I've been restraining myself so far, but congratulations Squeets you've made me post! I just can't stand by and let this go unchallenged anymore.
[QUOTE="Trashface"]Wow. People would sooner get rid of religion than murder, rape, incest, diseases? Some people are truly hateful and close minded
Squeets
Lets see... the few tens of thousands of murder and rape victims each year,
An estimated 520,000 people were murdered in 2000 around the globe. -Wikipedia
A United Nations report compiled from government sources showed that more than 250,000 cases of rape or attempted rape were recorded by police annually...From 2000-2005, 59% of rapes were not reported to law enforcement.-Wikipedia
or the religious war and hate that has cost millions upon millions of lives over the years and is quickly getting closer to the deaths of millions more...
The amount of lives lost in Religious warfare is significantly lower than you think, I belive. In fact, some of the 'Religious atrocities' are absolutely nothing compared to the atrocities commited by the non-religious.See the handy comparison below:
Historical Event-Responsible Party-Total Deaths
Great Leap Forward-atheists-43,000,000; Holodomor-atheists -3,500,000; Spanish Red Terror-atheists-72,344 24,114
Spanish Inquisition-Christian theists-3,230; Medieval Inquisitions-Christian theists-2,000; Portuguese Inquisition-Christian theists-1,175
Israel/Muslim nations and their dislike for each other could cause more wars (because there have already been several)...
Almost certainly, but the casualties have been suprisingly low for an almost 60 year long war. "Estimates range from 51,000 fatalities (from 1950 to 2007) to 92,000 fatalities (from 1945 to 1995)." -Wikipedia
And Muslim extremist hate for the west could lead to potentially devistating attacks with some of the weapons of today (chemical/biological/nuclear)... any of those attacks could kill millions...
Something I actually agree with you on...partially. Yes, if crazies get their hands on WMD's thousands/millions could die. But this is NOT a specifically religious problem.Whether it be the religous crazies (Ex:Muslim Extremists), or secular crazies (Ex: Tamil Tigers), or even athiest crazies (Ex: Stalin), they all have the potential for mass murder regardless of creed.
then the deaths of tens of millions over the years (Crusades, Inquisition, Holocaust... etc...)
-Crusades: From 1-2 million deaths over a 200 year period. -Wikipedia
-Inquisition: The three inquisitions above combined only account for about 6,000 deaths
-Holocaust: Ummmm....how this is supposed to be the fault of religion, I really don't know...
Religion is not the wellspring of terror and death, that many of you seem to make it out to be.
Also, to adress Religion as a cause of war, see:
At the risk of providing significantly more ammunition to those who argue that religion causes war and invariably cite 1) The Crusades, 2) The Wars of Religion, and 3) The Thirty Years War, here is a list of all of the wars that the authors of the Encyclopedia of Wars saw fit to categorize as religious wars for one reason or another:
(Long list of wars)
That is 123 wars in all, which sounds (impressive), until one recalls that these 123 wars represent only 6.92 percent of all the wars recorded in the encyclopedia...It's also interesting to note that more than half of these religious wars, sixty-six in all, were waged by Islamic nations, which is rather more than might be statistically expected considering that the first war in which Islam was involved took place almost three millennia after the first war chronicled in the Encyclopedia, Akkad's conquest of Sumer in 2325 B.C.
In light of this evidence, the fact that a specific religion is currently sparking a great deal of conflict around the globe cannot reasonably be used to indict all religious faith, especially when one considers that removing that single religion from the equation means that all of the other religious faiths combined only account for 3.35 percent of humanity's wars.
The historical evidence is conclusive. Religion is not a primary cause of war.
Theodoore Beale
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but this was really bugging me and I had to post or start an entirely new 'Religion" topic.
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