War and religion

[achilles12604]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

[Goat]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

It looks like some of them, I would count as religious, and the famines as natural disasters. For example, the suicide bombers in Japan were doing it because their emperor was divine, and therefore it could be considered religious. The fight over Tibet had very strong religious connotations too. The war of the Roses was the protestents vs the catholics, so that could be considered religious.

[achilles12604]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

It looks like some of them, I would count as religious, and the famines as natural disasters. For example, the suicide bombers in Japan were doing it because their emperor was divine, and therefore it could be considered religious. The fight over Tibet had very strong religious connotations too. The war of the Roses was the protestents vs the catholics, so that could be considered religious.

You must remember that simply because soldiers have a religion doesn't make the war religious in nature. This is also true for your Japanese bombers.

War of the Roses


I can not find ANYTHING to support your claim here. Care to provide facts to support me changing this war into the religious catagory?

The famines were generally CAUSED. Especially the ones associated with Russia and Stalin.

Tibet was attacked by an atheist country looking for additional control and power. Now unless they attacked with the intention of destroying religion, I don't see how an atheist attack could be caused by religious views. But I am open again to evidence.

[Goat]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

It looks like some of them, I would count as religious, and the famines as natural disasters. For example, the suicide bombers in Japan were doing it because their emperor was divine, and therefore it could be considered religious. The fight over Tibet had very strong religious connotations too. The war of the Roses was the protestents vs the catholics, so that could be considered religious.

You must remember that simply because soldiers have a religion doesn't make the war religious in nature. This is also true for your Japanese bombers.

War of the Roses


I can not find ANYTHING to support your claim here. Care to provide facts to support me changing this war into the religious catagory?

The famines were generally CAUSED. Especially the ones associated with Russia and Stalin.

Tibet was attacked by an atheist country looking for additional control and power. Now unless they attacked with the intention of destroying religion, I don't see how an atheist attack could be caused by religious views. But I am open again to evidence.

Can you show that famines are generally CAUSED, and not because of weather and poor agricultural technics.. Please support this,

You were right about the war of the roses.. I must have been confusing it with more modern incidences..

As far as the WW2 and Japan, a large part of the entire Japanese motivation was religious in nature... the god as emperor must be followed.

[byofrcs]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

The figures are OK - the problem is that they occurred at all.

The sheer number of wars highlights that existing religions are not functioning as moral guides.

With a religious hat on I can understand "atheists" killing people in war, after all atheists have no higher moral authority other than themselves, except that in war there is a high probability you'll end up killed or worse thus logic would suggest that an "atheist" isn't going to fight unless their lives really depended upon it. Two atheists head-to-head should be biased to co-operate rather than death-or-glory though this doesn't mean atheism is some magic pixie dust of altruism as the normal game theory applies (for whatever it is that is normal in war).

With an "atheist" hat on I can understand theists killing people, after all theists have a higher moral authority and a place to go to once dead. In war there is a high probability of being killed and meeting God. Two theists given the certainty of their faith both have a concept of an afterlife and so annihilation or non-existence isn't a motivation. Two theists head-to-head will not have a bias to co-operate.

A theist verse an atheist head-to-head would be negotiated as per the atheist-atheist but given the inbuilt animosity of theists towards other "faiths" and especially towards atheists there will not be a bias to co-operate. Atheist know this and so would also be biased to not co-operate.

War is hell and very messy so are the above claims true out of the context of war i.e. in general society ? As many here will know by now, that's a rhetorical question from me; more religiosity means poorer social health. At least that's what the studies show.

As an aside, in the wars listed, we would also need to show the percentages of the participants in the war that believed in God or not and by participation, e.g. general/commander, soldier, civilian, casualty. I think we can guess the answer; more people who believe in God i.e. higher religiosity are party to wars than who do not believe in God.

A belief in God is not good for society, in war or in peace.

[achilles12604]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

It looks like some of them, I would count as religious, and the famines as natural disasters. For example, the suicide bombers in Japan were doing it because their emperor was divine, and therefore it could be considered religious. The fight over Tibet had very strong religious connotations too. The war of the Roses was the protestents vs the catholics, so that could be considered religious.

