Why an article? It's a published oxford book and peer reviewed: According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, out of all 1,763 known/recorded historical conflicts, 123, or 6.98%, had religion as their primary cause.
You can buy it here: https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Wars-Facts-Library-History/dp/0816028516
You're pretty stupid attempting to turn back on me something I have proof about. Also error on my part, meant to say 93% of wars were caused by people like you. I correct my error.
“According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, out of all 1,763 known/recorded historical conflicts, 123, or 6.98%, had religion as their primary cause.[1]”
The book is called “The Encyclopedia of Wars Volume 3” by Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod.
I once met a person who believed Dan Brown was an Illuminati and the Da Vinci code was he spilling some beans disguised as fiction.
As a world without religion, we don't have to imagine how it would be. Just look at the atheist communist regimes in the XX century and see what the "wise, illuminated leaders" did without religion: About 100 million of dead.
"But relijuns cause wars". Really?
In thisbook the researcher studied 1763 conflicts. Among all of them, only 123 were "holy wars" - less than 7%. Worthy of note is the fact that the "religion of peace" promoted 66 of those.
I can source it. It's from the Encyclopaedia of Wars. Why does it sound like BS to you? Think about ancient history, or indeed medieval and modern history. The vast majority of wars were carried out for land expansion, securing of trade routes, increase in wealth, political goals (e.g. independence). I know the people on /r/atheism (and other idiots like George Carlin) push the idea religion is the main cause of wars as fact all all over the internet, and as such it has come to be taken as that, but it's not true in the slightest. And yes, this includes wars with both political and religious motivations (e.g. the Crusades).
Interesting how he links to his source, which has a review stating that it is "un-Christian" because it uses the BCE/CE dating method, rather than BC/AD.
Also, what's this guy's definition of an "atheist war"? Did Stalin one day decide to wake up and kill millions of people, specifically because the Bible told him not to? And that's assuming that what Stalin did was counted as a "war."
"Fortunately, there are only five nations governed by atheist worldviews remaining in the world today, of which three are presently occupied with murdering a portion of their citizenry with the explicit goal of exterminating religion, North Korea, China and Laos."
Yeah. That's their one, sole motivation. Not political or military power or any silly things like that. Mao just woke up one morning and decided to destroy religion.
why speculate? the encyclopedia of wars puts the % of all known wars that were religious at a shade under 7%
but realistically, religion is a poor tool to motivate people to war. read julius caesar, sun tzu, vegetius, clausewitz, maurice; none of them have so much as a peep to say with regards to religion being useful
highest estimate for spanish inquisition death toll was 2000, not 2mil. that is most definitely not my number, mah dear boi
religious conflicts have historically been a little less than 7% of all wars, according to the encyclopedia of wars
Warning: OP's argument has invoked the Bullshit asymmetry principle. So.... wall of text.
> Religion accounts for only 7% of wars and 2% of deaths in war - Encyclopedia of Wars
Seems OP was too lazy to copy/paste the longer version of this argument....
Now, to advance the idea/claim that most wars and death was caused by atheism and not by religion, there is an apologetic argument that states (roughly):
>>> In the Encyclopedia of Wars, Phillips and Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 121/123 (7%) (and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare) have been classified to involve a religious cause, ....
And on the face of this argument, it is a good one. However......
From the introduction to Encyclopedia of Wars:
Wars have always arisen, and arise today, from territorial disputes, military rivalries, conflicts of ethnicity, and strivings for commercial and economic advantage, and they have always depended on, and depend on today, pride, prejudice, coercion, envy, cupidity, competitiveness, and a sense of injustice. But for much of the world before the 17th century, these “reasons” for war were explained and justified, at least for the participants, by religion. Then, around the middle of the 17th century, Europeans began to conceive of war as a legitimate means of furthering the interests of individual sovereigns. (Emphasis mine).
For the people who started war, many/most wars post 17th century, mostly were not started as a overt (more of this below) consequence of Theistic Religion. However, for the people fighting them, they, arguably, mostly have been based, at least in part, on Religion and Religious beliefs.
