Reddit Reddit reviews Encyclopedia of Wars - 3 Volume Set (Facts on File Library of World History)

We found 18 Reddit comments about Encyclopedia of Wars - 3 Volume Set (Facts on File Library of World History). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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18 Reddit comments about Encyclopedia of Wars - 3 Volume Set (Facts on File Library of World History):

u/TooManyInLitter · 17 pointsr/DebateAnAtheist

> What are some examples of actual wars where deaths occurred, actually involve religious motivation?

I am going to take "wars" to mean 'group/organization pre-mediated violent action' - cause I have a recent post I can use! heh.

I'll use Christianity as an example because I recently made a comment submission concerning events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity - and were based, in large part or totality, upon Christian moral dogma/tenets/beliefs.

Warning, this is a long list: VICTIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH by Kelsos

Now, to advance the idea/claim that most wars and death was caused by atheism and not by religion, there is an apologetic argument that states (roughly):

>>> In the Encyclopedia of Wars, Phillips and Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 121/123 (7%) (and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare) have been classified to involve a religious cause, ....

And on the face of this argument, it is a good one. However......

From the introduction to Encyclopedia of Wars:

Wars have always arisen, and arise today, from territorial disputes, military rivalries, conflicts of ethnicity, and strivings for commercial and economic advantage, and they have always depended on, and depend on today, pride, prejudice, coercion, envy, cupidity, competitiveness, and a sense of injustice. But for much of the world before the 17th century, these “reasons” for war were explained and justified, at least for the participants, by religion. Then, around the middle of the 17th century, Europeans began to conceive of war as a legitimate means of furthering the interests of individual sovereigns. (Emphasis mine).

For the people who started war, many/most wars post 17th century, mostly were not started as a overt (more of this below) consequence of Theistic Religion. However, for the people fighting them, they, arguably, mostly have been based, at least in part, on Religion and Religious beliefs.

In the case of the oft used The Encyclopedia of Wars argument, the summary of the wars listed follows the format in this IMAGE (a screen shot of from my copy of The Encyclopedia of Wars). In the case of the specific war I presented to show the entry format, I picked one where a Theistic Religious cause was blatantly identified. While I personally did not go through the three volume set, I will not contest that only '123, or 7%, of the 1763 wars documented show a direct and blatantly obvious Theistic Religious "MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES" cause or involvement.

However, what the entries of each war do not address is that the morality upon a great many of these wars is based is Theistic Religions in nature - from the Theism informed morality of the various governments and participants to justify the wars/military conflict - to - the anti-Religious Theism inherent in the advancement of many non-Theistic ideologies resulting in wars/military-type actions.

So while not an overt/obvious cause of most wars since the 17th century, an implicit contributing cause is Theistic Religion and the morality expressed therein - with emphasis upon the initiators of the war.

u/bubby963 · 11 pointsr/The_Donald

>the source of most trouble in the world

Only 7% of all wars and 2% of all war casualties are from religious wars. Politics is far more of a source of trouble. So are desires for wealth, land and power. I thought you atheists liked facts and reasoning? Shame that some of you let it down for the sensible atheists we tend to get on this sub.

Btw, source is Encyclopaedia of Wars in case some of you are doubting this statistic.

u/srm038 · 9 pointsr/worldbuilding

someone did an analysis of every recorded war, Encyclopedia of War. hint: religion isn't as big a factor as you might believe.

u/Wyboth · 9 pointsr/circlebroke

Plus, most wars throughout history weren't religious. The Encyclopedia of Wars lists only 123 of the cataloged 1,763 wars as being religious in nature.

u/aussiekinga · 7 pointsr/Christianity

>but religions caused most every war

Actually this is very far from true.

