Is Christianity in Decline in America? · General Discussion Forum

Q99 Senior Member

Originally posted by psmith81992
I seem to remember nobody was able to back up their claim that religion has done far worse. And I did back it up. All you need is to mention Stalin, Pot, and Mao, and you have more deaths than the entirety of the crusades and that's without including hitler.

Ok, on the religious side, you've got Hitler, you've got Imperial Japan, you've got pretty much every war in Africa, you've got the Mongols, Romans, Persian Empire, Muslim conquests, the Huns, the Goths, you've got the genocide of Native Americans in both North and South America (the Spanish Conquistadors, after all, were highly religious), you've got all the killing the Aztecs got up to for centuries, Vikings....

Simple math: There's more religious people than non in any particular period, and overall. If you're counting 'done by people who happen to be X,' it covers most everything. If you're counting 'done specifically in the name of X,' it covers most conquests in history.

That said, I think it silly to lump either 'theist' or 'atheist' as a singular, since either contain many very opposed belief *systems*.

And I will also say, I do not think anyone has ever been killed by someone who follows the great Atheismo.

psmith81992 Restricted

Hitler wasn't religious, neither was Imperial Japan. Pretty much "every war in Africa" begs proof. The Huns and the Goths weren't religious and the Roman Empire persecuted Christians up until Constantine. The Persian Empire wasn't religious. Where are you getting all of this information? Furthermore, you did not provide any numbers. I'm not arguing in the name of religion vs. atheism. I'm arguing religious deaths vs. deaths perpetrated by secularists or atheists, and the numbers are on my side.

Omega Vision Face Flowed Into Her Eyes

Originally posted by psmith81992
I seem to remember nobody was able to back up their claim that religion has done far worse. And I did back it up. All you need is to mention Stalin, Pot, and Mao, and you have more deaths than the entirety of the crusades and that's without including hitler.

And I believe I argued (to which you had no real counter) that none of those people killed in the name of atheism or secularism. They just happened to be atheists who killed for other reasons.

Omega Vision Face Flowed Into Her Eyes

Originally posted by psmith81992
Hitler wasn't religious, neither was Imperial Japan. Pretty much "every war in Africa" begs proof. The Huns and the Goths weren't religious and the Roman Empire persecuted Christians up until Constantine. The Persian Empire wasn't religious. Where are you getting all of this information? Furthermore, you did not provide any numbers. I'm not arguing in the name of religion vs. atheism. I'm arguing religious deaths vs. deaths perpetrated by secularists or atheists, and the numbers are on my side.

I think you're conflating "religious" with "monotheistic" if you think the Persians, Goths, and Huns weren't religious.

Bardock42 Junior Member

If you count Stalin and Mao's atrocities as deaths perpetrated by atheists, then you have to count Hitler's as deaths perpetrated by religious people. Either is pretty silly though, because they weren't inspired by their atheism or theism, but by political ideologies.

Omega Vision Face Flowed Into Her Eyes

Also, Psmith is basically just comparing deathtolls from industrial wars to pre-industrial wars. Not a fair comparison.

For the vast majority of history, religion has been more a cause for suffering than non-religion, and that's not really up for dispute.

psmith81992 Restricted

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Also, Psmith is basically just comparing deathtolls from industrial wars to pre-industrial wars. Not a fair comparison.
For the vast majority of history, religion has been more a cause for suffering than non-religion, and that's not really up for dispute.

Ok? And with industrial wars, the secularists and the atheists have done more damage in a limited amount of time than the religious groups throughout history.
And this is not up for debate either.

And no, Hitler wasn't religious or Christian. He created his own version to rationalize action. If you're going to call that religion, you might as well call every brainwashing action a religion.

If you count Stalin and Mao's atrocities as deaths perpetrated by atheists, then you have to count Hitler's as deaths perpetrated by religious people. Either is pretty silly though, because they weren't inspired by their atheism or theism, but by political ideologies.

That's the point (aside from hitler being religious). I'm not saying they committed crimes in the names of atheism but they persecuted religious groups and happened to be secularists. It's a response to those who argue that religion is the cause of most of the world's deaths throughout history. I can take religion out of the picture and you'll have more deaths in the name of a political ideology. So "God" and "political ideology" are interchangeable.

FinalAnswer Flower

You fail to realize that in the modern era, to which everyone you named belonged to, has a much, much larger population. So of course, once we have a larger population, the tyrants and mad men of a more secular era are going to kill more, not to mention humanity possesses more means to better kill each other then ever before in history.

Even asides from that, no.

Lump all these together and you get a death toll somewhere in the ball park of around 100 million. And that's me just listing atrocities done in the name of religion, it would be much significantly larger if I just started listing stuff done by religious individuals.

psmith81992 Restricted

Initially a war between Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmenting Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers of Europe, becoming less about religion and more a continuation of the France–Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence.

Looks like that's out.

As far as Timur is concerned, you need to find a number. I'm not surprised you listed the Crusades because only on wikipedia would you take the highest number of casualties to make your argument work. However, no other work on the Crusades even comes close to naming that many casualties.

