Try this sometime.  Whenever someone brings up this argument, ask them to explain the evolutionary mechanisms behind reciprocal altruism, and how Game Theory disproves the notion of group selection.  When they give you a puzzled look, ask them to explain the conflation of group selection with the efficacy of genocide as an evolutionary mechanism.

When they try to go off on a tangent, smile and say, "So, you just don't have any clue what you're talking about.... I suspected as much.  Have a nice day."

Wait...

Genocide is wholesale slaughter of a people because of their ethnic group, right?

Did Stalin target ethnic groups?

From what I have read he was a pretty equal opportunity killer.  He didn't even give a shit about his own sons as far as what I have found.

Mao I don't know all that much about.

And then Hitler, good ol' Hitler.  Any argument about his belief system is bound to bog down into a stalemate.  No one can definetively target Hitler as Catholic or Atheist.  What is clear though is that he killed the Jews mainly because A) He could not move them to Madagascar because England would not fall(He wanted to use their shipping fleet to ship them down there) and B) Mainly it was related to anti-semitism which was officially endorsed by the Vatican centuries before.

This argument is such a slippery slope that it will just bog down into bickering with no side having a clear win.  At least from what I have seen.  If either side can hit a "home run" with it to prove their side I would be absolutely fascinated to hear all about it.

Mao, Stalin and even Hitler did not kill in the name of atheism, Mao and Stalin killed because of their lust of power and their dogmatic beliefs in communisim, but mainly for their lust of power. Hitler was a bit more forwards why he was killing jews, his hatred towards them as the killers of christ, and that they were an abomination because of this in the eyes of god (hey anyone want to read Martin Luther's On the Jews and their Lies or Of the Unknowable Name and the generations of Christ) as his used much of the german nationlistic pride and christian anti semetic views at the time (well the views which the catholic church laid the foundations and Martin Luther build apon.) But at no given time did any one of them ever say they were killing because of their atheistic beliefs, never one said that, no they mentioned for the good of the people, ethnic hatred, for god or because they lusted for power, but never because they were atheists.

The horrible monsters that theist so fondly and falsely attribute to atheists have the same thing in common with deity worship. WORSHIP of the state replaces worship of a deity. The same principle of authoritarianism applies especially in the Abrahamic gods. You do what the deity says, or burn in hell. You do what Hitler or Stalin say, or you are murdered by the state.

Atheism is not a political view, it is a lack of belief, nothing more. Even a dictator claims no deity, that does not equate all atheists to having the same attitudes about dictitorial government.  Thats like saying all people with mustaches must be Nazis.

Atheists are just as pluralistic and diverse on a variety of subjects. This false equivocation is old hat and anyone using it is simply ignorant and afraid of non-believers.

No one here worthy of being called compassionate would advocate the horrible genicide committed by any religious or non religious state throughout human history.

This is simply a fear tactic used by believers because they are affriad of doing what Thomas Jefferson suggested, "Question with boldness even the existance of God, for if there be one, surely he would pay more homage to reason than to that of blindfolded fear." Because Jefferson said that even god belief is not immune to questioning, does that make him a Nazi or a Commie? Or does it simply mean one should have evidence for the claims they make and know why they believe what they believe?

To any Christian reading this, to any Muslim or Jew reading this, put your fears to rest. Atheism is not a genocidal worldview. We may verbally speak out about magical claims and ancient myth and we may see it as unnessarry to living modern life. But none of us here have any illusions of a government forced utopia. Fascism blossoms in the minds of dangerous utopian whims.

You can find the oldest example of genocide in Holy Book, as long you think about Bible as historical document

It was committed by Jews in name of God ( he actually ask for that ).

And what latincanuck said.

Pretty good site,

Hitler Was a Christian

The Holocaust was caused by Christian fundamentalism:

http://www.evilbible.com/hitler_was_christian.htm

patcleaver

 ... thanks

Porridge for breakfast, anyone?

Please sir...may I have some more?