In Encyclopedia of Wars by Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod there is a very comprehensive listing of wars in history. They document 1763 wars overall, of which only 123 (7%) have been classified to involve a religious conflict.

u/Templaris · 6 pointsr/DebateReligion

Religions definitely do account for wars, but recorded history shows less than 10% of wars have been religious motivated.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Wars-Facts-Library-History/dp/0816028516

Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/4ec4jy/religion_is_the_main_cause_of_war_and_the_root_of/

u/Jeraltofrivias · 6 pointsr/worldnews

Source?

https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Wars-Library-World-History/dp/0816028516

If I am not mistaken that is exactly one of the subjects covered by Alan Axelrod and Charles Philips.

I think they end up stating that out of the 1763 wars they studied; only 7% had religious undertones or connotations.

u/ses1 · 3 pointsr/DebateAChristian

According to the Encyclopedia of Wars (Phillips and Axelrod, Facts on File, December 2004) of the 1,763 major conflicts in recorded history, only 123 of them were classified as having been fought over religious differences. That’s just under 7 percent. The encyclopedia also explains that the number of people killed in these conflicts amounts to only 2 percent.

The truth seems to be that non-religious motivations and secular philosophies bear the blame for nearly all of humankind’s wars [93%] and war deaths [98%].

So does that mean that those who said that they hate God and religion because of war will now say that they hate the non-religious and secular?

u/wolfsktaag · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

according to this, only about 7% of all documented wars were religious, so its not all that common of an occurrence

u/AFineWayToDie · 1 pointr/atheism

Interesting how he links to his source, which has a review stating that it is "un-Christian" because it uses the BCE/CE dating method, rather than BC/AD.

Also, what's this guy's definition of an "atheist war"? Did Stalin one day decide to wake up and kill millions of people, specifically because the Bible told him not to? And that's assuming that what Stalin did was counted as a "war."

"Fortunately, there are only five nations governed by atheist worldviews remaining in the world today, of which three are presently occupied with murdering a portion of their citizenry with the explicit goal of exterminating religion, North Korea, China and Laos."

Yeah. That's their one, sole motivation. Not political or military power or any silly things like that. Mao just woke up one morning and decided to destroy religion.

u/xTkAx · 1 pointr/Documentaries

> Thank god wars have never been fought in the name of religion!

According to the encyclopedia of wars, by Phillips & Axelrod ( https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Wars-Facts-Library-History/dp/0816028516 ) 93% of wars have been secular in nature.

u/Cerebro33 · 1 pointr/WTF

Stalin, Pot, Lenin and Mao would like to have a word with you. Tell me more about how horrible religion is.

Religion was/is used as a device -an excuse, if you will - to reach their goals. If it didn't exist, they'd simply find another tool.

Also, I like how you bundled all religions together.

>An interesting source of truth on the matter is Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature,2 which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars. However, when one subtracts out those waged in the name of Islam (66), the percentage is cut by more than half to 3.23%.

Source citing this book called: Encyclopaedia of Wars

u/denverfan79 · 1 pointr/TrueAtheism

> Yes, I did. By a rabi. Surely non-biased sourcing my friend

I'm trying to be polite, but you're making it hard. I specifically said it's the sources referred to in the article, not the article itself.

If you prefer, here is the book itself:

https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Wars-Library-World-History/dp/0816028516

Oh and you want to trade Wikipedia articles? Try this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war#Criteria_for_classification

Para 2 talks about the same book, which is about ALL wars, not just your cherry-picked few, and says this:

"In their Encyclopedia of Wars, authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod attempt a comprehensive listing of wars in history. They document 1763 wars overall,[3] of which 123 (7%) have been identified and listed as primarily religiously motivated.[4][5][6] Of these, religious wars account for less than 2% of all people killed in warfare. This includes 3 million during the Crusades and 3,000 during the Inquisition."

Any thoughts on that? How does 2% = "most"?

u/NukeThePope · 1 pointr/atheism

Yes: Encyclopedia of Wars is quoted as having tallied up all historical wars and rated about 7% as "classified to involve a religious conflict." That, in turn, is quoted in Wikipedia's article on religious war. I'm not about to shell out $300 to find out for myself, I choose to trust the people who did the quotation. I consider the number plausible.

