# Total number of deaths from religion **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 17, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834 "2014-11-17T03:05:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/21 "2014-11-17T06:14:50Z")
> [@blue\_infinity](#): > > Well, strictly, if we’re talking about **rates** , we need to take into account the relative populations of the US and medieval Spain. > > Spain 1500-1800s. Population ~8 million. 1 kill per 800,000 per year. > US 1976-2014. Population 220-320 million. 1 kill per 7.5 million per year. > > So, ITR is still wrong. 😉 The OP doesn’t ask about rates, but about absolute numbers. Besides, your rate calculation only includes the population of metropolitan Spain. You need to consider the population of all the Spanish possessions; the Inquisition operated throughout the Spanish Empire. I don’t have the figures, but I’m guessing that on a per capita basis the US will end up looking more bloodthirsty 😉 ---
**Author:** ![blue\_infinity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_infinity/32/2817_2.png) [@blue\_infinity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blue_infinity)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/22 "2014-11-17T06:38:45Z")
You are the one who used the word rate, and quite correctly. I think it’s a much better measure. Peak Spanish Empire population was around 70 million, (which would make it pretty even with the US rate), but for most of the period it would have been much lower. The execution figures from the wiki article seem to show about 90% being carried out in Spain proper. Edit: Also the figures are just executions for religious crimes. I’m sure the Spanish executed plenty of people for murder, brigandage or calling King Alfonso the Nth a poopyhead. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/23 "2014-11-17T07:10:02Z")
Well, I’m not really trying to defend the Spanish Inquisition; more to point out the silliness of the enquiry. But I don’t think we can take figures from the periods when the Inquisition was most execution-happy, in the places where it was most active, and present them as the “rates of execution” of the Spanish Inquisition. That would be like taking the Texas per capita execution rate during some particularly trigger-happy years and ascribing it to the entire US over a prolonged period. If the Inquisition executed some very low number of people in, say, South America, that’s just a relevant a datum as the fact that they executed a very high number in Toledo. You’re right, of course, that the Inqusition concerned itself with a narrower range of crimes, but there was some overlap; the Inquisition dealt with bigamy, for instance, and sodomy (and, for some reason, horse-smuggling.) Leaving the horse-smuggling aside, obviously the Spanish attached religious signficance to sodomy and bigamy; hence the reason the Inquisition dealt with them. These matters were handled by the secular authorities in the US and most other countries. But it’s fair to say that many people’s attitudes to sodomy and bigamy in the US are also informed by religious beliefs. If offenders are punished by a formally secular system for offences which society generally disapproves of on religious grounds, is that punishment to be ascribed to religion? Or do we only ascribe it to religion if it’s administered by a formally religious court or authority? I don’t think that anyone was executed by the Inquisition for bigamy or sodomy. But people were executed for sodomy by the secular authorities in, e.g., England. Are they victims of religion? And lots of people in the US were executed for murder, and at the time most people’s condemnation of murder would have been justified on religious grounds. So are executed murderers “killed by religion”? Conversely, in places where the death penalty has been abolished, if religious concerns were advanced in support of the abolition do we have to count all the convicted murderers whose lives have been _saved_ by religion? ---
**Author:** ![tigerwoods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47c2d/32.png) [@tigerwoods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tigerwoods)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/24 "2014-11-17T10:52:50Z")
now, go back in time and offer the religious rulers of the last few millennia: nuclear weapons, machine guns and ground attack aircraft. see what they could do with them in the name of their gods. they may be able to give the communists, secularists and capitalists a run for their money ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/25 "2014-11-17T11:07:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > :rolleyes: I was, and every other student was. How old are you? It’s been quite a while now since the SC weighed in on that issue. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/26 "2014-11-17T11:59:27Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > OK point one, I am saying that religion never killed anyone. But it has been used as a tool to get the peeps on board so to speak. Which is another way of saying that religion has killed people as much as another other method of getting people “on board”. And your argument is wrong anyway; religions have commanded people to kill, and they’ve done so. > [@sisu](#): > > Second point, didn’t say it was you who said it. In fact, you are refusing to provide an example of _anyone_ in this thread saying it. > [@Monty](#): > > How old are you? It’s been quite a while now since the SC weighed in on that issue. 