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Were the Communists Motivated by Their Atheism?
IntroductionIt's common nowadays for many Christian apologists to claim that religion is a necessary aspect of asociety or else all hell will break loose. Another aspect of this argument is that it was atheism, or thelack of a belief in a god, that causes some individuals to commit the atrocities they do. VariousChristian apologists often cite Communist Russia and China as examples of this supposed fact inaction.Christian apologists who make such claims are Dinesh D'Souza, [1] David Aikman, [2] DavidMarshall, [3] and Michael Caputo. [4] This article will seek to expose these inaccurate claims by theseindividuals, as well as many others.This isn't the first time I've written about this topic. I have argued against it in two book reviews I'vedone. This article mostly combines my various arguments (along with some new facts and argumentsnot included) in the before mentioned book reviews. [5]There are several threads making up the argument that atheism, or the lack of a belief in a god (andeven "Darwinian ethics"), is what caused the horrors of the 20th Century.First I want to tackle the claim that evolution and Darwin had a hand in causing these events to unfold.It's often said that Darwin's science of evolution influenced a host of philosophers and scientists duringthe 20th Century, and that is true, though, it seems that Darwin's theories weren't the ones that largelyinfluenced many of the socialists during the time of Marx. It was actually Jean Baptiste Lamarck'stheories that influenced Marx, Herbert Spencer, and other "Social Darwinists."Spencer developed his views long before Darwin published his views in his books The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.To quote David E. Cooper:"It was not to Darwin's picture of evolution as a pretty haphazard story of species being favoured or weeded out through natural selection that [Spencer, Marx and Haeckel's] view[s] of human progressowed. It was, rather, to Jean Baptiste Lamarck's hypothesis of purposive adaptation... Darwin himself was no exponent of 'global progressionism,' but the 'catalyst' which enabled it to take such a hold inVictorian England. Ironically, the Social Darwinists had less in common with Darwin than with someof his theological critics. These did not reject evolution, but insisted that it must display a purpose and progression suitable to its being the vehicle of a divine plan."It was Lamarck's view that a species should continuously get better, and advance to ever higher levelsof complexity and diversity, and while Darwin's views are similar, the difference lies in the fact that
 
Darwin didn't feel that natural selection works towards some ultimate goal; natural selection has noforesight and no goal in mind. If a species does not face any imminent threats in its environment thatspecies will tend to say the same until such pressures cause it to evolve further to adapt to its newenvironment. Not so with Lamarckian evolution, which has much more in common with the Nazi andCommunist ideologies, which strive for ever greater perfection. [6]I covered this topic in another post called Hitler, Nietzsche, and Evolution, [7] but the point is that itseems that Lamarck's theories had more in common with the Communist and Nazi ideologies thanDarwin's ever did, and because of the fact that these views were developed long before Darwin ever  published his theory he should not be blamed for such atrocities, and neither should his theory. This isnothing but an underhanded attempt by individuals with a theological agenda attempting to attack andsmear Darwin and his theory because it threatens their religious beliefs.There is absolutely nothing inherently evil or amoral about the science of evolution. Just because agroup of men twisted and distorted many of his views (and also used the theories of another inLamarck, which has nothing to do with Darwin whatsoever) doesn't justify this undeserved assault bythese ideologues. The fact of the matter is that instead of causing society to spin out of control intomoral decay, there is evidence [8] that natural selection crafted our innate sense of altruism - hardly that"selfish" concept bandied about by so many who are ignorant of Darwin's theory. Now I shall tackle the claim that atheism had a hand in the 20th Century atrocities.Two christians who espouse this view that atheism is responsible for the Communist and Nazi horrorsare David Marshall and David Aikman.In Aikman's book, The Delusion of Disbelief, he expresses this view on page 100 thus:"The point that needs to be made about the role of atheism in the depravities of twentieth-centurysecular totalitarian dictatorships is this: Simply put, atheism sets mankind at the center of the universe.That is, atheism makes the assumption that there is no authority for rightness or wrongness of human behavior outside of human beings themselves."Marshall, on page 190 of his The Truth Behind the New Atheism, has this to say about the subject,largely borrowing from Aikman's research:"What have atheism and Darwinian ethics done for the human race in general? Are there signs that,once freed from the 'delusions' our ancestors suffered under, the human race will breath a big sigh of relief and finally make progress? Or does the 'death of god' mean, as Dostoevsky warned, that'everything [including Gulags] is lawful?'"With many atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and others, speakingout about the inherent danger of religious beliefs, many apologists for religion have been attempting toturn the argument back around on the atheists. They claim that, yes, religion has done much harm, butatheist dictators are responsible for far more worse atrocities, and more deaths, than religion ever has.I do not deny that some of the dictators have been atheists (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc.) and their actionsare truly horrible, but the apologists are in a bind. They don't seem to understand that the atheists arenot claiming that christians are committing the atrocities [9] they have just because they are christians. No, the atheists are claiming that many of the beliefs christians (and other theists) hold are directly
 
