Wednesday, June 11, 2008

No one has ever been killed in the name of atheism

A redated post.

Is this true? Millions have been killed in the name of atheistic ideologies. But some maintain that this is not the same as being killed in the name of atheism. Why not? Consider this quote from Richard Wurmbrand's Tortured for Christ:

The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The Communist torturers often said, 'There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.' I have heard one torturer even say, 'I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.' He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflected on prisoners.8

17 comments:

Unknown said...

It takes some gall to look at the systematic elimination of both priests and obstinate believers in 1790s France, in Soviet Russia and during the Cultural Revolution in China and insist that in no case did institutional atheism have anything to do with it.

Anonymous said...

Seems like the communists were more interested in destroying the power system of the church. See "Red Crimes" for more on this.

In any case, is it better to torture and kill FOR god?

Stupidity and ideological fanaticism are open to both theists and atheists.

Anonymous said...

I suppose said torturer if given the chance would say "'I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart, in which I also do not believe.'"

Anonymous said...

Victor do you mean no one has ever died for atheism or no one has ever been killed by an atheist because of an affront to atheism? Or both?

Victor Reppert said...

As I understand it, some atheists have been using the admittedly bloody history of Christianity as grounds for atheism, claiming that atheism is pure in that regard. I find this patently absurd. You get the blood when the power of the state is attached to any ideology, whether it be a Christian ideology, a Jewish ideology, a Hindu ideology or an Islamic ideology, or an atheist ideology. Can people be fanatical enough about atheism to kill for it? I realize that they don't believe in hell, but some of them are exclusivists in the sense that they think everyone who is on the atheist side is right and everyone who is committed to "religion" is doing damage. When someone can't recogize the fact that Gandhi received profound inspiration from his Hindu beliefs while challenging the worst in Hinduism, if you call Martin Luther King insane because he was caught up in the "God delusion" and can't see how important his faith was in undergirding the social transformation he spearheaded, then you are an ideologue, and I'm going to start getting worried if you ever have a gun in your hand.

State-sponsored Christianity, state-sponsored Islam, state-sponsored atheism. Is the problem with the beliefs, or with the misguided attempt to support these ideologies with coercive power. The bad news for atheists is that the bloody history of Christianity does nothing to support a case against Christianity. The good news for atheists is that these things do support something that I think most atheists believe in: the separation of Church and State. That is the correct use of the"holy horrors" argument, and atheists who want to use it in that way can be my guest.

Timmo said...

Victor,

State-sponsored Christianity, state-sponsored Islam, state-sponsored atheism. Is the problem with the beliefs, or with the misguided attempt to support these ideologies with coercive power...The good news for atheists is that these things do support something that I think most atheists believe in: the separation of Church and State....

If state-sponsored religion/non-religion is problematic, why not state-sponsored political philosophies? In the last century alone, how many people have died for communism, national socialism, and democracy? The state, and more generally people in power, can utilize religion, political philosophy, race, class, nationality, culture, or anything imaginable to mobilize the populace for war, something which tends to benefit the powerful instead of the populace. Why not simply say that it is the state and coercive power itself which is the source of the problem rather than the state plus something else?

Clayton Littlejohn said...

The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human.

It's sad that anyone would think that there is no reason to be human unless there is a system of punishment and reward. This instrumentalizes "reasons to be human" and if self-centered reasons are what it takes to have reasons to be human, it is impossible for our actions to have moral worth regardless of whether God exists or not.

Timmo said...

Clayton,

Are you sure? What if a kind of minimal egoism is true:

(E) For any agent S, if S ought to perform action A, then the S's performance of A promotes S's happiness at least as much as another other action S might have performed.

If (E) is true -- and I am not saying it really is -- then perhaps Heavenly rewards and Hellish punishments are necessary in order to make certain noble sacrifices rational and ignoble but self-promoting actions irrational.

In fact, Wielenberg reasonably attributes a principle like (E) to Aristotle:

Wielenberg, Erik (2004) "Egoism and Eudaimonia-Maximization in the Nicomachean Ethics" In Sedley, David (ed.), Oxford Studies of Ancient Philosophy Volume XXVI, New York: Oxford University Press

Ilíon said...

Timmo: "... Why not simply say that it is the state and coercive power itself which is the source of the problem rather than the state plus something else?"

But of course this is true (and *widely* known). And of course this is not new knowledge -- in fact, the US Constitution is *explicitly* designed around this knowledge.

And -- I hope this isn't a shocker to our anti-theistic friends, but -- this knowledge is even contained in the oldest portions of the Bible.


The problem is that we cannot get rid of the state ... the alternatives turn out to be even worse than all but the very worst of states (i.e. totalitarianisms).

Mark Frank said...

Of course some people somewhere must have killed in the name of atheism. To say "no one" is far too strong a statement and unprovable.

A common fallacy is to go on from there to claim that the vast number of murders committed under communism were done in the name of atheism. There is a difference between atrocities done by an organisation which includes atheism as one of its tenets and atrocities done in the name of atheism. A very small proportion of communist atrocities were done because the victims were religious. They were done out of fear of rebellion, failure to conform to policies such as collective farms, or dislike of intellectuals (Pol Pot).

