Religion vs. Disease - A Comparison

Due to space limitations, the my Letter to the Editor "Many levels can define morality" appeared in the August 26, 2014 Columbian newspaper without citations.  Below is the letter along with the citations.  For the full analysis with citations, see the unabridged version.


Larry Little asserts, “Religion has caused more suffering and harm than all the world's diseases combined” (July 25, “Religion has caused suffering, harm” [1]). He provides four examples of purported religious-instituted harm but no diseases for comparison.

Historian Harold Lamb, author of “The Crusades: The Flame of Islam”, estimates “in the Crusades a waste of hundreds of thousands of lives”. [2] Fox’s Book of Martyrs estimates the Inquisition cost around 32,000 lives. [3] [4]

Little sets the “deaths in the thousands” in an Iraq conflict that NBC News reported originated with the battle for Mohammed’s rightful successor: “the fighting now boils down to a struggle for power, not theological doctrines”. [5]

Opposition to Israel isn’t strictly theological but is rooted in anti-Semitic calls for its annihilation, causing 65,000 deaths since 1948. [6] [7]

In contrast, PBS reports influenza (1918) killed 21 million.[8] BBC estimates the 14th century saw bubonic plague kill 200 million. [9] In fact, a Discovery Channel program states: “infectious diseases have … claimed higher casualties than wars”. [10]

And Little ignores whether those who committed evils in religion’s name were actually following that religion’s teaching.

Human beings define morality in Little’s worldview. Yet he hypocritically reaches across time and cultures imposing his man-made morality upon others, condemning the moral standard they had defined for themselves.


ENDNOTES:
[1] Little, Larry, “Religion has caused suffering, harm”, The Columbian, July 25, 2014, http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jul/25/letter-religion-has-caused-suffering-harm/. Last accessed 7/28/2014.
[2] Lamb, Harold, “The Crusades: The Flame of Islam”, Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., Garden City, NY, 1931, p. 465.
[3] Foxe, John, “Fox’s Book of Martyrs, The Project Gutenberg EBook, 2007, p.88-109.
[4] Lemieux, Simon. “The Spanish Inquisition”. History Review [serial online] December 2002;(44):44. Available from: History Reference Center, Ipswich, MA. Last Accessed: 8/18/2014.
[5] Elizabeth Chuck, “Conflict in Iraq Follows Centuries of Shiite-Sunni Mistrust, NBC News, http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/conflict-iraq-follows-centuries-shiite-sunni-mistrust-n130461. Last accessed 7/28/2014.
[6] Mr. Little lists the opposition as: “Israel vs. Palestinian/Hamas/Iran/Syria/Boko Haram”.
Author’s Note: While these opponents of Israel all hold to various interpretations of Islam, Article 28 of the Hamas charter explicitly states: “Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims”. http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html?chocaid=397. Last accessed 8/17/2014.
[7] Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls." RCN D.C. Metro. December 2005. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat4.htm. Last accessed: 8/19/2014.
[8] “Worldwide flu pandemic strikes 1918 - 1919”. A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries. “The influenza commonly called ‘Spanish flu’ killed more people than the guns of World War I. Estimates put the worldwide death toll at 21,642,274. Some one billion people were affected by the disease -- half of the total human population. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dm18fl.html . Last accessed: 8/17/2018.
[9] “Decoding the Black Death”. BBC News. Oct 3, 2001. Reporting from research published in the journal Nature. “The plague, otherwise known as the Black Death, ravaged Europe and Asia between the 14th and 17th Centuries. In the 14th Century alone it is estimated to have killed 200 million people.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1576875.stm. Last Accessed: 8/17/2014.
[10] Lamb, Robert. “10 Worst Epidemics”. Discovery. Culture and History. “infectious diseases have inflicted a great deal of damage throughout the centuries. They've decimated whole populations, ended blood lines, claimed higher casualties than wars and played pivotal roles in charting the course of history.”
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/10-worst-epidemics.htm. Last accessed: 8/17/2014.