EDIT: a number of details fleshed out as I backtracked my sources.

u/dillydadally · 0 pointsr/worldnews

> More wars have been fought and more people have died over the Bible than any other piece of written scripture in history. Yeah religion had a big role in the US. It started as missionaries from England coming over and starting "churches" that taxed the hell out of the locals.

You have a very cynical and twisted view of religion. What's more, it's completely factually untrue. In the history of the world, only 3.23% of wars were motivated by a religion other the Islam, and only 6.98% of wars were motivated by religion including Islam. Religious-based wars account for less than 2% of people killed in warfare. The idea that religion is a major cause of wars is a serious myth. Here's a little graph to put that in perspective: https://carm.org/images/religious-wars-bar-chart.jpg. My source by the way for this is Encylopedia of Wars: https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Wars-Library-World-History/dp/0816028516.

I'm not even sure what you're referring to when you talk about missionaries coming over and taxing people. How would missionaries tax people? I'd like a source on that. Even the government didn't have the right to tax people as it needed to in the original U.S. government, which is partially what led to the constitution. I was referring to the many people who came to America seeking religious freedom and the heavy influence religion had on some of the founding fathers and their ideas.

> Organized religion has no purpose

It's like you're telling Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin no one has ever gone to the moon. Organized religion has done so much good for so many people I personally know throughout my life it's amazing. It brings people together in communities that help each other, teach each other, encourage each other, give support to each other, and improve society. Without organized religion, you have none of that. You have no charitable donations. You have no service projects. You have no one looking after you, encouraging you, supporting you, lifting you up. Do you really think you can make it in this life alone? That's the purpose of organized religion.

u/GenJohn1-1_3 · 0 pointsr/conspiracy

Again, please stop trying to compare me to you. Nothing is going to get me to support pedophilia like you, my friend. It's gross.

I like how you said there are plenty of sources other than Zeitgeist, which you haven't provided. Just give me a respected New Testament scholar who believes Jesus didn't exist. It's not a hard concept.

Ahhh the old "most suffering ever" line. Have you ever read The Encyclopedia of Wars? It's a study of all wars fought throughout history, which demonstrates that religion is the cause of about 7% of all of histories wars, and Islam brings up about half of those.

Way to ignore the violent atheist regimes of the 20th century, btw. Atheism is violent and holding us back.

See? 2 can play at that game, but only one of us is right (HINT: It's the guy who sources his info and doesn't link to long debunked bullshit lmao, quit while you're this far behind, kid.)

u/aikonriche · -1 pointsr/DebateReligion

Without religion, you wouldn't have [all of these things] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_the_Christian_Church_in_civilization) which exactly what make up what you call a "civilization" in the first place, and it is just the contributions of one religion. Religious institutions have been running schools and hospitals long before governments did. In fact, the origins of the education, hospital and legal systems, science, arts, charity, nearly all aspects of a civilization can all be traced back on religion. It was only rather recently that secular institutions emerged to fulfill the roles that religions have been doing for thousands of years. Religion is literally civilization itself.

It is only but a tiny minority of religious people who perpetrate evils in the name of their religion. The atrocities committed by non-religious people, for reasons that have nothing to do with religion, far, far outnumber those few people who claim religion as their motivation. Religion has been responsible for only the tiniest miniscule fraction of atrocities in history and this is supported by evidence. According to the [Encyclopedia of Wars] (http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Wars-Volume-Library-History/dp/0816028516) only less than 7% of wars in history have been religious in nature and only less than 2% of people was killed in these wars.

Without religion, there would have been more wars and atrocities in history because religion is actually the tool societies use to suppress the animalistic nature of man. The foundational teachings of all major religions are suppression of selfish desire and control of human behaviour, and high esteem for the value of the life of man. Without religion, Islamic terrorism would not cease to exist but rather the entire Middle East would be in chaos as religion has been the main source of morality for most people and for most of history. Without religion, there would be no civilization for all wars and atrocities to occur in the first place as it is religion that is the [foundation of civilization] (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/06/gobekli-tepe/mann-text/2
]earliest archaeological evidence).