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Before anyone starts I'm agnostic and don't have confidence in any organised faith.
Warning: Read to the end of the post before jumping to conclusions about where I am going with this post.
Are Christians more violent than Muslims? What does the record say?
Murder rate: America, like most Christian countries in the Americas, Africa and Eastern Europe, is markedly more violent than most of the Middle East (murders per 100,000 population):
0.6 Bahrain
0.7 Oman
0.8 United Arab Emirates
0.9 Qatar
1.0 Saudi Arabia
1.2 Egypt
1.7 Cyprus
1.8 Jordan
2.0 Iraq
2.1 Israel
2.2 Kuwait
2.2 Lebanon
2.3 Syria
3.0 Iran
3.3 Turkey
3.4 AMERICA
4.1 Palestine
4.2 Yemen
Terrorist attacks: According to the FBI, only 6% of the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 were carried out by Muslim extremists. Even Jewish extremists carried out more (7%).
War: Wars with at least a million dead:
Christian wars:
years: name: conservative body count in millions
535-554: Gothic Wars: 5.0m
790-1300: Reconquista: 7.0m
1096-1272: Crusades: 2.0m
1337-1453: Hundred Years’ War: 3.0m
1562-1598: French Wars of Religion: 3.0m
1568-1648: Dutch Revolt: 1.0m
1618-1648: Thirty Years’ War: 3.0m
1655-1660: Second Northern War: 3.0m
1763-1864: Russian-Circassian War: 2.0m
1792-1802: French Revolutionary Wars: 2.0m
1803-1815: Napoleonic Wars: 3.5m
1830-1903: War in Venezuela: 1.0m
1882-1898: Conquests of Menelik II of Ethiopia: 5.0m
1910-1920: Mexican Revolution: 1.0m
1914-1918: First World War: 20.0m
1917-1922: Russian Civil War: 5.0m
1939-1945: Second World War: 41.5m (European deaths only)
1946-1954: First Indochina War: 1.0m
1950-1953: Korean War: 1.2m
1955-1975: Vietnam War: 1.1m
1998-2003: Second Congo War: 2.5m
Muslim wars:
1370-1405: Conquests of Tamerlane: 7.0m
1681-1707: Conquests of Aurangzeb: 5.0m
1967-1970: Nigerian Civil War: 1.0m
1980-1988: Iran-Iraq War: 1.0m
1983-2005: Second Sudanese Civil War: 1.0m
1989-2001: Afghan Civil War: 1.4m
Seven times more people have died in Christian wars: 113.8 million compared to the 16.4 million who died in Muslim wars.
There are more Christians, but only about 50% more, nothing like seven times more.
Western history is Eurocentric, so we know more about wars in Christian lands than in Muslim ones. But not for wars since 1900, and there the imbalance is even worse: 73.3 million compared to 4.4 millon – 17 times more dead in Christian wars.
Some blame technology, yet the Muslim world has all the weapons the West had to kill over 100 million people. And yet it did not.
Democide: counts those who died not through war or street crime but through the wilful in/action of government, like genocide or Mao’s Great Leap Forward.
Christian democides of a million or more (does not count communist democides):
940-1917: Russia (tsarist): 2.1m
1095-1272: Crusades: 1.0m
1451-1870: European slave trade: 17.3m
1492-1900: Latin America: 13.8m Amerindians
1600-1900: Caribbean: 10.0m slaves worked to death
1618-1648; Thirty Years War: 5.8m
1651-1987: British Empire: 1.1m (not counting slavery)
1800-1900: Brazil: 1.5m Amazon rubber companies
1900-1920: Mexico: 1.4m
1933-1945: Germany (Nazis): 20.9m
1945-1948: Poland: 1.6m
Muslim democides of a million or more:
400-1900: Iran: 2.0m
1110-1918: Ottoman Empire: 3.9m
1958-1987: Pakistan: 1.5m
1983-2005: Sudan: 1.9m Nuer, Dinka, Christians, Nuba, etc
Christians have killed eight times more people in democides than Muslims: 76.5 million compared to 9.3 million. Almost the same rate as for war.
The mistake here lies not in the numbers but in the words “Christian” and “Muslim”. Sometimes religion is a cause – or at least an excuse – like in the bombings by Christian extremist Eric Rudolph or the genocide in Sudan. But most often it is not. Calling, say, the 9/11 terrorists “Muslim” is like calling Hitler “Christian”: true yet misleading. It is Islamophobia, not a serious attempt to understand the world as it is.
