Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

Forums: Religion, Religious
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history - Alain's Newsletter

It?s time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.

Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000 years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the name of atheism in the past few decades.

In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as "End of Faith" author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present."

Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries."

In his bestseller "The God Delusion," Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world?s recent conflicts - in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka - show the vitality of religion?s murderous impulse.

The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials. How many people were killed in those trials? Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination.
____________________________

click for the rest

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 11,262 • Replies: 199

No top replies

@Drnaline,

This is a useless argument. You try to disprove a negative with another negative in hopes of creating a positive. Basically you are saying, in simplest terms available....."oh yeah, well religion may have killed alot of people, but athiests have killed more, so religion is ok!" Please tell me you don't make your life decisions with logic like this.

1 Reply

@Dmizer,

Dmizer;11759 wrote:

This is a useless argument. You try to disprove a negative with another negative in hopes of creating a positive. Basically you are saying, in simplest terms available....."oh yeah, well religion may have killed alot of people, but athiests have killed more, so religion is ok!" Please tell me you don't make your life decisions with logic like this.

It's just an article i found interesting.

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

:thumbdown:

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

Religious people use religion to justify war and atheistic people use the darwinist excuse that killing is human nature. Either way we are both fucked.

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

Ultimately the responsibility lies with man...paraphrasing Mark Twain..
a quote I read in a comic book of all places

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out…and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel ... and in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" — with his mouth.
Mark Twain and Captain America .....Its the people that do it

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

Captain America for the win

it's in our nature to destroy each other, but by the numbers I would say the crusades puts religion WAY over the top. And just look in the last few years.

911 (religous war by radical Islam)
Afghanistan (Our secular forces were opposed on the principal of a god)
The war on terror (more of the same)

infact if you color mapped the globe based on violent death since the inception of civilization, Isreal would be the deepest red. And 99% of the deaths there have a religious undertone

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

What exactly do you find so wrong with the Crusades?

Israel (which would probably not be the worst) has more of a cultural reason for war, IMO. Hebrews vs. Canaanites.

Anyway, isn't it a bit silly to group all faiths together and say "religion is responsible for violence"?

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

People still make the decisions, religion is not an excuse for evil deeds, at some point you have to exersize free will

The crusades were evil and so were the jihads that conquered Spain ..they were wars made for religion, territory and profit the definition of evil...Both killed innocents sometimes of their own religion and whatever the stated cause were an effort to create empires among people who had no liking and no reason to adopt the culture or the rule forced upon them...The rules of the day were very different. It was probably not considered evil to conquer another people for political and financial and religious reasons, probably not untiul fairly recently was the word colony considered to have negative connatations but we are supposed to be more advanced today

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

This is simply not true. The Crusades were called when the Byzantine emperor asked Pope Urban II for help against the Muslim invaders. On the Christian side of the Crusades, there was only one notable instance of unfortunate killing of innocents in Jerusalem. It was, however, exaggerated by many, and the actions of individual soldiers, not some conspiracy.

There was no cause to create an empire. There were no colonies. All lands fought in had not too long ago belonged to Christians.

2 Replies

@Reagaknight,

Reagaknight;14751 wrote:

This is simply not true.

that's ass because history tells up

Wiki;14751 wrote:

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the dual goals of liberating the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslims and freeing the Eastern Christians from Muslim rule.

And

Wiki;14751 wrote:

At the Council of Clermont, assembled in the heart of France on November 27, 1095, Urban gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of French nobles and clergy. He summoned the audience to wrest control of Jerusalem from the hands of the Muslims. France, he said, was overcrowded and the land of Canaan was overflowing with milk and honey. He spoke of the problems of noble violence and the solution was to turn swords to God's own service: "Let robbers become knights".[1] He spoke of rewards both on earth and in heaven, where remission of sins was offered to any who might die in the undertaking. Urban promised this through the power of God that was invested into him. The crowd was stirred to frenzied enthusiasm and interrupted his speech with cries of Deus lo volt! ("It is God's will!").

quoted, in history as saying "it is God's will"

obviously totally secular

religious fabrication owns you... and so does history

and why is it wrong? Killing anybody "because god told me too" when he hasn't spoken in an audible voice is generally a bad idea... I dunno that's just me :beat:

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

IMO power is more specifically the cause of violence, power driven by religion, greed, the end result is getting the upper hand, being in charge, having a bigger say. Power over other people, power to inflict your will on them.

Of course the whole problem with that article is, other than calling Hitler an atheist, that none of the crimes against humanity that those individuals commited were in the name of atheism, while wars are fought in the name of god continually.

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

Tell me, where did I say something untrue? Didn't the Council of Clermont take place after the Byzantine appeal for help. Would it have happened without it? Religion was a reason, I even said the lands had belonged to Christians (Byzantine Empire). So why shouldn't Christians get them back?

1 Reply

@Drnaline,

If you are going to use that argument, then the Canaanites, if any of them are left, have a greater say than any christian.

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

There are none.

0 Replies

@Reagaknight,

Reagaknight;14756 wrote:

Tell me, where did I say something untrue? Didn't the Council of Clermont take place after the Byzantine appeal for help. Would it have happened without it? Religion was a reason, I even said the lands had belonged to Christians (Byzantine Empire). So why shouldn't Christians get them back?

Man where did you learn this ish?

Israel is the land of the Jews. Jesus himself said his religion wasn't just for the Jew but the Gentile, would leads us well out is Israel

Aiding the Byzantine was the need, religion was the reason to do it in the beginning. By the 7th crusade religion was the only reason, it never had less then 50% to do with the Crusade if it's influence was ever that role.

They decided they would help BECASE it was God's will

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

I still consider them in falt for not upholding their own pact with God. Thou shall not kill. It isn't very complex.

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

Quote:

Israel is the land of the Jews. Jesus himself said his religion wasn't just for the Jew but the Gentile, would leads us well out is Israel

What does this have to do with anything?

Religion was a primary reason, I never said it wasn't, but this is because it was a good way to get people to participate. The Byzantine Empire had to be preserved from the European standpoint because it was the only thing standing between them and another front from which Muslims would try to conquer them.

The reasons for the later Crusades were to preserve the Christian establishments from the earlier ones (including expansion.)

2 Replies

@Reagaknight,

Reagaknight;14764 wrote:

Religion was THE primary reason

Fixed it for you :-)

0 Replies

@Drnaline,

You assume I look at it all wrapped up in one package, in which case it would have been a grammatical error. However, I'm talking about the specific area of getting people to join the Crusades vs. the reasons they were started, so it isn't.

1 Reply

Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know