War Analysis

[achilles12604]

During my debate with Confused, the topic of religious wars and violence came up. I took the most liberal, anti-religious numbers I could (so as to counter any bias I had) and analyzed all the major wars for the last 1000 years. Here are my results.

Sam Harris wrote the following regarding beliefs and their impact on human atrocities.


These are mere words - until you believe them. Once believed they become part of the very apparatus of your mind, determining your desires, fears, expectations and subsequent behavior. There seems, however, to be a problem with some of our most cherished beliefs about the world: they are leading us, inexorably, to kill one another. A glance at history, or at pages of any newspaper, reveals that ideas which divide one group of humans from another, only to unite them in slaughter, generally have their roots in religion. - page 12

I of course find this hard to believe. Therefore I am undertaking an endeavor to uncover the accuracy of this statement. Using as many sources as I can, I will attempt to identify the wars, slaughters and suffering recorded by mankind since 1000 AD. I will then categorize these events by “cause by or associated with religion” and “Caused by other than religion”. For simplicities sake, I will only include incidents with more than 5000 people dead. I am also including all conflicts between Israel and other Arab nations in with religious even though many of the wars are political in nature. Thus if there is any bias, it is towards Harris’ position, not against it.

Religious

Aztec Human Sacrifice – 1487 – Dead: Unknown (Average 36,000)
Sati suicides– 1900-1988 – Dead: 62,400
Aztec Human Sacrifice – 1400-1600 – Dead: 2,000,000
Witch Hunts – 1450-1700 – Dead: 40,000
Henry VIII executions – 1509-1547 – Dead: 72,000
Russian pogroms – 1881-1922 – Dead: average 160,000
India-Pakistan Partition -1947-1948 – Dead: average 900,000
Genocide of Chinese Muslims – 1857-1873 – Dead: average 3,000,000 (Violence BY atheist against religion)
Second Intifada – 2000-2007 – Dead: 5,000
Democides of Nazi Germany – 1933-1945 – Dead: 26,00,000 (left in religion despite the fact not all the deaths had anything to do with religion)
Ustashe genocide – 1941-1945 – Dead: 550,000
Bangladesh/Pakistan partition – 1971- Dead: 1,600,000
1982 Lebanon War – 1982 – Dead: 18,500
Yom Kippur War – 1973 – Dead: 15,000
War of Attrition – 1968-1970 – Dead: 11,000
Six Day War -1967 – Dead: 22,000
Israeli War of Independence – 1948 – Dead: 20,000
Kosovo War – 1996-1999 – Dead: 16,000
Indo-Pakistani War - 1971 – Dead: 23,000
Knights of Malta-Ottoman War - 1565 - Dead: 40,000
Kashmiri insurgency – 1989-2006 – Dead: 70,000
Bosnian War – 1992-1995 – Dead: 100,000
Great Turkish War -1683-1699 – Dead: 220,000
Lebanese Civil War -1975-1990 – Dead: 150,000
Crimean War -1854-1856 – Dead: 300,000
Wars of the Three Kingdoms – 1639-1651 – Dead: 500,000
First Sudanese Civil War -1955-1972 – Dead: 500,000
Second Sudanese Civil War -1983-2002 – Dead: 1,000,000
French Wars of Religion -1562-1598 – Dead: 3,000,000
Thirty Years' War -1618-1648 – Dead: 5,500,000
Saddam Hussein Kurds – 1986-1989 - Dead: average 112,000
Timur the Lame -1369-1405 – Dead: 17,000,000
Taiping Rebellion – 1851-1864- Dead: 35,000,000
World War 2 – 1939-1944 – Dead: 36,000,000 (split between the two evenly due to multiple causes)

