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Yep, we both can Ahtman, we both can.

Just for you Ahtman...

"L. H. Franzibald is the Dan Brown of fantasy epics." ~ Extreme Digest

Perhaps it is time we shed this lame terminology and adopt a quest for whether you believe in wolfoids and witchaloks, or you are sorely in need of a whipping. Witches and wizards need to get with it and start dual-wielding their wands.

Gitzbitah wrote:Witches and wizards need to get with it and start dual-wielding their wands.

But than they would be unstoppable!

JEB_Stuart wrote:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Ooh, fun fact, the Inquisition had more recorded victims than the holocaust. The Vatican allegedly has even more records we'll never see.

And Dan Brown makes an appearance. What do you base such a claim on? Which Inquisition are you referring to? There were four, but only two of them were run by Catholic Church. The only two that were run by the Church itself were what historians call the "Medieval Inquisition" and the Roman Inquisition. After the French invaded the Italian peninsula in 1798, they sent back almost all of the Inquisition documents to France, they numbered around 100,000. Hardly seems to be close enough to compare it to the Holocaust, and even more unlikely that the Vatican has these documents...

Honestly, I have no idea. I heard it on the History channel. I guess I shouldn't blurt things without having a few sources first :p

I don't believe that the Inquisition killed more people than the Holocaust.

That would just be an absurd amount of people killed for that time. There's a world of difference between modern populations and medieval populations. Additionally, the Inquisition generally tried to avoid killing people; the whole point was to save them from their heresy so it wouldn't be necessary. However, they did steal and torture to a much greater degree, so they were far from saintly in that regard.

Perhaps if by victims you mean anyone persecuted by the group, and by Inquisition you refer to all four major "Inquisitions" (starting with the Medieval Inquisition in 1184 and ending with the Roman Inquisition in around 1860), you would have a comparable number. But in that case, you're still looking at persecution over 700 years and persecution over less than 15.

::EDIT:: Ah, just one of those facts you pick up? Yeah, I tend to do the same thing. Well, I think there are conditions under which it could be true, but I think they'd have to be kind of silly.

Orkeosaurus wrote:I don't believe that the Inquisition killed more people than the Holocaust.

That would just be an absurd amount of people killed for that time. There's a world of difference between modern populations and medieval populations. Additionally, the Inquisition generally tried to avoid killing people; the whole point was to save them from their heresy so it wouldn't be necessary. However, they did steal and torture to a much greater degree, so they were far from saintly in that regard.

Perhaps if by victims you mean anyone persecuted by the group, and by Inquisition you refer to all four major "Inquisitions" (starting with the Medieval Inquisition in 1184 and ending with the Roman Inquisition in around 1860), you would have a comparable number. But in that case, you're still looking at persecution over 700 years and persecution over less than 15.

::EDIT:: Ah, just one of those facts you pick up? Yeah, I tend to do the same thing. Well, I think there are conditions under which it could be true, but I think they'd have to be kind of silly.

Still,you have to admit,people acting in the name of christianity(and at the time supported by the church),have racked up an impresive body count,and unlike the nazis,don't seem to be abhord for those actions.

And here's where the thread drops into the toilet.

Frazzled wrote:And here's where the thread drops into the toilet.

That's certianly not my intentions Frazzled,nor was it to troll,I'm simply perplexed by,what seems to me a certian degree of hypocricy when it comes to defining atrocities.

FITZZ wrote:

Frazzled wrote:And here's where the thread drops into the toilet.

That's certianly not my intentions Frazzled,nor was it to troll,I'm simply perplexed by,what seems to me a certian degree of hypocricy when it comes to defining atrocities.

http://teapotatheism.blogspot.com/2008/06/anonymous-wanted-body-count-total-so-he.html

Highest possible atheism death toll without Stalin: 45,000,000.
Highest possible atheism death toll with Stalin: 95,000,000.
theism: 2,229,074,100
Nazis.... 9 million...

Religion has caused a lot of deaths, more particularly fighting OVER religion

I hear a fair amount of criticism of Christians (especially Catholics) for the Inquisition. More than is fair, oftentimes, as it was something that happened fairly long ago. Of course, the way the Catholic Church handles some of their prior crimes might contribute to it a bit (I think they've been somewhat prideful in that regard. Probably because they still have a lot of reverence for tradition and such).

