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Name The Relgious Leaders Throughout History That Led To Slaughter Of Millions

rhinefire

rhinefire

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I'll list just few non-religious leaders:
Genghis Khan
Stalin
Mao
Hitler
 
rhinefire said:
I'll list just few non-religious leaders:
Genghis Khan
Stalin
Mao
Hitler
Click to expand...

Mohamed. Not millions directly, only thousands, but the religion he invented is the gift that has been giving for 1400 years.
 
Not sure what you're trying to get with here?
Hitler didn't kill people for Atheistic reason
Stalin Didn't either
Neither did Genghis Khan
Or Mao.
Those were all for political reasons.
Mao shouldn't even be on the list near Stalin and Hitler.

People comparing Mao on that same list have, absolutely, no history on China.
Hitler could sensibly be held responsible for tens of millions of deaths in World War Two - including at least seven million non-Jewish Germans. Separately from this he had a program of planned extermination of nine to twelve million helpless prisoners, about half of them Jewish. This was done at the expense of the war effort, a matter of pure rate hatred.
A wild exaggeration of the numbers killed in Land Reform, which was also done by the peasants themselves. And generally was powerful land owners executed for specific crimes: murder or treason, which they had got away with before.
Comparing the NORMAL third-world death-rates that occurred in China during the Three Bad Years (1959-1961) with the greatly reduced death rate that Mao's policies had achieved before that. The worst year had a death rate of 25 per thousand, which in the 1950s to 1960s was normal for poor countries and lower than some.
Famine is the #1 reason as to so many deaths under his reign. With heavy sanctions from the US and USSR, it lead to the death of tens of millions.
He was a far better improvement to China than corrupt dictatorships they had before Mao. This caused a revolution in China. Nationalist party eventually was overthrown, and Mao came in.
Now of course he wasn't a sun-shine guy by any means. But he was the better option for China moving forward instead of the stagnant and corrupt Nationalist Party that ignored the peasants all together.

Anyways, to your question:
We can look to the crusades, which all together, caused the death of millions of individuals (majority innocent).
These include, but not limited to, Pope Urban II, Pope Eugene III, Pope Gregory VIII, Pope Innocent II, Pope Honorius III. For muslims, most notable one is Saladin. (there were also lesser known or not documented leaders also engaging in these wars)
Now with the deaths of millions, we continue onward to the fabulous Inquisitions! (Not even beginning with the Spanish ones!) Their aim by the Catholic Church? To combat "heresy". To name a few, Pope Paul III, Pope Innocent IV, Pope Innocent III, Pope Gregory IX. Coutless of other individuals were also apart of this as well, but less documented. Now onto the Spanish Inquisitions! To name just a few, Pope Sixtus IV, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Ferdinand II, Pope Paul IV, and other lesser names.
To add into the Inquisitions, we have the famous witch trials as well. Hundreds of thousands to near a million of mostly women, died.
Now the list becomes too long when labeling names. I'll just address some big wars throughout the past centuries:
17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany.
1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain
Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone).
The list goes on...
 
Many of these smaller body count battles, adding up, go into the millions as well.
Now let's talk Natives in the new world!
The population of North America prior to the first sustained European contact in 1492 CE is a matter of active debate. Various estimates of the pre-contact Native population of the continental U.S. and Canada range from 1.8 to over 12 million. Over the next four centuries, their numbers were reduced to about 237,000 as Natives were almost wiped out. Author Carmen Bernand estimates that the Native population of what is now Mexico was reduced from 30 million to only 3 million over four decades. Peter Montague estimates that Europeans once ruled over 100 million Natives throughout the Americas. So with that said, European extermination of Natives started with Christopher Columbus' arrival in San Salvador in 1492. Native population dropped dramatically over the next few decades. Some were directly murdered by Europeans. Others died indirectly as a result of contact with introduced diseases for which they had no resistance, mainly smallpox, influenza, and measles.
Later European Christian invaders systematically murdered additional Aboriginal people, from the Canadian Arctic to South America. They used warfare, death marches, forced relocation to barren lands, destruction of their main food supply -- the Buffalo -- and poisoning. Some Europeans actually shot at Indians for target practice.The genocide against American Natives was one of the most massive, and longest lasting genocidal campaigns in human history. It started, like all genocides, with the oppressor treating the victims as sub-humans. It continued until almost all Natives were wiped of the face of the earth, along with much of their language, culture and religion.
This resulted in the death of tens of millions of natives, to the point of being nearly wiped out.

Let's look briefly at Islam. It estimates tens of millions as well. Some even stretch it to 270m+ killed over 1.4k years. Either way, that's still many deaths.

Even today we have Islamic Terrorism killing millions in the middle east.

I can say after all of this, religion has caused over 100m+ deaths during the past centuries. There are literally too many leaders to name here.
Non-religious attacks don't even come close to the true massacres religion has caused since its creation.
 
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If you want to know some Islamic wars:
Moro Insurgency
Algerian Civil War
Afghan Civil Wars
Rashidun Conquests
Ottoman Conquests

I also forgot to mention Timur. Millions death under his leadership.
Also the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. Millions dead and hundreds of thousands raped.
 
SkiaXai said:
Not sure what you're trying to get with here?
Hitler didn't kill people for Atheistic reason
Stalin Didn't either
Neither did Genghis Khan
Or Mao.
Those were all for political reasons.
Mao shouldn't even be on the list near Stalin and Hitler.

