McCulloch wrote:
Overcomer wrote:
Danmark wrote:
Christianity had 2000 years and failed.
I see no evidence that the world is a less violent place. In fact, the 20th-century was the bloodiest one on record. And that's because of atheistic regimes -- Soviet Union, China, Nazi Germany, etc.
Steven Pinker wrote:Wasn’t the 20th century the most violent in history?
Probably not; see chapter 5, especially pp. 189–200. Historical data from past centuries are far less complete, but the existing estimates of death tolls, when calculated as a proportion of the world’s population at the time, show at least nine atrocities before the 20th century (that we know of) which may have been worse than World War II. They arose from collapsing empires, horse tribe invasions, the slave trade, and the annihilation of native peoples, with wars of religion close behind. World War I doesn’t even make the top ten.
Also, a century comprises a hundred years, not just fifty, and the second half of the 20th century was host to a Long Peace (chapter 5) and a New Peace (chapter 6) with unusually low rates of death in warfare.
Atheist regimes in the 20th century killed tens of millions of people. Doesn’t this show that we were better off in the past, when our political and moral systems were guided by a belief in God?
This is a popular argument among theoconservatives and critics of the new atheism, but for many reasons it is historically inaccurate.
First, the premise that Nazism and Communism were “atheist� ideologies makes sense only within a religiocentric worldview that divides political systems into those that are based on Judaeo-Christian ideology and those that are not. In fact, 20th-century totalitarian movements were no more defined by a rejection of Judaeo-Christianity than they were defined by a rejection of astrology, alchemy, Confucianism, Scientology, or any of hundreds of other belief systems. They were based on the ideas of Hitler and Marx, not David Hume and Bertrand Russell, and the horrors they inflicted are no more a vindication of Judeao-Christianity than they are of astrology or alchemy or Scientology.
Second, Nazism and Fascism were not atheistic in the first place. Hitler thought he was carrying out a divine plan. Nazism received extensive support from many German churches, and no opposition from the Vatican. Fascism happily coexisted with Catholicism in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Croatia. See p. 677 for discussion and references.
Third, according to the most recent compendium of history’s worst atrocities, Matthew White's Great Big Book of Horrible Things (Norton, 2011), religions have been responsible for 13 of the 100 worst mass killings in history, resulting in 47 million deaths. Communism has been responsible for 6 mass killings and 67 million deaths. If defenders of religion want to crow, “We were only responsible for 47 million murders—Communism was worse!�, they are welcome to do so, but it is not an impressive argument.
Fourth, many religious massacres took place in centuries in which the world’s population was far smaller. Crusaders, for example, killed 1 million people in world of 400 million, for a genocide rate that exceeds that of the Nazi Holocaust. The death toll from the Thirty Years War was proportionally double that of World War I and in the range of World War II in Europe (p. 142).
When it comes to the history of violence, the significant distinction is not one between thesistic and atheistic regimes. It’s the one between regimes that were based on demonizing, utopian ideologies (including Marxism, Nazism, and militant religions) and secular liberal democracies that are based on the ideal of human rights. On pp. 337–338 I present data from Rummel showing that democracies are vastly less murderous than alternatives forms of government.
As soon as I read Overcomer's post I thought "Oh, no you didn't!"
I was waiting for this response.
I also find it rather diingenuous for Christians to say "Atheism is worse than Theism" - then take credit for all the versions of Theism. For example, there was never and can never been a massacre done on the behalf of Jainism.
This religion, or the Quakers, or other fringe groups are wonderfully peaceful - just like many Humanist groups.
Clearly, we have to look at what reasons people connected killing with their ideology.
Stalin, Mao, etc; didn't say "Because there is no God, we must Kill! I don't like it, but that's the way it is..,. darn it! If only there was a God! Oh, woe is me!"
However, the Theists who killed have ALWAYS said "For everything there is a season.. God would have us kill the infidel, the witches and that gays! God wants us to do this, as much as we don't want to - but we can find no other way...."
Even as recently as the Gulf War II, Bush invoked God to support his actions (he claimed to have prayed and got the go-ahead from God). The military regularly uses God to support what they do (and it's not ballet - it's killing).
Thinking about God's opinions and thinking about your own opinions uses an identical thought process. - Tomas Rees