In the case of the oft used The Encyclopedia of Wars argument, the summary of the wars listed follows the format in this IMAGE (a screen shot of from my copy of The Encyclopedia of Wars - I am sure OP can verify this screenshot in THEIR copy of the Enc of Wars. Surely.). In the case of the specific war I presented to show the entry format, I picked one where a Theistic Religious cause was blatantly identified. While I personally did not go through the three volume set, I will not contest that only '123, or 7%, of the 1763 wars documented show a direct and blatantly obvious Theistic Religious "MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES" cause or involvement.
However, what the entries of each war do not address is that the morality upon a great many of these wars is based is Theistic Religions in nature - from the Theism informed morality of the various governments and participants to justify the wars/military conflict - to - the anti-Religious Theism inherent in the advancement of many non-Theistic ideologies resulting in wars/military-type actions.
So while not an overt/obvious cause of most wars since the 17th century, an implicit contributing cause is Theistic Religion and the morality expressed therein - with emphasis upon the initiators of the war.
> Nothing compares to the 100M-110M slaughtered by the atheists Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot,
Well at least OP did not attempt to make the strawman that Hitler and the Nazi party was atheistic and not Really Good Christians.
With the usual reference to Stalinism/Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Communist Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China, and the Khmer Rouge/Communist Party of Kampuchea in Cambodia, the argument is attempting to promote the often presented ignorant and disingenuous fallacy of conflating/equivocating an anti-theistic ideology/movement, that happens to have replaced Theism/Gods with a Theism-like ideology with that of the stance of atheism (in which there are no tenets within atheism that inform atheists to advance atheism).
The atrocities associated with Stalin'Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot, were not atheistic (or used atheism) for the sake of advancing the atheistic position; their actions are designed/intended specifically to advance another ideology and the resultant anti-theistic agenda was used as support for these other idiologies and not being or using atheism, or supporting atheism, for the sake of advancing atheism.
Please do not conflate the anti-theism of the ideologies (that replace "God(s)" with the State) of which you presented a few examples:
Stalin's anti-theistic policies were not to violently and/or forcibly propagating their atheistic worldview to support the advancement of atheism for the sake of atheism, rather these anti-theist activities implemented to support another ideology, you know Stalinism (for which there is actual evidence).
This anti-theism was just one method to promote, by Stalin and his cadre, the governing and related policies implemented in the Soviet Union which included: state terror, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, a centralized state, collectivization of agriculture, cult of personality, and subordination of interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—deemed by Stalinism to be the most forefront vanguard party of communist revolution at the time. The presence of the cultural and societal ideology of Theistic Religions was seen as an obstacle to the implementation of totalitarian socialism.
The actions of Chairman Mao (Mao Zedong/Mao Tse-tung), an "atheist" in an "atheist" government, that is held accountable for 49 to 78 million deaths, was not for the advancement of atheism; rather the deaths (most by famine) were the result of the promotion of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, for example, to bring Communist China economic and political position in line with that of the other world leaders.
Similar to Mao's actions.
Many governmental bodies, other groups and individuals, who happen to not be based upon (or contain) a claim of some Divine Theistic mandate, have pursued anti-theistic genocide and other violent atrocities in the name of some ideology (and let's not overlook the various Theistic regimes engaging in anti-theism based violence against other Theisms); but unless you can show that these actions are intended to support the advancement of atheism for the sake of atheism, rather than as a means to an end to support other purposes/ideologies/dogma, then the above quoted statement is a red herring and a strawman.
Having ranted, I will concede that any ideology has the potential to intrinsically be, or change into, a hyper-authoritarian government is capable of producing large scale violence, murder, and death.
This seems like a good place for a famous quote:
Let the eye of vigilance never be closed. -- Thomas Jefferson
> Nothing compares to the 100M-110M slaughtered by the atheists Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot, and much less recently than the Crusades.
Good point OP, there has not really been any atrocities more recently than the Christian Crusades. /snort.
