Go to: => TOP Page; What's New?; ROAD MAP; Contact Us; Search Page; Emmaus Ministries Page
[COMMENT: The facts are clear, but Christians continue to cower under the critiques of secular and pagan folks. The truth will set us free -- when we bother to get it and learn how to digest it.
The notion that the crusades, the Inquisition, and the burning of witches can possibly be the largest events of human slaughter is absurd on the face of it. They were minor events in the flow of human history. That is not excuse for them, but there is far less excuse for charges being made about religion in that way.
This extraordinary article and the website below will raise a storm of controversy. How accurate the figures on the website are, I have no way of knowing, but the general drift of the article below is certainly accurate. R. J. Rummel wrote Death by Government, which documents many of the charges below.
Visit the website listed below. It is not easy perusing -- especially for those of us raised on the myth of eternal progress -- due to the alleged objective and neutral stance of scientific secularism. As with any belief system, one can almost always find noble and good people, but secularism as a system itself is none of those things. It is not objective, neutral, or scientific.
Most starvation in the world could be prevented by (1) honest Godly government, and (2) a genuinely free-market system under God (the two go together...). Apart from the law and grace of God, honest government is all but impossible, and then only for very short periods. That is true because, without God, having no moral foundation, politics is all power struggle.
Most unnatural deaths are caused by the power struggle of the powerful -- those who get control of the levers of government (i.e., levers of coercion) and will do whatever they have to to keep control. I include, emphatically, the United Nations -- a parody of the United States (which, sadly and obliviously is drifting that way) -- because Christians have lost their way and cannot stand up for the culture with which God had blessed them.
The world is not over-populated, not yet by a long shot. It is over-controlled by people who care only for their own power, pride, and pleasure. We, the people (not the government), have the capacity to feed every human being on earth many times over. But that is not the agenda of most present governments. Both our personal and our social and corporate freedom and prosperity will happen only under the lordship of Jesus Christ. All other ground is sinking sand.
There are further replies to this piece -- see below One; Two.
Note: the article below begins with a reference to the Da Vinci Code which, though it was a pretty good who-dunnit, was historically, morally, and spiritually a very irresponsible book.
From an email by someone who read this article - on the Muslim contribution to the disaster of genocide - http://www.politicalislam.com/tears/pages/tears-of-jihad/ Read the other articles on this website also -- to discern why Mohammed decided to adopt the political route -- i.e., to gain control when he found no other way to make converts. E. Fox]
No one should be permitted to
get away with making rash, irresponsible, and utterly unsupported statements
like this.
On 8/3/05 9:13 PM, "David Upton" <apologeticresponse@rogers.com> wrote:
Ms. Decker added, "The book kind of explains to the world how the Catholic Church demonized women such as Mary Magdalene, and also have killed millions of women during the Crusades.
I recently wrote a short, popular level article responding to this kind of stuff. The article is appended below:
Just How Many People Has Religion
Killed?
Kirk Durston, National Director, New Scholars Society
A
popular urban legend that I've often heard is that religion has killed more
people than anything else, so the world would be a lot more peaceful place were
it not for religion. The top three largest examples are thought to be the
Crusades of the Middle Ages, the Spanish Inquisition, and the burning of
witches. Scholars estimate that the Crusades of the middle ages cost from 58,000
to 133,000 lives. The most realistic figure for the Spanish Inquisition puts the
total killed from AD1480 to AD1808 at up to 31,912. Finally, records indicate
that the number of witches killed may be over 30,000. Some argue that records
don't tell everything and suggest that maybe even 100,000 were killed. These
three events, totaling over 264,000 killed, are thought to be the largest
atrocities perpetrated by one or another form of Christendom. As we shall
shortly see, however, they pale into insignificance in comparison to the
consequences of atheism.
There are two points to make by way of response. The first point can be made by
asking the question, "Are these activities consistent with what Jesus taught?"
Most people with even an elementary knowledge of Christ will admit that such
killing is inconsistent with His teachings. People often try to justify their
hatred, actions, and even killing by appealing to whatever is held in high
regard by the population. It follows that if Christianity is or was held in high
regard by populations, that certain people with the power to carry out
atrocities would attempt to justify them in the name of Christianity. It is a
simple-minded person indeed who reasons, "Joe claims he is a Christian--Joe
committed an atrocity in the name of Christianity--therefore Christianity
promotes atrocities." The Bible states that the person who says he loves God,
but hates his brother, is a liar. There are many people through history that
have done horrible things in the name of Christianity, but Jesus' words, "you
will know them by their fruit" tell the real story regarding their love for God
and whether they follow the commands of Jesus Christ.
The second point to make is that, yes, people who claim to love God do kill, but
nowhere near to the extent that the lack of religion does. According to
University of Hawaii political scientist Rudolph J. Rummel,[1] <#_ftn1> the
total number killed in all of human history is estimated to be about
284,638,000. Of that number, 151,491,000 were killed during the past 100 years.
The single largest killer in all of human history is, by far, atheistic
Communism with a total of 110,000,000 … over 1/3 of all people ever killed! If
we add to that number just two other regimes where religion of any sort was
strongly discouraged, Nazi Germany and Nationalist China, the number rises to
141,160,000. Almost 50% of all the killings in human history were committed in
the past 100 years by regimes that either actively promoted atheism or strongly
discouraged religion. We have not considered the over one billion abortions,
where Christianity seems to be particularly unwelcome. When the murders of
history are tallied up, it is very clear that atheism is the most dangerous
philosophy ever embraced by humanity. The most effective restraint on mankind's
inherently evil tendencies is faith in God through Jesus Christ, a faith that
actually follows the teachings and commands of Jesus Christ as a daily way of
life.
[1] <#_ftnref1> http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM (all stats have come from this site)
#One
[COMMENT: Here is additional info on the death-by-government theme. E. Fox]
#Two
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *