History’s religious crimes
It’s an argument that’s popular among atheists when they’re making an attack directed against religion - that the very presence of religion has caused countless acts of violence over the years. And while it can not be denied that there have been plenty of violent acts taken in the name of nearly every known faith, personally I think there’s a bigger point to be made here than just using the connection between religion and violence to form an attack on those who choose to cling to faith.
It does little good to simply point out the obvious. Trying to convince people that they need to stop being religious because of how other people have abused that religion in the past is not a logical argument. Religious doctrine is just one of many things that people find easy to manipulate to their own ends. Saying “look at all the lives lost because of your religion!” is about as meaningful as pointing out all the lives lost because of greedy people in power who refused to use that power to, say, feed a starving population. Can you say “look at all the lives lost because of the existence of money!” and have it mean anything different?
The lives lost are because of the people who are in control of these power-bases, the presence of religion or money or otherwise being little more than a means to an end, sometimes selfish, sometime self-delusional. Governments and patriotism are two other popular methods for controlling the masses and having them commit violent acts, but I have a feeling that most atheists would have a harder time arguing that we need to remove governments or convince people to stop believing in or fighting for their countries.
What’s more important, in my opinion, is that we remain educated on these crimes of the past and take care that the same things are not repeated today. The true enemy is ignorance. While atheists may look back and point out the flaws of a religion like Christianity, citing numerous crusades, witch hunts and the mass killings of those who believed differently, those who hold to their faith make a similar yet opposite mistake. Instead of highlighting the flaws of the past, they choose to ignore them. A simple explanation of “that was a different time” suffices for most. Without a deeper look at the root causes of how Christianity was manipulated to drive the mass of the populace to obey and perpetrate some truly horrific acts of violence, we risk the same thing happening today, albeit at a much subtler level.
What we can learn, is that these things happened at the whim of people in power with political or self-serving agendas. Since those types of people exist today and will likely exist throughout most of time, we need to be aware of the methods they use to fool people into killing and hating on their behalf. Even with the last few wars, the name of God has been thrown about as if Jesus were some patron deity of battle, similar to the Mars or Athena of centuries past. When people doubt the validity of violent actions being taken against others, politicians draw upon the powerful presence of religion to ease their fears and settle the self-doubt that comes along with ending the lives of your fellow human beings.
While looking around at the death tolls of Christianity, I came across an interesting site called exchristian.net. Someone over there went through the trouble to create a breakdown of the casualties that have occurred due to western religious causes and expansion in the name of western religion. The list is fairly comprehensive, covering things like the initial wiping out of pagans as Christianity expanded to the death toll of the crusades to the effect of the inquisitions on the population. They also go a bit into the number of Jews killed by Christians over the years, as Jews have always been a popular target for aggression. The list continues up into modern days and modern killings and is an interesting resource for those looking to discover exactly how far the death toll spreads.
And, of course, numbers relating to Christian death counts rarely include the delusional soldiers themselves, the ones who were convinced to go out and execute these private wars. Like every war, there are casualties on both sides, and so those dead must not be forgotten or ignored.
Another interesting site goes into a discussion on the connection between Christianity and the Holocaust. Hitler was, of course, a follower of the Bible (Catholic, to be precise), as were the vast majority of Germans during the time of World War II. The discussion brings the question to light, however, of whether just because a people are religious, if that plays into the reasons for their killing? In my opinion, the motivation behind the slaughter of the Holocaust was primarily political. They could have removed the Christian factor entirely and the results would have been the same, if not worse.
So then arises the question of at what point does the person doing the crimes no longer become a religious criminal? Do the standards of the day come into play when making those judgments? Just because wars were fought near-constantly in Europe and
Crusade photo courtesy of Torus via Wikicommons
Salem Witch Trial author unknown, via Wikicommons
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