Basically, as others have already stated:

No one actually kills in the name of atheism. These dictators had other reasons.

Many people have in the past been killed in the name of religion, and are still being killed today.

They might well think so, but it isn't - in fact not by a long shot.

Personally I believe that only the most stupid theists think it has validity, but that clever ones employ it anyway, not because it holds much water under scrutiny but because what they have found is that it requires refutation which involves a knowledge of history above primary school standard, and that this is often enough to give their adversary pause for thought. Remember, these are people for whom fact means any old thing invented on the spot if it seems to support their prejudice, whereas those who they are debating against cannot allow themselves such dishonest liberty with the truth.

In fact what you hear most often by way of the "Hitler/Stalin/Mao was an atheist" type of argument is itself a parody of a more intricate theological stance which is harder to prosecute, harder for mass audiences to understand, and harder for an atheist to refute without recourse to detailed historical data. Not "sound bite" stuff, in other words.

This stance holds that "evil" as a force is responsible for all ills, and that in the case of demagogic politicians who embark on mass murder their alleged atheism is secondary to but part of the same evil urge. Atheism, seen by the theologian as an intentional step away from an established moral code which encompasses all humanity so is therefore not fully understandable to any one individual, is not therefore evil per se but can facilitate evil. Mao, Stalin et al are then mentioned as examples, since both men publicly stated opposition to religion.

The counter to this argument is complex, not least because the theological argument is not that atheism is evil but that it has facilitated evil. It first has to establish that the theologian has arbitrarily set elements together which have only dubious commonality. For example, Mao's attitude towards religion was not the same as Stalin's, and Hitler's attitude could be described as religious itself, even in the conventional use of the term. All of these claims require documented evidence to support them. It then has to address the abitrary definition of "evil" upon which the theologian's charge hangs. The theologian has chosen to present it as an absolute whereas reality - which the theologian acknowledges too when it suits - shows that "evil" is a comparative quality (the lesser of two evils etc), and that describing Mao or Stalin simply as "evil" is as imprecise and arbitrarily subjective as calling them "atheist". Lastly, if "evil" can be described in terms of a conscious malevolent will which uses demagogues in this way, then it has to be demanded of the theologian that he or she explain the methodology employed by "evil" in all these cases. If none is forthcoming the argument is over. If one is attempted then it will invariably be one that can just as easily be employed to explain, using the theologian's own terminology, that religion itself is evil, or at least historically proven to be as prone to evil influence, and that therefore the absence of a belief in a deity plays no role whatsoever.

 Well, for a one line refutation (which I would resist in a debate I took seriously) I would rest on:

The actions of the few do not reveal the intentions of the many.

Further, there are any number of books / quotes urging violence with religious intent (the Bible, malus maleficarum, just as a few christian examples).  You can find none with atheistic intent.

Hi, I am a has been member and I cannot remember my log in, but I wanted to post this here since I think these are the people who I want to go out there and have help accomplish this. This topic seemed to be the closest in relation to my subject so hopefully this will turn out all right. I will check in every once in a while to see how its going.

This is your mission should you choose to accept:
This is a simple task involving only a yes or no question however, there will be rules, and if any of these rules are broken then you forfeit the study.

The question is, "If the leader of your faith or church asked you to go to war in the name of God, would you?".

The rules are:
1. To dress in what would be considered Sunday church attire.

2. Arrive at the worship service early or promptly to ask people as they proceed into their church of service.

3. Inform the randomly selected individual that they have been selected for a group study event and must answer the question with ONLY a 'YES' or 'NO' answer. There will be no exceptions for maybe or undecided.

4. You are only allowed to select 10 individuals from the church of your choosing, however you are allowed to visit more than one church as long as it is a Christian (or Mormon) church.

5. You are to treat your participants, and those around, with the up most courtesies. You are not to curse swear or make derogatory comments towards any participant or nearby bystanders not participating in the study.

6. If you fail to collect the polls of 10 people you do not fail your mission. Simply record the data* you were able to collect and e-mail or message that information to me.

