your religion is what they say it is
Did you know that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and Kim Jong Il aren’t just responsible for millions of deaths and some of the most wretched atrocities against fellow humans in the past century, they’re also the ultimate proof that atheism is evil? No? Really? Yeah, neither did I considering that Hitler was a Catholic who constantly mentioned God and his divine mission in Mein Kampf, Stalin was a seminarian and Asia’s communist dictators were and are very far from both atheistic or communistic.
Never underestimate the power of religious fundamentalists though, because they’ve come up with a way to render all historical facts obsolete by declaring that no theist would ever commit such horrible crimes. Maybe they were theists before, they admit, but once the killings started, their memberships to organized religions were revoked and they became atheists. Well, with a creative approach to history like that, Hitler’s devotion to Catholicism and the Nazi dedication to perversions of ancient Nordic rites go out the window. Stalin’s priestly education can just be thrown away. Mao’s and Pol Pot’s extreme versions of Confucianism are also meaningless. And with that logic, names like Saddam Hussein, a devout Sunni Muslim, appear on the list of mass murdering heathens.
How can someone randomly assign your belief system depending on whether it benefits an argument? If a much maligned dictator passionately believes that God told him to kill all the unbelievers or people who stand in his way, isn’t he still a theist albeit one who’s using religion to justify his bigotry and bloodlust? Well, consider it a theist comeback to the thesis of The End of Faith by Sam Harris. According to Harris, religion and violence are joined at the hip and when religious belief gets too strong, murder and mayhem result. It’s a somewhat simplistic view of how religion works on a personal level. Some people use their religion to help others without a single question. Others browse scriptures to find some support for a long burning hatred and without a religious text, they’d find some other way to justify their aggression. Yet others, use religion to feel morally superior and impose their opinions on others.
Nevertheless, Harris put forth the argument that religion can kill and wounded theists felt they needed to respond to his accusation. Since in the United States, being called an atheist was the equivalent of being called a criminal or an immoral person, some of the most loathsome mass murderers of the 20th century have long been categorized as such by ardent fundamentalists. To them, it’s a perfect comeback. Oh you think we’re evil mass murderers? You atheists aren’t all that moral yourself with your Hitlers and Stalins and Maos. Doesn’t matter whether they held religious beliefs or not. They’re atheists because we say they were. And with that logic, who can really argue?
