The Crimes of Christianity
First I will start with the Crusades. Here is a little history lesson. Before the rise of Islam, the region we now call the Middle East was mostly Christian. Where Jesus was born, lived, and, crucified, was in that region, so the Middle East was very sacred to Christianity. Muhammad's armies conquered Jerusalem and the Middle East as a whole because of Islam's call to jihad. Then they pushed into Africa, then into Asia, and north into Europe. They then conquered some of Italy and most of Spain, they overran the Balkans, and prepared for the final incursion that would bring the Christendom (as Europe was then called) under the rule of Islam.
More than two centuries after the Middle East was conquered by Islamic armies, the Christians strike back. The pope and the dynasties of Europe that were ruling at the time rallied the Christians to attempt to take back the heartland of Christianity and defend it against the militant Islam.
This is what we now call the Crusades. The term Crusades is not what the people actually in the Crusades called it, the term was a later invention. These people were responding to Christs call to take up your cross and follow Jesus. A lot of them put everything they had at risk, their rulers provided nothing for them. They were expected to bring everything they needed for the journey. They weren't in it for the gain because they came back poorer than they started. They did loot and forage along the way, but only because they were providing what they needed to survive.
The Christians captured Jerusalem in 1099 and the First Crusade was a success. They held it for several decades after that but the militant Islam reconquered Jerusalem in 1187. The Crusades after that were fails. Yet without the Crusades, the Western Civilization we live in today might have been completely overran by Islam. There were some horrible things done in the Crusades that nobody can justify but they shouldn't define the Crusades as a whole.
Now I will move on to the Inquisition. The Inquisition was a court of the Roman Catholic Church that was created to suppress heresy. Contrary to popular belief, it only had authority over Christians--not Jews. The only Jews who came under the view of the Inquisition were Jews that had converted Christianity. This was the case for many Jews since King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued an ordinance in 1492 that expelled all Jews from Spain. For a Jew to stay in Spain he would have to convert to Christianity. A lot of Christians suspected that these new Jews that had converted to Christianity weren't taking it very seriously. But strangely enough, it was the Jews who complained the most about it. The Jews complained that their buddies renounced their Judaism. The Jews couldn't complain about it in Inquisition courts because Jews weren't under the authority of the Inquisition as I said before.
Most of the time the punishment dished out by the Inquisition courts were the equivalent of community service today, it was little things like fasting. So how many people were actually executed in the Inquisition? Many historians have guessed from 1,500 to (at the absolute most) 4,000. These deaths are all tragic but it must be remembered that these deaths were spread out over a period of 350 years.
Now we take a look at the Salem witch trials. How many people died in the Salem witch trials? There must have been hundreds or even thousands! Sorry to break it to you, but it was actually less than twenty five. Nineteen of them were sentenced to death and a couple others died in captivity. These deaths are horrible ones but the Salem witch trials don't deserve the horror that they have perpetrated in the books and movies that were supposed to be based off them.
As for martyrs, I don't understand why it is a bad thing to die for something you know is true. If you live radically for Jesus, isn't a radical death for Jesus usually the consequence? Jesus died for me and I would be happy to die for him any day!
The Crimes of Atheism
Now I will focus on the crimes committed by leaders of atheist groups such as Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. Stalin caused around 20 million deaths. Hitler caused around 10 million murders, six million of them were Jews. Mao caused around seventy million deaths. Stalin and Mao's killings were done in peacetime (unlike the Crusades).
The killings of atheism trump the killings of Christianity no matter how you look at it. The Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Salem witch trials tally up to 200,000. Since the population was lower in the past that would be the equivalent of one million deaths today. These deaths caused by Christians over a 500 year period are only one percent of the deaths that Stalin, Hitler, and Mao caused in a few decades.
I think it is fair to say that Atheism, not Christianity, is the source of most of the conflict and deaths in history, all because of what was "right" in their eyes.
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