You must remember that simply because soldiers have a religion doesn't make the war religious in nature. This is also true for your Japanese bombers.

War of the Roses


I can not find ANYTHING to support your claim here. Care to provide facts to support me changing this war into the religious category?

The famines were generally CAUSED. Especially the ones associated with Russia and Stalin.

Tibet was attacked by an atheist country looking for additional control and power. Now unless they attacked with the intention of destroying religion, I don't see how an atheist attack could be caused by religious views. But I am open again to evidence.

Can you show that famines are generally CAUSED, and not because of weather and poor agricultural technics.. Please support this,

You were right about the war of the roses.. I must have been confusing it with more modern incidences..

As far as the WW2 and Japan, a large part of the entire Japanese motivation was religious in nature... the god as emperor must be followed.

Japan - I am interested in what wars were CAUSED by religion. Now can you support that their belief in their emperor caused the war? Another question, if they did not believe their emperor to be God, would the Japanese part of WWII have happened or would there have been no other reason for the attack?

Stalin Famines -

Most modern historians state that the famine was caused by the sudden radical economic changes brought on by Stalinist policies that were implemented by the government of the Soviet Union. A few argue that natural causes may have been the primary reason for the disaster.

Mao Famines (read the WHOLE paragraph)

British Raj - This one was caused by several factors and was really weird. I placed in under secular war because of . . .

It seems unlikely, however, that these imports can have amounted to more than 20% of Bengal's consumption, and this alone is insufficient to account for the famine, although it ensured that there were fewer reserves to fall back on. British authorities feared a subsequent Japanese invasion of British India proper by way of Bengal (see British Raj), and emergency measures were introduced to stockpile food for British soldiers and prevent access to supplies by the Japanese in case of an invasion.

A 'scorched earth' policy was implemented in the Chittagong region, nearest the Burmese border, while large amounts of rice were exported to the Middle East to feed British and Indian troops there, and to Ceylon, which had been heavily dependent on Burmese rice before the war, and where large military establishments were being created as it was feared that the Japanese might invade the island.

But perhaps this was only partly to blame. At any rate, it certainly was not due to religion so if anything it should be removed all together.

East India Trading Company -

Fault for the famine is now often ascribed to the British East India Company policies in Bengal. As a trading body, the first remit of the Company was to maximise its profits and with taxation rights the profits to be obtained from Bengal came from land tax as well as trade tariffs. As lands came under company control, the land tax was typically raised by 5 times what it had been – from 10% to up to 50% of the value of the agricultural produce. In the first years of the rule of the British East India Company, the total land tax income was doubled and most of this revenue flowed out of the country. As the famine approached its height, in April of 1770, the Company announced that land tax for the following year was to be increased by a further 10%.

The company is also criticised for forbidding the "hoarding" of rice. This prevented traders and dealers from laying in reserves that in other times would have tided the population over lean periods, as well as ordering the farmers to plant indigo instead of rice.

By the time of the famine, monopolies in grain trading had been established by the Company and its agents. The Company had no plan for dealing with the grain shortage, and actions were only taken insofar as they affected the mercantile and trading classes. Land revenue decreased by 14% during the affected year, but recovered rapidly (Kumkum Chatterjee). According to McLane, the first governor-general of British India, Warren Hastings, acknowledged "violent" tax collecting after 1771: revenues earned by the Company were higher in 1771 than in 1768 [1]. Globally, the profit of the Company increased from 15 million rupees in 1765 up to 30 million rupees in 1777.

So there you have it. Evidence that politics and war were in fact the direct causes of the famines with one very partial exception.

[achilles12604]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

The figures are OK - the problem is that they occurred at all.

The sheer number of wars highlights that existing religions are not functioning as moral guides.


With an "atheist" hat on I can understand theists killing people, after all theists have a higher moral authority and a place to go to once dead. In war there is a high probability of being killed and meeting God. Two theists given the certainty of their faith both have a concept of an afterlife and so annihilation or non-existence isn't a motivation. Two theists head-to-head will not have a bias to co-operate.

