Theism has killed over 2 billion people

Theism has managed to kill an estimate of 2,229,074,100 people.

Many theists argue that atheism has caused only death and destruction, whilst their respective religions preach only peace and love. So what does the evidence look like?

His findings don’t bear well for theism. Here is a list of theist kills, they are extensive, so I have parsed them up according to eras of history.



Pre-Modern:

The An Shi rebellion, lead by the son of a sorceress who shows every indication of subscribing to socially normal contemporary religion, cost 36 million lives.

The Greco-Persian war, lead by the theocratic Persians against the more subtly theocratic Greeks, cost a conservative 500,000 lives.

Pre-modern conquests by the theocratic, undeniably Muslim Arab empire can be conservatively estimated at 10 million.

Total pre-modern human sacrifices, the vast majority of which were perpetrated by the theocratic Aztec empire, can be estimated as high as 6 million, but I will put the count at 1 million for now.

The Mughal conquest of North India (which is categorically distinct from the expansion of the Arab Empire), which was explicitly religious in nature and which pitted a Muslim theocracy against a Hindu one, cost 100,000 lives, conservatively.



Middle Ages:

Genghis Khan, an avowedly religious person (and, like many of his co-religionists, a homophobe of the highest Levitical quality), ground up about 40 million lives in the expansion of his empire throughout the 13th century.

The emperor of Japan, a routinely avowed theist who has been throughout history considered himself somewhat divine, on ordering an invasion of Korea in the 16th century, end up causing about a million casualties. Further competition among the shogunsaround that period for the favor of the divine theocrat cannot be calculated due to lack of records, so I will conservatively estimate 500,000.

The Holy Roman Empire's various ideological squabbles, mostly from the Peasants' War, can be conservatively estimated to have caused about 100,000 deaths.

Total violence between Protestants and Catholics over disputes of religious ideology in the Middle Ages have been conservatively estimated at 14 million.
The Crusades, the old and boring example that gets trotted out routinely, have been estimated as causing around 9 million casualties total, between Muslims, Christians, and Jews.



Early Modern:

The unabashed holocaust perpetrated against the aboriginal inhabitants of the North America is far and away the most lethal item on this list. Between the militant Catholic fundamentalists known as Conquistadors, and the deaths caused by militant Protestant fundamentalists known as Puritans using biological warfare in the form of smallpox-infected blankets against natives, the total desolation across the continent exceeded 100 million even before the American nation swept most of the rest from the continent by force.

The Spanish Inquisition is an oft-cited example, but its real death toll is insignificant. Perhaps 1,000 or less.

The witch trials of North America (Salem and Connecticut being the only two famous, but far from the only, examples) are also oft-cited examples, but they too are utterly insignificant as measures of the depravity of the average theist. 100 or less.



Modern:

The early 20th century's Armenian Genocide (and yes, it was a genocide), carried out by a vassal state of the theocratic Ottoman empire, cost 1.5 million lives.

Hitler, an avowed Catholic, Mussolini, who had the good sense to be non-religious in his youth but who later converted to Catholicism in 1927, and Hirohito, an avowed participant of the state religion of Japan, launched the Second World War in 1939 (or was that 1941?). The total deaths from this war have been calculated at about 72 million, including the Holocaust. The largely atheistic citizens of the Soviet Union were the biggest victims of this war of theistic expansionism. This does not include

the Nanking massacre, which modern historians estimate took about 500,000 lives, almost entirely Chinese.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War has been reliably tallied at almost exactly 20,000 casualties.

The Six-Day War has been reliably tallied at almost exactly 22,000 casualties.

The First Sudanese Civil War (which is not the Darfur crisis), which was explicitly religious in nature, cost about 500,000 lives. The Second Sudanese Civil War (which is also not the Darfur crisis) cost about 2 million.

"Operation Searchlight," the pogroms carried out by the megalomaniacal theists in charge of Bangladesh in the early 1970s, cost 3 million lives.
Conservative estimates of the Hindu extremist group known colloquially as the Tamil Tigers place the ongoing death toll at 215,000.

Other forms of modern Hindu violence against other religions or lapsed Hindus (almost entirely in the form of Hindu-on-Muslim violence) can be veeeery conservatively estimated at 25,000.

Late 20th century violence by the Islamic Ba'ath party of Iraq (a nation so religious that it had the phrase Allahu Akbar scrawled across its flag and which once hosted one of the largest mosques in the region built by Saddam Hussein) against ethnic Kurds cost about 150,000 lives.

