@chansen "Yep, secularism has neutered Christianity in a way that hasn't happened to Islam in many Islamic countries"
"most of the people who have died as a result of war, have done so in the Twentieth Century
and
most of the killing was done in the name of secular ideologies...
Remembering Professor Johnson and his statement, “Organized religion has caused more suffering, wars and violence than any other cause”? Professor Johnson just baited his students, and as the good professor tells us, “Almost all the students raise their hands in agreement.”
“I then demand that they provide dead bodies as evidence. They usually mention the Crusades and one or two other religious wars they might have heard of but in none of their examples can they come up with a million deaths…I then point out that most of the people who have died as a result of war, have done so in the Twentieth Century and that most of the killing was done in the name of secular ideologies. I then ask them who is the ‘baddest’ of them all. Most guess Hitler. I then tell them that he is rated #3. Some then guess Stalin and I inform them that most scholars place him at #2 with 20 million killed. Almost no one gets #1 who, of course, is Mao who starts with an estimated 40 million. I then point out that the top two were Communists and Hitler was a radical proponent of Social Darwinism. All of these ideologies are based on atheistic systems.”
[11]
Matthew White, a librarian who has done a tremendous amount of study in genocide/war issues, and is the author of the on-line Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, gives this Q&A response to the question of “religion.”
“Q: Is religion responsible for more violent deaths than any other cause?
A: No, of course not – unless you define religion so broadly as to be meaningless. Just take the four deadliest events of the 20th Century – Two World Wars, Red China and the Soviet Union – no religious motivation there, unless you consider every belief system to be a religion.”
[12]
Maj. John P. Conway, studying at the US Army Command & General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, commented in an article “War and Religion: Is Religion to Blame?”
“Most times, it can be argued that religion may play a key and significant role in the conduct of warfare on a psychological and cultural level, but is it the cause of warfare? Do nations, states and kingdoms wage war over religion? Is religion a primary cause of conflict between governments? Many have argued that it is. Another popular statement is, ‘Religion has been the cause of more wars than any other factor throughout history.’ This is commonly accompanied by ‘people have been killing each other in the name of God for centuries.’ Upon closer examination, these statements exude an element of mythology versus fact…A fundamental analysis of past wars commonly attributed to ‘religion,’ as the causal factor, may reveal an uninformed and reactionary misjudgment. Throughout the course of history, the cause of warfare between sovereign states, kingdoms, and governments is attributable to many factors, but can rarely be attributed to ‘religion’ as is so often the assertion.”
[13]
Maj. Conway continues,
“…it becomes apparent that those who make the claim ‘religion has been the cause of more wars than any other factor in history’ may speak from ignorance or have ulterior motives for the assertion. Further, this type of assertion seems rooted in anti-religion posturing…Men and nations have a history of warfare and the root of conflict is power and gain…Occasionally war is fought over religion, as is perhaps the case during the reformation period in Europe. More often than not however, the cause of war can't be laid at the door of religion.”
[14]
Certainly religion plays a motivational and ruse factor in various conflict scenarios (all kinds of pretexts can be used in inciting and snow-balling hostilities, in 1969 soccer played a key role in exploding tensions between Honduras and El Salvador), but as a whole the main cause of the major genocides and wars of the last one hundred years lie outside of purely religious stimulus. Moreover, even wars that contain a deep religious element often have multiple causations, including economic, political, and territorial grievances.
None of this is to say that religion is innocent when it comes to strife. Historically we can cite the Crusades, the Reformation genocides, and the mass slaughters done in the name of Allah – such as during the Wars of Apostasy.
[15] And in modern times we can see the effects of Catholic-Protestant clashes in the British Isles, Hindu-Islamic hostilities in India, the Islamic-Christians slaughters in Sudan, Buddhist-Hindu warfare in Sri Lanka, Moslem-Christian fighting in Indonesia, and the constant struggle in the Middle East between Israel and her Moslem neighbours. However, in terms of the largest concentration of outright killing capacity, communism, national socialism, and imperial expansionism – all power struggles based on centralist methodologies – have been the grandest contributor to war and human-caused mass death. Nothing else comes even remotely close.
Clearly, to exert that “religion is the cause of all war and strife” demonstrates a severe degree of historical naivety, or deeply distorted emotional blinders, or the outright broadcasting of disinformation for an ulterior motive (see Maj. Conway’s above quote).
... For the students of Mr. Johnson’s class, naivety is the most probable reason for their belief in this religion-war mythology. But for others, ulterior motives exist."
