Which one is responsible for more atrocities vs. mankind? This may be a pointless question since you could say something like "everyone dies and God lets them therefore Religion is worse because God kills everyone." There are also many instances that could be blamed or either/both sides... i.e., religious extremists nuke a city, are science responsible for the nuke capability or religion for the fanatic’s views and perspectives?
Neither...stupidity has caused the most atrocities in History. Religion and science have only been the scapegoats for the acts of stupid people.
two wings of the same bird. as for history's tragidies, i would say willfull ignorance of the connection between priorities and probabilities. religeon to motivate us to want to avoid causing suffering and science to discouver how to avoid doing so two wings of the same bird of the two, i'd say it's more religeon that's been falling down on the job. the claims of science being used as an excuse for attrocities invariably turns out to be pseudo-science. i'd say "stupidity" is an oversimplification, but i'll aggree neither religion nor science. not real religeon nor real science anyway. people deceive themselves about the connection between priorities, probabilities, and the kind of world we all have to live in, on the expectation of getting something out of doing so. it is perfectly possible that cercumstances may arrise that will wake people up to the reality that all they are getting is shafting themselves and each other by doing so. (i mean a signifigant and overwhelming majority of people and not just a few of us here and there) =^^= .../\...
I also applaud the insightful point, and find I differ only slightly from that view. I would substitute hate, or more accurately, fear, for stupidity. Many so called stupid people have been great humanitarians, while some intellectual heavyweights, like Hitler, have been rotters. Religion can be a means of spreading love, while science can be a method to express the wonder of this universe. Or, alternatively, either one can be used as a deadly tool to harm or kill others.
While many religions promote bigotism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism and violence, science only opens doors to question what is around us, science is very much a peaceful concept, it is when idiots take advantage of science to cause suffering that it can become a negative thing - take the development of atomic science, it has allowed us to understand what is around us and makes us question what we are and advance our society and welfare, but when it was used to develop bombs it became a negative and harmful thing.