The 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, also known in Iran as the Holy War, cost about 750,000 lives, conservatively.

The 1994 Rwandan genocide, not religious in nature but certainly caused by theists, resulted in about 1 million deaths.

The Ustasa regime's mass murders, which would have been impossible had not the regime been propped up by the Catholic Church (whose fingerprints can be found in nearly every example of 20th century fascism; see "God Is Not Great" by award-winning journalist Christopher Hitchens), tally up to "hundreds of thousands." Lets call it 200,000.

The 2001 attack on the World Trade Center by Muslim fundamentalists who all came into extremist Islam in adult life after coming out of good educations and good backgrounds in countries that had never known any measure of oppression by the United States cost almost 3,000 lives.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq by the avowed theocrat George W. Bush who said that the war was waged on instructions from god, launched against the (above-mentioned) theocratic Ba'ath Party of Iraq, has, between insurgents, Americans, Iraqi security, Iraqi civilians, foreign military officers, and foreign civilians, cost about 1 million lives, mostly caused by Muslim fundamentalist extremists.



Deaths from theism whose full tallies are impossible to calculate:

Routine violence, starvation, economic attrition against, denial of medical services to, and criminal negligence of India's dalits over the millennia have probably cost hundreds of thousands or millions of lives.

Religion's endless war on vaccines has caused and will cause the resurgence of old diseases and the ravaging of current populations, mainly in Africa, since it takes only a few unvaccinated people to allow a virus to mutate into a strain that resists vaccination. The death toll from this encouragement of disease-related deaths by religion will undoubtedly skyrocket in the coming century.

The Vatican's and Muslim leaders' routine opposition to safe-sex practices, especially through the murderous criminals known as "missionaries" in Africa, has exasperated the HIV problem considerably and there is no way to know how many hundreds of thousands of people have died slow, agonizing deaths at the hands of HIV as a result, and how many will continue to suffer in the future.

The death toll from those who refuse to seek medical attention because of religious beliefs, Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions, Christian scientists who refuse all treatment, those who subscribe to the undeniably religious pseudoscientific New Age beliefs that prefer bull# to real medical therapies, etc., is impossible to calculate. I do not doubt that it is thousands every year.

Honor killings in Muslim societies. Probably hundreds every year.

The deaths that will be caused by the inevitable famine in the fundamentalist Confucian state of North Korea will be staggering but difficult to precisely calculate.

Weren't the soviet communists fundamentely atheists?

How many million did they kill? Particularly under Stalin?

Religion is not perfect and neither are the people who practice it, religious texts are so vague anybody can find individual interpretations from them and this is the problem, people interpreting what they want usually means they can find justification for about anything, however twisted it may be.

Regarding the video, Hitler was not religious and neither was Mussolini, I respect atheist's views but the militant way in which they sometimes spread it is irritating to say the least.

Guns/Religions don't kill people. People kill people.

Out of the millions of Christians and Islamists, Bhuddist and Toaists, what percentage consist of "jihadists"?

Most of these religions or there original scriptures teach peace and brotherhood.

When will aetheist realize their quarrel with religion is just another form of intolerance. Backed by the wrong people I'm sure it could be used to spread violence as well.

Aetheists and religious folks are brothers, who need to learn to get along, regardless of differences.

PS: Sorry for my poopy grammar and spelling.

Fight the Power, not Each Other.

While some of the conflicts you mention certainly do have deep religious roots, most don’t and you are conflating mans innate natural lust for power with the motivations of theists.

As for Hitler, well I always like to hear it straight from the horses mouth:

All of the confessionals are the same. Whichever one you choose, it will not have a future. Not for the Germans anyway. Fascism (Italian) may in the name of God make its peace with the church. I will do that too. Why not! It wont stop me from eradicating Christianity from Germany root and branch. You are either a Christian or a German. You cant be both

Originally posted by Cobaltic1978
Weren't the soviet communists fundamentely atheists?

How many million did they kill? Particularly under Stalin?

Stalin: recently-unearthed secret documents indicate that Stalin may have been made a deist who “made his peace with God” and who brought priests back into favor and who encouraged religious icons to be paraded around Leningrad for good luck during the siege. He had “complex” relations with religious institutions in the Soviet Union, notes Hector Avalos, and so there is every indication that Stalin might have been a closet atheist turned closet diest, or even Orthodox Christian, who kept his faith very private.

