[James C. Bennett]

Around the same period, Europe was hardly any less barbaric, with the soon-to-come slaughters of the members of the new religion of Protestantism by the Catholic incumbents, reprisal killings in revenge going vice-versa, the witch hunts, the
Inquisition, all of which saw unparalleled bloodshed.

The Thirty Years War saw fighting between Catholics and Protestants resulting in close to 11 million deaths. And then you had the Second Thirty Years War (a.k.a WW-1 and WW-2). From hindsight, Christian Europe was a killing field for almost all of its entire history, with death tolls in the millions occurring frequently, if not often. The post-1945 situation there up to today is probably the most peaceful period Europe has ever known.

http://necrometrics.com/pre1700a.htm#30YrW

The Thirty Years War (1618-48) 

• Population Loss
  • R.J. Rummel: 11.5M total deaths in the war (half democides)
  • Norman Davies, Europe, p.568: 8 million
  • Richard Dunn, The Age of Religious Wars 1559-1715: After the war, the empire was 7-8 million fewer than before
  • C.V. Wedgwood, The Thirty Years War (1938): "The old legend that the population dropped from sixteen to four million people, rests on imagination: both figures are incorrect. The German Empire, including Alsace but excluding the Netherlands and Bohemia, probably numbered about twenty-one millions in 1618, and rather less than thirteen and a half millions in 1648. [A loss of 7½ million.] Certain authorities believe that the loss was less, but these are for the most part writers of a militaristic epoch, anxious to destroy the ugly scarecrow which throws so long a shadow over the glorious past."
  • Alan McFarlane, The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap (2003): Population of Germany went from 21M to13.5M. [a loss of 7.5M]
  • John Landers, The Field and the Forge, p.352: 5-6m
  • Geoffrey Parker, The Thirty Years War (New York: Routledge, 1984, 1997) p.188: “Earlier estimates that the war destroyed half or two-thirds of the German population are no longer accepted. More recent estimates are much more conservative, suggesting that the population of the Holy Roman Empire may have declined by about 15 to 20 per cent, from some 20 million before the war to about 16 or 17 million after it.” [a loss of 3 or 4 million]
  • Colin McEvedy, Atlas of World Population History (1978)
    • "Germany" [modern boundaries] p.68: 2M fewer.
    • "Czechoslovakia" [1978 boundaries] p.84-85: decline from 4.5m to 3.75m [.75m fewer]
  • MEDIAN: Of the six estimates of the overall loss of population, the median is 7½M.
• Military Deaths
  • Clodfelter: "one source" estimates 350,000 k. in battle
  • Fuller, A Military History of the Western World: 350,000 k.
  • Corvisier, Dictionary of Military History and the Art of War, p.469: 600,000 military deaths.
  • Urlanis
    • K. in Battle: 180,000
    • Military. Killed and died: 600,000
  • Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System: 2,071,000 battle d.

[rusty schucklefurd]

re: “Around the same period, Europe was hardly any less barbaric, with the soon-to-come slaughters of the members of the new religion of Protestantism by the Catholic incumbents, reprisal killings in revenge going vice-versa, the witch hunts, the Inquisition, all of which saw unparalleled bloodshed.”

I agree that barbarism exists everywhere. Barbarity is barbarity regardless of the place it occurs. We recognize that acts are barbaric based on our moral beliefs.

The brutal acts committed by so-called “Christian” Western European nations on each other are somewhat different from the Aztec culture in that every single act of violence was committed in violation of the very New Testament moral code they professed to believe in. While the barbaric acts of the Aztecs were not in violation of their religious beliefs at all - it was a part of their ritual.

Forcing conversion or torturing those who disagreed with one’s particular brand of Christianity is not taught EVER in the New Testament. The message of the Gospel was to be spread by going to all people and telling the story of Christ and His teachings, His death, burial, and resurrection - it was by speaking/preaching and living a moral Christian life before non-believers that was to hopefully bring them to conversion - not violence, torture, or other forms of intimidation.

The truth is, many of the so-called “religious” wars of Europe were clearly politically motivated. Religion was often used to motivate the common people, but the motives of the kings was usually merely ambition, pride, and greed.

The Inquisition is in direct opposition to Jesus’s and the Apostles teachings. It was pure evil used in Jesus’s name and I would hate to face God having committed such things using the Gospel as my “cover”. It won’t fly.

If we are going to judge western Christian nation’s culture’s barbarism, then the same should be done with ALL cultures. Wrong is wrong and right is right, but the moral relativist and the multiculturalist deny that (except, as I mentioned, when it comes to Christianity and western society).