If you’ve ever discussed religion with a skeptic you’ve probably heard them say “religion is responsible for the greatest amount of wars”. The way it’s said so confidently makes it seem as if this is undeniable common knowledge for all people. The skeptic says “look at the millions and millions of people killed in the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the French wars of religion, and September 11th, all in the name of God!!”
That has great rhetorical effect, but is it true?
So, Whattaya do?
You ask a question: how did you come to that conclusion? Most atheists and skeptics are repeating or parroting back information they’ve heard without any evidence and aren’t able to back it up with real facts. And here’s where having a little bit of accurate information will help tremendously. Listen carefully to their response, and then…
Here’s how you can respond: the facts of history show quite the opposite of what you said; in fact religion is responsible for a very small minority of wars.
Phillips and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars explains that in the last five thousand years, there have been 1,763 total wars, and as per author Vox Day in the book The Irrational Atheist, only 123 of them (about 7%) were religious in nature! That’s nowhere near “the majority” of wars.
WOW! But that’s not all…
If you remove the 66 wars waged in the name of Islam, the number of religious wars is reduced to a little more than 3%. This is a staggeringly low statistic that should be the death knell for the skeptic’s claim.
A second scholarly source, The Encyclopedia of War edited by Gordon Martel, confirms this data, concluding that only 6% of the wars listed in its pages can be labelled religious wars. And finally, a recent report (2014) from the Institute for Economics and Peace further puts to rest and lingering doubt as to the truthfulness of our claim.
It would do us well if we could keep this information in the front of our minds to counter the skeptics claims.
I know that was a little more complicated than last week, but now you know “Whattaya do”. Glad you asked.
