Secular & Religious motives & Blood Shed.

[AEDAN]

I would like to state that this is not the argument for religion I am merely settling the record straight.

There is no doubt that conflict is a historical mode of communication. The command and conquer attitude was frequent in the earliest of civilizations.

It has often been proposed by the atheist that religion is the catalyst of conflict. That a world without religion would be a world without conflict. This displays an unsettling lack of self awareness. Indeed, all the evidence points to the contrary. Without Christianity there wouldn't be science, there wouldn't be law and order as we know it and there wouldn't be western democracy (as appose to classical democracy). These points will be argued later as here I am going to make the case that secularism carries the heaviest burden in terms of physical violence.

So, straight off the bat I would like to enlighten you about the Crusades.

Historian Henry Kamen, the utmost authority on the history of the crusades has validated that the number of people killed in the crusades was around 2000 over the course of 400 years. That works out to around 5 people a year. Granted, that is 2000 too many but this would never be considered as a national tragedy. More Mexicans have died trying to cross the boarder into the USA. More Mexicans have died trying to cross that boarder than Americans died in 9/11.

The Salem witch trials killed precisely 18 people. Again, 18 too many but these are not the hundreds of thousands the atheist likes to proclaim.

So, now that I have dealt with the horrible Christian wars that atheists enjoy crying crocodile tears over lets just take a brief look at secular conflicts.

According to the controversial collection of transcripts edited by Martin Bormann, titled Hitler's Table Talk, as well as the testimony of some intimates, Hitler had privately negative views of Christianity.

Martin Bormann demonstrates Hilter's propaganda in appealing to Christianity as a means to an ends. Indeed, Hitler admitted that he would say anything for gain in his biography. It is held that Hilter detested Christianity and all mainstream religion as he saw it as a barrier to his goals.

Now, before we get into a dispute about Hitler's religious beliefs, it can be said, Hilter never killed in the name of a God. Indeed, he fought in the name of Nazism. It was a political movement. A secular motivation and ultimately, the world got involved and as we know, hundreds of millions died.

Pol Pot was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, an theist, who killed two million people in under two years. This is something no terrorist group could ever attempt. The mode, the ability, the capacity to destroy life like this is a secular phenomenon.

Communist leader Mao Zedong killed seventy million people and when we consider other Russian communist leaders such as Stalin, the millions increase ever more.

Richard Dawkin's comments that no atheist leader has ever killed in the name of atheism but when you're a communist you support a manifesto which specifically calls for the eradication of theism. So they are indeed servicing an atheist plot, a secular, political, non-religious power scheme.

In their Encyclopedia of Wars, authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod attempt a comprehensive listing of wars in history. They document 1763 wars overall, of which 123 (7%) have been classified to involve a religious conflict.

Philips and Axelrod present a comprehensive historical account but of the examples I have given the count of secular fatalities...

Pot = 2,000,000
Mao = 70,000,000
Stalin = 20,000,000
Hitler + the result of the wars = 110,000,000

Total = 220,000,000 lives lost.

And Christian-religious

Spanish Inquisition = 2000
Salem Trials = 18

Total = 2018 lives lost.

Secular wars rage on and yes it is true religious extremists continue to act in extreme way but they are ultimately acting politically. The middle east is war torn over LAND not faith. They are not debating God they are debating oil resources.

Also, the horrible acts of Christianity took place more than 500 years ago, a 1000 years ago... you don't see that violence today, there is absolutely no threat. There are no terrorist Christians. The protestant and catholic battles in Northern Ireland? Those are about land.

You might identify a Christian who has blown up an abortion clinic but I'll find you an atheist that's shot up a cinema. Belief or neigh people will act bad, it is NOT a function of religion.


The will of man often breeds this conflict... again, his isn't my argument for religion it's just historical fact.