But using just Christianity let's take a look at the atrocities - and, for fun (in the grossest most reprehensible sense) let's start with Christianity back in the good old days of the beginning when Christianity started to become popular.
OP - review the events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity - and were based, in large part or totality, upon Christian moral dogma/tenets/beliefs.
Warning, this is a long list: VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH by Kelsos
> the track record of these 5 atheists demonstrated
"5"?? "Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot" hmmm... counting is hard. Who did I miss OP?
> Nothing compares to the 100M-110M slaughtered by the atheists...
"Nothing" you say? With, for example, the great authoritarian God YHWH, the God that is in control and Sovereign, the Alpha and Omega, not a sparrow shall fall....., even if one accepts (for the sake of argument only), these are pussy numbers compared to the killing/murder by the God YHWH by just one technique for killing/murder - YHWH caused spontaneous abortion.
YHWH, under which all things are set on their path in accordance with the WILL and PURPOSE of God; where nothing happens without the expressed Will of YHWH, the Alpha and Omega, then the authoritarian regime of YHWH should be considered when discussion "killing" of humans in accordance with the Will and Direction of the authoritarian Leader (notwithstanding the non-evidential and non-credible claim of some Christians that God created humans directly).
It is estimated that 108 Billion people have been born alive/lived. Actual credible evidence also shows that 30 to 50% of all contemporary conception events end in spontaneous abortions (and that this percentage may have been higher historically with poorer nutrition, harsher environmental conditions, and less medical knowledge, for the woman to carry the baby to term). Since Christianity (and other popular religions) claims the Willful God of Everything - the Will of God results in God killing 46 Billion to 108 Billion human babies! for the sake of God's Will where humans were specifically created to worship God (talk about an oppressive narcissistic authoritarian ruling regime). Humans need to up their game to get God's killing numbers!
> What are some examples of actual wars where deaths occurred, actually involve religious motivation?
I am going to take "wars" to mean 'group/organization pre-mediated violent action' - cause I have a recent post I can use! heh.
I'll use Christianity as an example because I recently made a comment submission concerning events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity - and were based, in large part or totality, upon Christian moral dogma/tenets/beliefs.
Warning, this is a long list: VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH by Kelsos
Now, to advance the idea/claim that most wars and death was caused by atheism and not by religion, there is an apologetic argument that states (roughly):
>>> In the Encyclopedia of Wars, Phillips and Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 121/123 (7%) (and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare) have been classified to involve a religious cause, ....
And on the face of this argument, it is a good one. However......
From the introduction to Encyclopedia of Wars:
Wars have always arisen, and arise today, from territorial disputes, military rivalries, conflicts of ethnicity, and strivings for commercial and economic advantage, and they have always depended on, and depend on today, pride, prejudice, coercion, envy, cupidity, competitiveness, and a sense of injustice. But for much of the world before the 17th century, these “reasons” for war were explained and justified, at least for the participants, by religion. Then, around the middle of the 17th century, Europeans began to conceive of war as a legitimate means of furthering the interests of individual sovereigns. (Emphasis mine).
For the people who started war, many/most wars post 17th century, mostly were not started as a overt (more of this below) consequence of Theistic Religion. However, for the people fighting them, they, arguably, mostly have been based, at least in part, on Religion and Religious beliefs.
In the case of the oft used The Encyclopedia of Wars argument, the summary of the wars listed follows the format in this IMAGE (a screen shot of from my copy of The Encyclopedia of Wars). In the case of the specific war I presented to show the entry format, I picked one where a Theistic Religious cause was blatantly identified. While I personally did not go through the three volume set, I will not contest that only '123, or 7%, of the 1763 wars documented show a direct and blatantly obvious Theistic Religious "MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES" cause or involvement.
However, what the entries of each war do not address is that the morality upon a great many of these wars is based is Theistic Religions in nature - from the Theism informed morality of the various governments and participants to justify the wars/military conflict - to - the anti-Religious Theism inherent in the advancement of many non-Theistic ideologies resulting in wars/military-type actions.