responsible for such violent and horrible actions. There are countless examples of this, frommissionaries going to a country and forcing their beliefs on the inhabitants to the murder of abortiondoctors. As an example of missionaries committing atrocities there are several examples, such as sister Maria Kisito, who was convicted of murder for her role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. From aWashington Post article:“Sister Maria Kisito, who received 12 years, and her Mother Superior, Sister Gertrude, who received 15years, were convicted of aiding in the slaughter of some 7,000 people who sought refuge at their convent in southern Rwanda. Prosecutors argued that they called in Hutu militiamen to drive people outof the convent knowing they would be killed, and later provided gasoline that militiamen used to setfire to a garage in which about 500 Tutsis had taken refuge.”This is said to have been done to propagate the hatred between the Hutus and the Tutsis because itwould be favorable for their objectives of conversion to christianity. [10]This is precisely the reason so many feel religion is such a potential danger to society; manyindividuals and even entire groups take the more unethical and primitive teachings literally, and areinfluenced by them, and often act on them. Atheism has no such potential.There are many who don't seem to understand the true definition of atheism. It is a lack of belief; it isnot a belief that there is no god, or a rejection of god, as is often defined by many of the sameapologists who say atheism is responsible for the 20th Century atrocities. Because atheism is a negativeit is logically and philosophically impossible for it to inspire or influence a person's actions due to thelack of an ideology, which is unlike that of Communism and Nazism, which included a mixture of unscientific race and economic theories, which in hindsight have been proven wrong. Regarding Nazism, because of genetics it's been shown that all human races are not as different as the racistswould have you believe, who often used science to justify their racism and antisemitism. Despite verysmall differences in our DNA, all humans are roughly 99.9% genetically similar [11] and many of Marx's ideas have been proven false over the course of time. [12]Due to atheism lacking such an ideology, one must look towards the ideology of those who committedthe atrocities. Marxism, with it's ultimate goal of creating a "classless society," and the belief thatreligion is a byproduct of capitalism, and that private property should be abolished, these are the beliefswhich inspired the actions of the communists. Because these things did not fade away as Marxenvisioned, Stalin forced these events to take place, in an attempt to create this "classless society."Again, with Nazism, they had a mixture of unscientific race theories, antisemitism (mostly derivedfrom the christian heritage within Germany with Martin Luther), and nationalism, which combined tocreate the Holocaust.Even if one used the "positive" definition of atheism, which is where one "believes that there are noGod or gods," [13] (which I think is illogical anyhow since believing something does not exist impliesthat entity actually does exist, it's just you personally do not believe it does) there is still no logical link  between that "belief" and a lack of morality. For the sake of argument, just because someone does not"believe" in god does not mean they reject all concepts of morality.It's also a fact that some scholars who have deeply studied the causes of Genocide and "Democide"have even stated the complete opposite. Take Dr. Rudolph Rummel for example. During a question andanswer session he had this to say about the subject:
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IacRO

Nice job. All in all, even if we accepted this absurd charge on atheism, we would have the right to entirely blame Christianity (both Protestant and Catholic) for the greatest genocide in human history, the Amerindian Genocide (or American Holocaust, if you prefer). Weren't the settlers all Christians, or at least weren't they asked by their societies to pretend to be so (quite the same way it was not advisable for members of Communist Parties to give signs of any religiousity)? Didn't the Catholic Church extensively support the Portuguese and the Spaniards in their conquests? Didn't the Protestants took away their promised land from the Indians by means of extensive bloodshed? Christian apologists would lose even in their own dishonest game.

reply10 / 22 / 2009
IacRO

Nice job. All in all, even if we accepted this absurd charge on atheism, we would have the right to entirely blame Christianity (both Protestant and Catholic) for the greatest genocide in human history, the Amerindian Genocide. Weren't the settlers all Christians? Didn't the Catholic Church extensively support the Portuguese and the Spaniard in their conquests? Christian apologists would lose even in their own dishonest game.

reply10 / 22 / 2009
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