Are Atheists Associated with Genocides?

[fred]

Genocidal maniacs come in many flavors but it seems the vast majority of 20th Century genocides were committed by self-proclaimed evolutionists and/or atheists, not to mention the thousands of followers who supported the dictator's beliefs and inclinations who carried out the killings.

Here is a partial list of Evolutionists and/or Atheist dictators behind some of the most brutal regimes in the past few centuries - in their own words:

- Vladimir Lenin (1870 - 1924): Atheist and Evolutionist who renounced his belief in God after the death of his father and beloved brother; he said:
1) "Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism..."
2) "Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species bear no relation to one another, except by chance, and that they were created by God, and hence immutable."
He established hundreds of concentration camps while ordering the execution of Christians, Jews, and Muslims throughout Russia; his regime was responsible for the deaths of 6 - 8 million people through execution, starvation and war.
(ref: Volkogonov, D. (1994). Lenin: Life and Legacy.; Necrometrics.com)

- Leon Trotsky (1879 - 1940): Self-proclaimed "irreconcilable atheist" and Darwinist who said:
1) "We call our dialectic 'materialist', since its roots are neither in heaven nor in the depths of our “free will”, but in objective reality, in nature...There is place within this system for neither God nor Devil, nor immortal soul, nor eternal norms of laws and morals.";
2) "Every educated person since Darwin has labeled themselves an “evolutionist”. But a real evolutionist must apply the idea of evolution to his own forms of thinking."
3) "I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist."
4) "But whatever may be the circumstances of my death I shall die with unshaken faith in the communist future. This faith in man and in his future gives me even now such power of resistance as cannot be given by any religion."
As a Bolshevik leader he masterminded the murder of hundreds of thousands of Russians through starvation and war during the Communist Russian Revolution.
(ref: Trotsky, L., Trotsky's Testament, 1940)

- Benito Mussolini (1883 - 1945): Atheist and Evolutionist who said:
1) "The God of the theologians is the creation of their empty heads."
2) "The history of the saints is mainly the history of insane people."
3) "Religion is a species of mental disease. It has always had a pathological reaction on mankind."
4) "When we claim 'God does not exist', we mean to deny by this declaration the personal God of theology, the God worshiped in various ways and divers modes by believers the world over... that God of absurd attributes who is an affront to human reason."
5) "Science is now in the process of destroying religious dogma. The dogma of the divine creation is recognized as absurd."
He was known for "daring God to strike him dead" on many public occasions; although he occasionally courted the Catholic church to gain political control, when he did gain control he persecuted both the Protestant and Catholic church by killing thousands of priests and clergy; responsible for 400 to 500 thousand deaths; he was executed by a firing squad while attempting to escape from Italy.
(ref: Haught, J., 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt.; Mussolini, B.
'Homme et la divinite/Bibliotheque Internationale de propagande rationaliste, Geneva)

- Joseph Stalin (died 1953): Became an Atheist and Darwinist after reading Darwin's "Origin of Species", stating:
1) "You know, they are fooling us. There is no God.”
2) "'I'll lend you a book to read (Darwin). It will show you that the world and all living things are quite different from what you imagine, and all this talk about God is sheer nonsense...."
He made atheism the official ideology of Russia and flooded the media and schools with atheistic propaganda; he crushed the Russian Orthodox Church, leveling thousands of churches and killing more than 100,000 priests, monks and nuns during the religious "purge" between 1937 and 1938 alone. Overall, his atheistic dictatorship killed 80 million people by starvation, execution, and war.
(ref: E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin, 1940;

- Margaret Sanger (died 1966): Atheist and Darwinist who said:
1) "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it".
Although she was never in power to be a dictator, she was an advocate of eugenics (Darwinist-based attempts to develop a superior race through selective breeding of humans), mandatory sterilizations of the "unfit", and infanticide; founder of Planned Parenthood - America's largest abortion provider responsible for the deaths of untold millions of preborn children.