So while not an overt/obvious cause of most wars since the 17th century, an implicit contributing cause is Theistic Religion and the morality expressed therein - with emphasis upon the initiators of the war.
The idea that the Holocaust wasn't racially motivated is absurd. Demonstrating that Nazi Germany was majority Christian does not demonstrate that the Holocaust was a relgious undertaking. Would the Nazis spare secular or christian jews? The answer is obviously not, it was primarily a racial phenomenon. I'm not denying that christians can and do bad things.
Regarding, the Islamic conquests of India, again they're likely on the higher side of things I did say as high as 80 million and not 80 million definitively. But they're most certainly higher than 50,000 and the fact that White didn't include it is proof of his bias in selection. The fact that you have to jump into apologetics and begin to defend against claims Islam I've never even made (as opposed to strictly defending White's scholarship) is indicative of your bias (considering your profile only ever seems to talk about Islam, this likely isn't very far off from the truth). Your point on the amount of people killed by Europeans and Americans isn't material to the topic of Religious Killings either; considering the fact that you got your statistics from a Wikipedia article, I'm going to remain incredulous to your claim about Islam and crime. Seeing as that wasn't the original endeavour of my post I frankly don't care to discuss it .
The entire population of India at the time of the conquests was about 200 million;. lower estimates of the death toll but it around 30 million (which would still put it first on the list). Rougly 100,000 slaves were executed on the orders of Timur (a Sunni Muslim) but this event didn't even make the list. The fact that White leaves out the inumerable Islamic holy wars is indicative of his bias, you not only failed to refute this point but you had the gall to accuse me of being biased. In the Encyclopedia of Wars by Alan Axelrod roughly half of all religious wars (66 out of 124) were wage in the name of Islamc. According that same book, roughly 620,000 people were killed during the Armenian revolt against the Ottoman empire (this didn't make the cut either).
OP, MickeyBarnyard, from your post history, it appears you identify as a Christian. Why do I bring this up? Because, to me (based upon inductive reasoning resulting from responding to many many Theists to defend their Theistic Religion via alleging that other ideologies do bad [which <arm waving> means that the Theistic Religion being protected is "good"]) you are attempting to somehow support, in yourmind at least, that your Theistic Religion is "good" and is nearly blameless for the egregious about of harm and pain & suffering from violence and atrocities in the world.
Now in regard to your low effort attempt at disparaging atheism and Islam (which makes Christianity better somehow - am I right? - by arguing the fallacy of relative privation), it appears you are using a variant of the oft repeated but refuted argument based upon the listed primary reasons/issues that lead to war as listed in the Encyclopedia of Wars, by Phillips and Axelrod.
The usual argument is oft presented as the following (and I provided a source because I am not a lazy low-effort debater):
>>> In the Encyclopedia of Wars, Phillips and Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 121/123 (7%) (and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare) have been classified to involve a religious cause, ....
And on the face of this argument, it is a good one. However......
From the introduction to Encyclopedia of Wars:
Wars have always arisen, and arise today, from territorial disputes, military rivalries, conflicts of ethnicity, and strivings for commercial and economic advantage, and they have always depended on, and depend on today, pride, prejudice, coercion, envy, cupidity, competitiveness, and a sense of injustice. But for much of the world before the 17th century, these “reasons” for war were explained and justified, at least for the participants, by religion. Then, around the middle of the 17th century, Europeans began to conceive of war as a legitimate means of furthering the interests of individual sovereigns.
[Emphasis mine].
For the people who started war, many/most wars post 17th century, mostly were not started as a overt (more of this below) consequence of Theistic Religion. However, for the people fighting them, they, arguably, mostly have been based, at least in part, on Religion and Religious beliefs.
In the case of the oft used The Encyclopedia of Wars argument, the summary of the wars listed follows the format in this IMAGE (a screen shot of from my copy of The Encyclopedia of Wars). In the case of the specific war I presented to show the entry format, I picked one where a Theistic Religious cause was blatantly identified. While I personally did not go through my copy of the three volume set, I will not contest that only '123, or 7%, of the 1763 wars documented show a direct and blatantly obvious Theistic Religious "MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES" cause or involvement.