The Holocaust was really a very "modern" event, and it having happened in a country that was, at the time, considered to be as advanced and civilized as any other - not to mention pretty similar culturally - made it a much bigger deal than it probably would have been if it happened in, say, China, 1650. The extensive documentation and large number of survivors able to tell of the story (in the age of mass media) also made it a bigger deal.

"The Inquisition" also existed over a huge span of time, but never did anything so hugely noticeable that everyone would remember it centuries later. They also died out over time, so there was no real "defeat" that had their conquerors looking to further expose the crimes of their enemies.

Nazism was also pretty dedicated to the ideals of the Holocaust - namely, the extermination of the Jewish race (and some other groups), and the brutal treatment of even more groups that failed to live up to the Nazi ideal. By contrast, there's not much fundamental to Christianity that requires conflict with Jews and Muslims, or that requires "conversion" by torture to be true belief, or that requires witchcraft do be considered a common crime.


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frgsinwntr wrote:http://teapotatheism.blogspot.com/2008/06/anonymous-wanted-body-count-total-so-he.html

Highest possible atheism death toll without Stalin: 45,000,000.
Highest possible atheism death toll with Stalin: 95,000,000.
theism: 2,229,074,100
Nazis.... 9 million...

Religion has caused a lot of deaths, more particularly fighting OVER religion

That doesn't seem to mean all that much without a corresponding set of numbers that can tell how many people of the world have been atheist and how many have been theists.

I could start Orkeo's Death Cult of Murder tomorrow and me and my four other members could murder as many people as we possibly could. The number of people killed by my Death Cult probably wouldn't even compete with, say, Buddhism, but that doesn't make my religion the more peaceful one.

(And the whole concept of people being "killed for X" because the killers were X is kind of silly at any rate. Stalin certainly didn't kill most of the people he did "for atheism".)


In other news, Confucianism is Theist? I didn't think Gods were a significant part of it.

Genghis Khan, an avowedly religious person (and, like many of his co-religionists, a homophobe of the highest Levitical quality), ground up about 40 million lives in the expansion of his empire throughout the 13th century.

Spluh? Temejin wasn't religious in anything approaching the colloquial sense, and certainly was not a theist.

The French Revolution, built on Enlightenment principles, probably cost somewhere from 1-2 million lives.

Enlightenment principles have nothing to do with atheism.

That said, the entire exercise of attributing casualties to religion is foolish. Belief causes death, and the absence of belief generally does not. However, simply being an atheist does not mean that one lacks belief. In fact, to the extent that the 'death tally' is a standard trope for the more militant atheists, the opposite if often true.

Who are you quoting Dogma?

The article Frgs linked to.

Ah, well in reality it isn't belief that kills people, it is rigid idealism. That's my two cents anyway...

I didn't mean to insinuate that belief always kills people, or that all beliefs cause death. Should have thrown a 'can' in there.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
I could start Orkeo's Death Cult of Murder tomorrow and me and my four other members could murder as many people as we possibly could.

Do we get full medical coverage ? What are the dress requirements too ?

My guess is a trucker hat, AK-47, and scaly tail. Possibly some form of detachable penis as well.

It is a no-go for me if that detachable penis isn't modular... you know, with a cup holder and one of those hula dancers.

Ugh, this is worse then that brochure I got from those Branch Dividians....

dogma wrote:AK-47,

Hmm.. didn't realise it was a communist religion...

...still.. free hat though...

JEB_Stuart wrote:Ah, well in reality it isn't belief that kills people, it is rigid idealism. That's my two cents anyway...

Yeah, this. If you don't join any groups claiming they know how to build a great new world and all it'll take is to kill some of those bad people, you probably won't end up one of history's great monsters.

Just you know, whether or not you have faith, just don't be a dick.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orkeosaurus wrote:I don't believe that the Inquisition killed more people than the Holocaust.

The Spanish Inquisition was the worst of them and it totalled around three or four thousand killed total. Which was a pretty crap thing to do, but its a long way short of the Nazis.

A whole lot more Jews were killed over the years in countless pogroms, and people don't even talk about those any more.

sebster wrote:Just you know, whether or not you have faith, just don't be a dick.

If only it was that simple... at least for 4 easy payments of 19.99, you too can own this fantastic rendition of the internetz.

Warning: contains dirty dirty words... such dirty words that your ears will scream and stuff. One word... Team America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqHfYcJ52NQ

reds8n wrote:Hmm.. didn't realise it was a communist religion...

We decided that the best way to fight inequality was to stop people from existing.