I didn't include the 50 million victims of his pogroms under the theism casualties

The largely atheistic citizens of the Soviet Union were the biggest victims of world war 2's war of theistic expansionism

Originally posted by MoneyRain
Regarding the video, Hitler was not religious and neither was Mussolini

Hitler was a catholic, and a theist none the less.

Mussolini converted to Catholicism in 1927

reply to post by Daniem


Whilst they may have been Christians, they didn't kill in the name of religion. Well, except for the Holocaust, but that was against a particular religion amongst other things.

Too many try to make a connection that religion kills. That is really not the case. I agree with a previous poster your just lumping people together who didnt even kill in the names of their religions. Take away the religion those people were still gonna kill to feed their lust for greed and power. The crusdaes are no exception they just needed a reason to do what they were going to do anyway to loot pillage and acquire power. People used which hunts to take the things they wanted from other people.

Take away religion as an excuse. People will always find another reason, anotehr excuse. It can be in the form of humanitarian aid. Over land, Over resources. Over a woman. Or jus tbecause your different. Take your pick of the next scapegoat

reply to post by Daniem


Hitler was an atheist, I have studied the Nazi regime and I can say with a fair bit of certainty he was an atheist, he needed to use the Catholic faith to get to where he did, if the Reichskonkordat had not been signed in 1933 then he would not have got the votes from the German Catholic parties allowing him to pass the Enabling act, giving him draconian dictatorship powers. Also Pope Pius XI publicly condemned Hitler, Hitler used them while they had a purpose, have no doubt if they had won the war the Catholics would be next on the list.

Mussolini became religious in the last few years of his life, after his fall from power.

reply to post by Daniem


You know Daniem, i was reading through your thread post, and i was thinking to myself "Now there's an honest, well researched post, and while obviously horrifying in it's subject and sheer scope, very interesting - in a macabre kind of way. I found myself agreeing with pretty much every word you wrote, and learned a fair few sobering facts along the way..and then i read this;

Religion's endless war on vaccines has caused and will cause the resurgence of old diseases and the ravaging of current populations, mainly in Africa, since it takes only a few unvaccinated people to allow a virus to mutate into a strain that resists vaccination. The death toll from this encouragement of disease-related deaths by religion will undoubtedly skyrocket in the coming century.

And that's where we parted company.

Perhaps there is in existence an agenda of some sort, by a militant religious group regarding vaccines, i don't know. It would be the first i'd heard of that.

But in addition to such a group, should it exist, there are a very many atheist or agnostic (even nihilist i suppose) parents, who are wise to the vaccine 'racket, and oppose on grounds of safety and efficacy and related issues.

I can wholeheartedly agree with and support the rest of your post, but not this part.

Must have taken a lot of effort to get those numbers together, nice work on a good post and thread.

Originally posted by Cobaltic1978
reply to post by Daniem

 

Whilst they may have been Christians, they didn't kill in the name of religion. Well, except for the Holocaust, but that was against a particular religion amongst other things.

Yeah..but it was still done in 'the name' or 'the spirit' of religion, wasn't it?

reply to post by MoneyRain


According to my own research, Hitler promoted conversion to Islam, the creation of Aryan Jesus (which Christians worship to this day!) and the revival of pre-Christian Germanic religion. His main concern as far as religion went was the creation of a Christianity purged of the so-called Judaic character that it had acquired or always had.

edit: You ought to add any and all people killed by the US, British and Commonwealth armies. They're all trained to serve 'under god!'

reply to post by spikey


No not in the spirit of religion, it was a political philosophy.

As previously stated, Hitler although baptised in the Catholic faith, was an atheist. In fact the whole philosophy of Nazism, was to abolish religion as we know it and replace it with a Facist religion, with Hitler as the head of this religion. Wheteher this was to put Mussolini at his right hand, I don't know, but I would doubt this very much.

reply to post by Daniem


On these the scripture say:

"And he carried me away in [the power of the] spirit into a wilderness. And I caught sight of a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored wild beast that was full of blasphemous names and that had seven heads and ten horns. 4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and was adorned with gold and precious stone and pearls and had in her hand a golden cup that was full of disgusting things and the unclean things of her fornication. 5 And upon her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth.” 6 And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.

Notice this explanation:

Who is the:

>> woman = she is called Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth = the Entire (false*) Religious System. (tower of Babel and Babylon = where false worship/religion got its start)

*false in the sight of God

>> scarlet-colored wild beast = the political system (government of man) - scarlet (bloody)

> woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored wild beast = (false) religion controlling, manipulating the political rulers of the world to do her bidding. Come election time - political these rulers (lovers) come knocking at her door asking for favor and she obliged willfully - for a fee of course.

>> Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth -- she is called Babylon The Great due to her religious practices were borrowed from ancient Babylon.

> the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth - because she claims to serve God (lover of God) but meddles in politics and things of the world like "gold and precious stone and pearls" - riches of the world.

> in her hand a golden cup that was full of disgusting things and the unclean things of her fornication = because in here was found all of the disgusting things (phedophiles, murderers, thieves, liers, etc who are still members of her churches)

> the unclean things of her fornication = things that she did in order to convinced the world rulers while at the same time representing God. A harlot and mother of all harlots (spiritual harlotry).

>> And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the holy ones and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus - she spilled blood in the name of religion in one form or another. Many of the first century Christians from then on had their blood spilled because they don't what to subject themselve to the authority of the.

So its no wonder that (false) religion, Babylon the great is an abhorent organization in God's eyes.

On this her judgement is now approaching:

“. . .And now hear this, you pleasure-given [woman], the one sitting in security, the one saying in her heart: “I am, and there is nobody else. I shall not sit as a widow, and I shall not know the loss of children.” 9 But to you these two things will come suddenly, in one day: loss of children and widowhood. In their complete measure they must come upon you, for the abundance of your sorceries, for the full might of your spells—exceedingly. 10 And you kept trusting in your badness. You have said: “There is no one seeing me.” Your wisdom and your knowledge—this is what has led you away; and you keep saying in your heart: “I am, and there is nobody else.” 11 And upon you calamity must come; you will know no charming against it. And upon you adversity will fall; you will not be able to avert it. And upon you there will suddenly come a ruin that you are not accustomed to know. 12 Stand still, now, with your spells and with the abundance of your sorceries, in which you have toiled from your youth; that perhaps you might be able to benefit, that perhaps you might strike people with awe. 13 You have grown weary with the multitude of your counselors. Let them stand up, now, and save you, the worshipers of the heavens, the lookers at the stars, those giving out knowledge at the new moons concerning the things that will come upon you. 14 Look! They have become like stubble. A fire itself will certainly burn them up. They will not deliver their soul from the power of the flame. There will be no glow of charcoals for people to warm themselves, no firelight in front of which to sit down. 15 Thus they will certainly become to you, with whom you have toiled as your charmers from your youth. They will actually wander, each one to his own region. There will be no one to save you.” (Isaiah 47:8-15)


Thus Jesus said:

“He said to them: “Isaiah aptly prophesied about YOU hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honor me with [their] lips, but their hearts are far removed from me. 7 It is in vain that they keep worshiping me, because they teach as doctrines commands of men.’” (Mark 7:6-7)


“Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’ 23 And yet then I will confess to them: I never knew YOU! Get away from me, YOU workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:22-23).


In other words - all the things that were / are done in the name of religion (God) dishonors God and those who trully represent him.

So hopefully this thread will not give the impression that ALL religion is bad.

just my 2cents

thx,
edmc2

reply to post by Daniem


You're making some pretty egregiously wrong claims in the OP, not the least of which is not understanding that saying "Theists have killed ... people," is NOT the same thing as saying "Theism has killed .. people." Ghengis Khan was religious and killed a bunch of people? Since he didn't kill them in the name of religion, it's not relevant to your claim.

I'd suggest you apply some reasonable scholarly research to your rant: The War Audit would be a place to start, though you're not likely to appreciate the conclusions -- in the historical analysis of war, over 60 percent had no religious element at all, only ten percent had significant religious involvement, and only three (the Muslim conquest of Europe, the Crusades, and the Protestant Wars of the 16th Century) could be accurately called "Wars of religion."

While a good post, I think the data is suspect at best.

Not all wars were started over religion. That may be what HISstory has documented but we all know the land grab and control of resources is the still the motivation to this day.

In the past, rulers used God to motivate soldiers. Today they use patriotism and democracy.

Separatism is the cause of every death you called out. Race, gender, orientation, religion, etc;

We are the human race.

Peace

it's killed over 2 billion but AFFECTED everyone. no one escapes unscathed

All I've read so far is that people kill people. Their religious beliefs are only a means to displace the blame from the individual or group to a God that is often their own external manifestation of their superego. The same can be said for any justification for killing.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


There is enough evidence out there to support that Hitler was indeed a Roman Catholic and helped advance the Holy See's agenda. He signed a concordant with Rome, which implies a shared agenda. The Holocaust enabled the Holy See's historic enemies, the Jews, to be destroyed.