Noe Sandoval

We've all heard the argument made by theists that atheists have murdered more people in a few decades than were killed by the inquisition in centuries. Of course, in order for this to be an equal comparison the number of people killed by Christians would have to include more than just the inquisition (such as the crusades, 30-years war, witch hunts, etc etc).

Along with that, it isn't valid to blame atheism for executions done in the name of communism. Thus one would have to specify whether or not the people executed were killed because of their religion. But again, because atheism isn't a religion and professes no creed attributing the acts of some atheists to all of atheism still isn't valid.

Ignoring that, I'm still curious as to how many people were actually executed by communist countries due to their religion. The one statistic I've found consistently claims that "In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed." But I've seen few statistics besides this one.

The time-frame I'm interested in spans from 1917 (the beginning of the Bolshevik revolution) to 1945 (when the persecutions are said to have ended). I'm still looking up the events in Cambodia.

If anyone has any sources with statistics on this matter it would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Noe

EDIT: Oops, I meant for the title to include all communist countries. Sorry about that.

Minimalist

Yet, you still don't know if they were killed because they were bishops and priests or if they were involved in "counter-revolutionary" activities? The Russian Orthodox Church was deeply complicit with the Czarist regime and, much like the French Revolution, (but unlike the American Revolution) the revolutionaries had a decided bone to pick with the clerics because they walked arm and arm with a hated and oppressive regime.

Doug Shaver

Do you recall what the original source of that statistic was? Who produced the numbers, and how and where did they get them?

Toto

That quote comes from Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union footnoted to Ostling, Richard. "Cross meets Kremlin" TIME Magazine. June 24, 2001.

This article does not footnote that statistic, and it then goes on to discuss the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul by a Bulgarian agent.

The communist regimes in Europe (and also in China) were and are more concerned with political loyalty than religious belief. Christians who did not appear to be a political threat were tolerated, and at the fall of communism, there were viable Christian Chruches in all of the former communist areas, who often started to use the machinery of the state to oppose American evangelicals who threatened their religious dominance.

But this is a bit too modern a period of history for this forum. I am not sure if it belongs in GRD or World Politics.

Demon

Another obvious flaw in that argument that I don't see brought up very often is the fact that they're comparing a group of people armed with horses, spears, bows and arrows to another group that possessed bombs, tanks, machine guns, fighter jets, chemical weapons and advanced radio equipment...and THEN saying the latter caused more harm because they didn't believe in God!? :banghead:

Noe Sandoval

That sounds much more likely than Stalin just executing clergy because he doesn't like them. I hadn't thought of that.

The oldest source online that I've been able is this: http://countrystudies.us/russia/38.htm

Glenn E. Curtis wrote the section on Russia. I really don't know much about him. As you can imagine quite a few Christian sites like to throw that statistic around.

I suppose this is rather pointless though (:redface seeing as one really wouldn't be able to know how many people were executed for religious reasons.

Sorry about that, I couldn't figure out where to put this. If it helps, most of these discussions seem to be in the GRD.

http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthr...=stalin+purges

http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthr...=stalin+purges

Malachi151

I'd wager that fewer people were killed in Russia and China purely out of religious motivation than were killed in France during the French Revolution for "purely" religious reasons.

It's all quite hard to say though, since in every case there were legitimate reasons for hating the priests and wanting to do them in. Its very hard to call any of the motivations "purely" religious". Even in the French Revolution the priests were killed because they weer supporting the monarchy, because they were refusing to give up church lands, because they had perpetrated crimes on the public in the past, because they were supporting corrupt laws, etc., etc.

I'd say that the biggest law in any religious argument about this is failing to acknowledge that in every case, at least in France, Russia, and China, there were often very many legitimate reason for killing the priests. Of course no doubt some injustice took place and some innocent guys got killed, but this was more due to the messiness of mob justice than it was to some ill-placed motivation.

Toto

~off to GRD~

dimbulb

Stalin spent ~4 years as a student at the Theological Seminary in Tiflis and became a Marxist there. So what made him a monster? Marxism or Theology? Or did he hate his father? Video games?

trendkill

I was going to mention that because it always comes to mind, and no one ever seems to bring it up. And not only were the weapons massively more efficient at killing in the time of Communism, but the world's population was greater as well, so there were more people available to kill. Just imagine the crusades with firearms and modern population levels.