I'm Shocked

[Quin]

You made a statement "religion has killed more" in response to a number given for deaths from another source. You made it as a statement of fact, and since it was given in response to a specific number stated. I wanted to know what the larger number is and how it is that "religion" caused these many millions of deaths that you purport to know about.

But when asked for this number that you claim to know about, you can't provide it.

When you claim to have statistics to "prove" your point, it should be easily able to provide those statistics. But now you say no one knows these numbers. If no one knows these numbers, how can you make the statement you did?

Making up "facts" to "prove" your argument, doesn't prove anything other than that you're willing to make things up to "prove" your argument.

I'm fairly sure that Lakumi assumed we all had a basic K12 education... Which makes "proving" what is part of any decent primary education redundant. I might have said "arguably killed more" if I was on my A game, but this IS a message board, not a peer review journal... But in any event... Here are some of those stats that are easy enough to source online. There are literally hundreds of other examples.... But here's a hundred million + deaths:

Jewish - Halocaust - 5.9 million Estimated Number of Jews Killed in the Final Solution | Jewish Virtual Library

With all due respect to those who listed Hitler as a secular source... I'm sure the nearly 6 million Jews and their descendents would beg to disagree that their religion played no part in others trying to wipe their religion and its people off the face of the globe.

Also... Just as a gentle reminder, Stalin & Mao, and other communist lessers also targeted religious leaders & practitioners. Which bumps up another 5-30 million

Taiping Revolutiom ... 20 million Taiping Rebellion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

French Wars of Religiom (1562-1598) ... 2million-4million

Iran Iraq war (1980-88) ... 500,000-2million also...Iran-Iraq Conflict

Afghan Civil War (1979-Present) 1.5-2million

Empire of Japan Conquests 5-30million (I'd say this is a low estimate, actually, but then Omwas taught Japanese history in Japan, and just like American history taught in the US, there's a bit of cultural bias).

(The above 6, and others, are handily available here with a handy dandy bibliography to peruse at your leisure.): List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crusades 1-4million Crusades - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Golden Age of Islam / Moorish Expansion (800-1100ad)

Israeli Palestinian/Arab Conflict (1920-Present) apx 200,000 (scarily, so,e of the lowest numbers yet!) Total Casualties, Arab-Israeli Conflict | Jewish Virtual Library

30 years War (1618-1648) 3-11.5million. Religious war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yugoslav wars tally still growing, as more mass graves from genocide are being discovered. Over 35,000 Albanian women were kept in Serbian rape camps, so those numbers are fairly solid, but whole villages were gassed, and there is still fallout from chemical weapons used years ago killing people... So numbers get dicey. I've heard as low as the wiki, up to a couple million. Fr now well just say 250,000+ Yugoslav Wars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course, Im leaving out hundreds of religious conflicts. Olmec/Aztec/Mayan just sort of leaps to mind, because I took that class, and have forgotten the numbers)... But that's only a few.

A smattering of additional reading on religion & conflict

Religion and Conflict Case Studies

http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/deathswarsconflictsjune52006.pdf

Institute for War and Peace Reporting -

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/estimates.doc

Also... From here, some other religious conflicts. Please feel free to research on your own:

Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls

Generally speaking, in most of the following cases, religion is both the stated cause of the killing and the only substantive difference between the two opposing groups. Obviously, there would be many additional conflicts where religion is just one of several divisions.

Albigensian Crusade, 1208-49

Algeria, 1992-

Aztecs

Baha'is, 1848-54

Bosnia, 1992-95

Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901

Christian Romans, 30-313 CE

Croatia, 1991-92

Early Christian doctrinal disputes

English Civil War, 1642-46

Holocaust, 1938-45

Huguenot Wars, 1562-1598

India, 1992-2002

India: Suttee & Thugs

Indo-Pakistani Partition, 1947

Iran, Islamic Republic, 1979-

Iraq, Shiites, 1991-92

Jews, 1348

Jonestown, 1978

Korea, 1700s

Lebanon

1860

1975-92

Martyrs, generally

Molucca Is., 1999-

Mongolia, 1937-39

Northern Ireland, 1974-98

Responsibility generally (Is religion responsible for more deaths than ...?)

