Were Most Human Deaths Caused By Religion?

#2.1 Bad grammar or not, this commentator's absolutely right. You've given data but failed to interpret it in historical circumstance. You mention the slave trade beginning in the 18th Century. This isn’t precisely true. Slavery has been around in Europe, like, /forever./ Originally, most of the slaves that entered the Christian/Catholic world of Europe were enslaved based upon religious characteristics - that would be Christians, enslaving Muslims. The Atlantic slave trade itself starts in Portugal as well. Trying to find new shipping routes, they stumble upon a slave market in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a religious justification – they were ‘civilizing’ the blacks, and bringing the light of Christianity to them – Portugal brought small numbers of slaves to Europe, where they were used as conspicuous consumption goods and domestic labour. The first large-scale shipments of black slaves from the coasts of Africa to Europe and the Caribbean start taking shape around 1492, when Rodrigo de Borgia (Alexander VI) takes office and divides the territory of the new world to Spain and Portugal. The close involvement of the pope indicates how much arguments used for colonization and slavery were articulated on the basis of the "civilizing mission." Although it later became known as the “White Man’s Burden,” the civilizing mission was first expressed in religious terms. It is the Catholic and Christian belief that their religions were superior, civilized and must be propagated that justified colonization. Before racial hierarchies became firmly established by the then pseudo-science of anthropology in the late 18th century, 'savages' were just seen as 'Unchristian.’ They could be reformed. It was a clear duty, and part of the slave trade system, that slave owners were expected from the fifteenth century onwards to baptize their slaves. There were even biblical arguments made to justify blacks as a race 'designed for slavery.' In this light claiming the Colonial El Niño Famines as secular deaths seems a bit irrational as well, considering the deep, deep religious roots of the colonial system. We can use phrases or paradigms like the missionary impulse, civilizing mission, "Good Christian's Duty," etc etc. but it all amounts to the same thing. The colonial system was always, always, phrased, justified, and articulated by and with religious terminology. As we move into the nineteenth and twentieth century it’s true on the surface conflicts become articulated in more secular terms, but underlying processes of religious identity remain a large component. WWI, for instance, was a conflict born mainly of alliances; however, the ‘spark’ of the war, so to speak, came from the religiously volatile Balkans. ‘Ethnic’ divisions between Balkan peoples are FREQUENTLY religious differences. The Russian Revolution can also be seen as a religious conflict. One of the participants, the Tsarist regime, is heavily backed by the Russian Orthodox Church and Church ideals of what it meant to be a subject of the Russian nation. The atheistic forces that overthrew the Tsars were acting in response to and in conflict with religion; the Tsarist regime was explicitly religious. Speaking of explicitly religious; it is a little worrisome that you’ve claimed all fifty-five million deaths you record for the Second World War as being secular in motivation. SEEING AS THAT WOULD INCLUDE THE FUCKING HOLOCAUST. Is killing Jews for their religion now a secular conflict? And if you argue that the Nazi’s were a secular group – “The anti-Semitism of the new movement… was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge.” –ADOLF HITLER. “I have followed [the Church] in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed.” –ADOLF HITLER. “What we have to fight for…is the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.” – I’M GOING TO STOP QUOTING THESE NOW BECAUSE ADOLF HITLER WAS FUCKING CHRISTIAN. I did also notice that you’ve devoted little-to-no time to ethno-religious struggles in the Balkans; or the Middle East; or Asia; or Africa; I just sort of assumed that you only cared about white people when you wrote this. Or you’re being racist today. Or people of colour don’t actually have religion and historians been wrong all along. And I’m going to assume even further that you don’t mention anything before the 18th century because you imagine the world sprang fully formed into being just then? As we move into the Cold War era, dominant religious ideology and national identity-building are closely tied. If you watch speeches of the era, American politicians especially are keen to tie themselves into Christian/Protestant religious morals. The Cold War of the 1950s developed as a result of and under the influence of McCarthyism and Catholic resurgence in the West. Ideological motivators in America for continuing the Cold War were explicitly expressed in religious terms; it was the god-fearing Americans against the godless soviets. In South Vietnam, the Diem regime was given support because Diem was Catholic. While the conflict itself was mainly (although not entirely) secular, American reluctance to abandoning the Diem regime accounts for a large proportion of the casualties of the early stages of the war, especially civilian casualties. The Diem regime’s rampant unpopularity as well probably contributed to the tenacity of the Vietnamese in resisting their rule. The reason American statesmen supported Diem for so long WAS his religion; he was not a particularly good ally in many other ways. Your expression of the Sudanese civil war as “no more slave trade deaths, so they start killing each other??” is completely inaccurate. Because I don’t think you know, the Sudanese Civil War actually focuses on a strong central state trying to impose control over regions in the south where it’s typically been weak. And, it might interest you to learn, it’s a religious conflict. Muslims trying to enforce Sharia law. You’ve picked and chosen conflicts to illustrate your point; not mentioned are the Catholic and Protestant residential schools of the colonies, the religious divisions that caused such difficulties in Syria, or inter-European religious wars from before the 18th century. Your point isn’t strongly made. Even among the conflicts you’ve so carefully chosen, you tend to disregard religious motives and the separation of religious groups as a motivator for ethnoreligious conflict. You ignore a great number of deaths that can be attributed entirely to religious conflicts, because they don’t suit your point; you’ve restricted your focus to only three hundred years of human history; and, lastly, you’ve centered your argument nearly entirely on European and American conflicts, which is an incredibly biased picture of global loss of human life. P.S. A lot of your stats are pretty inflated compared to what I've seen in other documents. You might want to check that source.

#2 Thanks for the comments. I find it interesting you take issue with the content of this article yet you consistently incorrectly used the word "your" instead of the contraction, "you're". This makes it difficult for me to consider "you're" much of a history major yourself...let alone a grammarian. However, I will interact with your comments in further detail soon. Thanks again.

#2.1 His typo is FAR less serious than the false ideas you put forth. The fact that you think his comment can't be taken seriously because of a poor usage of your/you're shows that you yourself can't be taken seriously.

#2 Thanks for the comments. I find it interesting you take issue with the content of this article yet you consistently incorrectly used the word "your" instead of the contraction, "you're". This makes it difficult for me to consider "you're" much of a history major yourself...let alone a grammarian. However, I will interact with your comments in further detail soon. Thanks again.

Sorry for hijacking this comment but you forgot to include most of the religious wars throughout recorded history. Some examples include but are not limited to: 1. The Second Sudanese Civil War 2. The Lebanese Civil War 3. The French Wars of Religion 4. The Thirty Years' War And let's not forget the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Somalia, Pakistan/India, Nigeria, uprisings in China, Tibet, Vietnam.

#2.1 so the Ad Hominem fallacy. Ad Hominem. (Attacking the person): This fallacy occurs when, instead of addressing someone's argument or position, you irrelevantly attack the person or some aspect of the person who is making the argument. You couldn't defend your position so you attack instead. Not very logical of you.

#2 Thanks for the comments. I find it interesting you take issue with the content of this article yet you consistently incorrectly used the word "your" instead of the contraction, "you're". This makes it difficult for me to consider "you're" much of a history major yourself...let alone a grammarian. However, I will interact with your comments in further detail soon. Thanks again.

It may well be the case that these people use religion to recruit people to carry out their dirty work, the actual person who recruits them may not be religious and is only doing it for Financial or Power gain. This however does not deflect from the fact that those who carry out these actions are doing it for what the believe are religious grounds. Which would attribute the deaths to religion.