Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. "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."
In his bestseller The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts — in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Northern Ireland, in Kashmir, and in Sri Lanka — show the vitality of religion's murderous impulse.
The problem with this critique is that it exaggerates the crimes attributed to religion, while ignoring the greater crimes of secular fanaticism. The best example of religious persecution in America is the Salem witch trials. How many people were killed in those trials?
Thousands? Hundreds? Actually, fewer than 25. Yet the event still haunts the liberal imagination.
It is strange to witness the passion with which some secular figures rail against the misdeeds of the Crusaders and Inquisitors more than 500 years ago. The number of people sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition — which was active over a period of 350 years — is estimated at 5,000.
This figure is tragic, and of course population levels were much lower at the time. But even so, it is minuscule compared with the death tolls produced by the atheist despotisms of the 20th century. In the name of creating their version of a religion-free utopia, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong produced the kind of mass slaughter that no Inquisitor could possibly match. Collectively these atheist tyrants murdered more than 100 million people.
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. Can the wars between England and France be called religious wars because the English were Protestants and the French were Catholics? Hardly.
The same is true today. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not, at its core, a religious one. It arises out of a dispute over self-determination and land. Hamas and the extreme orthodox parties in Israel may advance theological claims — "God gave us this land" and so forth — but the conflict would remain essentially the same even without these religious motives. Ethnic rivalry, not religion, is the source of the tension in Northern Ireland and the Balkans.
Blindly blaming religion for conflict
Yet today's atheists insist on making religion the culprit. Consider Mr. Harris's analysis of the conflict in Sri Lanka. "While the motivations of the Tamil Tigers are not explicitly religious," he informs us, "they are Hindus who undoubtedly believe many improbable things about the nature of life and death." In other words, while the Tigers see themselves as combatants in a secular political struggle, Harris detects a religious motive because these people happen to be Hindu and surely there must be some underlying religious craziness that explains their fanaticism.
Harris can go on forever in this vein. Seeking to exonerate secularism and atheism from the horrors perpetrated in their name, he argues that Stalinism and Maoism were in reality "little more than a political religion." As for Nazism, "while the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, it was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity." Indeed, "The holocaust marked the culmination of ... two thousand years of Christian fulminating against the Jews."
One finds the same inanities in Mr. Dawkins's work. Don't be fooled by this rhetorical legerdemain. 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.
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.
Atheist hubris
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."
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.
Re: Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history D'Souza has some good points there Portia.
We tend to be criticized for things that our faith was not responsible for.
The one area I think D'souza overstates is in regards to the Nazi's. Certianly the Nazi's were't motivated by Christian faith or theology in any way. But, their evil goals gained support among the German people because of anti-semitism fostered by Christianity. So, I think we bear more responsibility than D'Souza thinks.
That's a good article to use when talking to extreme anti-Christians. Thanks for posting.
Also, you have posted a bunch of good articles here Portia, don't know how I missed them earlier
Re: Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history Hi Onslow,
quote:
The one area I think D'souza overstates is in regards to the Nazi's. Certianly the Nazi's were't motivated by Christian faith or theology in any way. But, their evil goals gained support among the German people because of anti-semitism fostered by Christianity. So, I think we bear more responsibility than D'Souza thinks.
But not all the German people supported murder. And certainly most of Christianity did not, though it seems that many churches and leaders remained silent for the most part. [I'm not implying that you were suggesting otherwise, just making statements here]
Here's an article from Christianity Today that makes some good points, imv, especially this one:
quote:
For all the horrible history of Christian European anti-Judaism, it was almost always a cultural and theological prejudice, not a racial one, and therefore it was at least possible for Jews to escape the pressures through assimilation and conversion. Sadly, when they refused conversion, they faced even further straitening of their circumstances, as when Martin Luther, deeply disappointed by Jewish lack of interest in his Reformation, called them "this damned, rejected race," and advised the German princes to raze their synagogues and houses and forbid their rabbis to teach.
Nazi anti-Semitism was different. It targeted Jews as a race. Even those who had been baptized and assimilated were sought and rooted out, even from monasteries and convents. It was their fantasized racial characteristics that threatened the mythology of Aryan blood purity.
In March, John Paul II emphasized that same distinction between historic Christian anti-Judaism and various secular, racialist anti-Semitisms in his cautiously worded apology for the role some "sons and daughters of the Church" played in the Holocaust. Nazi acts and ideology, he claimed, had their "roots outside of Christianity."
Re: Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history If you truly are a non-believer, the idea of 'sin' wouldn't, or I'd assume shouldn't, mean anything. Sin is a Christian concept, it's going against the commandments. If we don't believe in God, then commandments are just fallacies themselves.
Many in Germany had no clue what Hitler was doing, much wasn't found out until after the war and the way many records were destroyed, a lot may never be known.
Without creation, the only other possibility is the theory of evolution which seems even more extraordinary than belief in God. We'd see proof of evolution somewhere, like an animal beginning to grow wings etc.
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
OK , maybe it's better to say , like:
I've done things I regretted !!
I'm not proud of some of the things I've done !!
But:
It's a sin , people are spilling ,
wasting time for nothing !!
It's a sin , some people really don't regret
what they have done wrong !!
So , as I see it , the word sin has not
always really a religious related / specified meaning !!
Salute & Cheers from a NON BELIEVER:
Laurent LUG (.@...), november 23 2007.
Re: Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history Conscience for me, mine can be brutal but that's probably a blessing in disguise. Kept me seeking.
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
Re: Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history
quote:
AndyS333 wrote:
LUG:
Quick Question: Anything common about those things you regret and aren't proud of? (if you don't mind me asking)
For me, it usually involves someone being hurt or not doing what's best for someone I love.
Of course , everyone has things done
he/she regrets\regretted and/or he/she's\was not proud of !!
Things I regret & I'm not proud of:
Like , last week I forgot to buy a lottery ticket
Now serious:
Someone owns me money (+/- 160$) ,
and after 4 years , this person just ignores me !!
This person visits my town on a regular base ,
sitting in some bars , drinking a lot !!
Every starting month he has money to buy booze & drugs !!
I will never get my money back ,
but NO MATTER WHAT ,
I will never help this person ever again !!!!!!!!
This person WAS a friend ,
I regret I didn't dumped the friendship sooner !!!!!!!!
Even we do need money to live ,
money also can be / is also a filthy thing !!
1,5 Month ago , I saw this person again ,
suddenly asking me if I could borrow
20 bucks & my guitar ?? Take a wild shot for the answer I gave ??
---- ---- ---- ----
People who misused my trust ,
which I have ever helped in trust ,
in suche cases I always say:
What's done is done !!
No matter matter what , it's over & out ,
even with an everlasting no turning back !!
Suppose I would help them again ,
that would make me a stupid moron !!
I would not be proud to be one !!
Re: Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history I can imagine your response. I bet it contained a hint of sarcasm.
I can certainly understand that kind of regret. Placing my trust in someone, or something that I shouldn't have always hurts when I finally realize my mistake.
Looking back on those times, I usually either had a reason to trust them (someone I considered a friend), or at least didn't have a reason not to trust them at the time. Still, it hurts all the same.
