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

[McCulloch]

Things are not ever that neat and tidy. For example, you entered the Spanish Civil War into the non-religious column, yet one of the most brutal factions in that war were the ultra-religious Carlistas. Carlism believed in the Catholic Faith as a cornerstone of Spain, and sought to re-establish Church control over Spanish society.

[QED]

I don't think our vocabulary is equipped with words that would do justice to the absurdity that is aggression due to differences in religious ideology.

Are we going to argue that 133,930,900 deaths as a direct consequence of arbitrary ideas are somehow the lesser of two evils? For this to have the faintest hope of working we need a bigger number that is deaths that would otherwise have been prevented had the aggressors practised religion.

The "non-religious" wars you've listed are not giving us the total numbers of deaths that have occurred due to people having no religion -- find these numbers and a case may be made that religion is the lesser evil. I would dare to say that the great majority of the wars you have listed were fought despite religious convictions on both sides. Also, can we point to any crisis in which religion can be identified as having an active role in preventing significant conflict?

Any argument that religion does more good than harm seems to me to be on very shaky ground -- but then I may be missing your point here.

[achilles12604]

Things are not ever that neat and tidy. For example, you entered the Spanish Civil War into the non-religious column, yet one of the most brutal factions in that war were the ultra-religious Carlistas. Carlism believed in the Catholic Faith as a cornerstone of Spain, and sought to re-establish Church control over Spanish society.

Alrighty. What would you list as the major causes of the spanish civil war? Not what some section of the war included, but the over all major causes of the war.


Show me that the war was started and fought primarily over some sort of religious cause and I will be happy to move it. However, you have a lot of work to do "correcting" my mistakes to even begin to sway the ratio. I must have misplaced around 200 million deaths before the ratio is even. And I did look up each under causes on wiki before placing it so I can't be to far off.

[achilles12604]

I don't think our vocabulary is equipped with words that would do justice to the absurdity that is aggression due to differences in religious ideology.

Are we going to argue that 133,930,900 deaths as a direct consequence of arbitrary ideas are somehow the lesser of two evils? For this to have the faintest hope of working we need a bigger number that is deaths that would otherwise have been prevented had the aggressors practised religion.

The "non-religious" wars you've listed are not giving us the total numbers of deaths that have occurred due to people having no religion -- find these numbers and a case may be made that religion is the lesser evil. I would dare to say that the great majority of the wars you have listed were fought despite religious convictions on both sides. Also, can we point to any crisis in which religion can be identified as having an active role in preventing significant conflict?

Any argument that religion does more good than harm seems to me to be on very shaky ground -- but then I may be missing your point here.

Well I must simply disagree. You are placing an extra demand onto one side simply because it is the side you disagree with. If I demanded that we create a category which included lives saved because of political upheaval, I would be laughed at.

[McCulloch]

Alrighty. What would you list as the major causes of the spanish civil war? Not what some section of the war included, but the over all major causes of the war.

You miss the point. There is usually no single cause for such terrible things like war. To attribute each war to 100% secular or 100% religious is simplistic and pointless.

[achilles12604]

Alrighty. What would you list as the major causes of the spanish civil war? Not what some section of the war included, but the over all major causes of the war.

You miss the point. There is usually no single cause for such terrible things like war. To attribute each war to 100% secular or 100% religious is simplistic and pointless.

I attempted to compensate for this in favor of the secular side. If there were multiple reasons for the war and they included both economic and religious and political, I attributed it to religion. For example the Salem witch trials used religion in my opinion as a scapegoat. The man who was pressed to death even began to recite the lord's prayer (which warlocks apparently could not do) yet he was killed. Therefore I could have placed it into secular violence. But because religion was attributed a significant portion of the cause, I placed the whole ordeal into the religious category.

When I did this I actually tried to counter my own obvious bias by overcompensating against religion. The numbers aren't perfect, nor can the be perfect enough to ward off all the tiny details like those you point to. However, as general guidelines, and considering I attempted to overcompensate against religion, I still hold that it is a fair assessment.

If you have time, perhaps you could go through the same wars and determine where you would have placed the primary causes.

[McCulloch]

If you have time, perhaps you could go through the same wars and determine where you would have placed the primary causes.

I question why you are focused only on the primary causes. Let's take the American Civil War – 1861-1865 – Dead: 970,000. Its primary causes were secular. You don't get much more secular than states rights, which was the primary trigger for that war. But both sides used religion to bolster their cause. The North probably would have sued for peace and made some kind of settlement if it were not for the largely religious anti-slavery movement. No one can estimate, but I think that it is safe to say that if it were not for religion, the death toll on this one would have been somewhat smaller.

