Death Toll: Theism Vs. Atheism
Many theists argue that atheism has caused only death and destruction, whilst their respective religions preach only peace and love. So what does the evidence look like? The Teapot Atheist did a load of research and counting and has reported his results.
His findings don’t bear well for theism, even with his extremely generous methodology in its favour:
Where deaths from theism are concerned, I have normally low-balled the estimates as a favor because the differential is so staggering and theism needs all the bones it can have tossed in its direction. For atheism, I go with the highest possible estimates.
To add insult to injury, The Teapot Atheist included in the atheism section, deaths caused by Pol Pots regime even though there is no evidence that he was an atheist (his regime was harshly anti-religious though), as well as Stalin, who has recently been considered a deist / closet-theist by historians.
So how do the scores match up?
Theism has managed to kill an estimate of 2,229,074,100 people.
Atheism has managed to kill an estimate of 95,000,000 people.
Just let those figures sink in a bit. Over 2 billion people are dead as a result of theist wars and actions. That number is about 33.3% of the current human population of Earth. In contrast, atheism is responsible for the deaths of just less than 100 million, roughly 1.58% of the current human population of Earth.
Now, these results don’t in any way suggest that theism causes people to commit murder, but that the main factor in most of the wars and conflicts in history has been a difference in religious beliefs. Every holy book of every theist religion preaches love and respect for fellow man, there is no way I can debate that. However, every holy book also preaches the destruction of anyone who says otherwise and stands against the words of whichever god it claims is the “correct” one.
This is the deep deep flaw of theism. There are too many varieties, and whilst each one has a similar story, its author has taken an extraordinary amount of time making sure that it differs in some conceivable way. Just enough to provide the necessary contradictions to send all religions colliding against each other in a never-ending war.
The victims are both those who get killed and those killing in the name of religion. Brainwashed by men who wanted to control the world, and used religion to try to achieve their goals. The heroes in this tragic truth are easy to point out. They are the freethinkers, the skeptics, the naturalists, the rationalists; every single person who has ever seen the flaws of theism and said “Enough is enough”.
If atheism has proved anything, it is that without a god, humans still murder for no good reason; they just do it much less often.
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It would be helpful for all, and to better prove your point if you showed your work on this one. otherwise you could just be pulling numbers out of thin air, or your ass.
personally i agree with you theism kills more than atheism. but you gotta show your work as prove, otherwise it is meaningless and easy to poke holes in your argument.
-i
interested
3 Jul 08 at 12:59 am (GMT)
Did you even click the link that says “his results” at the top? All the data is there for you to read (with links to prove it).
I didn’t want to repeat the data when it was so easily organized on another website, and it would have looked like I had done the research when in fact it was The Teapot Atheist who did it and deserves the credit.
In case you can’t see the link (for whatever reason, although it seems a little odd), here it is:
http://teapotatheism.blogspot.com/2008/06/anonymous-wanted-body-count-total-so-he.html
Adrian Hayter
3 Jul 08 at 1:22 am (GMT)
Sorry, but that’s a HORRIBLE post by Teapot Atheist. In a number of cases he badly, and I charge deliberately, conflates correlation and causation.
Example: Hirohito was divine, according to Shinto. That in no way means he invaded China because of his Shinto beliefs.
Nonetheless, that’s about the substance of much of Teapot Atheist’s death claims.
Second, in some cases, such as the “smallpox genocide” allegations, he simply gets facts wrong. In fact, in that case, he perpetuates an old, and hugely mistaken, myth.
SocraticGadfly
7 Jul 08 at 3:37 am (GMT)
SocraticGadfly,
I think you are missing the point. The Teapot Atheist never intended to evaluate theist caused deaths, but rather deaths caused by theist based nations. Lots of fundamentalists claim that atheist nations kill more people, but the adverse is true in this case.
As for facts he get’s wrong, I admittedly didn’t look at all his cases, but I reckon if you take away those he did err in, you would still find the massive gap.
Adrian Hayter
7 Jul 08 at 3:41 am (GMT)
That’s pretty impressive that Atheism could kill 95,000,000 people, since it’s only been around for about a hundred years.
Mike
7 Jul 08 at 7:21 pm (GMT)
Mike,
Nice try. Epicurus was an atheist and predated Jesus. The ideas have been around since the beginning of time (everyone is born an atheist).
Adrian Hayter
7 Jul 08 at 7:43 pm (GMT)
Adrian,
I was going to say the same thing. Ownage!
XVX for life, R.A.S.H. ’til death.
Hann
4 Aug 08 at 6:47 am (GMT)
Still, to be sound, you should not consider the total number of murders, but murders per theist vs. murders per atheist.
flostre
25 Aug 08 at 12:43 pm (GMT)
One thing I could not find was the credentials of the person who did this research from the teapot Atheist blog site. I would hope this person has some credentials to establish some credibility at least. Furthermore, some of the sources he or she references are from Wikipedia and with no further sources mentioned. One place, this person inadequately provided sources for is for example with the information under with the link name, The Mughal conquest of North India. The link leads to a Wikipedia article and again no sources are mentioned. Wikipedia is by far not an authoriatative reference source.
At the same time, I also found a site that says atheistic communism regimes have killed more and it references RJ Rummel works, who is a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii. The title of this article is, Just How Many People Has Religion Killed? by Kirk Durston, National Director, New Scholars Society. You can read it at this link, and then scroll down until you get to that article title. It also at the end provides a link to RJ Rummel’s website. http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/21PbAr/Pl/DthByAthsm.htm.
Angel
22 Sep 08 at 8:53 am (GMT)
Other than that I find this debate not a good one anyways because what it really proves is that both non-religious (that would include atheists) and religious ran forms of government have the potential to be mass killing machines. Then again, I guess one should also factor in differentiating between justified killings and unjustified killings.
Angel
22 Sep 08 at 8:55 am (GMT)
Actually I find that to be very intriguing that you claim Stalin was a “closet theist” when that is a damn lie. Plus you must not forget those who solely put their faith into Science have used that same science to kill billions. China is an Atheistic country and besides all of that, the death tolls on both sides are a FUCKING ATROCITY.
Willywill3
11 Oct 08 at 5:18 am (GMT)
@Willywill3
I never claimed Stalin was closet atheist, the original writer did. To back up his assertion he outlined Stalin’s contradictory beliefs.
As for putting faith in science and using science to kill billions, that is such a bullshit argument. Science tells us what is part of the natural world and how it works. We then use that knowledge to commit atrocities. That isn’t the fault of science, it is the fault of humans.
Otherwise, perhaps you should blame gravity for all the bombs dropped on cities.
Adrian Hayter
11 Oct 08 at 1:07 pm (GMT)