What About Atrocities That Have Been Done in the Name of Religion?

Many atheists claim that religion is evil and, as such, cannot be from God. It is true that there are many examples of evil committed in the name of Christianity. In the past, those who disagreed with "official" church doctrine, such as Galileo were persecuted or killed. Many other Christians were brought before the Inquisition because they were teaching from the Bible instead of from "officially sanctioned" Roman Catholic Church materials. In addition, the Crusades resulted in "holy" wars between "Christians," Jews, and Moslems. In more modern times, wars have been fought between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. However, common to all this violence was an underlying struggle for power. Today, some people kill abortionists in the name of God. Are these people unwilling pawns of religionor using religion to justify their own evil agendas?

History of human atrocities

Therefore, I absolutely agree with atheists and others who say that many atrocious things have been done in the name of God, and even in the name of Christianity. However, these atrocities were not perpetrated by God, but by evil human beings. If we look at the history of democide (which includes genocide, politicide, and mass murder, but not war-dead) prior to the 20th century, we find that millions of people were killed by people groups who wanted the other people groups eliminated. Note that these numbers do not include those killed through wars.

TABLE 3.1 Selected Pre-20th Century Democide and Totals1
Cases	Years2	Democide3	Religious?
China	221 B.C.-19 C.	33,519,0004	No
Mongols	14 C-15 C	29,927,000	No
Slavery of Africans	1451-1870	17,267,000	No
Amer-Indians	16 C-19 C	13,778,000	No
Thirty Years War	1618-1648	5,750,000	No
In India	13 C-1 9 C	4,511,0005	No
In Iran	5 C-19 C	2,000,0004,5	No
Ottoman Empire	12 C-19 C	2,000,0005	No
In Japan	1570-19 C	1,500,0005	No
In Russia	10 C-19 C	1,007,0005	No
Christian Crusades	1095-1272	1,000,000	Yes
Aztecs	Centuries	1,000,0006	Yes
Spanish Inquisition	16 C-18 C	350,000	Yes
French Revolution	1793-1794	263,000	No
Albigensian Crusade	1208-1249	200,000	Yes
Witch Hunts	15 C-17 C	100,000	Yes
Total For All Cases	pre-20 C	133,147,000	2,650,000
Hypothetical Total	30 C B.C.-19 C A.D.	625,716,0007
International war-related dead	30 C B.C.-19 C A.D.	40,457,0008
Plague dead (Black Death)	541 A.D.-1912	102,070,0009
Adopted from STATISTICS OF DEMOCIDE. Unless otherwise noted, years and centuries are A.D. Unless otherwise noted, these are a best guess estimate in a low to high range. Excludes democide in China by Mongols. An absolute low. A very speculative absolute low. From STATISTICS OF DEMOCIDE.. Calculated from the 20th century democide rate and the population for each century since 30 B.C. From table STATISTICS OF DEMOCIDE. Total undoubtedly inflated by democide. A minimum: includes plague dead in circa 541-542 A.D.; 1346-1771 in Europe; 1771 in Moscow; 1894 in Hong Kong; and 1898-1912 in India. From Duplaix (1988, p. 677-678).

What percentage of these killings were due to religious democide? It is less than 3% of the totals. The surprising thing is that these killings occurred during a period of time when virtually all the peoples of the world were involved in some sort of religion. Here is the data for the 20th century:

TABLE 1.2 20th Century Democide1
REGIMES	YEARS	DEMOCIDE2	Atheist?
U.S.S.R.	1917-87	61,911,000	Yes
China (PRC)	1949-87	35,236,000	Yes
Germany	1933-45	20,946,000	No
China (KMT)	1928-49	10,075,000	No
Japan	1936-45	5,964,000	No
China (Mao Soviets)3	1923-49	3,466,000	Yes
Cambodia	1975-79	2,035,000	Yes
Turkey (Armenian Genocide)	1909-18	1,883,000	No
Vietnam	1945-87	1,670,000	Yes
Poland	1945-48	1,585,000	Yes
Pakistan	1958-87	1,503,000	No
Yugoslavia (Tito)	1944-87	1,072,000	Yes
North Korea	1948-87	1,663,000	Yes
Mexico	1900-20	1,417,000	No
Russia	1900-17	1,066,000	Yes
China (Warlords)	1917-49	910,000	No
Turkey (Ataturk)	1919-23	878,000	No
United Kingdom	1900-87	816,000	No
Portugal (Dictatorship)	1926-82	741,000	No
Indonesia	1965-87	729,000	No
LESSER MURDERERS	1900-87	2,792,000	?
WORLD TOTAL	1900-87	169,202,000	107,047,000
From STATISTICS OF DEMOCIDE. Includes genocide, politicide, and mass murder; excludes war-dead. These are probable mid-estimates in low to high ranges. Figures may not sum due to round off. Guerrilla period.