People comparing Mao on that same list have, absolutely, no history on China.
Hitler could sensibly be held responsible for tens of millions of deaths in World War Two - including at least seven million non-Jewish Germans. Separately from this he had a program of planned extermination of nine to twelve million helpless prisoners, about half of them Jewish. This was done at the expense of the war effort, a matter of pure rate hatred.
A wild exaggeration of the numbers killed in Land Reform, which was also done by the peasants themselves. And generally was powerful land owners executed for specific crimes: murder or treason, which they had got away with before.
Comparing the NORMAL third-world death-rates that occurred in China during the Three Bad Years (1959-1961) with the greatly reduced death rate that Mao's policies had achieved before that. The worst year had a death rate of 25 per thousand, which in the 1950s to 1960s was normal for poor countries and lower than some.
Famine is the #1 reason as to so many deaths under his reign. With heavy sanctions from the US and USSR, it lead to the death of tens of millions.
He was a far better improvement to China than corrupt dictatorships they had before Mao. This caused a revolution in China. Nationalist party eventually was overthrown, and Mao came in.
Now of course he wasn't a sun-shine guy by any means. But he was the better option for China moving forward instead of the stagnant and corrupt Nationalist Party that ignored the peasants all together.

Anyways, to your question:
We can look to the crusades, which all together, caused the death of millions of individuals (majority innocent).
These include, but not limited to, Pope Urban II, Pope Eugene III, Pope Gregory VIII, Pope Innocent II, Pope Honorius III. For muslims, most notable one is Saladin. (there were also lesser known or not documented leaders also engaging in these wars)
Now with the deaths of millions, we continue onward to the fabulous Inquisitions! (Not even beginning with the Spanish ones!) Their aim by the Catholic Church? To combat "heresy". To name a few, Pope Paul III, Pope Innocent IV, Pope Innocent III, Pope Gregory IX. Coutless of other individuals were also apart of this as well, but less documented. Now onto the Spanish Inquisitions! To name just a few, Pope Sixtus IV, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Ferdinand II, Pope Paul IV, and other lesser names.
To add into the Inquisitions, we have the famous witch trials as well. Hundreds of thousands to near a million of mostly women, died.
Now the list becomes too long when labeling names. I'll just address some big wars throughout the past centuries:
17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany.
1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain
Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone).
The list goes on...
Click to expand...

Mao killed far more people than either Stalin or Hitler, actually.

For example

Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_to_Suppress_Counterrevolutionaries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

Plus, the aid given to groups like the Khmer Rouge lead to things like this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide

Frankly, the fact that you defend such a brutal dicatator is no better than if you were to defend Stalin or Hitler.
 
Tigerace117 said:
Mao killed far more people than either Stalin or Hitler, actually.

For example

Twentieth Century Atlas - Death Tolls

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_to_Suppress_Counterrevolutionaries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

Plus, the aid given to groups like the Khmer Rouge lead to things like this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide

Frankly, the fact that you defend such a brutal dicatator is no better than if you were to defend Stalin or Hitler.
Click to expand...

You should realize famine was the #1 cause for the deaths in China. US and USSR made this possible.
It's not defending, it's just stating the reality of China during that time.
He personally claimed 800k lives through executions and the such during the war with Japan.
His political aims aren't in the same category as Stalin or Hitler.
I haven't said he is some bright-man sent from a god. He did do some terrible things. Those aren't in the league of Stalin or Hitler though, as I've stated.
 
Last edited:
SkiaXai said:
You should realize famine was the #1 cause for the deaths in China. US and USSR made this possible.
It's not defending, it's just stating the reality of China during that time.
He personally claimed 800k lives through executions and the such during the war with Japan.
His political aims aren't in the same category as Stalin or Hitler.
I haven't said he is some bright-man sent from a god. He did do some terrible things. Those aren't in the league of Stalin or Hitler though, as I've stated.
Click to expand...

No, Mao's attempt to industrialize China by having the poor peasents try and smolt iron in their backyards instead of, you know, farming is the reason why famine killed so many Chinese. Well, that and his purges.

His "political aims" didn't stop the massacre of innocent people.

He killed more people than either Stalin or Hitler, so he doesn't get a pass.
 
There's far too many to list, when it comes to almost any cause. "Encylopedia of Wars" documented 1,763 total conflicts in human history. There's been a war over every human desire imaginable. Religion is no exception. The authors contend that about 7% of those conflicts were motivated by religion, going back to Mesopotamia city states. Actual deaths caused by religious war (this does not include persecutions of defenseless groups, such as ISIS victims to this day) they claim amounts to 2%, but this is due to the 20th century accounting for *half* of all wartime deaths. This would equate to about 7 million killed by religiously inspired war. However, this is impossibly low and doesn't even account for the crusades + 30 years war, much less back to Mesopotamia and the butcheries celebrated in the OT

Even if you were to convince us that stalin/hitler/khan used atheism to convince their massive armies to slaughter so many, which seems to be your purpose here, the total number of victims would be less than those killed by religious zealotry
 
rhinefire said:
I'll list just few non-religious leaders:
Genghis Khan
Stalin
Mao
Hitler
Click to expand...

Gosh ... where does one start ? The first place to begin is nit picking your "millions". It is much easier to slaughter millions when the world population is larger. When the population is smaller a slaughter of hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands would be an equivalent atrocity.

That out of the way ... lets get on with the list.


Constantine - Putting the Christian Church on the path to power led to the slaughter of millions.

A name reminiscent of Orwellian doublespeak ... Pope Innocent IV ! Issued the Papal Bull allowing Torture.

The list would not be complete without Pope Leo III - Pope during Charlemange - Conversion by the sword.

This is just a few but a good start.
 
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