However, what the entries of each war do not address is that the morality upon a great many of these wars is based is Theistic Religions in nature - from the Theism informed morality of the various governments and participants to justify the wars/military conflict - to - the anti-Religious Theism inherent in the advancement of many non-Theistic ideologies resulting in wars/military-type actions.
So while not an overt/obvious cause of most wars since the 17th century, an implicit contributing cause to war is Theistic Religion and the morality expressed therein, a morality which informs leaders of their actions.
And while not necessarily "war," Theistic Religion, and ancillary morality, has informed the actions of many that conduct atrocities.
In the link provided below, a listed of atrocious events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity.
Warning, this is a long list. Which I am sure that you, OP, will review with due diligence in order to make a credible rebuttal.
> For money, for greed, for women, for politics, for racial superiority, these concepts are all derived from a word outside of religion.
Outside of Theistic Religion you say? Using your listed Theistic Religion of Christianity as an example OP:
Prosperity theology and the Holy Scripture from the Holy Bible which supports the Prosperity theology. But you say, those are not True ~~Scotsman~~ Christians^TM , or are "misinterpreting the Truth of the Gospels because these other verses say...." - and I say if the bible can be used to both support, and not support, Prosperity theology (as well as moral positioning on other social issues), what good is the Bible as a reference for morality?
Misogyny, bigotry, slavery (including a foundational moral stance that women and children are property) based upon skin color and/or adherence to different Gods are hallmarks of both OT and NT moral verses and tenets.
The message of Jesus, as depicted in the narratives of the Gospels, taught an exclusionary (e.g., you are with YHWH, or you are against YHWH, and if you are against YHWH, things will be bad for you [including Holy Wars of Genocide; see Joshua 10] apocalyptical message where one literally lives for death against the non-evidential threat of post-death judgment and existence.
> I see religion as a threat to humanity, it oppresses us, commands absurd things, causes wars, kills people, tells them they're broken and there's only one cure, steals money from them, demands it. How am I wrong on my view, and why shouldn't I be an atheist anti-theist?
This reads more as anti-religion than anti-theism. While a nit (as Theism usually results in Religion), would you still be an anti-theist if a religion included tenets and a morality that was opposed to the items (and other similar actions) that you listed?
Since this is a debate subreddit let me ask - can you support that the historical and contemporary collective negatives of Religion outweight the positives of Religion? Where the positives are, arguably, the study and understanding of nature, or natural philosophy (a precursor to Godless science), as nature is part of God's domain and to understand nature is to better understand God and God's Works; the accumulation of wealth and intelligent people to allow for the development of non-hand to mouth communities to explore and advance the arts, literature, natural philosophy/science, medicine, architecture, abstract morality and moral systems, war and the principles in fighting a war, etc., which is the foundation upon which contemporary society rests; a relatively codified morality that forms the basis for a common societal jurisprudence system; attempts to identify and answer the Big Questions of "WHY?"; etc. Keep in mind that we only have a actual example of long term history in which Theism and Religion is present; we do not have a long term history of a non-God/non-Religion history to use in order to a comparison of outcome.
And for the great many historical and contemporary persons that have achieved great advances in knowledge - how do you address and apply anti-theism to their Theistic beliefs and Religious practices against the positive benefits the advancement of knowledge (with the associated increase in the human condition and standard of living) where this knowledge is not derived from some Religious text or belief?
Finally, and specially related to the claim that Religion "causes war," and which is an argument that has been presented in this forum a number of times - from the extensive list of violent actions and wars listed in the Encyclopedia of Wars - 3 Volume Set, of the chronicled 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history, of these wars only 123 (about 7%) as being religious in nature as to a cause; and the remainder, 93%, have had secular non-religious causes. And, based upon the secular non-religious caused wars account for an overwhelming number of deaths compared to religious caused wars. With these statistics, how do you defend the claim that Religion "causes war" on any meaningful level compared to secular causes of wars?