Vox Day, in The Irrational Atheist, lists 22 atheistic regimes that committed 153,368,610 murders in the 20^th century alone:

Murders by Atheists (20^th Century)

Country	Dates	Murders
Afghanistan	1978-1992	1,750,000
Albania	1944-1985	100,000
Angola	1975-2002	125,000
Bulgaria	1944-1989	222,000
China/PRC	1923-2007	76,702,000
Cuba	1959-1992	73,000
Czechoslovakia	1948-1968	65,000
Ethiopia	1974-1991	1,343,610
France	1793-1794	40,000
Greece	1946-1949	20,000
Hungary	1948-1989	27,000
Kampuchea/Cambodia	1973-1991	2,627,000
Laos	1975-2007	93,000
Mongolia	1926-2007	100,000
Mozambique	1975-1990	118,000
North Korea	1948-2007	3,163,000
Poland	1945-1948	1,607,000
Romania	1948-1987	438,000
Spain (Republic)	1936-1939	102,000
U.S.S.R.	1917-1987	61,911,000
Vietnam	1945-2007	1,670,000
Yugoslavia	1944-1980	1,072,000

Figure 1. Percentage of democide based upon type of government control.

What percentage of this democide was due to religious conflict? It turns out that religious democide doesn't even make the top 20 (although I am sure there is some in the "lesser murderers" category. Still, the total religious killings is less than 2%. In fact, the top two killers were specifically atheistic states (which had never existed before in human history). Should atheism be blamed for more than 50% of the atrocities committed during the 20th century? The answer of course is No! If one examines the nature of the regimes that committed these atrocities (even the religious ones), the key factor is absolute power (see Figure 1, right). According to Professor R.J. Rummel, in the 1816-2005 period there were 205 wars between non-democracies, 166 wars between non-democracies and democracies, and 0 wars between democracies. Lord Acton's warning that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" seems to be more than just a trite saying.

What about Christians who commit evil?

Jesus Himself addressed the issue of "Christians," performing evil deeds in a rather chilling prophecy:

"Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'" (Matthew 7:22-23)

One should note that Jesus said that "many" people who think they are His followers will be rejected by Jesus when at the judgment when they attempt to claim that they are His disciples. Not all who claim the name of Jesus are actually His disciples. My guess is that in even the best of Christian churches only about half of the people have been truly born again (see John chapter 3).¹ Christianity should be judged on the basis of what Jesus said and did, not on the basis of the actions of people who merely claim to be Christians. Foxe's Book of Martyrs details the deaths of Christians who were killed because of their faith in Christ, in many cases by people claiming to be Christians.

How do you know if a person is a Christian or not?

We cannot know for certain whether a person is or is not a true Christian (only God can makes such a determination).² However, the Bible describes the nature of a person who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit³ (which happens at the point a person accept Jesus as Lord and Savior):

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

In addition, the true believer does what is right and demonstrates love toward others.⁴ Even non-believers can readily see who the true Christians are. Ultimately, the behavior of those who claim to be Christians but practice evil should not be a consideration in determining if the claims of Christ are true or not.

Conclusion

Yes, "Christians" have committed atrocities against other religious and non-religious people. However, atheists have committed far more atrocities than all religious groups combined. Even so, the key factor in these atrocities has been totalitarian power, rather than religion, which has resulted in these hundreds of millions of murders. The Bible says that people are evil (and the statistics on this page support this claim), but that they can become transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit to live lives of love, joy and peace.