A theist verse an atheist head-to-head would be negotiated as per the atheist-atheist but given the inbuilt animosity of theists towards other "faiths" and especially towards atheists there will not be a bias to co-operate. Atheist know this and so would also be biased to not co-operate.

War is hell and very messy so are the above claims true out of the context of war i.e. in general society ? As many here will know by now, that's a rhetorical question from me; more religiosity means poorer social health. At least that's what the studies show.



A belief in God is not good for society, in war or in peace.

So it is worse to fight and kill each other over religion, than politics, money, sex, race, land, water, and possessions.

As an aside, in the wars listed, we would also need to show the percentages of the participants in the war that believed in God or not and by participation, e.g. general/commander, soldier, civilian, casualty. I think we can guess the answer; more people who believe in God i.e. higher religiosity are party to wars than who do not believe in God.

I totally disagree with this. I will ask you the same question I asked Goat who also said this.

Would the fight have happened anyway if none of the soldiers had religious beliefs? This is the test. Hence I addressed the CAUSES of the wars and did not muddy the waters with red herring such as what the individuals believed.

A final point which may make this clear. I am a Christian (I think). I went to Iraq. I fought next to atheists a plenty. Does me shooting or them shooting depend on our religious preferences? No.

With a religious hat on I can understand "atheists" killing people in war, after all atheists have no higher moral authority other than themselves, except that in war there is a high probability you'll end up killed or worse thus logic would suggest that an "atheist" isn't going to fight unless their lives really depended upon it. Two atheists head-to-head should be biased to co-operate rather than death-or-glory though this doesn't mean atheism is some magic pixie dust of altruism as the normal game theory applies (for whatever it is that is normal in war).

I have been told many times on this very forum that atheists respect life MORE because this is the only one they get. Perhaps you should debate them on this point.

As for moral guides, I think you would be hard pressed to find justification for mass murder or war in Christianity. If you can cite a verse for me then by all means go for it. Otherwise, the people fighting in the name of Jesus are being quite hypocritical. I can just imagine what Jesus thinks when someone declares war in his name . . . Sheesh. It makes as much sense as declaring war in the name of Ghandi or the Dali Lama.

[Goat]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

It looks like some of them, I would count as religious, and the famines as natural disasters. For example, the suicide bombers in Japan were doing it because their emperor was divine, and therefore it could be considered religious. The fight over Tibet had very strong religious connotations too. The war of the Roses was the protestents vs the catholics, so that could be considered religious.

You must remember that simply because soldiers have a religion doesn't make the war religious in nature. This is also true for your Japanese bombers.

War of the Roses


I can not find ANYTHING to support your claim here. Care to provide facts to support me changing this war into the religious category?

The famines were generally CAUSED. Especially the ones associated with Russia and Stalin.

Tibet was attacked by an atheist country looking for additional control and power. Now unless they attacked with the intention of destroying religion, I don't see how an atheist attack could be caused by religious views. But I am open again to evidence.

Can you show that famines are generally CAUSED, and not because of weather and poor agricultural technics.. Please support this,

You were right about the war of the roses.. I must have been confusing it with more modern incidences..

As far as the WW2 and Japan, a large part of the entire Japanese motivation was religious in nature... the god as emperor must be followed.

Japan - I am interested in what wars were CAUSED by religion. Now can you support that their belief in their emperor caused the war? Another question, if they did not believe their emperor to be God, would the Japanese part of WWII have happened or would there have been no other reason for the attack?

Stalin Famines -

Most modern historians state that the famine was caused by the sudden radical economic changes brought on by Stalinist policies that were implemented by the government of the Soviet Union. A few argue that natural causes may have been the primary reason for the disaster.

Mao Famines (read the WHOLE paragraph)

British Raj - This one was caused by several factors and was really weird. I placed in under secular war because of . . .

