can anyone cite any mass killings in the name of atheism?

Question

i love how some will cite people like stalin as those who killed in the name of atheism. pick up a history book every now and then people. find me the specific paragraph where stalin said, "i'm an atheist and i'm going to wipe out everyone who isn't one."

Answer 1

This is an important question, since one of the primary arguments put forth by religious apologists is that if societies abandon all belief in religious maxims, and become atheistic, than all forms of immorality will ensue. As examples, they cite the regimes of Pol Pott, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler, as what the natural consequences of atheism truly are. The logic goes that if the world were to divest itself of a belief in God, or religious practice, law and order would collapse, and humans would feel free to abuse each other on a genocidal order of the magnitude practiced in Nazi Germany or in Stalin’s Communist Russia.

There is an obvious flaw to this sort of evidence in that it ignores a blatant fact of history. In truth none of these societies were anti-religious at their core. Instead what happened under most of these dictators is that traditional religion was replaced by another form of religion. No call to rationality was ever emphasized in any of these societies. Instead of a supreme infallible creature being worshiped in the churches, synagogues, and mosques, in these oppressive countries, the leaders were considered to be divine and infallible.

In Germany for example, a traditionally predominate Christian nation, augmented its Christian faith with the notion of the Aryan blood myth. This is a theory that is not grounded in fact, but is instead founded in blind faith in what we know to be an errant proposition. Hitler himself spoke of the German people’s divine destiny to conquer “lesser” races, and he even referenced God and Jesus, or used the euphemism of a supreme creator in his rhetoric, to substantiate his claims. So Nazi Germany could hardly be called a nation that was devoid of religious belief. Instead all Nazi Germany did was modify Christian belief to incorporate its theories of racial superiority.

Instead of the Pope, the head of the Easter Orthodox Church, or the Bible being considered the immutable and perfect truth, in Russia, Stalin became elevated to a deified status, as did other communist leaders such as Mao.

In each of these tyrannical nations, traditional long held beliefs in the Christian faith or in Buddhism, as was the case in China, were supplanted with other superstitions that were equally unfounded as the suppositions of old time religion.

Hence, the religious apologist who cites Hitler’s German, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, or Pol Pott’s Cambodia aren’t really making a good case about the inevitable depravity that could occur if atheism were widely embraced. What they are doing, in essence, is making a case against taking anything on faith, whether it is a God in the sky, or an earthly ruler.

If one were to cite a real case of atheism, and the moral consequences that naturally follow from a people bereft of religious belief in large numbers, one would have to look to modern day Europe, especially to countries like Sweden and Denmark, where the bulk of the population is secular, and at most relegate religion to festivals and traditional pageantry.

In these countries we see exemplary morality being practiced, a superbly educated population, low rates of crime, high standard of living, and a greater amount of charity being divvied out per capita than countries were religion is pervasive, such as the United States.

Ultimately, atheism, when subscribed to due to a rational deliberation of how the world works, will not lead to widespread villainy and immorality. However, societies that are inured to religious myths for centuries, as attested to by two millennia of Christian and Buddhist belief in Russia, Germany, China, and Cambodia, will naturally be more receptive to other myths like the supposed divine mandate of leaders like Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

A society built on logic, sound philosophy, and true scientific rationalism, akin to that of Spinoza or Socrates, would be a society that is as close to an ideal society as one can get. I challenge any Christian, Jew, Muslim, or person of another religious faith to demonstrate how their moral system, purely derived from their holy books, can be of greater substance than the moral thought of such men.

Answer 2

If a man was not killed in the name of God, he was instead killed for some person's own selfish interest (whether it be for money, land, power, fame, revenge, etc.).

If man is not accountable to a greater power other than himself; he is accountable only to himself, and limited only by "what he can get away with" or by "his own sense of justice." This is the result of an atheist worldview.

Almost all killings since the dawn of time have been in accordance with this worldview.

Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung. etc.

Even the killings in the Spanish Inquisition were effected by the State (Ferdinand and Isabella) as opposed to the Church. This is because the State wanted to take power away from the Church by acting in religious affairs, which were tasks traditionally only performed by the Church. Source: Wikipedia.

Don't even equate them.

Answer 3

Oh my...I know this post is 4 years old but some of these answers absolutely REEK of stupidity. Ted Bundy, Hitler (who actually claimed that Nazism was a SECULAR ideologist movement) , Stalin, Lenin (who admitted his ideas were fueled by his dismissal of a deity), Mao Ze Dong, Jim Jones (who actually drew some of his victims from churches and got them to convert others to atheism so that they would follow his ideas. And we all know what happened to his followers). The list goes on and on and on...

Answer 4

People like to say certain communists have killed because they were atheist, which isn't true, it is like saying Stalin killed because he had brown hair, there is no correlation.

The thing about killing in the name of atheism, if you are going to do that you have to find justification elsewhere because atheism doesn't justify killing regardless of whether or not it motivates murder.

Religion on the other hand both motivates and justifies killing.

Answer 5

Joseph Stalin killed 30 million people...

Secondly, Atheism does not stand for anything, so how could someone kill in the name of Atheism.

Answer 6

I'm amazed how many stupid answers this question has received.

Obviously, Stalin was not killing in the name of atheism. He was just a typical ruthless dictator with more power at his disposal than most.

Answer 7

Being that there isn't a set criteria for being an atheist I would consider any leader who commits mass murder for the sake of stamping our religious ideals as doing exactly what you are asking.

Stalin may not have exactly said "I'm an atheist and I'm going to kill all non-atheist." but that is exactly what he did (kill all non-atheist) in defense of communism.

Answer 8

Stalin

Answer 9

How many did Joe Stalin kill?

Pol Pot?

Hitler was NOT a Christian, when he got done finishing off all the Jews he would have gone after the Christians next. In fact, at least 10% of the people killed in his WW 2 camps where Christians who were accused of helping save Jews.

Pastor Art

Answer 10

There are many mass killing done in the name of imposing atheism on various cultures.

China
USSR

But these were atheist enforced states, and not organic (natually occuring) atheism.

But you opened up a can of worms, here.

Answer 11

Name a priest who survived the 20s and 30s in Russia.
Or how many priests were killed in the French Revolution, or any of the revolts before that. Ideology devoid of Theism has always killed Religious people. The communist Manifeso says to.
The Chinese today, are persecuting the Falun Gong. China has killed how many?