How about WWII? You arbitrarily split it in half, due to multiple causes. Why half? Why not extend the same honesty to all of the other conflicts?

[achilles12604]

If you have time, perhaps you could go through the same wars and determine where you would have placed the primary causes.

I question why you are focused only on the primary causes. Let's take the American Civil War – 1861-1865 – Dead: 970,000. Its primary causes were secular. You don't get much more secular than states rights, which was the primary trigger for that war. But both sides used religion to bolster their cause. The North probably would have sued for peace and made some kind of settlement if it were not for the largely religious anti-slavery movement. No one can estimate, but I think that it is safe to say that if it were not for religion, the death toll on this one would have been somewhat smaller.

How about WWII? You arbitrarily split it in half, due to multiple causes. Why half? Why not extend the same honesty to all of the other conflicts?

Because the original claim was that religion was the cause for wars and conflicts. Harris never made the claim that because people with religious views got involved in wars, this proved religion itself was evil. This is of course guilt by association which you of all people recognize as a logical fallacy. Just because someone kills someone else in war, and also has religious beliefs does not necessarily relate the two.

As for world war 2, I split them because of the different causes for the war. The Jews were the scapegoat. However, this hardly explains Japan's bombing of pearl harbor, before which the US was not involved. Nor does it explain the attack on Russia by Germany.

I was actually tempted to place the primary CAUSES for WW2 entirely into the secular realm as the jews seemed to be an after thought. However, I decided it would be less biased on my part to divide them. Other wars (like the civil war which you bring up) do not share the same background and thus, I did not divide them.


This is all stemming from Harris, and some more recent non-theists here, claiming that religion was the cause of most of the violence and pain in the world. Feel free to review my debate with confused for the full details about this. Pages 2-3 I think.

[alexiarose]

If you have time, perhaps you could go through the same wars and determine where you would have placed the primary causes.

I question why you are focused only on the primary causes. Let's take the American Civil War – 1861-1865 – Dead: 970,000. Its primary causes were secular. You don't get much more secular than states rights, which was the primary trigger for that war. But both sides used religion to bolster their cause. The North probably would have sued for peace and made some kind of settlement if it were not for the largely religious anti-slavery movement. No one can estimate, but I think that it is safe to say that if it were not for religion, the death toll on this one would have been somewhat smaller.

How about WWII? You arbitrarily split it in half, due to multiple causes. Why half? Why not extend the same honesty to all of the other conflicts?

Because the original claim was that religion was the cause for wars and conflicts. Harris never made the claim that because people with religious views got involved in wars, this proved religion itself was evil. This is of course guilt by association which you of all people recognize as a logical fallacy. Just because someone kills someone else in war, and also has religious beliefs does not necessarily relate the two.

As for world war 2, I split them because of the different causes for the war. The Jews were the scapegoat. However, this hardly explains Japan's bombing of pearl harbor, before which the US was not involved. Nor does it explain the attack on Russia by Germany.

I was actually tempted to place the primary CAUSES for WW2 entirely into the secular realm as the jews seemed to be an after thought. However, I decided it would be less biased on my part to divide them. Other wars (like the civil war which you bring up) do not share the same background and thus, I did not divide them.


This is all stemming from Harris, and some more recent non-theists here, claiming that religion was the cause of most of the violence and pain in the world. Feel free to review my debate with confused for the full details about this. Pages 2-3 I think.

I read the debate, not the book. But the debate makes the argument against faith right, not religion.
Off the subject of the book, I can say that for things such as WWII, it was the superiority complex that compelled Hitler to target Jews. But it was still ethnic cleansing, religious cleansing. You can't say is related to a secular cause when its focus was on a religious faith. If you wanted to only focus on the primary cause Hitler used to rally everyone up to fight, which would be the what they perceived as unfair reparations they had to make as a result of WWI, then find the deaths that are related to this cause. But the death toll of Jews are directly related to religious cause, not secular.

Now, I will add my objection that I did in the other thread and say why are you only using the past 1,000 years? If you are going to make a comparison with statistics, you have to consider all the factors related to them. My statistics class professor would have failed me had I presented these. If you are going to make a comparison between two variables, you have to have the comparison representative of the entirety of the variables you are trying to present. In this case, you cannot simply pick an arbitrary date and say lets just view the past 1,000 years. You have to take both religion and secular in their entirety. You also have to sort out which numbers are secular and which are religion. There is no splitting down the middle. Like the example I provided for WWII. You would have to present the death toll for the secular cause, then the death toll for the religious cause. Then you include famines due to secular rule as deaths against the secular. Again, the secular didn't commit these deaths, contributed ok, but then you have to afford the same analysis to all your sources.

Statistically speaking, these numbers don't mean anything.