7. You may only collect study results from churches within the United States and its territories. Please annotate the name of the state or territory or district along with your e-mail/message.

* -Data may include that of what transpired as you attempted to collect the data if you were unsuccessful in retrieving an answer from 10 people attending that particular church or place of worship.

-This event is to end upon the receiving of the data on either 100 churches or approximately 1,000 individuals.

-There is no real time span for this event but the results of the your data will be needed by the end of two months if they are to be properly handled. Once sufficient data is collected you will have the total results of this event returned back to you, even if your data was not used*.

* -Data will not be used if it is in over abundance. This is to ensure that the data collected is more national.

Should also remind them of all of atrocities and genocide committed in the bible. If they are catholic remind them of the wars and atrocities ordered by the pope, who they believe is their infallible representative of god.

Monotheism Remains The Most Destructive Force in the History of Civilization

Road To Peace has an excellent article [and site] on the rates of violence associated with Religion, Eastern Philosophies and Atheism in Monotheism and Violence.  They did on line research comparing eight "religions" with one another, using three of the most efficient search engines on the Internet.  Protocols employed the word violence and five other related words in the format: "religion and word," for example: "Buddhism and terror." Each website [URL] returned was counted as an event. The assumption is that the frequency of these word associations relates to the violence a religion is actually involved in. The latter is newsworthy and written about. Their survey was done in November 2003.

 Family members in Cannibalistic Christian Jesus Cult skin 'n eat their boy, 8

That Christianity seems to get off lightly here is an artifact of our times. There is plenty in Christian history to be concerned about, the Crusades, the many European wars, the Inquisition, Witch Hunters, and in our most recent time, Bosnia, North Ireland, and Zionism--behind the scenes. Christians seem to have a short memory; their history is especially bloody and depraved.

The Buddhists are not violent but they can be violated. Buddhists are also peace activists and often get in harm's way. Atheism would have scored much higher in Stalin's time. Nevertheless, the history of organized terror has largely been the history of monotheism. It is certainly significant that reports of violence involving Jews were some 340 times those for Confucianism. The religious group that first and formally practiced terror as it is practiced today is Judaism, nearly two millennia ago.

Normalizing the rank order to Atheism = 1, shows monotheism to be some 35 or so multiples more violent than atheism in table below.

This ranking is a most disturbing result for the monotheists. Each monotheism is more interested in dominating the others than in doing something about the violence their extremist members initiate under one religious guise or another. Yet most monotheism adherents deeply believe theirs is a peaceful religion. Monotheism simply does not assure a peaceful society. Like democratization of totalitarian societies, reforms in monotheist societies can only come from within. These are two sides of the same coin and change will not come quickly.

Why the disconnect? Could it be that Monotheism itself is an expression of the Authoritarian Personality? Could it be that most of us are in denial, ignorant of the facts, or both? If we could answer these questions, we would have an improved understanding of violence, terror and war and view of possible ways forward.

Road to Peace concludes that the Authoritarian Personality, when extreme, has much to do with both religion and violence. This is as much a social issue as it is psychological. The potential for terrorism is genetic and intrinsic. Any radicalizing social or psychological event brings an individual's potential for terrorism into reality. From there, terror becomes a simple matter of wherewithal.

Read more on the [Right Wing Monotheist] Authoritarian Personality [Disorder] here in Professor Altemeyer's Free Book called 'The Authoritarians' with free pdf file downloads of this book.

Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) are well-studied variables in attitudes to measure intergroup dominance and submission to authority, respectively. They are important, and fairly recent developments in the study of psychology, sociology and behavioral science going back to the end of World War II. Then a new field in Behavioral Science to hopefully explain and identify how and why Hitler gained so much support from the German people. They are personality variables perhaps even more relevant now than in Hitler’s Germany to understand the mass psychosis affecting the 10s of millions of muddled minds in the huddled masses of America today.

