Analysis of an Opinion Concerning the Evils of Atheism

Here is the article: Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history (Yahoo! Opinion by Dinesh D'Souza)

A few critiques follow [1]. From the article:

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.

I wouldn't use the term haunt, but it is a reminder of how a superstitious cultural unit can turn to fanaticism under any form of counter-cultural stimulus. However, America isn't afflicted with religious persecution so much as oppressive prejudices based on religious ideals and formulation. Slavery is the optimum example in American history because defenders were very quick to cite their right to own slaves as Biblically sound. Modern versions of religious oppression or simply religious oriented prejudices include attitudes toward homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, and non-mainstream religious convictions such as Scientology and Wiccan. From the article:

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.

This is a rather gross misinterpretation of the history of World War II Germany and Communism reformations.

Adolf Hitler was influenced heavily by the Christian Social Party of Germany. This is not an implied influence; he directly admits it in Mein Kempf. He was very religious and believed he was doing God's work. Though modern Christianity may disagree with his version of Christianity, the point remains that he was not an atheist. In fact, he disliked atheists as much as he disliked Jews. I am not saying his actions were a direct result of his religion, either, but it was definitely not from any sense of areligious attitudes [2].

Mao Zedong killed many people during the tragedy known as the Great Leap Forward and the preceding Cultural Revolution in China. Unfortunately for the author of the opinion letter, neither of these events can be adequately attributed to oppressing religion or killing someone for strictly religious reasons. Those sentenced to death and killed in massacres during this time period in China were the opposition to Zedong's regime. Indeed, his opposition included religious people, but he singled these individuals out not due to religious conviction but because of political alignment. To ignore this attribute of history is simple negligence to push an agenda.

In the case of Josef Stalin, the majority of the deaths attributed to his regime were under the purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Typically, members of the non-working class and those with hints of disliking of the Soviet party were sentenced to death. In particular, during the Great Purge, many of the Lenin Bolsheviks were executed. Though social standing and other criteria were utilized to measure one's worth to the party, to conclude that all these deaths were religiously motivated is simply absurd. Again, just like China under Mao Zedong, the atrocities committed in Russia were due to the political atmosphere and not religious versus areligious attitudes [3].

From the article:

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.

Unfortunately, this is simply naive hope to believe that a religion which exults itself on self-righteousness is free from ridicule or being utilized as a means to justify atrocities against society. Not to mention when there are details in the holy books of such religions in which the moral authority relaxed morality and allowed for and even called for atrocities to occur. It's tough to speak as if the teachings of a later prophet can easily undo the behavior patterns before, and it even marks the moral authority as one who waffles on issues of moral behavior. From the article:

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.

I think it has been shown quite adequately that the ruler's lack of religion is not the root of the atrocities, but the sense of nationalism and political pride involved in such affairs. Not to mention that in the previous paragraph the reference to the Jews as a reference to Hitler is simply misplaced, as stated before.

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.

Political agendas and motivations are the source of the more atrocious mass murders, not areligiosity.

Lastly, I disagree that the statement of religion being a malady on society due to its propensity for conflict is mindless. Though I myself would not go as far as saying religion is the direct cause of horrible atrocities such as mass murder, in modern days it does play directly into the oppression of culture and the retardation of social development. When religious appeals are utilized, they are seen as a scapegoat from thinking critically and reflecting on socio-economic issues. Despite the existence of secular reasons for disallowing homosexual marriage, abortion, and stem cell research, it is easy to find many people whom hold negative attitudes toward homosexuals, abortion, and stem cell research solely from religious reasoning or a religious source.

To conclude, I will make some remarks. The author of this opinion is negligent of history. His association of Hitler with atheism is simply false, and his assertion that atheism is the source of violence is not supported by his evidence when critically analyzed. Even his claim that religion dictates moral action is based off the naive hope that self-righteousness precludes the ability to do harm onto others. This neglects the other events in such holy books which describe righteous individuals committing atrocities out of the commandment of their moral authority. Lastly, his implied argument that religion is greater than atheism is weakened even further when realizing that religious thought is a significant source of social prejudices and cultural oppression in modernity.

Note
1. I wrote this as a reply in a Myspace forum. I hope to revists some of the topics mentioned, especially atheism and its role in Communist governments
2. Though some sources indicate Hitler was not a Christian, it still remains true that he never ascribed to a form of atheism.
3. An area of interest to some of my Socialist and Marxist friends is to analyze the philosophies and actions of Zedong and Stalin and see how they compare to Marxist and Socialist ethics. I await there research, because I would not be surprised if such forms of Communism were perversions rather than the norm.
3.