Sooo... a lot of atheist-bashing has been going on lately, and I was just wondering...?

If there were such a rational and evidence backed criticism of atheism, then it surely would have been applied long before now.

So no, there really isn't any such basis for criticising atheism.

“Radical Muslims fly planes into buildings. Radical Christians kill abortion doctors. Radical atheists write books.” Hemant Mehta

Q. Atheist regimes in the 20th century killed tens of millions of people. Doesn’t this show that we were better off in the past, when our political and moral systems were guided by a belief in God?

A. This is a popular argument among theoconservatives and critics of the new atheism, but for many reasons it is historically inaccurate.

First, the premise that Nazism and Communism were “atheist” ideologies makes sense only within a religiocentric worldview that divides political systems into those that are based on Judaeo-Christian ideology and those that are not. In fact, 20th-century totalitarian movements were no more defined by a rejection of Judaeo-Christianity than they were defined by a rejection of astrology, alchemy, Confucianism, Scientology, or any of hundreds of other belief systems. They were based on the ideas of Hitler and Marx, not David Hume and Bertrand Russell, and the horrors they inflicted are no more a vindication of Judeao-Christianity than they are of astrology or alchemy or Scientology.

Second, Nazism and Fascism were not atheistic in the first place. Hitler thought he was carrying out a divine plan. Nazism received extensive support from many German churches, and no opposition from the Vatican. Fascism happily coexisted with Catholicism in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Croatia. See p. 677 for discussion and references.

Third, according to the most recent compendium of history’s worst atrocities, Matthew White's Great Big Book of Horrible Things (Norton, 2011), religions have been responsible for 13 of the 100 worst mass killings in history, resulting in 47 million deaths. Communism has been responsible for 6 mass killings and 67 million deaths. If defenders of religion want to crow, “We were only responsible for 47 million murders—Communism was worse!”, they are welcome to do so, but it is not an impressive argument.

Fourth, many religious massacres took place in centuries in which the world’s population was far smaller. Crusaders, for example, killed 1 million people in world of 400 million, for a genocide rate that exceeds that of the Nazi Holocaust. The death toll from the Thirty Years War was proportionally double that of World War I and in the range of World War II in Europe (p. 142).

When it comes to the history of violence, the significant distinction is not one between thesistic and atheistic regimes. It’s the one between regimes that were based on demonizing, utopian ideologies (including Marxism, Nazism, and militant religions) and secular liberal democracies that are based on the ideal of human rights. On pp. 337–338 I present data from Rummel showing that democracies are vastly less murderous than alternatives forms of government.

It's a funny thing. Everything that people of faith believe in, they believe we atheists do not. so they accuse us of not being able to love, we eat babies and are trying to bring down civilization.

I am a retired University Lecturer, I have three children - two are doctors and grandchildren whose little shiny innocent faces I love to bits.

I have a lovely husb - 40 years - the kindest man ever. My children are good people, all atheists, altho' one did become a christian for a while. We are a big loving family. We treat others as we would like them to treat us.

Mo

An atheist

Ma and Grandma

University Lecturer with a degree in the Philostophy of Religion.

First I would desire to assert that a number of those solutions are the fashion of element that in basic terms proliferates bashing interior the 1st place. i in my opinion have won one "Christian" hate mail and one non-believer digital mail sequence telling me that I wasn't truly a Christian - the 2d individual replaced into in basic terms a touch extraordinary, no longer bashing, yet truly astounding. yet i do no longer say that Atheists bash me. i think of that many Atheists bash Christianity in a hateful way for no sturdy reason, in basic terms as i think of a few "Christians" in this internet site are hateful interior the way they respond to others. each time a individual makes a sweeping assertion approximately one group or yet another, how would desire to we take that heavily? isn't that in basic terms the bias of the ignorant?

It's only the trolls and the really stupid people trying to bash on us, but they fail miserably. I think the are saying all of those things, it's hard to know past all the idiocy in their questions and answers.

A bit like being bashed with a feather hammer.

Atheist bashing? By whom? You didn't say in your question. But there have been a lot of atheists bahing each other, haven't there? Too bad

I thought it was a fact that all atheists eat babies? Was that supposed to be a joke...?

I gotta go clean out my freezer.

They just don't want to give up their imaginary friends. I don't pity them much.

Fundie FEARS that which does not FEAR what he FEARS.

If they didn't have FEAR as their Primary Motivator they'd have nothing.

Simple FEAR is the basis of their belief... without that FEAR none would believe.

~

ALL this bashing needs to stop from both sides for God has grafted all of his children into the Tree of Life and saved them all through his mercy.