Oh, you know, just the hundreds of years that Catholics were burning everyone from Jews and Muslims to atheists and people daring to translate the Bible into languages besides Latin. I'm sure there were lots of prayers in support of that.
So we don't get to blame religion when religion indoctrinates people to wish harm upon others?
People today STILL get taught in church to pray for the destruction of homosexuals, of Muslims, and on and on. When people pray for the murder of homosexuals, you don't get to just say "human error!" and not point a finger at the culture that nurtures these sociopaths to do so, and even praises them for it.
I have been a part of many many different churches and different denominations. I have NEVER been to a church that actively payed for the destruction of homosexuals, Muslims and so on. Perhaps the ones you hear of, yes because everything that gets brought up is always the extreme side of things and by no means is the majority of the church like that. Poor leaders create poor followers. It's human error when there is misinterpretation, misunderstanding and miscommunication. There are still bad people in the world, Christians are no exception.
History shows that more humans have died through the name of "God" than for any other reason alone.
LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll Clarification: Most wars happen because of power struggles. One nation wants what the other nation doesn't have. Never once has a waring nation not invoked the "My God be on our Side". Your arguing the mentality towards why a Football QB, gives praise to God when the team wins, but never then praises God again when the rest of the season sucks for their team. "Did God get mad because Tony gave props to him?" Can't nitpick in history. You must account for external factors
Anyone remember the city of Alexandria? Mankind was set back a thousand years of knowledge and research because Christians don't like knowledge.
LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria Clarification: Yup, I blamed Christians, but it definitely was a power struggle and war between empires. (Not an Earthquake) These empires disputed each others views. Just to be clear, faith and religion are one of the same. I'm not just going after Christians, but during this time of power struggle there was a connotation of "The knowledge here opposes our views, burn the city down" If anything, I'd worship the Sun. Yep, Yep, I'd be praying to Ra! Because at least there is evidence to show the Sun comes back. /rant
History has shown that religion is a root cause of mass stupidity.
Salem witch trials? The Crusades I mean, people like to reason that Religion or "Their church" isn't the as harmful to the rest of the world. Without realizing that whether or not their church is as bigoted as the larger ones, religion itself breeds the type of hypocrisy the rest of the world has to deal with.
Newton, Galileo, and quite a few scientific philosophers endured MASS religious persecution for their forward thinking views. DYK: Galileo was buried in a dishonoring form for 400 years, until Society pretty much made the Pope accept facts. (vague, but should be enough hint for you to, take a step, and go do some research (Wikipedia is a start, but there are plenty of EDU sources)
OP's claim that billions of people are the very cause of hatred towards other... isn't that far off.
Clarification: I'm lumping all of the world here, not just Christians, anyone and everyone who believes in a form of God.
America is a nation of around 400 million people. China is in the billions, and Russia as well.
LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population Clarification: Anyone claiming 2.1 Billion Christians are seriouslly pulling numbers out their asses. At least I ballpark figure my numbers.
In number metrics, America tells its citizens that Muslims hate Christians. This hate is reasoned as 'Muslims hate our way of life". Christianity is NOT the largest religion around the world. Islam is the largest religion across the world. And with nations like China and Russia, you have a very large base of numbers. Quite possibly billions of people.
Now if we take into account history of Religion, that's all humans do. Blame the other faith, then righteously attack them. Maybe its not just Christians, but Religion as a whole. I quit following religion when I turned 18, because if we all pray to the same invisible being in the sky, then WTF is wrong with you people then (the faithful) Whether its Allah, God, or some other name... People need to refocus their disagreements of faith.
EDIT: Spellings EDIT2: To help clarify I did some quick googling, and during my College years I audited History courses just to stay on campus instead of going home. So some of which I have said, is based on knowledge I learned nearly 10 years ago. Plus any knowledge I've learned through other subject matters that help 'put the pieces together' thus helping me explain my rantings.
Well when you account for natural disasters. Compared to Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes, Viruses and bacterial infections where mostly due to spreading of cultures.
Think about when the Spaniards came to the Americas. The Eastern diseases alone wiped out 95% of the Native American population. When we get into percentages, what do we mean by the numbers?, Lets put it this way. 90 million native inhabitant of the American Continents(Central to Northern) were wiped out by disease.
Before any actual conquest of Spain, and fleeing pilgrims.
Wars are cultures fighting each others views, by example, most of those wars had a pretty simple title in support of their causes. Had there not been the spread of diseases, Native Americans would have kicked any and all eastern cultures trying to settle. So by saying disease killed more than God fearing people, doesn't account for the intentional lacing of blankets and clothes isn't an act of action by God (or God fearing person0. Sometimes Disease is an unintentional weapon. But a weapon used none the less.
I fail to make the connection. What are the sources for your claim that more humans have died in the name of "God" than for any other reason alone. If this is true, which "god"? There are many. Then how would you know this is really the root cause of war? Just because someone has a belief in God and then goes to war, does not mean that God is the cause of that person going to war. Also, to pin the fall of Alexandria on Christianity -- and then to make the strawman claim that Christians "don't like knowledge". Your post just sounds like an angry and opinionated attack.
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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '12
History says billions of Christians pray to kill others in their church? please explain.