So true. One of the great lies of our time, engineered no doubt some by anonymous Gramscian martyr, is the notion that "religion has killed more people than any other cause." Our children barely make it through 2nd grade before they begin spouting this little meme, and even otherwise intelligent and educated adults cling to it.
Preposterous!
I'm actually in the middle of a little experiment. I'm adding up all of the deaths attributable to Secular Materialists (Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Napoleon, among many many others) in order to compare the death toll to that of all of the "religious wars" in world history.
It's early in the process, but the Secularists are already well over 200MM. I'd wager that the Religionists never get close to that mark.
So true. My guess? The bombing of Nagasaki killed more humans than all religious wars in history combined. I don't count the partition of India because that was religion entwined with other, more enlightened, obsessions.
(How will you deal with the calcultions of the medieval chroniclers? I notice scholars dismiss their numbers with contempt UNLESS they are describing the crusaders wading knee-deep in blood in the Holy Land.)