TOTAL: 133,930,900




Not religious

Chinese Massacre of Tibettian independence – 1959 – Dead: 87,000
La semaine sanglante – 1871 – Dead: 30,000
228 incident – 1947 – Dead: 30,000
Romanian Peasant’s revolt – 1907 – Dead: 11,000
March 1st movement – 1919 – Dead: 7,500
Japanese Suicide (Battle of Saipan) – 1944 – Dead: 8,000
Japanese Suicide (Battle of Okinawa) – 1945 – 80,000
Thuggee – 1300-1890 – Dead: 2,000,000
Nine major famines under the British East India Company – 1630-1857 – Dead: 16,000,000
25 major famines under the British Raj – 1858-1943 – Dead: 35,000,000
Famines in China under Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong – 1959-1962 – Dead: 30,000,000
Famines in the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin – 1932-1933 – Dead: 8,000,000
The Dirty War – 1976-1983 – Dead: 30,000
Cuba Political Oppression – 1959-2007 – Dead: about 20,000
Haiti Political Oppression – 1964-1971 – Dead: 30,000
Reign of Terror – 1793-1794 – Dead: average 30,000
South Africa concentration Camps – 1899-1902 – Dead: average 38,000
Vlad III the Impaler – 1448-1462 – Dead: average 70,000
Democide of Tibetans – 1950-2007 – Dead: average 700,000
Harrying of the North – 1069-1070 – Dead: 150,000
Ethnic cleansing of Circassians- 1763-1864 – Dead: 300,000
Democide Uganda – 1971-1979 – Dead: 300,000
Taiwan under Japanese rule – 1895-1945 – Dead: 400,000
Anticommunist purge – 1965 – Dead: 500,000
Leopold II of Belgium – 1877-1908 – Dead: Average 9,500,000
Arab slave trade – 800-2000 – Dead: average 12,000,000 (left in non-religious due to wiki quote)
Imperial Japan's occupation of Asia – 1930-1945 – average 18,000,000
Atlantic slave trade – 1600-1900- average 33,000,000
Democide/genocide of Native Americans – 1500-1900 – 15,000,000
Political repression & Great Leap Forward – 1949-1975 – Dead: average 50,000,000
Khmer Rouge – 1975-1979 – Dead: 2,000,000
Armenian genocide – 1895-1923 – Dead: 2,000,000
Rwandan genocide – 1994 – Dead: 800,000
Darfur conflict -1994-2007 – Dead: 400,000 (placed in non-religious due to politics, and same religions)
Depopulation of Australian aborigines – 1788-1888 – Dead: 225,000
Efrain Rios Montt – 1962-1996 – Dead: 200,000
French Revolution – 1793-1796 – Dead: average 300,000
East Timor – 1975-1990 – Dead: 150,000
Genocide in West Papua – 1961-2006 – Dead: 200,000
War of 1812 – 1812 – 1815 – Dead: 16,000
Malayan Emergency – 1948-1960 – 11,000
Mau Mau Uprising – 1952 - 1960 – Dead: 50,000
Croatian War of Independence – 1991-1995 - Dead: 18,000
Nagorno-Karabakh War – 1988-1994 – 23,000
Sino-Vietnamese War -1979 – Dead: 30,000
Turkey/PKK conflict – 1984 – 2007 – Dead: 30,000
First Sino-Japanese War – 1894-1895 – Dead: 40,000
Second Chechen War – 1999-2007 – Dead: 70,000
Finnish Civil War – 1918 – Dead: 36,000
War of the Pacific – 1879-1884 – Dead: 40,000
Mahdist War – 1881-1899 – Dead: 44,000
Greek Civil War – 1944-1945 – Dead: 45,000
Wars of the Roses -1455-1485 – Dead: 50,000
First Chechen War -1994-1996 – Dead: 130,000
Angolan War of Independence -1961-1974 – Dead: 52,000
Nicaraguan Rebellion – 1972-1991 – Dead: 60,000
Sri Lankan Civil War – 1983-2007 – Dead: 68,000
Shining Path insurgency – 1980-2007 – Dead: 70,000
Second Boer War -1898-1902 – Dead: 75,000
El Salvador Civil War – 1980-1992 – Dead: 75,000
Indonesian National Revolution – 1945-1949 – Dead: 140,000
Thousand Days War – 1899-1901- Dead: 100,000
Algerian War of Independence -1954-1962 – Dead: 550,000
Gulf War – 1991 – Dead: 50,000
War of the two brothers – 1531-1532 – Dead: 550,000
Chaco War -1932-1935 – Dead: 105,000
Algerian Civil War – 1991-2007 – Dead: 180,000
Eritrean-Ethiopian War – 1998-2000 – 125,000
Winter War -1939 – Dead: 530,000
Russo-Japanese War – 1904-1905- Dead: 150,000
North Yemen Civil War 1962-1970 – Dead: 150,000
La Violencia – 1948-1958 – Dead: 240,000
Franco-Prussian War – 1870-1871 – 190,000
Guatemaltec Civil War - 1960-1996 – Dead: 200,000
Sierra Leone Civil War 1991-2000- Dead: 200,000
Liberian Civil War -1989-2003 – Dead: 220,000
Ethiopian Civil War- 1974 – 1991 – Dead: 750,000
Philippine-American War -1898-1913 – Dead: 750,000
Burundi Civil War -1993-2006 – Dead: 300,000
Mexican Revolution – 1910-1920 – Dead: 1,100,000
Bangladesh Liberation War – 1971 – Dead: 2,500,000
Russian-Circassian War – 1763-1864 – Dead: 3,000,000
Continuation War – 1941 – Dead: 371,000
War of the Triple Alliance – 1864-1870 – Dead: 800,000
Ugandan Civil War – 1979-1986 – Dead: 500,000
Angolan Civil War – 1975-2002 – Dead: 500,000
Eritrean War of Independence – 1961-1991 – Dead: 570,000
Spanish Civil War – 1936-1939 – Dead: 750,000
Somali Civil War -1988-2007 – Dead: 550,000
Congo Civil War 1991-1997 – Dead: 800,000
Rwandan Civil War – 1990-1994 – Dead: 900,000
Seven Years' War – 1756-1763 – Dead: 1,000,000
Mozambique Civil War -1976-1993 – Dead: 1,000,000
American Civil War – 1861-1865 – Dead: 970,000
Nigerian Civil War – 1967-1970 – Dead: 1,000,000
Iran-Iraq War -1980-1988 – Dead: 1,000,000
Chinese Civil War – 1928-1949 – Dead: 5,000,000
Afghan Civil War – 1979-2007 – Dead: 1,700,000
Shaka's conquests – 1816-1828 – Dead: 2,000,000
Vietnam War -1945-1975 – Dead: 4,000,000
Korean War -1950-1953 – Dead: 3,000,000
Napoleonic Wars -1804-1815 – Dead: 10,000,000
Second Congo War – 1998-2003 – Dead: 3,800,000
Russian Civil War -1917-1921 – Dead: 7,000,000
World War I – 1914-1918 – Dead: 15,000,000
Second Sino-Japanese War – 1931-1945 – 20,000,000
Ming Dynasty -1616-1644- Dead: 25,000,000
Mongol Conquests -1207-1279- Dead: 45,000,000
World War 2 – 1939 – 1944 – Dead: 36,000,000