Pretty much all Western monarchies included the divine right of Kings as part of their justification. That does not mean that theism was responsible for all atrocities committed by all monarchs.

But, an awful lot of people have been killed in ghastly ways in the name of one or other religion e.g burning of Catholics by Protestants or vice versa in England in the 16th century. There are precious few examples of people being killed and tortured by atheists because they were believers.

I am not sure of the importance of the state connection. All states have some ideology. Meanwhile Al Qaeda is not a state but kills in the name of an ideology. It is simple a matter of power - state or otherwise. And nowadays technology gives small groups of people the power to do awful things.

Timmo said...

ilion,

The problem is that we cannot get rid of the state ... the alternatives turn out to be even worse than all but the very worst of states (i.e. totalitarianisms).

Why think that? There's a dogma that states are a necessary evil, but that is never argued for.

Are they necessary because they protect the populace from violence? States enact violence on an incomparable scale to anything els through their armies and police forces.

Are they necessary to protect the poor from exploitation by the socially privileged? States are systematically protect the interests of the upper class (whether that is comprised of the wealthy, the highest clergy, the master race...)

Many, many evils flow from the state. What goods states arguably do provide (e.g a stable, public order) have never been shown to be impossible any other way. The truth is that we do not know what a world without states would look like.

Mike Darus said...

We are anthropomorphizing terms like "Christianity", "religion", "the church", "the state" and even "atheism" by thinking we can attribut blame to these "agents." The harsh reality is that individuals committed attrocities. Some of these individuals claimed to be members of these groups. It must be a separate exercise to determine if their claim to represent the group is legitimate, manipulative, or blatently false. Then we would also need to evaluate whether our understanding of some of these historical events are accurate.

Mark Frank is very close to a revelation when he says:
"A very small proportion of communist atrocities were done because the victims were religious. They were done out of fear of rebellion, failure to conform to policies..." It seems the same defense works for Christianity if you just replace the word "communism" with "Chrisitanity" in Mark's statement. I suspect most atrocities were about political control, not expression of faith. Unfortunately, Ilion is more realistic than Timmo. Coersive actions to enforce laws seems to still be a necessary evil; the realm of kings, not prophets or priests.

Ilíon said...

Mike Darus: "We are anthropomorphizing terms like "Christianity", "religion", "the church", "the state" and even "atheism" by thinking we can attribut blame to these "agents.""

Are we really?


Mike Darus: "The harsh reality is that individuals committed attrocities."

Yes, the problem is man. And I don't mean some reified "humanity;" I mean every man-jack one of us. As we both know, the problem with the world is you ... and me.


Mike Darus: "Unfortunately, Ilion is more realistic than Timmo. Coersive actions to enforce laws seems to still be a necessary evil; the realm of kings, not prophets or priests."

It's a nasty habit I have.


Mike Darus: "Mark Frank is very close to a revelation ..."

I strongly suspect that the Spirit has passed, by now.

Mike Darus said...

Even witch hunts in Kenya today are probably not about religion at all:
QUOTE:
"These are vendettas. It is not that people really bewitched somebody," he says, adding he believes that witch hunts are really about people expressing hatred and coming up with an excuse to hurt someone."

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/06/12/kenya.witches/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Ilíon said...

Witch hunts and accusations of witchcraft, all throughout history and in all societies, have rarely been about "religion," but rather about vendettas and jealousy and other such nasty things.


When I was in 9th grade, we were given the assignment to write a report on a topic of our choice. I chose "the Roman Emptire" ... and then proceded to try to re-enact Gibbons writing the 'Rise and Fall.' By this I mean that I didn't turn in a mere report, I turned in a tome.

Anyway, one thing I came across during my research and which has always stuck with me was a report of a court case from a Roman colony in Italy during the Republic. The Roman citizens in this colony all had their lands (given by the Roman State, taken from the prior non-Roman owners); they were now farmers, whether or not they worked their own lands or relied upon slave labor.

The colony was not thriving, everyone thought themselves more poor with each passing year. Except for one man, and he was doing very well. Naturally, the other citizens were jealous.

Eventually, someone accused this man of witchcraft: specifically, of laying a curse upon all their lands ... and so, he was on trial for his life, with the assembly of his fellow citizens as both judge and jury.

This incident stuck with me due to the man's defence: he put his wife and sons on an ox-cart and had them them roll into the local forum as he was making his defence. As they were entering, he drew attention to his family, saying (to wildly paraphrase): "This is my 'witchcraft:' I and my wife and sons work my land; you turn the labor over to your slaves, who have no interest in your success, for you must feed them regardless, lest you loose your investment in them."

Mark Frank said...

"It seems the same defense works for Christianity if you just replace the word "communism" with "Chrisitanity" in Mark's statement. I suspect most atrocities were about political control, not expression of faith."

Mike Darus

It is very hard to tell what is really motivating people, especially hundreds of years ago. I limit myself to what people declare as their motives.

Ilíon said...

Of course.

Until you don't.