- Mao Zedong (died 1976): Atheist, with Darwin as his favorite author; he stated:
1) "Religion is poison."
2) “Atheism must take the place of belief in a God.”
3) "Chinese socialism is founded upon Darwin and the theory of evolution."
Although he used the terms "gods" and "goddess" in his colorful poems, he made atheism the official ideology of China and flooded the media and schools with atheistic propaganda; lived an opulent lifestyle while the common people starved; his regime caused the deaths of 40 to 80 million people by starvation, torture, and executions.
(ref: M. Zedong, M. Kau, and J. Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong, 1976; The Poems of Mao Tse-tung, Harper & Row).

- Karl Marx (1818 - 1883):
Atheist who famously said: "Man makes religion, religion does not make man" and "It (religion) is the opium of the people". Evolutionist who enthusiastically called Darwin’s "Origin of Species" as "This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our views.” Although not a dictator himself, his writings and ideologies were used by many dictators to murder tens of millions. In Russia alone, 20 million Christians were killed by dictators who used his writings. (International Socialist Review, Issue #65; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Correspondence 1846–1895)

- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900): Atheist who said: "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."; and "...a theologian, a priest, a pope of today not only errs when he speaks, but actually lies—and that he no longer escapes blame for his lie through “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest knows, as every one knows, that there is no longer any God." Evolutionist although he disagreed with certain minor points of Darwin's theory; his written work was the ideology behind Nazism which murdered millions; he was permanently placed in an psychiatric asylum after suffering a breakdown. ( The AntiChrist, F. Nietzsche, 1888)

- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945): Evolutionist; although he courted the Catholic church for his political gain, he was very anti-Christian and said:
1) "Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.”
2) “Christianity is the worst of the regressions that mankind can ever have undergone...”
3) “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity.”
4) Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, noted in his diary in 1939: "The Fuehrer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race."
5) Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary and right hand man, publicly stated in 1941, "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable."
Hitler publicly and repeatedly invoked the name of God as a ruse to justify his brutal military and political actions; he applied Darwin's theory of evolution and "survival of the fittest" while attempting to develop a biologically superior race through ethnic cleansing; showed no regard for accountability to a higher power by killing 11 to 14 million people through starvation, execution, and war; committed suicide to avoid capture at the end of World War 2.

- Jim Jones (died 1978): Atheist who said:
1) "Off the record, I don’t believe in any loving God. Our people, I would say, are ninety percent atheist...I felt somewhat hypocritical for the last years as I became an atheist...you feel tainted, by being in the church situation. But of course, everyone knows where I’m at. My bishop knows that I’m an atheist...He must have spent twenty thousand dollars traveling around, hoping to get my denomination to remove me, because I was so atheistic.”
He was responsible for the 1978 mass murder/suicide of 908 members of the People's Temple cult in Guyana; he personally ordered the executions of several members of the visiting press and a Congressman.
(ref: The Jonestown Institute audiotape, 1976).

The following person (a serial killer, not a dictator) was apparently saved before being murdered in prison. His father was a creationist Christian who himself got saved and then shared the Gospel with his son. Gotta love these good-ending stories - thank God for His mercy!
Jeffrey Dahmer (1960 - 1994), Atheist/Evolutionist and serial killer, said:
1) "If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway.
I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing. So the whole theory (evolution) cheapens life."
(ref: Stone Phillips Interview with Jeffrey Dahmer, Dateline NBC, February 1994).

The most common retort by atheists is that they were communist and did it for political reasons and that their atheism had absolutely nothing to do with it. So is it just a 'coincidence' that they were all evolutionists and/or atheists?

[PaulSacramento]

An argument CAN be made that if one takes atheism to it's "final conclusion" that an atheist has no basis for morals and, it seems in the case of some, that is what they have done.
Of course religious people have and do commit atrocities BUT one must evaluated them against their belief structure ( do they commit these things BECAUSE of their beliefs or IN SPITE of them?).

I don't think that atheism leads people to do bad things BUT I do thing that people predisposed to doing bad things can find a certain "justification" in atheistic ideologies.

[Stu]

When all is said and done an atheistic worldview boils down to: do as you please.

Mao killed millions but he was doing it for reasons he thought were right. And who's to say he was wrong (if you are an atheist)? If you have no law-giver like God, then you make up the rules.

I remember a story where a kid either knifed or killed another child, and his response as to why he done it was that we are a random creation, a mistake, there is no reason behind our existence, so killing someone doesn't really matter.

[Kenny]

When all is said and done an atheistic worldview boils down to: do as you please.