TOTAL: 439,032,500

[QED]

Ok, so this is the umpteenth time I have read this post and I have no clue what you are saying. Any chance you might make it so us little people can understand it?

It could be that religious ideas are the motivation for the majority of killing. It could be that religion creates the conditions in which killing is easy. Just showing that four times as many major conflicts are started on non-religious grounds than on religious grounds does nothing to refute the latter. The statement that I think triggered this debate was:

A glance at history, or at pages of any newspaper, reveals that ideas which divide one group of humans from another, only to unite them in slaughter, generally have their roots in religion.

I see this generalisation as being applicable to both cases.

[alexiarose]

Ok, so this is the umpteenth time I have read this post and I have no clue what you are saying. Any chance you might make it so us little people can understand it?

It could be that religious ideas are the motivation for the majority of killing. It could be that religion creates the conditions in which killing is easy. Just showing that four times as many major conflicts are started on non-religious grounds than on religious grounds does nothing to refute the latter. The statement that I think triggered this debate was:

A glance at history, or at pages of any newspaper, reveals that ideas which divide one group of humans from another, only to unite them in slaughter, generally have their roots in religion.

I see this generalisation as being applicable to both cases.

So by justifying the killing during wars in scripture one could make the case that by simply having faith, society doesn't grasp the severity of taking a life, instead they see it as justified by God (see, I stayed on topic, nice huh?)?
Maybe the wording wasn't right. Let me try this again. Even if a war is started because of secular ideas, it would seem that faith itself makes the religious justified by minimizing the final effects of death. Rather than it being the cessation of life, it is merely the passing into eternal life. So death isn't really a bad thing?

Nope, I am still not getting it am I?

[achilles12604]

It could be that religious ideas are the motivation for the majority of killing. It could be that religion creates the conditions in which killing is easy. Just showing that four times as many major conflicts are started on non-religious grounds than on religious grounds does nothing to refute the latter.

It could be that religion creates conditions where killing is easy? This is hardly the same thing as saying that ideas which divide one group uniting them in slaughter have roots in religion.

These two statements don't really even have the same topic. One is discussing the causes of conflict. The other is discussing emotions of killing on a personal level. I don't see how this is even the same subject matter.

I agree with your premise that religion COULD do the latter. But the evidence I presented goes directly against your first "could". This is exactly what I set out to examine. This is turning into a reverse creation vs evolution.

Person A) The world COULD have been created 6000 years ago by God who simply made everything seem to be really old.

Person B) But there is simply no evidence for this where we do have scientific evidence showing us the progression of what actually has been recorded.

Yea! I get to be the skeptic again with this argument.

The statement that I think triggered this debate was:

A glance at history, or at pages of any newspaper, reveals that ideas which divide one group of humans from another, only to unite them in slaughter, generally have their roots in religion.

I see this generalization as being applicable to both cases.

I can see how the above statement is a generalization by a non-theist about religion. Could you explain how this can simultaneously be a generalization by theists?

