Natural Science Forum / Biology / Paleontology / July 2007

Atheists and secularists love to trot out the canard that religion has
harmed more people than it has helped, and has been at the root of
many or most world concflicts.  However, in Atheism, not religion, is
the real force behind the mass murders of history, Dinesh D'Souza,
Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, argues that
actually, atheism is responsible for more murders in history.  His
points are summarized below.

The familiar accusation: "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the
name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of
millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with
other Christians for another three centuries."

Ignoring the crimes of atheism - "The problem with this critique is
that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion, while ignoring
the greater crimes of secular fanaticism."

How many killed?

Salem Witch Trials (25)

Crusades (10,000 to 100,000) - note that the Crusades were most likely
a justified defensive war after 400 years of Muslim aggression, and
were not used to spread Christianity or take revenge, but to free
captured lands from Muslim oppression.

Atheism (>100 MILLION) - at the hands of the militant anti-religious
atheists Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong.

Many wars attributed to religion are not religious in nature -
"Moreover, many of the conflicts that are counted as "religious wars"
were not fought over religion. They were mainly fought over rival
claims to territory and power.... Ethnic rivalry, not religion, is the
source of the tension in Northern Ireland and the Balkans [for
example]"

Nazism often mistakenly characterized as Christian - "Dawkins and
Harris cannot explain why, if Nazism was directly descended from
medieval Christianity, medieval Christianity did not produce a Hitler.
How can a self-proclaimed atheist ideology, advanced by Hitler as a
repudiation of Christianity, be a "culmination" of 2,000 years of
Christianity? Dawkins and Harris are employing a transparent sleight
of hand that holds Christianity responsible for the crimes committed
in its name, while exonerating secularism and atheism for the greater
crimes committed in their name."

NOTE:  Also, despite the cries of revisionism, I think the recent
books and TV specials linking social Darwinism, and by extension,
evolutionary thinking, as the scientific underpinnings of the eugenics
practiced by Hitler is worth investigating.  Rather than being
Christian in nature, Hitler's revolution is more probably linked with
the pseudo-science of Darwinism - but that's a separate discussion.

Religious fanatics commit evil in religion's name, but Jesus' teaching
stand as a rebuke to such, not a support - "Religious fanatics have
done things that are impossible to defend, and some of them, mostly in
the Muslim world, are still performing horrors in the name of their
creed. But if religion sometimes disposes people to self-righteousness
and absolutism, it also provides a moral code that condemns the
slaughter of innocents. In particular, the moral teachings of Jesus
provide no support for - indeed they stand as a stern rebuke to - the
historical injustices perpetrated in the name of Christianity."

If God is not, everything is permitted - The crimes of atheism have
generally been perpetrated through a hubristic ideology that sees man,
not God, as the creator of values. Using the latest techniques of
science and technology, man seeks to displace God and create a secular
utopia here on earth. Of course if some people - the Jews, the
landowners, the unfit, or the handicapped - have to be eliminated in
order to achieve this utopia, this is a price the atheist tyrants and
their apologists have shown themselves quite willing to pay. Thus they
confirm the truth of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dictum, "If God is not,
everything is permitted."

The long and short of it?  It is the fallenness and wickedness of man
that creates wars.  Abusing faith, or being rooted in false and evil
religions like (militant) Islam, people do evil in *spite* of God.
And those who reject God with the bathwater of man's religious evil
fall into their own trap - depending entirely on mankind for morality,
they fall prey to their own fallenness, fulfilling the dictum
"ultimate power corrupts ultimately."  Man needs God to keep from self-
deception and selfish or misguided justifications for doing evil.

"Whatever the motives for atheist bloodthirstiness, the indisputable
fact is that all the religions of the world put together have in 2,000
years not managed to kill as many people as have been killed in the
name of atheism in the past few decades.

It's time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious
belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence.
Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of
history."

The historical fact is that, whenever atheism has had it's day, it has
produced murder, despite what generous and kind atheists like to say.
This is not because atheists are any more sinful than anyone else, nor
do they usually set out to murder.  They set out to make the world
better.  But, their own hatred for God and sinful nature eventually
take over.   I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect that some of it
is because, without God, there is no real reason to sacrifice for
others or do good.  In fact, you more likely would end up with a
Randian [Ian Rand] utopia where the weak and helpless who can't do for
themselves are left to die so that the strong may carry on.

http://www.twoorthree.net/2006/11/atheist_atrocit.html