Faith and Doubt events - Part V - week 2

Week 2:

This session had the effects of Christianity in world history as the center of topics.

The whole idea behind all topics covered, was to convince the audience that Christianity was the source of a lot of good, and that the deaths caused by religion were a lot less in numbers when compared to modern atheistic regimes (Stalin, Mao, etc...), and that a lot of the morals and altruism of civilized societies found their roots in Christianity.

Although I do not disagree completely, there were problems:

Critical thinking is hard to accomplish. It is as hard as it is important.

One of the obviously put numerical arguments, in favor of religion, was the fact that in the past, the number of people killed divided by all those centuries of religious oppression, would end up with a very low daily casualty rate when compared to modern wars, specifically, those involving atheistic regimes.

This is an incorrect conclusion.

The reason for this faulty conclusion is simple: it was never taken into account that the technology involved in killing people today is far more lethal and efficient than it was back then.

If the Christian Crusaders of back then were suddenly to pick up the pace they once had, how would the casualties be like if they had access to, for example, a nuclear weapon when invading Arab lands when attempting to convert them?

Exactly. Hiroshima would have happened back then.

As with the first event, there was a surprise factor in this event as well.

After acknowledging the responsibilities of religion in past crimes, an apology was encouraged of all Christians when faced with such historical facts. This was a very rational attitude on their part.

However, one thing needs to be put into focus in this case: history is not the tool to determine who killed the most or the least, neither is that body count the ethical ground on which religion or atheism based their intentions on. The reasoning behind the killings is what was missing here.

The first commandment was certainly put in a very deep drawer that day, month, year, century... centuries...

That is not Christian at all. But in a religion with its share of contradictions, I guess one more won't hurt.

In the interest of fairness, even if the numbers were correct and no consideration was given to mankind's advances in weaponry, another aspect missed in this event, is that when you quantify these types of events, it should be done in a percentage kind of way. An in no way should one divide the religious motivated deaths over the time they occurred. They should be added, compare to the sum of deaths from another event, and show the proportions. In a percentage kind of way.

An aspect of modern society also completely missed, was the fact that today, in the 21st century, the CIA ranks the Scandinavian Nations as the happiest (I would say civilized) places on earth. Those, are some of the least religious countries on Earth, as well. Although it does not prove that less religion equals more happiness, it does show that a more atheistic society can (does not mean it will) do better than most religious ones.
More on this later.