Death toll throughout history: religion vs non-religion

[Scruffy]

It seems like everywhere I go these days, I see the same old argument. "religion causes war/more people die because of religion, ect"

Historically speaking in terms of direct and indirect death toll, which has more blood on it's hands? Religion in general, or non-religion?

[wfaber]

I don't have my Bible with me, but wasn't it James who said that wars are caused by envy or greed? I think the religious aspect is an afterthought, a means by which those who are going to war attempt to justify their actions.

[jason]

125,000,000 people died last century on the altar of secular utopian ideologies.

So for sheer body count the millitant anti-religious secularist wins hands down.

Actually probably way more.

Should we count the 30,000,000 abortions done in the name of "choice" and "sexual liberation" ?

Then of course there is the death toll from WW2. Nazism was a secular ideology as well, I suppose they would go in the indirect pile.

Jason

[Scruffy]

I don't have my Bible with me, but wasn't it James who said that wars are caused by envy or greed? I think the religious aspect is an afterthought, a means by which those who are going to war attempt to justify their actions.

Let me rephrase then.

Total estimated death toll throughout history at the hands of religious people, institutions, organizations or nations

vs.

Total estimated death toll at the hands of non-religious people, institutions, organizations or nations.

Considering the death toll in the 20th century alone at the hands of Communist states, I'm betting the non-religious have bloodier hands.

[Piebald]

The secularists destroyed more lhuman beings in the 20th century, but I'm not sure how we would be able to tally the "score" for religion in general. Are we talking just Christendom, just Abrahamic faiths, or millenia of pre-Christian pagan activity?

All the political systems we adopt to overcome the bloodier side of our nature seem to break down into pogroms and holocausts eventually. If anything, the "scores" seem to teach us that we should never rule out human corruption simply because someone shares a similar ideology or belief system.

[sylas]

I'm not really persuaded that this comparison makes sense.

Death tolls this century far exceed those of the past, and the leading contenders are decidedy non-religious. The Nazi contribution could be laid at the door of either team, depending on a few definitions; but the Nazis come a distant third behind Stalin and Mao, who were certainly non-religious.

But is this giving an unfair handicap to the religious team? Late starters have an huge advantage in access to much larger populations and efficient technologies for wiping them out.

The converse consideration is to look back over history, where religion piles on the points simply by perseverance over long periods of time. In raw numbers it probably does not add up to massive kills this century, but they certainly deserve points for persistence. But is this an unfair handicap on the godless? Nearly everyone was religious back then, especially those in positions of power and influence.

I'm with Hamster on this one.

Cheers -- Sylas

[TheOneAndOnly]

Considering the death toll in the 20th century alone at the hands of Communist states, I'm betting the non-religious have bloodier hands.

The deaths caused by Stalin and Mao's economic and land reforms can hardly be blamed on an "secular ideology". For instance 30 million died in Mao's Great Leap Forward, most of them starved to death due to incompetent planning by the government. Stalin's purges didn't kill nearly this many people.
If you're going to add this to the secular death toll, then shouldn't we add everyone who ever died of starvation under a religious state onto the religious death toll? Also many died under Mao because of terrible natural disasters, famines and droughts. This is included in that 30 million I think. If we include these people then I say we should include everyone who died from the black death onto the religious death toll.

[HRG_new]

It seems like everywhere I go these days, I see the same old argument. "religion causes war/more people die because of religion, ect"

Historically speaking in terms of direct and indirect death toll, which has more blood on it's hands? Religion in general, or non-religion?

IMHO the question should be put in a different way: ideological or non-ideological ? The victim doesn't really cared whether he died as as an enemy of the proletariate (i.e. because of a secular ideology) or as a heretic, blasphemer etc. (i.e. because of a non-secular ideology).

[CatholicSage]

IMHO the question should be put in a different way: ideological or non-ideological ? The victim doesn't really cared whether he died as as an enemy of the proletariate (i.e. because of a secular ideology) or as a heretic, blasphemer etc. (i.e. because of a non-secular ideology).

Perhaps it should be put in a different way, but people often don't do so, so a direct answer can sometimes be nice.

Oh, and the answer is non-religion.

[brother vinny]

I'm willing to bet, when it's said and done, that the death toll is greater on the religion side than on the non-religion side, if only because of what I like to call "red car syndrome". Statistically speaking, there are more red cars in auto accidents than any other color of vehicle. Is it because drivers of red cars are more impulsive, agressive drivers? No, it's simply because red is the most popular color of vehicle-- with more red cars out on the street, of course more accidents would involve them.

Human beings have a need to worship. When we see a good movie or hear a good CD, we can't wait to share it with our friends; how much moreso when we experience the awesomeness of nature or (in the Christian tradition) the reality of grace? Even when man tries to forcefully stamp out religion (such as Communist Russia), religion finds footholds in underground movements.

Since we are, by and large, religious creatures, and since we are also, well, somewhat murderous, of course the tally's going to figure against those who hold some sort of faith.

