Sunday, June 10, 2007
A beautifully written article about the modest rise in coverage of Atheism in the American media reminds me of something I've been hearing a lot recently:
Anti-religious campaigners like Hitchens will say that we'd be better off without Religion which, on balance, has caused more death and misery for more people than anything else. To counter this, proponents of religion will argue that the two biggest genocides of the twentieth century were engineered by Atheist regimes. For example..
From these good people
To which I say "Where do I fucking start?"
Doesn't this do a small disservice to, oh i dont know, the 6 million Jews, Gypsys and other undesirables to the Nazis, not unknown evildoers and yet not avowed atheists as far as i'm aware? Twisters of Christianity, for sure, but believers nevertheless. Is it really acceptable to play the numbers game as the basis for "who's more evil"? Apparently every life isn't sacred - or at least morally equivalent to every other life, or they wouldn't quibble over the number killed in the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials. It opens up the old debate about sacrificing the few for the many but in less conditional terms.
But what really confuses me about this argument is simply that both Communist regimes had far more in common with religious movements than anything resembling the purely secular. They were political religions with strong cult figures in apparent total command, and also had an all-knowing, history-predicting big hairy man in the sky - Karl Marx in this case, no less revered than God and Son as a saviour, an emancipator, a reliable father-figure.
When there is no separation between Church and State, they obviously become one. But in the cases where there is no Church at all, it seems that the State becomes the de facto Church. So you either (appear to) buy in wholeheartedly or you get purged, culturally revolutionised, re-educated, year-zero'd, gulag'd or just plain killed.
And in both cases, of war-catalysing Religion and industrially-genocidal Communism, neither of them have absolutely anything to do with god.
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Anti-religious campaigners like Hitchens will say that we'd be better off without Religion which, on balance, has caused more death and misery for more people than anything else. To counter this, proponents of religion will argue that the two biggest genocides of the twentieth century were engineered by Atheist regimes. For example..
The fact is that while religious wars have been fought for centuries, militant atheism has slaughtered more people than religious zealots ever have. The greatest mass murders in history have been committed not by Christians but by Communists Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. More than 100 million have died at the hands of these militant atheists since the early 20th century.
From these good people
To which I say "Where do I fucking start?"
Doesn't this do a small disservice to, oh i dont know, the 6 million Jews, Gypsys and other undesirables to the Nazis, not unknown evildoers and yet not avowed atheists as far as i'm aware? Twisters of Christianity, for sure, but believers nevertheless. Is it really acceptable to play the numbers game as the basis for "who's more evil"? Apparently every life isn't sacred - or at least morally equivalent to every other life, or they wouldn't quibble over the number killed in the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials. It opens up the old debate about sacrificing the few for the many but in less conditional terms.
But what really confuses me about this argument is simply that both Communist regimes had far more in common with religious movements than anything resembling the purely secular. They were political religions with strong cult figures in apparent total command, and also had an all-knowing, history-predicting big hairy man in the sky - Karl Marx in this case, no less revered than God and Son as a saviour, an emancipator, a reliable father-figure.
When there is no separation between Church and State, they obviously become one. But in the cases where there is no Church at all, it seems that the State becomes the de facto Church. So you either (appear to) buy in wholeheartedly or you get purged, culturally revolutionised, re-educated, year-zero'd, gulag'd or just plain killed.
And in both cases, of war-catalysing Religion and industrially-genocidal Communism, neither of them have absolutely anything to do with god.
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