Death by Coveting

Atheism has killed more people in the past 200 years than religion, any religion, has in the past 2,000.  I wanted to put that phrase up on my Facebook update but it seemed a little too incendiary.  My FB isn't serious and if it is, it's for immediate pressing concerns, nothing that would cause debates - political, religious, or otherwise.  Besides it's not really about the dichotomy between Atheism vs. religion, but differences in worldviews and people abusing their authority vs. true Biblical authority.  As I taught in Life Group recently, our coveting is what causes wars and conflicts.

From the website The Road to Emmaus:

"The Bible states that the person who says he loves God, but hates his brother, is a liar. There are many people through history that have done horrible things in the name of Christianity, but Jesus' words, "you will know them by their fruit" tell the real story regarding their love for God and whether they follow the commands of Jesus Christ.

The second point to make is that, yes, people who claim to love God do kill, but nowhere near to the extent that the lack of religion does. According to University of Hawaii political scientist Rudolph J. Rummel, the total number killed in all of human history is estimated to be about 284,638,000. Of that number, 151,491,000 were killed during the past 100 years. The single largest killer in all of human history is, by far, atheistic Communism with a total of 110,000,000 … over 1/3 of all people ever killed! If we add to that number just two other regimes where religion of any sort was strongly discouraged, Nazi Germany and Nationalist China, the number rises to 141,160,000. Almost 50% of all the killings in human history were committed in the past 100 years by regimes that either actively promoted atheism or strongly discouraged religion. We have not considered the over one billion abortions, where Christianity seems to be particularly unwelcome. When the murders of history are tallied up, it is very clear that atheism is the most dangerous philosophy ever embraced by humanity. The most effective restraint on mankind's inherently evil tendencies is faith in God through Jesus Christ, a faith that actually follows the teachings and commands of Jesus Christ as a daily way of life.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM (all stats have come from this site)"