Please keep in mind OP, Disastrous Blueberry (heh, good name. I picture Violet Beauregarde, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, post bubble gum, rolling down a hill causing massive destruction), that the pro-Religious views (both explicit and implicit) represented in the above debate questions are not necessary supported nor condoned by atheists. I am merely curious how you, a self-identified anti-Theist, responds.
> Yes, I did. By a rabi. Surely non-biased sourcing my friend
I'm trying to be polite, but you're making it hard. I specifically said it's the sources referred to in the article, not the article itself.
If you prefer, here is the book itself:
https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Wars-Library-World-History/dp/0816028516
Oh and you want to trade Wikipedia articles? Try this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war#Criteria_for_classification
Para 2 talks about the same book, which is about ALL wars, not just your cherry-picked few, and says this:
"In their Encyclopedia of Wars, authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod attempt a comprehensive listing of wars in history. They document 1763 wars overall,[3] of which 123 (7%) have been identified and listed as primarily religiously motivated.[4][5][6] Of these, religious wars account for less than 2% of all people killed in warfare. This includes 3 million during the Crusades and 3,000 during the Inquisition."
Any thoughts on that? How does 2% = "most"?
Stalin, Pot, Lenin and Mao would like to have a word with you. Tell me more about how horrible religion is.
Religion was/is used as a device -an excuse, if you will - to reach their goals. If it didn't exist, they'd simply find another tool.
Also, I like how you bundled all religions together.
>An interesting source of truth on the matter is Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature,2 which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars. However, when one subtracts out those waged in the name of Islam (66), the percentage is cut by more than half to 3.23%.
Source citing this book called: Encyclopaedia of Wars
> More wars have been fought and more people have died over the Bible than any other piece of written scripture in history. Yeah religion had a big role in the US. It started as missionaries from England coming over and starting "churches" that taxed the hell out of the locals.
You have a very cynical and twisted view of religion. What's more, it's completely factually untrue. In the history of the world, only 3.23% of wars were motivated by a religion other the Islam, and only 6.98% of wars were motivated by religion including Islam. Religious-based wars account for less than 2% of people killed in warfare. The idea that religion is a major cause of wars is a serious myth. Here's a little graph to put that in perspective: https://carm.org/images/religious-wars-bar-chart.jpg. My source by the way for this is Encylopedia of Wars: https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Wars-Library-World-History/dp/0816028516.
I'm not even sure what you're referring to when you talk about missionaries coming over and taxing people. How would missionaries tax people? I'd like a source on that. Even the government didn't have the right to tax people as it needed to in the original U.S. government, which is partially what led to the constitution. I was referring to the many people who came to America seeking religious freedom and the heavy influence religion had on some of the founding fathers and their ideas.
> Organized religion has no purpose
It's like you're telling Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin no one has ever gone to the moon. Organized religion has done so much good for so many people I personally know throughout my life it's amazing. It brings people together in communities that help each other, teach each other, encourage each other, give support to each other, and improve society. Without organized religion, you have none of that. You have no charitable donations. You have no service projects. You have no one looking after you, encouraging you, supporting you, lifting you up. Do you really think you can make it in this life alone? That's the purpose of organized religion.
Again, please stop trying to compare me to you. Nothing is going to get me to support pedophilia like you, my friend. It's gross.
I like how you said there are plenty of sources other than Zeitgeist, which you haven't provided. Just give me a respected New Testament scholar who believes Jesus didn't exist. It's not a hard concept.
Ahhh the old "most suffering ever" line. Have you ever read The Encyclopedia of Wars? It's a study of all wars fought throughout history, which demonstrates that religion is the cause of about 7% of all of histories wars, and Islam brings up about half of those.
Way to ignore the violent atheist regimes of the 20th century, btw. Atheism is violent and holding us back.
See? 2 can play at that game, but only one of us is right (HINT: It's the guy who sources his info and doesn't link to long debunked bullshit lmao, quit while you're this far behind, kid.)