The "more people have been killed in the name of God" thing has been said over and over without any proof. and I seriously doubt it.

 

Are you kidding me? Have you ever read the bible? There are many horrible stories. This is one of the worst.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Num/Num031.html#13

I love to hear christians try to explain this one. Kill everybody but the virgins? Keep those for yourselves?

Read the verses around those. Moses said this was the command of the LORD. Personally, I do not believe that these orders were actually given from some god. I think Moses was just being manipulative. By telling all these people that the orders were coming from some higher being, he was able to get all his followers to commit these horrible atrocities.

I truly do not understand how people can even debate this stuff. It is directly from the bible. You can read all about this great book here:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/D...leContents.htm

I think Thomas Paine sums up the bible very well.
Most people who consider themselves christians have not read the bible. Those that do either lose some of their "faith" or start making up crazy excuses for all these horrible things.

 

ARE ****YOU****** KIDDING? Did you read my post?
I did not say that "no one has been killed in the name of God", I seriously questioned that "MORE" people have been killed in the name of God.

Come back with some evidence for that.

You have to counter all of the modern wars, WW1 WW2, Vietnam, Korea, Civil War, the extermination of the American Indians (to speak of American wars that had nothing to do with the name of God), then you have to counter the on going murder rate, past and present. Oh for more controversy, factor in the abortion rate, or don't if you are pro-choice. Also the accident rate where someone is killed by accident.

Keep in mind there are orders of magnitude more people now than biblical times and orders of more magnitude of killing going on.

 

I've read it, and I take it with a grain of salt, just like any "based on a true story book"

You have to remember the bible is made up of hundreds of story's written by different authors. By the time these stories were collected and written together nobody was alive who could remember exactly what really happened.

Moses was a leader, and leaders during war sometimes "stretch the truth" to compell their followers. Um...WWII presidents telling us all germans and japanese are evil? Bush and Iraq??

Besides remember the bible was written in a different time. Different values and ways of thinking. The book is a great reading choice, but its sad some people choose to nitpick sections and yell and scream about obvious proof God doesn't exist or is an evil god.

Also reading the bible means "reading it." Not just posting links you read from anit-christian websites

 

Maybe somebody else has taken the time to try to prove or disprove the "MORE" statement. Personally, I do not think it is worth my time or anything else. I will simply say "A LOT" and hopefully there is no debate about that. I do not see where this changes anything else.

 

Fine, it takes five minutes:

Total world population 4500BC = 6 million
Reference:
http://www.painofsalvation.com/be/population.htm

Total death count World War I (on all sides) = 8.52 million
Reference:
http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html

Do I need to go further in to this?

Or was WWI a holy war?

Ok, WWII total estimated deaths 50-70 million
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

That is about the same or more than the total world population at 1000BC.

Throw in all the other non-holy wars, murder rate, accident rate and it is not hard to think that we'd top the 170 million total world population at 1AD.

 

This topic seems to be a red herring to me. Again, I do not see how that changes anything. Debating it would be totally pointless. As I already stated, I am perfectly OK without saying "more people have been killed in the name of God". (I actually never said this.)

 

To clarify, my statement was "More people have been killed in the name of God than any other." as opposed to "More people have been killed in the name of God than from other causes of death."

And by "God" I also mean Allah, Buddha, etc.

Tough to prove but when you think about it not necessary. Most of the wars in human history are directly or indirectly related to nations and their established religions.

 

Anyone who thinks that Hitler's wars had nothing to do with religion is either misinformed or delusional.
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited. "
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 12 April 1922

 

BTW, I would vote myself as agnostic since it is impossible to prove one way or another what happens after we die.