[QED]

It could be that religion creates conditions where killing is easy? This is hardly the same thing as saying that ideas which divide one group uniting them in slaughter have roots in religion.

I think my postulate is fairly clear. It's meant to draw attention to the potential dangers in having the worlds populations divided into arbitrary religions. An individual's identity with one religion or another can then become a device that marks them out as fit for killing. Let alone nation pitted against nation, we've seen this happen within communities e.g. in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq.

Harris's postulate may not be so clear. He seems to be saying that if we glance at the papers we'll see (religious) ideas dividing one group of humans from another -- uniting them in slaughter. Rummaging around in the poetry I can see my own sentiments quite clearly. However, I can also see the sentiment that prompted you to start your list. This would be the notion that the division was the cause of the conflict.

These two statements don't really even have the same topic. One is discussing the causes of conflict. The other is discussing emotions of killing on a personal level. I don't see how this is even the same subject matter.

We're both seeing the same two possibilities. I can't determine which sentiment Harris had in mind from the quote, nor can I determine if it really matters which one we follow-up on as they both seem to present humanity with a lethal danger.

The statement that I think triggered this debate was:

A glance at history, or at pages of any newspaper, reveals that ideas which divide one group of humans from another, only to unite them in slaughter, generally have their roots in religion.

I see this generalization as being applicable to both cases.

I can see how the above statement is a generalization by a non-theist about religion. Could you explain how this can simultaneously be a generalization by theists?

Sorry, you've misunderstood what I meant by "cases". One case is where our religion dehumanises us making killing for other motives easier, the other is that our religion can be motive enough for people to want to kill us.

Your two lists seem geared towards showing us how relatively few deaths result from the latter, and could refute the assertion that most killing was religiously motivated. But they wouldn't reflect the totality of the danger that religion represents for humanity.

This is why I was talking earlier in terms of cost/benefit. I was motoring on a bit thinking that defenders of religious belief might want to offset the hundred-million or so against some greater benefit to mankind -- sort of a challenge really when confronted by such eye-watering figures for deaths motivated by ideology!

[achilles12604]

It could be that religion creates conditions where killing is easy? This is hardly the same thing as saying that ideas which divide one group uniting them in slaughter have roots in religion.

I think my postulate is fairly clear. It's meant to draw attention to the potential dangers in having the worlds populations divided into arbitrary religions. An individual's identity with one religion or another can then become a device that marks them out as fit for killing. Let alone nation pitted against nation, we've seen this happen within communities e.g. in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq.

Harris's postulate may not be so clear. He seems to be saying that if we glance at the papers we'll see (religious) ideas dividing one group of humans from another -- uniting them in slaughter. Rummaging around in the poetry I can see my own sentiments quite clearly. However, I can also see the sentiment that prompted you to start your list. This would be the notion that the division was the cause of the conflict.

These two statements don't really even have the same topic. One is discussing the causes of conflict. The other is discussing emotions of killing on a personal level. I don't see how this is even the same subject matter.

We're both seeing the same two possibilities. I can't determine which sentiment Harris had in mind from the quote, nor can I determine if it really matters which one we follow-up on as they both seem to present humanity with a lethal danger.

The statement that I think triggered this debate was:

A glance at history, or at pages of any newspaper, reveals that ideas which divide one group of humans from another, only to unite them in slaughter, generally have their roots in religion.

I see this generalization as being applicable to both cases.

I can see how the above statement is a generalization by a non-theist about religion. Could you explain how this can simultaneously be a generalization by theists?

Sorry, you've misunderstood what I meant by "cases". One case is where our religion dehumanises us making killing for other motives easier, the other is that our religion can be motive enough for people to want to kill us.

Your two lists seem geared towards showing us how relatively few deaths result from the latter, and could refute the assertion that most killing was religiously motivated. But they wouldn't reflect the totality of the danger that religion represents for humanity.

This is why I was talking earlier in terms of cost/benefit. I was motoring on a bit thinking that defenders of religious belief might want to offset the hundred-million or so against some greater benefit to mankind -- sort of a challenge really when confronted by such eye-watering figures for deaths motivated by ideology!

Ok now I understand your position and I can agree with it. In fact, given my recent research into Gandhi, I was already of a similar opinion regarding the exclusivity claims of each religion. However, ridding the world of religion all together isn't really a logical course of action. As discussed in my "the greatest evil" thread, the same argument can be made of organized Governments. Just because a few screw balls used their organized governments to attack and murder millions of people doesn't mean we should abolish govt. We should reform Government in order to better mankind and avoid giving power to those with fringe ideas which in themselves result in violence. The same can be said of religion. If people would put aside the traditional exclusivity made by many religions and examined them side by side, I believe violence would be negated even with the continued benifits of religion.