What is this Atheist worldview that you speak of? Please explain.

Mao killed millions but he was doing it for reasons he thought were right. And who's to say he was wrong (if you are an atheist)?

As an atheist, I say he was wrong.

If you have no law-giver like God, then you make up the rules.

Do you really need instructions from God in order to know genocide is wrong? C'mon; you're better than that; aren't cha???

I remember a story where a kid either knifed or killed another child, and his response as to why he done it was that we are a random creation, a mistake, there is no reason behind our existence, so killing someone doesn't really matter.

I remember a story where a theist killed all 5 of her children because she thought they were going to grow up and get tricked by the devil, so if she killed them now they would get a guaranteed ticket to heaven. Two can play that game ya know!

[abelcainsbrother]

Genocidal maniacs come in many flavors but it seems the vast majority of 20th Century genocides were committed by self-proclaimed evolutionists and/or atheists, not to mention the thousands of followers who supported the dictator's beliefs and inclinations who carried out the killings.

Here is a partial list of Evolutionists and/or Atheist dictators behind some of the most brutal regimes in the past few centuries - in their own words:

- Vladimir Lenin (1870 - 1924): Atheist and Evolutionist who renounced his belief in God after the death of his father and beloved brother; he said:
1) "Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism..."
2) "Darwin put an end to the belief that the animal and vegetable species bear no relation to one another, except by chance, and that they were created by God, and hence immutable."
He established hundreds of concentration camps while ordering the execution of Christians, Jews, and Muslims throughout Russia; his regime was responsible for the deaths of 6 - 8 million people through execution, starvation and war.
(ref: Volkogonov, D. (1994). Lenin: Life and Legacy.; Necrometrics.com)

- Leon Trotsky (1879 - 1940): Self-proclaimed "irreconcilable atheist" and Darwinist who said:
1) "We call our dialectic 'materialist', since its roots are neither in heaven nor in the depths of our “free will”, but in objective reality, in nature...There is place within this system for neither God nor Devil, nor immortal soul, nor eternal norms of laws and morals.";
2) "Every educated person since Darwin has labeled themselves an “evolutionist”. But a real evolutionist must apply the idea of evolution to his own forms of thinking."
3) "I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist."
4) "But whatever may be the circumstances of my death I shall die with unshaken faith in the communist future. This faith in man and in his future gives me even now such power of resistance as cannot be given by any religion."
As a Bolshevik leader he masterminded the murder of hundreds of thousands of Russians through starvation and war during the Communist Russian Revolution.
(ref: Trotsky, L., Trotsky's Testament, 1940)

- Benito Mussolini (1883 - 1945): Atheist and Evolutionist who said:
1) "The God of the theologians is the creation of their empty heads."
2) "The history of the saints is mainly the history of insane people."
3) "Religion is a species of mental disease. It has always had a pathological reaction on mankind."
4) "When we claim 'God does not exist', we mean to deny by this declaration the personal God of theology, the God worshiped in various ways and divers modes by believers the world over... that God of absurd attributes who is an affront to human reason."
5) "Science is now in the process of destroying religious dogma. The dogma of the divine creation is recognized as absurd."
He was known for "daring God to strike him dead" on many public occasions; although he occasionally courted the Catholic church to gain political control, when he did gain control he persecuted both the Protestant and Catholic church by killing thousands of priests and clergy; responsible for 400 to 500 thousand deaths; he was executed by a firing squad while attempting to escape from Italy.
(ref: Haught, J., 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt.; Mussolini, B.
'Homme et la divinite/Bibliotheque Internationale de propagande rationaliste, Geneva)

- Joseph Stalin (died 1953): Became an Atheist and Darwinist after reading Darwin's "Origin of Species", stating:
1) "You know, they are fooling us. There is no God.”
2) "'I'll lend you a book to read (Darwin). It will show you that the world and all living things are quite different from what you imagine, and all this talk about God is sheer nonsense...."
He made atheism the official ideology of Russia and flooded the media and schools with atheistic propaganda; he crushed the Russian Orthodox Church, leveling thousands of churches and killing more than 100,000 priests, monks and nuns during the religious "purge" between 1937 and 1938 alone. Overall, his atheistic dictatorship killed 80 million people by starvation, execution, and war.
(ref: E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin, 1940;

- Margaret Sanger (died 1966): Atheist and Darwinist who said:
1) "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it".
Although she was never in power to be a dictator, she was an advocate of eugenics (Darwinist-based attempts to develop a superior race through selective breeding of humans), mandatory sterilizations of the "unfit", and infanticide; founder of Planned Parenthood - America's largest abortion provider responsible for the deaths of untold millions of preborn children.

