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The worst schism
- Thread starter Anthem
- Start date
Regiomontanus
Ματαιοδοξία ματαιοδοξιών! Όλα είναι ματαιοδοξία.
Hello. As Augustus points out, 'worst' is hard to define. The consequences of the Reformation were mostly postive, IMHO, but the Vatican would surely disagree
The Great Schism is interesting I think in that the consequences of it not happening could have been profound. By that I mean how the course of history could have been radically different. Could the Reformation have even happened then? No way of saying though, just another one of those 'what if' historical games.
East–West Schism - Wikipedia
In regards to people killed due to a religious schism, it’s hard to imagine a death toll greater than in Europe in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation.
The European wars of religion were a series of religious wars waged in 16th and 17th century Europe,devastating the continent and killing over 10 million people. The wars were fought in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation (1517), which disrupted the religious order in the Catholic countries of Europe. However, religion was not the only cause of the wars, which also included revolts, territorial ambitions, and Great Power conflicts.
European wars of religion - Wikipedia
The schism in Islam between Sunni and Shi’a developed not long after Muhammad’s death during the 7th century.
The European wars of religion were a series of religious wars waged in 16th and 17th century Europe,devastating the continent and killing over 10 million people. The wars were fought in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation (1517), which disrupted the religious order in the Catholic countries of Europe. However, religion was not the only cause of the wars, which also included revolts, territorial ambitions, and Great Power conflicts.
European wars of religion - Wikipedia
The schism in Islam between Sunni and Shi’a developed not long after Muhammad’s death during the 7th century.
Anthem
Active Member
Then I cannot accept this answer.
Augustus
…
Historical death tolls tend to be vastly overinflated.
Not that it changes your overall point as religion obviously was one of the major causes behind the 30 years war (although, as noted, far from the only one), and the death toll certainly ran into millions if we include disease, famine, etc.
Although, by this metric, WW1 killed 120 million people as we should include the Spanish Flu epidemic in the death toll which we never seem to do.
Sorry just one of my pet peeves
Native
Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
I agree! And here I specifically also includes the many Native Tribes all over the world which has suffered from the stupid and non-mythical insights of Biblical/Christian missionaries, who have caused native cultures to go under all over the world.
Historical death tolls tend to be vastly overinflated.
Not that it changes your overall point as religion obviously was one of the major causes behind the 30 years war (although, as noted, far from the only one), and the death toll certainly ran into millions if we include disease, famine, etc.
Although, by this metric, WW1 killed 120 million people as we should include the Spanish Flu epidemic in the death toll which we never seem to do.
Sorry just one of my pet peeves
We’re all allowed pet peeves. With my science background I have a tendency to want to quantify everything. I suppose there would be a wealth of historic documents to draw on and I’m sure it’s been thoroughly researched.
I was careful to include other causes of the casualties in my post. These turning points in history are never unidimensional.
It’s worth considering for this thread that much of the conflict during this century as been Sunni/Shi’a so religious schism remains a major destabilising factor.
That’s not a religious schism though, is it?
Edit: I do agree with you in regards Christian missionaries damage to native culture. Sorry if I came across a little short.
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Wasn’t Martin Luther anti-semitic?
Martin Luther and antisemitism - Wikipedia
He wasn’t too fond of Islam either.
Martin Luther viewed Muhammad as "a devil and first-born child of Satan."
Criticism of Muhammad - Wikipedia
But what do I know? I’m just a lazy Baha’i!
Baha'i - a lazy man's religion?
Augustus
…
The problem is that the historic documents are not accurate as the people writing them often had no way of actually knowing. Then casualty figures just become citation chains after that, with very few having been subject to rigorous scientific analysis incorporating modern archaeological and other techniques.
Number inflation results from guesswork, the numbers involved really just mean 'a very large number' rather than an evidence based figure. Alternatively, numbers are inflated for propaganda purposes by either side.
Even where limited census data exists, this can't tell between deaths and migrations, and also the deterioration of the census gathering processes which is why you often get ludicrous figures like 36 million for the An Lushan rebellion. Also, when you have a high death rate among both military and civilian populations, you are likely to see many remarriages which turn 2 households into 1 on the census data. This can make 2 deaths look like 9-10 if the average household was 4-5 people.
And, of course, mixing in depth to things such as plague and famine, assumes that these wouldn't have happened had there been no war, which is obviously unknowable.
As a heuristic, absent further evidence, I tend to assume that death tolls are far more likely to reflect the lower end of the scale than the upper, and, in some cases, might even be below this.
Worth noting that religious divides, commonly also reflect ethnolinguistic divides (Middle East, N. Ireland, Balkans, etc.).
It is often assumed that the religious divide is the thing which separates people rather than existing identity based conflict manifested themselves in the adoption or reification of differing religious identities.
What is put down to age old Sunni-shia sectarianism is multiple issues:
Actual religious issues (ISIS, some Shia Militias etc)
Sub-national identity/politics (Iraq)
National identity/politics (Iran)
Transnational (Broader Middle East, Saudi v Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, etc)
Another one of my pet peeves, is that people tend to work off a baseline of zero conflict and a default of 'unity'. In the real world though, there is always conflict over time, and the default is division via one marker or another in a large enough population.
In relation to this thread, sectarian conflict post-schism may simply 'replace' what would have been an intra-religious conflict as different cultural groups would still exist along with resulting tensions.
Anthem
Active Member
Your "references" have little to do with the topic and your last comment, again - I did already mention that, Didn't I? - has nothing to do with what I have said. I won't repeat what I said, instead if you want to go on arguing about things that never happened, do it quietly in your mind or make your own thread.Wasn’t Martin Luther anti-semitic?
Martin Luther and antisemitism - Wikipedia
He wasn’t too fond of Islam either.
Martin Luther viewed Muhammad as "a devil and first-born child of Satan."
Criticism of Muhammad - Wikipedia
But what do I know? I’m just a lazy Baha’i!
Baha'i - a lazy man's religion?
Augustus
…
It was often the accompanying colonial armies that contributed to this far more than missionaries.
syo
Well-Known Member
I think whenever religious wars with deaths that happen are the worst schisms. So my answer is all religious wars.
syo
Well-Known Member
True. Well, the worst schism is catholics and orthodox. Why? It divided christians, and christians are supposed to be one family.
Concepts like Manifest Destiny muddy the waters all round though.
If we consider the events that led to a widespread cultural purge of Paganisms from the West, I'd rank that above the Reformation in terms of significance and impact (not a fan of framing in in terms of "worst" as that's extremely subjective).