SDO is associated with racism, warmongering (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth & Malle, 1994) and attitudes about women’s rights (Heaven, 1999). Whereas RWA is associated with xenophobia, homophobia and sexism (Altemeyer, 1998; Duckitt, 2001). SDO and RWA together are described as ‘two sides of the same coin’ because the measures are interrelated and non-overlapping as unique predictors of prejudiced attitudes (Altemeyer, 1998). Both SDO and RWA are ‘ideological attitude’ factors in personality.

The authoritarian personality is characterized as conventional, submissive to authority, and aggressive toward deviants and outsiders (Altemeyer, 1981). Most freethinkers can easily recognize this RWA personality that shares similar characteristics or ‘traits’ with the ‘true believer’ from: excessive conformity; submissiveness to authority; intolerance; insecurity; superstition and; ridged, stereotyped thought patterns. All the preceding characteristics are identified by German sociologist and philosopher, Theodor W. Adorno as traits of an Authoritarian Personality.

Members of large authoritarian groups, regardless if religious, political or fraternal, are to a large degree, externally directed. Their immense need for external direction drives them to join mass movements by the droves to follow a charismatic leader. As long as dependent minded followers believe, their leader can get away with anything. A common hatred, enemy, or devil is essential to the success of both their leaders and their groups characterized by an ‘us versus them’ attitude of bigotry, and hate towards outsiders. Their internal dependence on external group thought and direction is a primary reason they’ve been so successful at imposing authoritarian rule throughout history using a few select faith-based leaders. The most extreme racist hate groups in America like the KKK, Aryan Nation and others, all have a Christian identity that supersedes their bigoted racial supremacy. Right wing political groups in America also have a primary Christian identity that is underlying their right wing political goals.

True believers seem to almost always be raised in an authoritarian environments. They have typically been taught ‘what’ to think, rather than ‘how’ to think from birth. Instead of a philosophy based in reason to guide them, or show them the path, they rely on others, typically authoritarian figures, both alive and dead, to direct their thoughts and actions taken in life. Like all that suffer from deeper levels of psychosis, they refuse to acknowledge they even have a mental disorder where contact with reality has been completely lost or at best, highly distorted.

“High RWAs are not likely to come up with the answers to our global problems. They are far too ethnocentric. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the simulation was how automatically right-wing authoritarians, placed in a room filled with people rather like themselves, still divided the world into small enclaves of ‘Us’ versus the global ‘Them’.”
Bob Altmeyer’s conclusion to an experiment including dominating authoritarians [High RWAs] amongst a second group of authoritarian followers in “What Happens When Authoritarians Inherit the Earth? A Simulation”, Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2003

Research shows authoritarian personalities are hierarchical, conventional, and intolerant. Religion depends and demands on intolerance and bigotry because of its prime requirement for obstinate and unreasoning attachment to it’s beliefs unfounded in fact. Intolerance is needed for indoctrination and continued adherence to religious dogma. If the believer is not bigoted, the believer does not remain a devout member. Altemeyer’s research in particular reveals the personality of a RWA [Right Wing Authoritarian] individual to be highly dependent upon strong group demands for high ideological conformity. Altemeyer’s RWA scale measures three reliable facets of authoritarianism: conventionalism, or rigid conformity to group norms; submission to higher status individuals; and aggression toward out-groups and unconventional group members. All ideal measures of individual and group norms so necessary to religion comprised of its ‘RWA true believer personalities’ of religious adherents.

Eigenberger (1998) hypothesized that authoritarian behavior results from fears associated with social exclusion and group dissolution, which were genuine threats to survival during much of our evolutionary past as homo sapiens. Monotheism gives homo sapiens an ultimatum based on a foundation of fear. The Bible God will punish anyone who doesn’t reach a particular and proper conclusion. There is nothing free about that type of will. Unlike freethinkers, religious adherents simply cannot make objective conclusions because the use of fear tactics defiles any level of ‘freedom’ and independence in their thought process.