Warning: Read to the end of the post before jumping to conclusions about where I am going with this post.
Are Christians more violent than Muslims? What does the record say?
Murder rate: America, like most Christian countries in the Americas, Africa and Eastern Europe, is markedly more violent than most of the Middle East (murders per 100,000 population):
0.6 Bahrain
0.7 Oman
0.8 United Arab Emirates
0.9 Qatar
1.0 Saudi Arabia
1.2 Egypt
1.7 Cyprus
1.8 Jordan
2.0 Iraq
2.1 Israel
2.2 Kuwait
2.2 Lebanon
2.3 Syria
3.0 Iran
3.3 Turkey
3.4 AMERICA
4.1 Palestine
4.2 Yemen
Terrorist attacks: According to the FBI, only 6% of the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 were carried out by Muslim extremists. Even Jewish extremists carried out more (7%).
War: Wars with at least a million dead:
Christian wars:
years: name: conservative body count in millions
535-554: Gothic Wars: 5.0m
790-1300: Reconquista: 7.0m
1096-1272: Crusades: 2.0m
1337-1453: Hundred Years’ War: 3.0m
1562-1598: French Wars of Religion: 3.0m
1568-1648: Dutch Revolt: 1.0m
1618-1648: Thirty Years’ War: 3.0m
1655-1660: Second Northern War: 3.0m
1763-1864: Russian-Circassian War: 2.0m
1792-1802: French Revolutionary Wars: 2.0m
1803-1815: Napoleonic Wars: 3.5m
1830-1903: War in Venezuela: 1.0m
1882-1898: Conquests of Menelik II of Ethiopia: 5.0m
1910-1920: Mexican Revolution: 1.0m
1914-1918: First World War: 20.0m
1917-1922: Russian Civil War: 5.0m
1939-1945: Second World War: 41.5m (European deaths only)
1946-1954: First Indochina War: 1.0m
1950-1953: Korean War: 1.2m
1955-1975: Vietnam War: 1.1m
1998-2003: Second Congo War: 2.5m
Muslim wars:
1370-1405: Conquests of Tamerlane: 7.0m
1681-1707: Conquests of Aurangzeb: 5.0m
1967-1970: Nigerian Civil War: 1.0m
1980-1988: Iran-Iraq War: 1.0m
1983-2005: Second Sudanese Civil War: 1.0m
1989-2001: Afghan Civil War: 1.4m
Seven times more people have died in Christian wars: 113.8 million compared to the 16.4 million who died in Muslim wars.
There are more Christians, but only about 50% more, nothing like seven times more.
Western history is Eurocentric, so we know more about wars in Christian lands than in Muslim ones. But not for wars since 1900, and there the imbalance is even worse: 73.3 million compared to 4.4 millon – 17 times more dead in Christian wars.
Some blame technology, yet the Muslim world has all the weapons the West had to kill over 100 million people. And yet it did not.
Democide: counts those who died not through war or street crime but through the wilful in/action of government, like genocide or Mao’s Great Leap Forward.
Christian democides of a million or more (does not count communist democides):
940-1917: Russia (tsarist): 2.1m
1095-1272: Crusades: 1.0m
1451-1870: European slave trade: 17.3m
1492-1900: Latin America: 13.8m Amerindians
1600-1900: Caribbean: 10.0m slaves worked to death
1618-1648; Thirty Years War: 5.8m
1651-1987: British Empire: 1.1m (not counting slavery)
1800-1900: Brazil: 1.5m Amazon rubber companies
1900-1920: Mexico: 1.4m
1933-1945: Germany (Nazis): 20.9m
1945-1948: Poland: 1.6m
Muslim democides of a million or more:
400-1900: Iran: 2.0m
1110-1918: Ottoman Empire: 3.9m
1958-1987: Pakistan: 1.5m
1983-2005: Sudan: 1.9m Nuer, Dinka, Christians, Nuba, etc
Christians have killed eight times more people in democides than Muslims: 76.5 million compared to 9.3 million. Almost the same rate as for war.
The mistake here lies not in the numbers but in the words “Christian” and “Muslim”. Sometimes religion is a cause – or at least an excuse – like in the bombings by Christian extremist Eric Rudolph or the genocide in Sudan. But most often it is not. Calling, say, the 9/11 terrorists “Muslim” is like calling Hitler “Christian”: true yet misleading. It is Islamophobia, not a serious attempt to understand the world as it is.
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