It seems unlikely, however, that these imports can have amounted to more than 20% of Bengal's consumption, and this alone is insufficient to account for the famine, although it ensured that there were fewer reserves to fall back on. British authorities feared a subsequent Japanese invasion of British India proper by way of Bengal (see British Raj), and emergency measures were introduced to stockpile food for British soldiers and prevent access to supplies by the Japanese in case of an invasion.

A 'scorched earth' policy was implemented in the Chittagong region, nearest the Burmese border, while large amounts of rice were exported to the Middle East to feed British and Indian troops there, and to Ceylon, which had been heavily dependent on Burmese rice before the war, and where large military establishments were being created as it was feared that the Japanese might invade the island.

But perhaps this was only partly to blame. At any rate, it certainly was not due to religion so if anything it should be removed all together.

East India Trading Company -

Fault for the famine is now often ascribed to the British East India Company policies in Bengal. As a trading body, the first remit of the Company was to maximise its profits and with taxation rights the profits to be obtained from Bengal came from land tax as well as trade tariffs. As lands came under company control, the land tax was typically raised by 5 times what it had been – from 10% to up to 50% of the value of the agricultural produce. In the first years of the rule of the British East India Company, the total land tax income was doubled and most of this revenue flowed out of the country. As the famine approached its height, in April of 1770, the Company announced that land tax for the following year was to be increased by a further 10%.

The company is also criticised for forbidding the "hoarding" of rice. This prevented traders and dealers from laying in reserves that in other times would have tided the population over lean periods, as well as ordering the farmers to plant indigo instead of rice.

By the time of the famine, monopolies in grain trading had been established by the Company and its agents. The Company had no plan for dealing with the grain shortage, and actions were only taken insofar as they affected the mercantile and trading classes. Land revenue decreased by 14% during the affected year, but recovered rapidly (Kumkum Chatterjee). According to McLane, the first governor-general of British India, Warren Hastings, acknowledged "violent" tax collecting after 1771: revenues earned by the Company were higher in 1771 than in 1768 [1]. Globally, the profit of the Company increased from 15 million rupees in 1765 up to 30 million rupees in 1777.

It sounds like the famines were not caused on purpose, but just plain poor agricutural practices. Ignorance, not bad intent.

So there you have it. Evidence that politics and war were in fact the direct causes of the famines with one very partial exception.

It sounds like the famines were not caused on purpose, but just plain poor agricultural practices. Ignorance, not bad intent. You could probalby include any plague in there, or lots of other things.

[achilles12604]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

It looks like some of them, I would count as religious, and the famines as natural disasters. For example, the suicide bombers in Japan were doing it because their emperor was divine, and therefore it could be considered religious. The fight over Tibet had very strong religious connotations too. The war of the Roses was the protestents vs the catholics, so that could be considered religious.

You must remember that simply because soldiers have a religion doesn't make the war religious in nature. This is also true for your Japanese bombers.

War of the Roses


I can not find ANYTHING to support your claim here. Care to provide facts to support me changing this war into the religious category?

The famines were generally CAUSED. Especially the ones associated with Russia and Stalin.

Tibet was attacked by an atheist country looking for additional control and power. Now unless they attacked with the intention of destroying religion, I don't see how an atheist attack could be caused by religious views. But I am open again to evidence.

Can you show that famines are generally CAUSED, and not because of weather and poor agricultural technics.. Please support this,

You were right about the war of the roses.. I must have been confusing it with more modern incidences..

As far as the WW2 and Japan, a large part of the entire Japanese motivation was religious in nature... the god as emperor must be followed.

Japan - I am interested in what wars were CAUSED by religion. Now can you support that their belief in their emperor caused the war? Another question, if they did not believe their emperor to be God, would the Japanese part of WWII have happened or would there have been no other reason for the attack?

Stalin Famines -

Most modern historians state that the famine was caused by the sudden radical economic changes brought on by Stalinist policies that were implemented by the government of the Soviet Union. A few argue that natural causes may have been the primary reason for the disaster.

Mao Famines (read the WHOLE paragraph)

British Raj - This one was caused by several factors and was really weird. I placed in under secular war because of . . .

It seems unlikely, however, that these imports can have amounted to more than 20% of Bengal's consumption, and this alone is insufficient to account for the famine, although it ensured that there were fewer reserves to fall back on. British authorities feared a subsequent Japanese invasion of British India proper by way of Bengal (see British Raj), and emergency measures were introduced to stockpile food for British soldiers and prevent access to supplies by the Japanese in case of an invasion.

A 'scorched earth' policy was implemented in the Chittagong region, nearest the Burmese border, while large amounts of rice were exported to the Middle East to feed British and Indian troops there, and to Ceylon, which had been heavily dependent on Burmese rice before the war, and where large military establishments were being created as it was feared that the Japanese might invade the island.

But perhaps this was only partly to blame. At any rate, it certainly was not due to religion so if anything it should be removed all together.

East India Trading Company -

Fault for the famine is now often ascribed to the British East India Company policies in Bengal. As a trading body, the first remit of the Company was to maximise its profits and with taxation rights the profits to be obtained from Bengal came from land tax as well as trade tariffs. As lands came under company control, the land tax was typically raised by 5 times what it had been – from 10% to up to 50% of the value of the agricultural produce. In the first years of the rule of the British East India Company, the total land tax income was doubled and most of this revenue flowed out of the country. As the famine approached its height, in April of 1770, the Company announced that land tax for the following year was to be increased by a further 10%.

The company is also criticised for forbidding the "hoarding" of rice. This prevented traders and dealers from laying in reserves that in other times would have tided the population over lean periods, as well as ordering the farmers to plant indigo instead of rice.

By the time of the famine, monopolies in grain trading had been established by the Company and its agents. The Company had no plan for dealing with the grain shortage, and actions were only taken insofar as they affected the mercantile and trading classes. Land revenue decreased by 14% during the affected year, but recovered rapidly (Kumkum Chatterjee). According to McLane, the first governor-general of British India, Warren Hastings, acknowledged "violent" tax collecting after 1771: revenues earned by the Company were higher in 1771 than in 1768 [1]. Globally, the profit of the Company increased from 15 million rupees in 1765 up to 30 million rupees in 1777.

It sounds like the famines were not caused on purpose, but just plain poor agricutural practices. Ignorance, not bad intent.

So there you have it. Evidence that politics and war were in fact the direct causes of the famines with one very partial exception.

It sounds like the famines were not caused on purpose, but just plain poor agricultural practices. Ignorance, not bad intent. You could probalby include any plague in there, or lots of other things.

Well I Bolded a section above which directly contradicts this. However, be sure you are not muddying the waters.

I never stated that the cause of ANY of the deaths were malicious in nature. I stated that politics were the proximate CAUSE. Just like an inexperienced driver is the proximate cause of a collision. Did the 16 year old intend to cause the crash? Was he malicious? No. But was he the cause? Yes.

Same with politics. And those politics were the proximate cause of millions of deaths.

[Goat]

This debate sort of started on its own after I posted my findings about the correlation between religion and war casualties over the last 1000 years. It then recently came up in another thread.

So I am putting it out there for debate. Are my facts and figures correct? Are they applicable? If not, then where did I go wrong? And most importantly, if I am incorrect, how would you do better?

I also encourage anyone to do the same thing I did and obtain a list of all the major (+1000 deaths) conflicts and then sort them out due to primary causes. It took me about 10-11 hours to do.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=7085

It looks like some of them, I would count as religious, and the famines as natural disasters. For example, the suicide bombers in Japan were doing it because their emperor was divine, and therefore it could be considered religious. The fight over Tibet had very strong religious connotations too. The war of the Roses was the protestents vs the catholics, so that could be considered religious.

You must remember that simply because soldiers have a religion doesn't make the war religious in nature. This is also true for your Japanese bombers.

War of the Roses


I can not find ANYTHING to support your claim here. Care to provide facts to support me changing this war into the religious category?

The famines were generally CAUSED. Especially the ones associated with Russia and Stalin.

Tibet was attacked by an atheist country looking for additional control and power. Now unless they attacked with the intention of destroying religion, I don't see how an atheist attack could be caused by religious views. But I am open again to evidence.

