Faith – Last week we saw the devastation and death caused by earthquakes in Turkey, with more than 35,000 deaths related to those quakes that lasted a only a few seconds.
Religion has been blamed for millions of deaths over the centuries. According to two sources, I found, the number has been about 200 million in the last 2,000 years.
One of them was found on a Reddit feed: “How many deaths have been caused by religion? Here’s a list of religiously motivated wars and genocides and their death tolls.”
The Crusades: 6,000,000
Thirty Years War: 11,500,000
French Wars of Religion: 4,000,000
Second Sudanese Civil War: 2,000,000
Lebanese Civil War: 250,000
Muslim Conquests of India: 80,000,000
Congolese Genocide (King Leopold II): 13,000,000
Armenian Genocide: 1,500,000
Rwandan Genocide: 800,000
Eighty Years’ War: 1,000,000
Nigerian Civil War: 1,000,000
Great Peasants’ Revolt: 250,000
First Sudanese Civil War: 1,000,000
Jewish Diaspora (Not Including the Holocaust): 1,000,000
The Holocaust (Jewish and Homosexual Deaths): 6,500,000
Islamic Terrorism Since 2000: 150,000
Iraq War: 500,000
US Western Expansion (Justified by “Manifest Destiny”):20,000,000
Atlantic Slave Trade (Justified by Christianity): 14,000,000
Aztec Human Sacrifice: 80,000
AIDS deaths in Africa largely due to opposition to condoms: 30,000,000
Spanish Inquisition: 5,000
TOTAL: 195,035,000 deaths in the name of religion.
To me, some items on the list are questionable, like the Holocaust’s 6.5 million, which was not by those claiming a religious position for the killing but as the final solution by the Nazis. Nevertheless, we will give the benefit of the doubt to the list and go with the number.
Now, let’s look at communism. What took religion 2,000 years to accomplish, communism accomplished 50 percent of (100 million) in just over 100 years, according to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by David Satter. Given another 1,900 years, and if communism keeps its current rate of killing consistent, communism will achieve 1.9 billion deaths, easily outstripping religion.
However, nothing compares to the death coming during what the Bible calls the Great Tribulation. Revelation 6:7-8 give an account of the earth being killed with a sword (war or some type of murder, I’m guessing), famine and, pestilence (disease or virus), and by wild beasts of the earth. Currently, the earth’s population is about eight billion. That would put deaths at about two billion.
But wait, there’s more. In the 9th chapter of Revelation are the trumpet judgments, which destroy a third of the six billion people living at that time. Which is another two billion people which means the world’s population has been cut in half, with only four billion left.
We haven’t even talked about the ecological damage to the earth. A third of the grass, “third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.”
Some bible scholars think less than two billion people will be left at the end of the Tribulation period to participate in the Battle of Armageddon, where another blood bath will occur when Satan’s antichrist and his armies go against the King of kings and Lord of Lords.
Before you think the Bible is obsessed with death, remember our society is obsessed with death. From the tens of millions of aborted babies to doctor-assisted suicides to all the wars and drug use that runs rampant. Make no mistake. Our society is already obsessed with death.
Most people view human life as limited to about 70-80 years and hope that it is primarily pain-free, but not always. Millionaires and billionaires hope to achieve immortality through genetics, implants, and science. At the same time, they are ignoring the free gift offered by God through His Son.
When I look at all the prophecies, which have been fulfilled in the Bible, I have no reason to doubt the coming of these prophecies in Revelation, nor should I doubt the offer of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Whether or not the Tribulation period comes in our lifetime, the reality is, no matter what the reason, death comes to all. Be prepared for it with the life that Christ freely offers.