- Mao Zedong (died 1976): Atheist, with Darwin as his favorite author; he stated:
1) "Religion is poison."
2) “Atheism must take the place of belief in a God.”
3) "Chinese socialism is founded upon Darwin and the theory of evolution."
Although he used the terms "gods" and "goddess" in his colorful poems, he made atheism the official ideology of China and flooded the media and schools with atheistic propaganda; lived an opulent lifestyle while the common people starved; his regime caused the deaths of 40 to 80 million people by starvation, torture, and executions.
(ref: M. Zedong, M. Kau, and J. Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong, 1976; The Poems of Mao Tse-tung, Harper & Row).

- Karl Marx (1818 - 1883):
Atheist who famously said: "Man makes religion, religion does not make man" and "It (religion) is the opium of the people". Evolutionist who enthusiastically called Darwin’s "Origin of Species" as "This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our views.” Although not a dictator himself, his writings and ideologies were used by many dictators to murder tens of millions. In Russia alone, 20 million Christians were killed by dictators who used his writings. (International Socialist Review, Issue #65; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Correspondence 1846–1895)

- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900): Atheist who said: "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."; and "...a theologian, a priest, a pope of today not only errs when he speaks, but actually lies—and that he no longer escapes blame for his lie through “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest knows, as every one knows, that there is no longer any God." Evolutionist although he disagreed with certain minor points of Darwin's theory; his written work was the ideology behind Nazism which murdered millions; he was permanently placed in an psychiatric asylum after suffering a breakdown. ( The AntiChrist, F. Nietzsche, 1888)

- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945): Evolutionist; although he courted the Catholic church for his political gain, he was very anti-Christian and said:
1) "Our epoch will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.”
2) “Christianity is the worst of the regressions that mankind can ever have undergone...”
3) “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity.”
4) Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, noted in his diary in 1939: "The Fuehrer is deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards Christianity as a symptom of decay. Rightly so. It is a branch of the Jewish race."
5) Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary and right hand man, publicly stated in 1941, "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable."
Hitler publicly and repeatedly invoked the name of God as a ruse to justify his brutal military and political actions; he applied Darwin's theory of evolution and "survival of the fittest" while attempting to develop a biologically superior race through ethnic cleansing; showed no regard for accountability to a higher power by killing 11 to 14 million people through starvation, execution, and war; committed suicide to avoid capture at the end of World War 2.

- Jim Jones (died 1978): Atheist who said:
1) "Off the record, I don’t believe in any loving God. Our people, I would say, are ninety percent atheist...I felt somewhat hypocritical for the last years as I became an atheist...you feel tainted, by being in the church situation. But of course, everyone knows where I’m at. My bishop knows that I’m an atheist...He must have spent twenty thousand dollars traveling around, hoping to get my denomination to remove me, because I was so atheistic.”
He was responsible for the 1978 mass murder/suicide of 908 members of the People's Temple cult in Guyana; he personally ordered the executions of several members of the visiting press and a Congressman.
(ref: The Jonestown Institute audiotape, 1976).

The following person (a serial killer, not a dictator) was apparently saved before being murdered in prison. His father was a creationist Christian who himself got saved and then shared the Gospel with his son. Gotta love these good-ending stories - thank God for His mercy!
Jeffrey Dahmer (1960 - 1994), Atheist/Evolutionist and serial killer, said:
1) "If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway.
I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing. So the whole theory (evolution) cheapens life."
(ref: Stone Phillips Interview with Jeffrey Dahmer, Dateline NBC, February 1994).

The most common retort by atheists is that they were communist and did it for political reasons and that their atheism had absolutely nothing to do with it. So is it just a 'coincidence' that they were all evolutionists and/or atheists?

