I was at a Christmas party and was discussing religion with another Christian who is diametrically opposed to my social and political views (is there any true distinction between the two and are they not really one concept, demand, and policy, having fulfilled the politicization of morality?). Though we are opposed on most of our worldviews and even regarding many of our religious views (not so much in the fundamentals of our Christianity but in how we are to apply those beliefs in worldly issues), it was a pleasant conversation.

Another had been listening at the edge of our conversation and turned to us and said, “I don’t know and I don’t care which of your gods is the right one, I just wish he’d tell his followers to stop killing people.”

The woman I’d been talking with was taken aback, so I replied:

“We have the blood-splattered laboratory of the 20^th century as all the evidence humanity should ever need of the horrific violence that purely atheistic regimes have perpetrated in their quest for “peace” and “normalization.” What does The Black Book of Communism tell us, over 100 million murdered for these atheistic socialist and communist nations? Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro? The tens of millions murdered and imprisoned and enslaved, the prosperity of all those lives utterly stolen and destroyed? Who could possibly pretend that the atheistic State is a peaceful alternative? I don’t deny that people and nations have killed millions in the name of religion, but that is not the fault of religion but rather indicates our imperfections and what we typically refer to as man’s inhumanity toward man.”

Compared to those who root their governing systems in Marx’s plan (who stated, along with Engels, that one of their primary goals was to destroy Christianity and religion in general and to have the State serve as the divine authority), religious wars can’t come close to the brutality perpetuated by those dictators who think they alone can define and enforce the law, who base their laws on their own interests, and who think they are above all laws, including their own.

I take less issue with atheists than I do with antitheists. There is a difference, but many are unaware of the difference, and many who claim to be atheists and who sully the name of their belief system with abject hatred of religion and the religious, are actually antitheists. For a discussion of these forms of belief, please consider Faith, “Scientific” Evidentialism, Agnosticism, Atheism, and Antitheism.