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I consistently come across the claim that religion is the primary cause of violence and war throughout history. Jack DeBaun in his letter (Nov. 29, 2016; Daily Bee) implies the same as well. Is this true?

According to Philip and Axelrod’s Encyclopedia of Wars, the historical evidence tells a different story.

The 3 volume set chronicles some 1,763 wars over the course of human history. Of those wars 123 were categorized as religious in nature. That’s a mere 6 percent of all wars. Sixty six of the 123 were waged in the name of Islam. So if you subtract those you get 3.23 percent. So all faiths combined — minus Islam ­­— have caused less than 4 percent of all wars through out history.

Jack seems to ignore the tragic history of the 20th century, which saw more deaths from acts of violence and oppression than all previous centuries put together. Jack’s implication that we are a more enlightened and civilized world since the publication of Darwin’s theory is ludicrous at best. Criminally uninformed at worse. The truth is that almost all the wars of mankind have been under regimes of atheistic and naturalistic philosophies. Indeed, there is a correlation between these naturalistic philosophies such as evolution and the ideologies and behavior of our culture. Non-religious dictator lives lost

• Joseph Stalin - 42,672,000

• Mao Zedong - 37,828,000

• Adolf Hitler - 20,946,000

• Chiang Kai-shek - 10,214,000

• Vladimir Lenin - 4,017,000

• Hideki Tojo - 3,990,000

• Hideki Tojo– 2,397,0003

TIM KNAPP

Clark Fork