The Bosnian War wasn't a religious war. And finally, the human sacrifice casualties are minimal compared to anything we've discussed. So you don't have a number approaching anything near 80 million.

FinalAnswer Flower

Originally posted by psmith81992
The Huns and the Goths weren't religious and the Roman Empire persecuted Christians up until Constantine. The Persian Empire wasn't religious.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Christianity
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengrism

The Romans specifically persecuted Christians for their religion clashing against the Roman state religion, and the Persians were very religious

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

Stop talking about things you don't know.

psmith81992 Restricted

Ok so it's clear you just found a bunch of wikipedia articles, read the first sentence and thought, "meh good enough". I just educated you on your own information and your response was telling. Good try 👆

Oh, and the discussion was of religious groups persecuting others based on religion. So half of your stuff is gone here, but if now you're lumping everything having to do with religion together, I suppose I can do that with any individual or group that had no ties. You'd lose either way.

FinalAnswer Flower

Originally posted by psmith81992
Looks like that's out.
As far as Timur is concerned, you need to find a number. I'm not surprised you listed the Crusades because only on wikipedia would you take the highest number of casualties to make your argument work. However, no other work on the Crusades even comes close to naming that many casualties.
The Bosnian War wasn't a religious war. And finally, the human sacrifice casualties are minimal compared to anything we've discussed. So you don't have a number approaching anything near 80 million.

The Thirty Year War was started by Catholic-Protestant strife, don't try and cop out.

http://wars.findthedata.com/l/90/Conquests-of-Tamerlane

The Bosnian War was all about the Christians and Muslims murdering each other, stop talking about stuff you know nothing about.

The Aztecs sacrificed around 1 million people in the span of their history, so if you think that's a small number, that's alright I guess.

FinalAnswer Flower

Originally posted by psmith81992
Ok so it's clear you just found a bunch of wikipedia articles, read the first sentence and thought, "meh good enough". I just educated you on your own information and your response was telling. Good try 👆
Oh, and the discussion was of religious groups persecuting others based on religion. So half of your stuff is gone here, but if now you're lumping everything having to do with religion together, I suppose I can do that with any individual or group that had no ties. You'd lose either way.

So you don't actually have a rebuttal.

Bardock42 Junior Member

Originally posted by psmith81992

That's the point (aside from hitler being religious). I'm not saying they committed crimes in the names of atheism but they persecuted religious groups and happened to be secularists. It's a response to those who argue that religion is the cause of most of the world's deaths throughout history. I can take religion out of the picture and you'll have more deaths in the name of a political ideology. So "God" and "political ideology" are interchangeable.

Ok, so if your issue is with people saying religion has caused most of the worlds (violent) deaths I agree with you. Political Ideologies have been much more prolific in killing people (the numbers in post-industrial times are of course considerably higher than in pre-industrial times).

If the statement is however more deaths have been caused in the name of religion than in the name of atheism, that's a different matter. Because relatively few deaths have been cause in the name of atheism.

psmith81992 Restricted

Originally posted by FinalAnswer
So you don't actually have a rebuttal.

I gave you my rebuttal. You didn't read any of your own links, instead looking at the estimated casualties and took the highest number of all of them. At the end of the day, you don't come close to the deaths perpetrated by Stalin and Mao alone. But you can keep trying.

Ok, so if your issue is with people saying religion has caused most of the worlds (violent) deaths I agree with you. Political Ideologies have been much more prolific in killing people (the numbers in post-industrial times are of course considerably higher than in pre-industrial times).

Yup this is what i'm saying. So if you take religion out of the world, you'll still get far more deaths.

Bardock42 Junior Member

Well obviously the interactions in history are not that simple. It's very possible that Religion has been a destabilising force that has stopped us from achieving more peace. But taking it at raw numbers, sure...

FinalAnswer Flower

Nice assumption boyo, I bet you took the highest estimate for Stalin and Mao too.

You also conveniently ignored what I said about how Stalin and Mao lived in a modern era making it absurdly easy to murder millions of people compared to any other point in history.

psmith81992 Restricted

Originally posted by FinalAnswer
Nice assumption boyo, I bet you took the highest estimate for Stalin and Mao too.
You also conveniently ignored what I said about how Stalin and Mao lived in a modern era making it absurdly easy to murder millions of people compared to any other point in history.

I didn't use wikipedia for my sources, ignoring the fact that it's much easier to place an accurate death toll in the modern age. And yes, it's much easier to kill in the modern era and it happens to be the secularists doing it. You didn't make much of a point 👆

FinalAnswer Flower

It's much more impressive when religious individuals kill off a large percentage of the world's population, rather then just raw number 👆

I misunderstood your point anyway though, I'm not arguing religion is the cause of more deaths in the world, people would have murdered the shit out of each other regardless so it's like whatever.

psmith81992 Restricted

It's not impressive given the time that they had. It's much more impressive what Stalin and Mao did with the short amount of time and the much more casualties.