Summations Only

And what if this "follower of Jesus" genuinely believes, based on his interpretation of the bible/teachings of Jesus, that killing people is a requirement for "followers of Jesus" and that anyone who does not do it is not a "true follower"?

The problem with your list of "non-religious" deaths is that in most - if not all - cases, atheism was not the reason, or even the excuse, to kill these people. However, the people killed during the Crusades were killed because of their religion (or at least religion was used as the excuse to hide the underlying reason). So they are not the same thing and can therefore not be compared. For that, you need to find people who were killed in the name of atheism, and not just by atheists for some other reason.Edited by Dirk, : No reason given.Edited by Dirk, : No reason given.Edited by Dirk, : No reason given.Edited by Dirk, : No reason given.

We can also turn this around: The state isn't responsible for good deeds and neither is religion. It is people who commit them. That's the problem with religions: they deny responsibility for all the bad stuff yet insist that good things can only be the result of faith...Btw, the 'abuse' of religion to justify war would already be a good reason to get rid of it altogether; at least it would mean that people who want to commit atrocities would have one less reason to hide behind...