It really boils down to all men being sinners as the bible tells us.In every person there is a need to sin and do evil things and everytime we see evil carried out by man it proves the bible correct.This is true whether or not a person is religious or not. Still acknowledging you're a sinner to God is the first step in admiting you have a problem and need help.So when a person rejects God they can never even begin to get help for their problem.It is like an alcoholic who has a serious drinking problem and has allowed it to destroy their family and life and yet still lives in denial of his/her problem, They can never even begin to get help until they admit they have a problem and need help for it and even when the person admits they have a problem it still can take time to get the help they need,but admitting you have a problem is the first step in recovery.This is why God hates pride and self righteousness as these kinds of people have a very hard time admitting they even have a problem and need help for it.

Patients. For you.
https://youtu.be/SE9sPvam02w

[PaulSacramento]

Atheism doesn't allow for a moral center or objectiveness OUTSIDE the cultural context of the particular atheist.
That is why a communist atheist condoned genocide and an atheist like Kenny, raised in the western world with an established since of moral right and wrong, doesn't condone genocide.

[Philip]

Paul: and an atheist like Kenny, raised in the western world with an established since of moral right and wrong, doesn't condone genocide.

Of course, Ken's perspective is "tainted" by centuries of Christian teachings and influence that have impacted the society we live in and the one he was also raised in. Even Democracy flowed from Christian influences. The evils of slavery in the Americas (which goes against the Bible's teachings) was ended per the power of Christian influences. So, even non-Christians in a post-Christian culture are still powerfully influenced by the residual impact of Christian teachings.

[PaulSacramento]

Yep, Ben Shapiro made the same comment to Sam Harris, how to people with such vastly different views on the origins of morals can have the actual same morals. They share the same culture.
The difference would be that Ben's can be sustained since they are based on an objective view and that Sam's can't since they are subjective.

[thatkidakayoungguy]

Both theists and atheists are associated with genocides.

[PaulSacramento]

Both theists and atheists are associated with genocides.

Yep and, regardless of the numbers argument, the issue is this:
Religious people commit atrocities ( either IN SPITE of their faith OR because of it).
Non-religious people commit atrocities.

Common factor: People

[Kenny]

Both theists and atheists are associated with genocides.

Yep and, regardless of the numbers argument, the issue is this:
Religious people commit atrocities ( either IN SPITE of their faith OR because of it).
Non-religious people commit atrocities.

Common factor: People

I'm reminded of a saying; "good men will do good, and bad men will do bad in spite of religion; the only difference is the religious person will use his religion to justify his actions whether they be good or bad"

[PaulSacramento]

Both theists and atheists are associated with genocides.

Yep and, regardless of the numbers argument, the issue is this:
Religious people commit atrocities ( either IN SPITE of their faith OR because of it).
Non-religious people commit atrocities.

Common factor: People

I'm reminded of a saying; "good men will do good, and bad men will do bad in spite of religion; the only difference is the religious person will use his religion to justify his actions whether they be good or bad"

Sure, some religions do justify violence, actually, some LAWS justify violence also.
I think your are grossly over simplifying since many a "good man" has done bad things.

The difference, I think, is that some religions, like Christianity, give you an objective and absolute view that there is such a things as good and bad and even WHAT IS good and bad so that, while something MAY be justified (like stealing to feed your children), it is NEVER ( or at least SHOULD NEVER) be viewed as "good".
Atheism has no such thing.

[Kurieuo]

What does each ideology encourage? Where do such lead if consistently applied?

If we're talking Islam, Christian, Atheism...

I'd trust a consistent Atheist, much more than a consistent Muslim.
I'd trust a consistent Christian more than a consistent Atheist.

Why?

Because a consistent Atheist is their own ruler, and who knows what that means of a person.
A consistent Christian ought to look to their Lord Jesus Christ, and his teachings are about love and truth.
A consistent Muslim who looks to Muhammad, well then... I risk losing my head if I criticise.

[thatkidakayoungguy]

Both theists and atheists are associated with genocides.

Yep and, regardless of the numbers argument, the issue is this:
Religious people commit atrocities ( either IN SPITE of their faith OR because of it).
Non-religious people commit atrocities.

Common factor: People

I'm reminded of a saying; "good men will do good, and bad men will do bad in spite of religion; the only difference is the religious person will use his religion to justify his actions whether they be good or bad"

That's a good observation.