How Many People Has Christianity Caused To Suffer Horribly And/Or Die? How many Lives Ruined?

 

In reply to this:

Someone replied with:

"there’s been crusades and witch hunts and inquisitions, which might have killed a few million people total, but I just don’t see how you could possibly approach even 1 billion"
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My reply:

That's a reasonable challenge.
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For thousands of years, they pushed the narrative that most physical diseases, and all mental illnesses
were caused by the invisible war between the spirit-forces of good and evil.

 That did significantly delay the scientific revolution, 
and all medical progress. 

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But for now,
let's just focus on the mental health sciences.
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If anyone had signficant suffering from mental illness,
Christians typically blamed the victim.

They didn't blame themselves or their religion,
for fostering toxic dysfunctional social environments which create un-wellness.
No.
Because they were relating as spouses, parents, and pastors/elders/priests "should" (according to their book and their culture).

As Dr Robert Sapolsky puts is:
“the same exact traits which in a secular context are life-destroying” and “separate you from the community” are, “at the core of what is protected, what is sanctioned, what is rewarded, what is valued in religious settings.””

So then they'd withhold due compassion. 

They often wouldn't try to be understanding.

And even when they tried be, they'd fail to be. Because they were anti-educated on what's really happening.

They weren't really supportive of any rational inquiry into the real causes.

They "knew" what the real causes were.
 The suffering-person needed to be:
more religious.
[Although, they preferred the term "spiritual"]

"Draw closer to God".

Pray more.

Attend more meetings.

Freely "choose" to think less "sinful" thoughts.

 Freely "choose" to feel less "sinful urges".

Surrender to crippling SHAME, "in the name of the Lord", for having "unnatural" desires and "rebellious" thoughts.

So whenever THAT didn't help,
they'd double-down on moralizing and victim-blaming.

"You're doing this to yourself".

"Clearly, this is a spiritual sickness.
And if you don't wrestle and WIN with GOD on your side,
then we may have to remove you from our presence, so that the Devil can't use you to wear us down, and stumble the family, or stumble the church, or lead anyone else astray".

 Basically, the troubled person was seen as
a ~spiritual leper~;
disgusting, contagious and potentially deadly. 
 In fact, WORSE than deadly. Because it could stumble other souls into "Hell".

That reasoning was also applied to anyone "spiritually sick" enough to expression reasonable doubts or (worse yet) rational skepticism.

It caused entire societies to perpetuate STIGMAS against reason, against free inquiry, against free expression, and stigmas against mental illness.
 
 It caused them to wage a holy war against the people who struggled with the mental illnesses;
 the very same illnesses that culture was often causing and pretty-much-always worsening. 

That caused a lot of people who needed legit help ... to rely (instead) on the Abrahamic equivalent of voodoo; but with abusive preachments added in.

 It would be like seeking help with the effects of domestic abuse ... by seeking "punch me in the face" as a form of domestic therapy.

  "Maybe if you hit me HARDER, that might help correct all this attitude I have about being hit in the first place".

It also diverted funding away from the needed sciences, and into the pockets of the churches; which they then used
(a lot of) to help them leverage for more social and political power; which they used to further increase the suffering in our world.

Meanwhile, ...
We would be *centuries* ahead by now, in the understanding, prevention, treatment, and cures
of most (if not all) forms of mental illness and personality disorders.

-A trend made even worse by:
 Christians churches functioning as
 Narcissism Recruitment And Emulation Training Centers.

Think of all the school-shootings, domestic abuse, workplace abuse, etc. that could have been avoided, in a far healthier society.

We would also be living in societies which more commonly practiced mature, logical reasoning
(and ACTUAL ethics),
 in all facets of life.

That too would have helped to prevent an immeasurable amount of suffering.

Meanwhile, Christianity kept spreading ideological "fleas";
killer fleas.
The kinds that
sabotage education,
sabotage wellness,
start wars,
make wars worse,
tear families apart,
and drive kids to suicide;

like:
"Might Makes Right",

"The hoped-for-ends justifies (unethical) means",

magical thinking,

paranoia as a virtue,

us-vs-them,

narcissistic entitlement,

authoritarianism/Totalitarianism,

giving "special" men moral authority over non-consenting others,

the drive to establish an ideologically themed "Kingdom" which requires the death of everyone who thinks and lives differently,

"gays are bad",

emotional violence as a "teaching tool", 

"sexuality is something we should feel crippling shame about",
etc..

This is already TL;DR.
So I'll stop here.
I understand why it's not obvious on the surface.
But yea.
Billions.