • Kurds massacre 20,000 Nestorians (1843)
    
  • Massacre of 40,000 Vietnamese Catholics (1970)
    
  
  
  

The Ottawa Citizen (20 Dec. 1998)

• 15M Christians d. in Soviet prison camps because of their faith.
  
• citing Paul Marshall, Their Blood Cries Out
  
  
  
  • ca. 400,000 Chinese Christians died during the Cultural Revolution.
    
  • ca. 100,000 Christians k by Idi Amin (out of 300,000 total k.)
    
  • Up to 500,000 Rwandan Christians died as witnesses to their faith (out of 700,000 total k.) (1994)
    
  
  
  

The Ottawa Citizen (6 Feb. 1993)

• Citing D. Barret, Our Globe and How to Reach It
  
  
  
  • 40M Christians martyred throughout history.
    
  • ca. 24M by secular governments and atheists
    
  • ca. 8M k. by other Christians
    
  
  
  

Several alleged martyrdoms and religious fights are widely doubted by historians.

• Book of Esther, chapter 9 (ca. 475 BCE)
  
  
  
  • Persian King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) allows the Jews under Mordecai to kill 500 enemies in the palace and 75,000 in the provinces.
    
    
    
    • Jewish Encyclopedia: "Comparatively few modern scholars of note consider the narrative of Esther to rest on an historical foundation." www.jewishencyclopedia.com...
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents (ca.4 BCE, although no ancient historian mentions it.)
  
  
  
  • Catholic Ency. www.newadvent.org...
    
    
    
    • Greek tradition: 14,000 boys k.
      
    • Syrian tradition: 64,000
      
    • Medieval tradition: 144,000
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• St. Ursula (3rd, 4th or 5th Century CE)
  
  
  
  • Catholic Ency. [www.newadvent.org...]: 11,000 virgins martyred in Cologne.
    
  • Cecil Adams doubts the likelihood of 11,000 virgins in one place. www.straightdope.com...
    
  
  
  
• Battle at Cumorah (385 CE)
  
  
  
  • According to Mormon traditon, 230,000 Nephites were killed in this battle against the Lamanites fought in upstate New York. (Mormon 6:10-15) Also, 2 million men (plus their women and children) were killed in an earlier battle between Shiz and Coriantumr on the hill Comnor. (Ether 14:1) There is no corroborating evidence for any of this. www.bcmmin.org... or nowscape.com... or most especially, Mark Twain's take on this, www.classicreader.com...
    
  
  
  

Want a good list, check this link:
users.erols.com...

Originally posted by BO XIAN
reply to post by paperplanes

 

NONSENSE. In my PhD dissertation research, I received from MM O'Hare, what was it titled . . . THE AMERICAN ATHEIST. or some such . . . I was shocked. Startled and shocked. Replacing a few keywords and phrases . . . would cause the publication to read like a PENTECOSTAL CHRISTIAN PUBLICATION and very . . .thoroughly so. Atheism and Scientism are "new" religions of all the usual garbage of RELIGIONS of every kind. There's DOGMA, PRIESTHOOD, CONDITIONING, PROSCRIPTIONS AND PRESCRIPTIONS ETC. ETC. ETC. But, hey, nice to see the opposition so horribly wrong in their assertions.

Thanks.

Do you have a complete grasp of the English language? I ask not to cause offense but to try to understand how you may have entirely missed the thrust of my argument. It was in fact stated clearly and occupied the entirety of the post, so failing a misunderstanding of the language, I can't figure out how you might have read it and still put forth your argument. Unless of course you're biased and grasping rigidly to ideas that you wish, hope and pray are true. But that can't be it...

As I said in my post, atheists do not have a figurehead, a deity, a holy book, a Saturday catalogue of what to do and what not to do, how to behave, how to feel about the world and its many philosophies, etc. etc. It is a simple one-line statement of disbelief. Anyone claiming to hold an "Atheists' Bible" of admonitions is sorely misguided and won't find much in the way of support from most atheists. Atheism is not a philosophy or mode of viewing the world.

I'm shocked that you would suggest Madalyn Murray O'Hair as a sort of authoritative figure for atheism, considering how thoroughly reviled an individual she still is, among all types of people--both religious and nonreligious. No one can form a set of opinions and ideas that atheists universally accept, as we have no single agreement aside from a lack of belief in a deity. Madalyn Murray O'Hair was a lunatic and should never be placed as a figurehead for atheism; shame on anyone who tries it.

I have always thought that GOVERNMENT was the largest cause of unnatural death among humanities long and bloody history. It is true that many governments have been religious, or at least used religion to enforce law amongst the governed.

Hope you dont think the crusades and the inqisition are pretty much what religion has done to kill people.

How about terrorism?

How about the current religious wars, there is that one going on in Southern Lebanon and Israel that's been going on for thousands of years.

How bout the one that's just getting going in Iraq between the the Sunni and Shia.

Ask the Aztecs about the wars againt the Portugese and Spanish christians. Oh, that's right, you can't they were exterminated by the christians

The african wars between the Hutus and the Tutsi's.

Protestants and Catholics have been involved in armed conflicts since the middle ages and have yet to cease. The conflict in the Balkans,the Armenian massacre are all religious based

World War II had a religious edge to it, Hitler used the 'Jews Killed Jesus' thing to rally his cause. If you really read up on Nazism - it is a religion unto itself.


Today the countries in Scandinavia (who are very non-religious) are listed as the most peaceful in the world. And the buddists (atheists) dont do much to hurt others.

Originally posted by daeoeste
I have always thought that GOVERNMENT was the largest cause of unnatural death among humanities long and bloody history. It is true that many governments have been religious, or at least used religion to enforce law amongst the governed.

yes, it's called Democide. but the over all numbers clearly show the the athiestic communists and the regimes that strongly discouraged religion of any sort wre by far the worst. and for the fellow pulling "facts" from the bible, i really liked the "your precious bible" part...if you had read my whole post you would have seen that i do nt believe in the bible. look, i was very surprised to see the way the research turned out.

Originally posted by Enigma Publius

Originally posted by daeoeste
I have always thought that GOVERNMENT was the largest cause of unnatural death among humanities long and bloody history. It is true that many governments have been religious, or at least used religion to enforce law amongst the governed.

yes, it's called Democide. but the over all numbers clearly show the the athiestic communists and the regimes that strongly discouraged religion of any sort wre by far the worst. and for the fellow pulling "facts" from the bible, i really liked the "your precious bible" part...if you had read my whole post you would have seen that i do nt believe in the bible. look, i was very surprised to see the way the research turned out.

It's sad to see another ATS member who posts threads not to encourage discussion but to push forward his/her own ideas. Your refusal to acknowledge the ample contradictory evidence before you is very telling of your character.