Deaths By Worldview

• John Vandivier

There have been some articles on the internet debating which worldview has killed the most people. This article is my attempt to synthesize some sources I used, although I'm sure I'm missing some stuff.

Specifically, I will cover atheists, Muslims, and Christians. Tldr: That was in order from most to least murders.

Christians

  1. This article mentions some events.
    1. German Peasants' War: I don't count that as religiously motivated.
    2. Northern Crusades: Accepted, but why trust his estimate? I'll go for 100k.
    3. Lord's Resistance Army: If we are counting cults then why not count Muslim murders as Christian murders? I don't think it's valid but I'll include it anyway for robustness. 100k.
    4. Albigensian Crusade: 17,500?
    5. Great Turkish War
    6. The Crusades
    7. French Wars of Religion
    8. Thirty Years' War
    9. Taiping Rebellion: Really don't think I want to allow this one...
  2. KKK (I don't think they're Christian but we will count their murders): Approximately 2000.

Muslims

  1. This article mentions some events.
    1. Moro Insurgency: 135k
    2. Algerian Civil War: 175k
  2. Boko Haram insurgency: 20k
  3. Mahdist War: 10k+?
  4. Muslim conquest of the Maghreb: 30k+?
  5. Early Muslim conquests
  6. Arab-Byzantine wars
  7. The Great Berber Revolt: 30k+?
  8. Ridda wars: ?
  9. First Fitna: ?
  10. Second Fitna: ?
  11. Revolt of Ibn al-Ash'ath: 10k+?
  12. Revolt of Harith ibn Surayj: ?
  13. Third Fitna: ?
  14. Abbasid Revolution
  15. Alid Revolt
  16. Fourth Fitna
  17. Kharijite Rebellion
  18. Afghan Civil Wars
  19. Rashidun Conquests
  20. Ottoman Conquests
  21. The Crusades: 2.5M by these counts.
  22. Timur's Conquests
  23. Should these count as religious?
    1. Byzantine-Seljuq wars. Note: According to Wikipedia, \"The Seljuq Dynasty was a Sunni Muslim dynasty.\"
    2. Byzantine-Ottoman Wars
    3. Arab Revolt

Atheists

  1. Communism: 85-100M. Breakdown here.
  2. Various school shootings and such with numbers small enough they don't matter compared to #1.

Conclusion

This was interesting.

Todo: work on it.