Christian culpabiltiy

Russian pogroms:

1905-06

1917-22

St. Bartholemew Massacre, 1572

Shang China, ca. 1300-1050 BCE

Shimabara Revolt, Japan 1637-38

Sikh uprising, India, 1984-91

Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1834

Sudan 1881-98

Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64

Thirty Years War, 1618-48

Tudor England

Vietnam, 1800s

Witch Hunts, 1400-1800

Xhosa, 1857

In addition, here are a few noteworthy conflicts where dissimilar ethnic groups fought for primarily religious reasons:

Arab Outbreak, 7th Century CE

Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-

Al Qaeda, 1993-

Bible

Crusades, 1095-1291

Dutch Revolt, 1566-1609

Muslim conquest of India, 11th-17th C

Nigeria, 1990s, 2000s

Pakistan, 2004-

Edited November 3, 2013 by Quin
Broken link

[Praetorian_Brow]

Religion is used to justify most of those conflicts and massacres, as the real reason is economics.

Rabid religious sentiments don't really matter to most people when they aren't being paid.

Well done Quin, reminding people that there is world history.

[yjacket]

Religion is used to justify most of those conflicts and massacres, as the real reason is economics.

Rabid religious sentiments don't really matter to most people when they aren't being paid.

Well done Quin, reminding people that there is world history.

Oh I totally agree; however Quin claiming that claiming that Hilter killed in the name of God because he waged a war against Jews is a little too much. Just because a war is waged against a specific religion does not make it a war of killing in the name of God. In fact it would make sense that an atheist leader would have more of an ax to grind against a specific religious viewpoint rather than against people in general.

There is debate as to what Hilter was wiki:

"The adult Hitler did not believe in the Judeo-Christian notion of God, though various scholars consider his final religious position may have been a form of deism. Others consider him "atheist". The question of atheism is debated, however reputable Hitler biographers Ian Kershaw, Joachim Fest and Alan Bullock agree Hitler was anti-Christian."

More points about Hitler:

"Kershaw wrote that few people could really claim to "know" Hitler - "he was by temperament a very private, even secretive individual", unwilling to confide in others.[4] In Hitler's Table Talk Hitler often voiced stridently negative views of Christianity. Bullock wrote that Hitler was a rationalist and materialist, who saw Christianity as a religion "fit for slaves", and against the natural law of selection and survival of the fittest.[5] Richard J. Evans wrote that Hitler used a Nazi variant of the language of Social Darwinism to persuade his followers that what they were doing was justified by "history, science and nature"

From my study of Hitler, he very much embraced the theory of evolution. That was why the Aryan race was so important, it was the (in his mind) the greatest race and therefore destined to conquer and win out in the evolution of mankind. It was the survival of the fittest and nature had selected them for it.

Edited November 3, 2013 by yjacket

[Feta]

I have looked at one corner of my chair. There was no coin there. I currently have no evidence that there is a coin on my chair. Do I then have evidence that there are no coins on my chair? Is my belief that there are no coins on my chair based on evidence? Would I be justified in mocking someone who said it's plausible that there is a coin on the chair?

You do not have evidence that there are no coins on your chair, but you also don't have any reason to believe there are coins on your chair. You wouldn't mock someone who said it's plausible. It is plausible.

Here is a more applicable version of your analogy:

No one in this country has found a coin in a chair... ever. However people claim that there are millions of coins in the chairs of this country, we just have not found them yet. Surely, as soon as people start digging their fingers deeper into the cushions they will find a plethora of coins.

Yes, I would mock someone who was pushing that theory.

I'm not saying there is absolutely no possibility of the remnants of a huge civilization under the ground. All I'm saying is that it's very unlikely given the evidence:

1) We have tons of remnants and artifacts from civilizations earlier than the ones in the BoM.

2) We know of no major changes to the landscape of north america between then and now that would completely hide their cities. (The hill cumorah is still there after all!)

3) No artifacts from these people have been found. Even though they supposedly were able to produce items that would last a very long time.

[pam]

Since this has completely changed from the OP's original intent and since this is the LDS Gospel Discussion where we don't debate our beliefs, this thread is closed.