Freedomain Radio

Hi freedomainers,

I'm in a discussion with a Roman Catholic about religion and the artrocities and atheism and artrocities.

He blames atheistic societies for bigger artrocities than religion. He takes China and the communist as an example but that's just one of many from his point of view.

Somewhere his reasoning is intuitive (from my intuition) false. My intuition says that has not to do with atheism but with the political system.

Can somebody help me to put my intuition into reason. Please work China into the example.

He goes on by saying that Atheism lacks an ideology. Is that true?

Hey, I thought this video might be of help to you:

Stalin and other evil leaders didn't commit the attrocities because of Atheism. They didn't kill people and then worship their non-god. On the other hand, for example, islamic extremists have killed in the name of their God and their holy book.

I'd say that some of the violence in Communist regimes could be attributed to anti-religiousity. Communism was indeed an anti-religious ideology and the church was seen as an ideological enemy. I'd still say that they pale to the religious violence clearly. Also, attributing all the mass murders for example in the Soviet Union to atheism makes as much sense as attributing them to Stalin's moustache. Hell, Hitler had a moustache too - are we gonna blame moustaches for mass murders now? You can't just say "Mass murderer A had feature X, therefore X caused the mass murders." You have to show some kind of a relationship between the feature and the action.

And atheism indeed "lacks" an ideology, or at very least it isn't an ideology in itself, just a lack of belief. I think the definiton of atheism should really be that thin always. Secularism however is an ideology and is closely related to atheism.

Catholics around my parents age (late 50's) were told during the cold war that Communists were evil and were committing atrocities because they were godless. The communists had no moral fiber as a foundation and therefore were prone to attrocities that good catholic nations (the catholics believe they have the majority in the US) are certainly not. All of the US's atrocities are defenses to the godless nations attacks on what makes us Americans: freedom liberty pursuit of happiness. They of course passed all of this down to my generation.

If you want to work from effect, Vietnam is always a good place to start. My parents were and still are extremely conservative, but they still have a soft spot for vietnam.

I would strongly suggest working from morality of course (see above)

I hope this perspective is helpful.

Very nice video Mr. Molyneux.

Well, I had a similar discussion with my Roman Catholic parents before I gave up on them.  The key thing I noticed was that they are using two standards.  If a Christian commits an atrocity, its never because he's a Christian.  Its always because of society and cultural factors.  If those are rejected, they will then use 'No True Scotsman' to argue that he isn't really Christian.  If an Atheist commits an atrocity, its because he's an atheist.  Essentially I could charactarize their position as follows "There are two guards at a Nazi death camp.  One is a Christian who kills Jews because of the incredible pressures put on him by German culture and the threats of violence from the German government if he doesn't.  However, maybe he shouldn't be considered Christian at all despite the fact that he goes to Church and professes the Christian creed because his actions in killing Jews are so contradictory with Christianity.  The other is an Atheist who kills Jews because he is an Atheist.

If you can find reliable statistics, theist vs. non-theist prison population for violent crimes as compared to the proportions in the rest of the country, might be illuminating.

yo check this out:

Christianity's Role in the Rise of the Nazi's