Former psychotherapist, and NLP [Neuro Linquistic Programming] Trainer Thom Hartmann suggests in ‘Cheney Speaks to the Reptile Brain’ that the Bushites are indeed trying to directly ‘relate’ to the ‘less than human’ survival brain of the susceptible populace in America. True believers of imaginary skygods are the most highly susceptible to Bushite fear tactics. “The reptile brain has a singular focus: survival. It doesn’t think in abstract terms, and doesn’t feel complex emotions. Instead, it’s responsible for fight-or-flight, hunger and fear, attack or run.” The fear-mongering Bushites succesfuly relate to the very same less than human ‘beast brain’, as I call it, that predominantly motivates the RWA true believer fight-or-flight emotions.

America's Dystopian Christian Society

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”
Gregory S. Paul, social scientist and author of ‘Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies’ published in Journal of Religion & Society.

Wherever any of these 3 religions represent an overwhelming majority, the nation’s violence is just as overwhelming as the religion that represents it. A recent study by social scientist Gregory S. Paul in the Journal of Religion & Society concludes that belief in and worship of a God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society, but is actually contributing to social problems in prosperous democracies. His well documented study also finds that “Higher rates of non-theism and acceptance of human evolution correlate with lower rates of dysfunction, and the least theistic nations are usually the least dysfunctional.”

“True believers are not intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but are those craving to be rid of unwanted self. They are followers, not because of a desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy their passion for self-renunciation! They are eternally incomplete and eternally insecure.” Eric Hoffer; Author of ‘The True Believer’ and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The USA has the highest crime rate of any of the 200 nations in the world. 80% of the population goes to church at least once a year. In the Scandinavian nations, only 5% go to church, and they have a low crime rate. Japan, and other non-Christian nations have very low crime rates.  Among Wealthy Nations, the U.S. Stands Alone in its Embrace of Religion Americans' views are closer to people in developing nations than to the publics of developed nations.  Religion is much more important to Americans than to people living in other wealthy nations. Six-in-ten (59%) people in the U.S. say religion plays a very important role in their lives. This is roughly twice the percentage of self-avowed religious people in Canada (30%), and an even higher proportion when compared with Japan and Western Europe.  Pew Research Center Report 167

Ohio Pseudo-Science Teacher burns Christian crosses into his students' flesh with 50,000 volts

"There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction. The strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002).

There’s a reference on skepticfiles.org to a study of Sing Sing inmates executed for murder during a 10 year span. It cites 97% of inmates executed for murder in a 10 year span were adherents to monotheism [Jewish, Christian and Muslim combined] and only a 1/3 of 1% were atheists. US Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics on known religious affiliations in 1997 show 90.9% of all inmates in federal prisons are adherents of a monotheistic religion [Christian, Jewish or Muslim] with just 0.209% prison adherents of atheism.

This shows a reverse correlation when compared to the general population. The per capita percentage of Christians [77%] in the general population produces a 6% higher per capita percentage of Christians [83%] committing crimes that put them in prison. The opposite is true for atheists by a wide margin. There’s a significantly lower percentage of atheist offenders in US Federal prisons [0.21%] than the per capita percentage of atheists [anywhere from 4%-14% averaging 9%] found in the general population. This proves a Christian is far more likely to commit and be convicted of a crime in America than an atheist. According to that Federal Bureau of Prison survey, given the measured frequency of the non religious in the general population to be at 14.3% [American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS)] we can see an Agnostic or Atheist has about a 2% chance of going to jail compared to Christian.

Christian Faith in mythological lies killed yet another young victim with a simple urinary infection

"Despite a significant decline from a recent peak in the 1980s, the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy in the world to retain both high homicide rates and high levels of religious belief and practice" (Beeghley; Doyle, 2000).

As the great philosopher Karl Popper wrote in 'The Open Society and Its Enemies': "If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." This includes tolerating the intolerance found in certain religious sects in the US. Just because the evil from a radical right Christian cult hides behind its Bible and a US Flag label pin doesn't mean its Christian cult ideology along with its members are not evil.