Originally posted by psmith81992
I would LOVE to see where you got these numbers, as they're not remotely close to what I've read.
And what did you read?
I've read a lot of the source material available on the Crusades (Chronicles written by eye-witnesses) for example, and while some of their numbers might be exeggerated, you may want to consider the greater picture.
The Crusades started in 1095 with the last Crusader hold (Akkon) being lost in 1296. So you have two centuries filled with conquest, oppression and re-conquest of a significant territory in the "Holy Land" with additional "Crusades" happening within Europe to bring down "heretics" and "heathens" (even to the 15th century). If you devide the number of 20 million deaths through the time-span of 200 years, you end up with an average of 100,000 deaths per year.
Does that seem so high to you? The source material written by Christian chronists speaks of entire cities being littered with bodys, of indiscriminate slaughter happening in the conquered cities, often wiping the entire population out (as apparently happened in Jerusalem). You may want to take a look at Fulcher of Chartres "Historia Hierosolymitana", Radulf of Caens "Gesta Tancredi In Expeditione Hierosolymitana" or Albert of Aachens "Historia Hierosolymitanae Expeditionis". Radulf's account of what happened during the conquest of the city Ma'arrat al-Numan alone is disturbing enough.
I wonder where you got this information, considering Hitler slaughtered Catholics as well as Jews.
I wonder where you got the idea from that Hitler "slaughtered" Catholics. Ever heard the term "Reichskonkordat"? The Catholic Church was protected via contract, because Hitler didn't want any open conflict with the Church, even though he may not have liked it, because of what he perceived as jewish influence. Sure, there were prominent Catholic victims (Alfred Delp, Maximilian Kolbe) but I'd consider that far from "slaughter" - especially compared to the Holocaust. And even the Holocaust wasn't directed against a Religion - not from Hitlers point of view at least. It was an action taken against a what he viewed as a "lesser race" of human beings.
Or the fact that the religious posed a threat to them and their "state". You can spin it any way you want or play around with semantics. But intent notwithstanding, deaths attributed to secularism are infinitely greater than those attributed to religion.
Maybe it is me who doesn't get your point.
If you don't want to argue intent, you would need to attribute every single killing commited by a religious person / organisation to the "religious" side of the equation. How can you even think, that the "secular" side would come out on top of that?
Again, where are you getting this number? I'm getting anywhere from 200,000 on the low end to 4 million on the high end. You're being awfully liberal with your accuracy when it suits you. We both know your numbers don't come close to the actual numbers, but I get it, you need to justify religious atrocity over the concept of secularism/atheism.
Awful liberal with numbers?
What do you think happened during the "conquest of America"? The Europeans invaded the country, more often than not using violence against whatever natives they met. Those were - by virtue of lacking a "real" culture - seen as lesser humans. Result? There was Chistianisation (which sometimes took the form of "get christened or get killed"😉, getting sold into slavery (if one managed to survive the travel to Europe), getting raped, getting killed for entertainment purpose or - in some cases that ended in a rather catastrophic pandemia - being gifted with pox infected cloths.
And I don't need to "justify" anything. I'm merely confused by your modus operandi. If you want to make a comparison between "religious" and "non-religious" killings in the way you define them then any murder commited by a Christian/Muslim/Jew/EnterSystemOfBeliefHere - regardless of intent or motivation - is "religious" - and that are by far more than those architected and overseen by "atheists" by virtue of "people with a religious mindset" dwarving the opposite group.
So, obviously, that doesn't work. If one takes the number of murders justified through either religious or secular reasons, the amount of the former would still dwarf the latter, by virtue of mass of them over the span of time.
Just one of the prime examples dealing with "religious" wars as example: The Thirty Years' War reduced the population that lived within the boarders of what would have counted as "Germany" by 20-45 percent starting at 15-17 millions. So that conflict alone left 3 to 6,8 million "Germans" dead, not even talking about the foreign fighting forces that mainly used Germany as battlefield. Now just imagine every atrocity commited in the name of Christianity since it became state religion in Rome (in the year 315) to this very day, then add the same for the Muslims (with the early years of the Islam being pretty much constant war). Then throw in all other systems of belief in.
Add to the fact that numerous sources have Europe's population at its height during the Middle Ages/Crusades at 120 million (highest estimate), and your exaggeration is essentially stating that the Crusades were responsible for 66% of the deaths in Europe, so no Nai.
This paragraph doesn't make sense on so many different levels...
1)
Most probably, the entirety of the European population in the time frame in question was between 40 and 50 million people. But that does mean that - at any given point in time - the was the average population. Those people didn't live of the time frame of two centuries.
2)
The 20 million would have been killed over a time span of 200 years, which is an average of 100,000 persons per year, which includes people killed in battles, killed through oppresive rule of conquerers, died on the trip or were killed by problems caused by the Crusades (starvation, sickness etc.)
3)
In case you didn't notice: Most of the Crusades happened outside of Europe, with the victims being Muslims, especially the population of cities / castles being taken by the advancing Crusaders.
But of course, I'm not even sure why you would intentionally try to mislead us unless you accept the accuracy of the death toll of secularists vs. religious fundamentalists.
I'm not trying to mislead you, but attempting to show you, that you're comparing apples to oranges. Not every muder commited by an "atheist" is a "secular murder", much as not every killing done by a "religious person" is a "religious murder". Hence I stated, that attempting to compare those based on "body count" is something I really wouldn't do. Especially, when even if somebody could assume a "religious" motive (e.g. Crusades) the underlying causes may be entirely different (e.g. amassing of wealth / power by conquering new land).
We can go on discussing numbers forever, but then, I don't really see the point. You wanted to argue against the - apparently - often used "anti-religious" statement, that religion caused more deaths than atheism. Unfortunatelly for you, that statement is true, applying your standards of judgement. But that aside the argument itself is stupid, given more likely than not, the underlying reasons for any of the deaths you attributed to "religion" or "secularism" differs from those two things.
With deaths being attributed to "secularism" not making sense at all. Secularism is the idea of seperating governmental organisations / figures from religious organisations / figures. But that doesn't feature the extermination of any religious groups. The only people one could kill in the name of secularism are fundamentalists attempting to establish a theocracy. Now when has that ever happened?
And as I said before: It doesn't need religion to be an *******. Likewise you can be religious - even to the level of a fundamentalist in certain topics - and do good things in the world. I consider myself an agnostic, but I haven't much problem with religious people on the one and atheists on the other side. I have problems with people who try to force their beliefs upon others, though. And for Germany, those are to be found in the group of religious beings. I know it's different in the USA. One of my friends went to an US bookstore recently and was completely astonished by the amount of "atheistic" literature being available there. Won't find something like that over here.
P.S.: Hummels rocks and Brazil versus Columbia was one of the best matches I saw in the World Cup so far (at least the first half).