GIBBON的《罗马帝国衰亡史》令很多基督教徒不快。在这本历史巨著中,他论证到,基督教徒们自相残杀的数量远远大于被迫害致死的数量。GIBBON写道:
【Allotting the same proportion to the provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where, at the end of two or three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either suspended or abolished, the multitude of Christians in the Roman empire, on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicia, sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand persons. ... We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth... that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels... In the Netherlands alone, more than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand of the executioner... the number of Protestants, who were executed in a single province and a single reign, far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and of the Roman empire.】
简单的说,基督徒们在一个省屠杀的基督徒就超过了罗马帝国300年杀死的基督徒数量(后者总数约两千)。相比基督教的残酷,罗马皇帝们真是仁慈。
基督教徒们互相残杀的部分历史如下
1. 十字军东征 (1204)
十字军东征大家都知道是欧洲基督徒杀伊斯兰,其实基督徒互杀也是一条主线。东罗马也信基督教,但不信什么三位一体。结果十字军进入东罗马之后对其教友们大开杀戒,攻陷康士坦丁堡之后,进行了三天三夜的屠杀、强奸、抢掠,其野蛮程度大大超过野蛮民族,一座文明城市毁于一旦。这实际造成了东罗马的衰弱与后来的灭亡。For three days they murdered, raped, looted and destroyed on a scale which even the ancient Vandals and Goths would have found unbelievable. 直到2001年,罗马教廷才为此罪行道歉。
Huguenots (路德教一支)与天主教大战。死亡人数300万。
3. 三十年战争 (1618-1648)
路德教与天主教之间的血战,导致死亡人数1100万。有人可能会说,这个数字比二次世界大战欧洲死亡人数少。但是要知道,1618年欧洲人口少得多。很多欧洲国家(如德国)经过这场基督教大战之后,人口减少了40%以上。
如果考虑基督教对异教徒的屠杀,那就更难以计数了,光是基督教对印加帝国的屠杀就有上千万。在北美,神父们对印第安人进行细菌战造成一个个印第安人部落灭绝...