[Adam]

The deaths caused by Stalin and Mao's economic and land reforms can hardly be blamed on an "secular ideology". For instance 30 million died in Mao's Great Leap Forward, most of them starved to death due to incompetent planning by the government. Stalin's purges didn't kill nearly this many people.
If you're going to add this to the secular death toll, then shouldn't we add everyone who ever died of starvation under a religious state onto the religious death toll? Also many died under Mao because of terrible natural disasters, famines and droughts. This is included in that 30 million I think. If we include these people then I say we should include everyone who died from the black death onto the religious death toll.

Already been done, TheOneAndOnly,
Or something like it, anyway.
I think I heard somewhere recently to disregard this guy as a nut-case, but Dr. (Ph. D. in Computer Science) David Plaisted has his own web-site reviving the old claims that 50 million or 100 million died because of the Inquisition or because of the Roman Catholic Church. He dates his work as 2003, but the 21st Century date rather poorly covers his references to 19th Century secondary and tertiary works. He does cite Bartolomeo de las Casas, who was 16th Century at the scene, but historians of our day deride him as hyperbolic and the unreliable source of La Leyenda Negra, The Black Legend, about tens of millions deliberately killed in the New World by Roman Catholic Spaniards and Portugeuse.
Has anyone heard of Plaisted and critiques of his warmed-up charges?
If Plaisted can be taken at all seriously, then we may have a run at comparability to the 150 million killed in the 20th Century by secular ideologies.

So we're back to Scruffy's original question:
"Historically speaking in terms of direct and indirect death toll, which has more blood on it's hands? Religion in general, or non-religion?"
Adam

[Thomas More]

The deaths caused by Stalin and Mao's economic and land reforms can hardly be blamed on an "secular ideology". For instance 30 million died in Mao's Great Leap Forward, most of them starved to death due to incompetent planning by the government. Stalin's purges didn't kill nearly this many people.
If you're going to add this to the secular death toll, then shouldn't we add everyone who ever died of starvation under a religious state onto the religious death toll? Also many died under Mao because of terrible natural disasters, famines and droughts. This is included in that 30 million I think. If we include these people then I say we should include everyone who died from the black death onto the religious death toll.

I need to preface this by saying how disappointed I am that anyone would feel the need to try to quantify or excuse the horrendous abuse of the Chinese people under Mao Tse Tung. You sir need to find a better vessle for your noble enterprise.

About 15-20 million died in the great leap forward this was due not to poor planning but the willingness of the government to let people starve while food rotted in the field, a trait shared with the Soviets. You also have to count the 10-15 million directly killed as a result of Mao's Cultural Revolution.

Stalin on the other hand has delibrately killed more persons than any other person in history. 5 million in Dekulakzation, 20 million in Collectivization, 7-10 million in the Ukraianiane terror famine, 5-6million in various purges, 10-15 million in his rapid industrilization, plus an addtional 5-10 million in the Gulag Archipeligo. That is not counting the 200k-300k cossacks that died under your avatars orders. Most of those were women and children.

Estimates for Soviet deaths via the party organs range from 45 to 75 million, the reason for such a wide varience is Stalin unlike the Nazi's did not have enemy soldiers waltzing all over his dirty work. To this day they still find charnel pits with 20 to 70 thousand skeletons in them. In the Volga Canel during floods slave labourers bones are still exposed as they were simply left in place to rot.

China suffers from much the same issue it will not be until after the communist regime collapses and historians have several decades to sort through it all that we will know the true range of the tragedy caused by Mao.

Oh and don't forget Pol Pot

I would suggest anyone who has an interest pick up Edvard Radinsky's Biography of Stalin as well as Robert Conquest's books Harvest of Sorrow and The Great Terror.


The first Athiestic regime was unsurprisingly the first to commit an organized state run genocide, the Jacobians during their Reign of Terror killed nearly 700K people in southern France for being Catholic and not accepting the new order. In fact they cleverly invented a way to kill them quickly and cheaply when bullets proved to wasteful, time consumeing, and in short supply. They would chain victims to a decreped hulk ship then sink it in a harbour at night they would refloat the hulk and load more victims in it.

So as bad as religous strife may be nothing compares with those wonderful regimes who make themselves God. Also remember what Stalin said when we talk about these numbers

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.

Each of those numbers was a liveing breathing person with loves, fears and a family. It is something too terrible to contemplate or come to grips with whether you are a Diest or Athiest.

[Conductor42]

Somehow I have a feeling that if you took look at the number of deaths caused by entities entirely nuetral to religion - that you'd come up with a much, much smaller number than either Rabid Atheism or Murder in the name of God.

[Conductor42]

The first Athiestic regime was unsurprisingly the first to commit an organized state run genocide, the Jacobians during their Reign of Terror killed nearly 700K people in southern France for being Catholic and not accepting the new order

So they did learn something from the Inquistions, after all!

[jason]

Somehow I have a feeling that if you took look at the number of deaths caused by entities entirely nuetral to religion - that you'd come up with a much, much smaller number than either Rabid Atheism or Murder in the name of God.

I suspect that is true, but only because you are dealing with an empty set.

Jason