1. Not that it matters; regardless of what the law _supposedly_ says, student are coerced into pledging to God all the time. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/27 "2014-11-17T12:25:50Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > :rolleyes: I was, and every other student was. I stopped saying the pledge in sixth grade, 1979. Never said it in middle or high school. No one even blinked. > [@](#): > > 1. Not that it matters; regardless of what the law _supposedly_ says, student are coerced into pledging to God all the time. Actually, what the law says matters a lot when responding to a claim that the government is theistic and forces kids to say the pledge. What small minded bigots do is different from the law. Probably shouldn’t hijack the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/28 "2014-11-17T12:34:15Z")
> [@tigerwoods](#): > > now, go back in time and offer the religious rulers of the last few millennia: nuclear weapons, machine guns and ground attack aircraft. see what they could do with them in the name of their gods. they may be able to give the communists, secularists and capitalists a run for their money Also: significantly increase both the population and the population concentration. Not quite as easy to kill so many people when they’re so dispersed and so few in number. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/29 "2014-11-17T13:04:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > 1. Not that it matters; regardless of what the law _supposedly_ says, student are coerced into pledging to God all the time. 46? Then your portrayal isn’t accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/30 "2014-11-17T13:09:06Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > 46? Then your portrayal isn’t accurate. To be fair, plenty of schools say the pledge over the intercom in the morning. Directions generally aren’t, “If you choose to say the pledge, you may do so now.” Instead, directions are generally along the lines of, “Please rise to say the pledge of allegiance.” Students may be able to opt out, but if schools don’t take pains to inform their students of that choice–and in my experience they don’t–it’s not a very meaningful option for most students. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/31 "2014-11-17T13:31:18Z")
I think you’d also have to include the women who have died in childbirth due to religious compulsion to marry and then to procreate “fruitfully.” And what about the spouses killed by abusers they were forbidden to divorce? I would argue that it’s in the billions. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/32 "2014-11-17T14:29:32Z")
Yeah, cite? Spousal abuse has never been acceptable. Tolerated to a often unfortunate degree, but never acceptable. As for forbidden to divorce? Thats quite a limited subset. Romans had fairly liberal divorce laws. As did Arabs and later Turks. And its not like that religion invented the biological imperative to procreate. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/33 "2014-11-17T15:41:34Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I think you’d also have to include the women who have died in childbirth due to religious compulsion to marry and then to procreate “fruitfully.” I doubt that one can attribute pressure to procreate to religion, given that it occurrs [even in officially atheist societies](http://www.ceausescu.org/ceausescu_texts/overplanned_parenthood.htm). Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/34 "2014-11-17T16:07:58Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I doubt that one can attribute pressure to procreate to religion, given that it occurrs [even in officially atheist societies](http://www.ceausescu.org/ceausescu_texts/overplanned_parenthood.htm). > > Regards, > Shodan Clearly you weren’t raised Catholic. LoL! While I acknowledge that governments have done the same thing, there can be no question that religions have specifically pressured women to procreate, especially during the time when childbirth was the primary cause of death for females. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/35 "2014-11-17T16:20:12Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Yeah, cite? Spousal abuse has never been acceptable. Tolerated to a often unfortunate degree, but never acceptable. As for forbidden to divorce? Thats quite a limited subset. Romans had fairly liberal divorce laws. As did Arabs and later Turks. > > And its not like that religion invented the biological imperative to procreate. Re: Divorce and abuse > **[The fight to make divorce legal in the Philippines | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/world/asia/philippines-legal-divorce-battle/)** > > The Philippines is one of only two countries which lacks divorce laws. Campaigners hope a new bill will change that. And the same has certainly been true in Ireland, and throughout South America. In every religion, whether Christian or Jewish or Muslim, there are large factions which pressure spouses to remain married despite abuse. > **[Divorce in the Orthodox Jewish Community Can Be Brutal, Degrading and Endless...](https://www.newsweek.com/divorce-orthodox-jewish-community-can-be-brutal-degrading-and-endless-3082)** > > In the world of Orthodox Judaism, men hold all of the power when it comes to terminating marriages. Gital Dodelson, 25, knows this all too well. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701936.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701936.html) And it’s clear that as religious belief falls off in any society, so does the birth rate. > **[18-8.pdf](https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol18/8/18-8.pdf)** > > 237.06 KB ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/36 "2014-11-17T16:24:06Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > How many people have died because of religion? Including war, genocide, terrorism, witch hunts, botched exorcisms, forgone medical treatment, etc? A clearer definition might be something along the lines of, “How many homicides have been committed in which the justification for the homicide was based on religious beliefs?” This will exclude foregone medical treatment and the like, but I think it might clarify thinking. Obviously it’ll still be an impossible number to get, but it might at least make the discussion a little better. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/37 "2014-11-17T16:38:53Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > Clearly you weren’t raised Catholic. LoL! While I acknowledge that governments have done the same thing, there can be no question that religions have specifically pressured women to procreate, especially during the time when childbirth was the primary cause of death for females. My point is that all societies have pressured women to procreate, and precisely because maternal and infant mortality rates were high. For labor-extensive practices like pre-industrial farming, the problem is mostly labor shortages among farm hands. Therefore women needed to crank out as many children as possible, and could not be deterred from doing so by fear of death. Yes, it is a callous view of women. Given the circumstances, it is also a nearly unavoidable view of women (and men). It has relatively little to do with religion, in the sense that it was going to happen no matter what. The question of the OP is probably unanswerable, largely because there aren’t many societies without a religion of some kind (or several of them). Those that lacked an official religion do not have a very good track record - they just kill as many, or more, than societies with religion, just for different reasons. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/38 "2014-11-17T17:31:59Z")
Even when there’s definitely a religious component to a conflict or war, how do we pro-rate the degree to which religion was responsible for any given death? For instance, there is definitely a religious COMPONENT to conflict and terrorism in Northern Ireland, but then England conquered Ireland at a time when both nations were Catholic, and the Irish resisted (often violently) before there WAS a Protestant movement in England! “Catholic vs. Protestant” has been convenient shorthand for the two sides in Northrn Ireland today, but many “Catholic” terrorists never go to church, and many “Orangemen” are agnostics or atheists. So, while religion deserves SOME blame for deaths in Ireland, religion is less a factor than many outsiders imagine. And that’s true in MANY nations where there’s “religious” violence. P.J. O’Rourke used to joke than in the Balkans, “The Serbs are the ones who never go to Orthodox services, the Croatians are the ones who never go to Mass, and the Muslims are the ones who, five times a day, don’t face Mecca and pray.” Was there a religious component to their battles? Yes, but it would be a mistake to say that “Religion led to the bloodshed in Yugoslavia.” ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/39 "2014-11-17T17:42:39Z")
What about when the cause of death is because of the victim’s religion? I.e., the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust… they weren’t killed because of religious zeal on the part of Hitler and the Third Reich, but they were definitely killed because of religion. Or is the point of the question only from the religious views of the oppressors: “[I’m going to kill you because I’m Muslim and you are Hindu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_India)” (or vice-versa - I’m an equal-opportunity questioner), and if the oppressor doesn’t have religious views and is killing people because they do (see: Pol Pot), do their victims count? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834/40 "2014-11-17T17:47:03Z")
Let’s remember that virtually all religions and religious people view death as a spiritual part of life, so we can safely say that all non-atheist deaths are religious. So upwards of 90 percent of all deaths throughout history have a religious component. All other people also died or will eventually die. This does not mean that if we eliminate religious conviction, or the conviction that there is no higher power, that death would be eliminated. It means that some people do not understand the basics of logic or life. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/total-number-of-deaths-from-religion/704834.md?page=3)