@j.a.m.
What? Now prehistoric humans were atheists?

In a way, I am kind of more open to that idea than the usual argument from your side of the fence that “all human cultures were religious”, as if it is “natural” to be religious, and blurring the difference between modern religion (i.e. contrasting itself with science) and ancient ideologies.

I would imagine stone age atheists were not so different to modern ones — they probably treated claims to divine authority as fact claims, and treated them the same way as they would treat a claim like “there is a spring on the other side of that huge mountain.” — Maybe there is, but I’ve never see you go there, so I will not believe you and will not waste my energy on it.

Ultimately with religion, it comes down to which external authority do you believe. (Or if you commit the heresy of personal revelation and think god is revealing himself directly to you, then who told you how to interpret that experience?)

@All: My tablet must not be working. I can’t find a post where I’m talking about Nazis.

@H: I didn’t blame atheism. Quite the contrary, I said that ideological disputes do not seem to account for the phenomena analyzed in the chart. However, since many of the violent actors behind those phenomena are atheist or non-theist, the chart tends to discredit the hypothesis that atheists are (as you put it) “generally more peaceful”.

The value of the chart is that it analyzes the whole of human history, across all cultures. If one is going to attempt a counter-argument, that’s the baseline. I’m struck by the strong ethnocentrism implicit in your view of atheism. You seem to be saying that the only “real” atheist is a 21st Century Judeo-Christian atheist. Why so skittish about embracing your fellow atheists and non-theists from other cultures and epochs?

For that matter, how can we overlook the umpteen millennia of human evolution before recorded history? If you believe that God and religion are created by man, then you must believe that for all those millennia before the dawn of reason — when all men were nasty, brutish, illiterate savages — they were atheists. By the light of reason we left all that behind, thank God.

The Vatican was the first foreign government to recognize Hitler’s chancellorship. Hitler was never excommunicated, so even if he had denounced the Church and left it (which he didn’t), they didn’t disown him (or any other Nazi). And even if he had been an atheist, all members of his senior staff except one were Catholic. The one who wasn’t was Protestant. Perhaps they had an ameliorating affect on his behaviour? Give me a break!

I’m happy for people to argue the Nazis were atheists, but they have to explain where the Nazis suddenly found 9 million atheists in strongly Catholic/Protestant Germany. I can understand why some went along with it — it’s difficult for many Christians to recognize a godless authoritarian dictator (as we can see now in the US for example), but why was Christianity no protection against Nazi ethics?

This church (not far from where I live in Berlin)
https://spiritualityisnoexcuse.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/st-bernhard-hitler-gruc39f.png?w=300&h=241
still displays their nice 1936 statue of St Bernard giving the Nazi Salute.

(Not implying the current church is full of Nazis — I don’t think this generation has quite realized what it is.)

Rudolf Hess described Hitler as a “good Catholic”, and never seems to have left the church (which is a legal bureaucratic process involving stopping paying the church — which was one of the first laws the Vatican got the Nazis to keep in place).

Contrast that with the fate of the Free Thought Society — which *was* an agnostic/atheist organization. It had 300,000 members in the 1930s and was closed down by the Nazis, and their chairman (Max von Sievers) was eventually executed for writing anti-Nazi pamphlets.

Ah, yes — that favorite old canard about how the Nazis were atheists despite their “Gitt Mit Uns” belt buckles.

And let’s grant you your premise for the moment: that not believing in any gods is what drives people to commit horrific atrocities. If only Hitler had seen the light and devoted himself to worshipping the great and glorious Quetzalcoatl, he wouldn’t have made human sacrifices of uncountable millions.

Wait, what?

Let’s try that again.

If only Stalin had bowed down before a true god like Ares, he wouldn’t have led the largest armies in history.

Hmmm…something’s still not right.

If only the Crusaders and Conquistadors and Inquisitors had worshipped a love god like Jesus, they wouldn’t have brought hither those his enemies which would not that he should reign over them, and slain them at his altar, for he came not to bring peace but a sword.

Nope, still something missing.

I’m sorry…your point, again…?

Cheers,

b&

I see they’ve missed out the time God flooded the planet and killed everybody because he gave them free will and they used it – probably because the Bible isn’t history.

I don’t know how you can blame atheism for any of those conflicts. None were about forcing atheism on people as their primary goal.

As for atheists being generally more peaceful, you just have to look at today’s world. Which countries are at war or are most warlike? The ones who are the most religious, or which at least have the most religious leaders.

The most peaceful ones, and there is an international index of peace, are more likely to be secular and have large numbers of atheists – like New Zealand and northern Europe.

@nicky: No, I would not say so by any means, but you reminded me to post this chart depicting the most lethal calamities in human history. Ideological disputes do not figure very prominently. Moreover, it is clear that atheism (real or fake) does not correlate with non-violence, as some would have you believe.

The list’s dominant theme is greed, which suggests that modern global trade is a much more significant factor than ideology in reducing violent conflict (assuming there is indeed such a reduction).

http://www.hostpic.org/images/1408130053170109.jpg

You could have mentioned the ’80 year war’ of the Dutch, or the 30 year war in Germany and the absolutist regime under the ‘Sun King’ (Louis XIV) . I think these wars and regimes were the main reasons for developing the ‘Enlightenment’.

Come on Jam, Coel and Ben just thoroughly destroyed your argument.
Why not be a man and admit it.