Can you show that famines are generally CAUSED, and not because of weather and poor agricultural technics.. Please support this,

You were right about the war of the roses.. I must have been confusing it with more modern incidences..

As far as the WW2 and Japan, a large part of the entire Japanese motivation was religious in nature... the god as emperor must be followed.

Japan - I am interested in what wars were CAUSED by religion. Now can you support that their belief in their emperor caused the war? Another question, if they did not believe their emperor to be God, would the Japanese part of WWII have happened or would there have been no other reason for the attack?

Stalin Famines -

Most modern historians state that the famine was caused by the sudden radical economic changes brought on by Stalinist policies that were implemented by the government of the Soviet Union. A few argue that natural causes may have been the primary reason for the disaster.

Mao Famines (read the WHOLE paragraph)

British Raj - This one was caused by several factors and was really weird. I placed in under secular war because of . . .

It seems unlikely, however, that these imports can have amounted to more than 20% of Bengal's consumption, and this alone is insufficient to account for the famine, although it ensured that there were fewer reserves to fall back on. British authorities feared a subsequent Japanese invasion of British India proper by way of Bengal (see British Raj), and emergency measures were introduced to stockpile food for British soldiers and prevent access to supplies by the Japanese in case of an invasion.

A 'scorched earth' policy was implemented in the Chittagong region, nearest the Burmese border, while large amounts of rice were exported to the Middle East to feed British and Indian troops there, and to Ceylon, which had been heavily dependent on Burmese rice before the war, and where large military establishments were being created as it was feared that the Japanese might invade the island.

But perhaps this was only partly to blame. At any rate, it certainly was not due to religion so if anything it should be removed all together.

East India Trading Company -

Fault for the famine is now often ascribed to the British East India Company policies in Bengal. As a trading body, the first remit of the Company was to maximise its profits and with taxation rights the profits to be obtained from Bengal came from land tax as well as trade tariffs. As lands came under company control, the land tax was typically raised by 5 times what it had been – from 10% to up to 50% of the value of the agricultural produce. In the first years of the rule of the British East India Company, the total land tax income was doubled and most of this revenue flowed out of the country. As the famine approached its height, in April of 1770, the Company announced that land tax for the following year was to be increased by a further 10%.

The company is also criticised for forbidding the "hoarding" of rice. This prevented traders and dealers from laying in reserves that in other times would have tided the population over lean periods, as well as ordering the farmers to plant indigo instead of rice.

By the time of the famine, monopolies in grain trading had been established by the Company and its agents. The Company had no plan for dealing with the grain shortage, and actions were only taken insofar as they affected the mercantile and trading classes. Land revenue decreased by 14% during the affected year, but recovered rapidly (Kumkum Chatterjee). According to McLane, the first governor-general of British India, Warren Hastings, acknowledged "violent" tax collecting after 1771: revenues earned by the Company were higher in 1771 than in 1768 [1]. Globally, the profit of the Company increased from 15 million rupees in 1765 up to 30 million rupees in 1777.

It sounds like the famines were not caused on purpose, but just plain poor agricutural practices. Ignorance, not bad intent.

So there you have it. Evidence that politics and war were in fact the direct causes of the famines with one very partial exception.

It sounds like the famines were not caused on purpose, but just plain poor agricultural practices. Ignorance, not bad intent. You could probalby include any plague in there, or lots of other things.

Well I Bolded a section above which directly contradicts this. However, be sure you are not muddying the waters.

I never stated that the cause of ANY of the deaths were malicious in nature. I stated that politics were the proximate CAUSE. Just like an inexperienced driver is the proximate cause of a collision. Did the 16 year old intend to cause the crash? Was he malicious? No. But was he the cause? Yes.

Same with politics. And those politics were the proximate cause of millions of deaths.

I don't think it can be all that clear cut... religious or non religious. or ignorance.
for example, the strong 'anti-condom' message of the RCC is causing a lot more incidences of aids than if it wasn't there, but there would be many cases anyway.

Besides, your topic was 'war'.. and famines were not war.