I've been having an interesting debate with someone on youtube regarding the idea that a secular government (or a secular person) left alone has the propensity to become a monster like Hitler or like the Communist system of exterminating religious people. I think it could use some feedback from historians on what people exactly were targeted by the Soviet government in general as I do not feel that religiosity was the determining factor in the Soviet case. The Khmer Rouge was clearly a horrible communist group that murdered 7 million believers.
I'd like to get feedback on your thoughts of what morality falls within the extra-biblical world (such as not condoning slavery) and what morality is derived from Biblical teachings.
On the side of Religiosity being to blame for genocide:
20 million native americans killed to make way for protestant Christian pilgrims and colonists under both British (largely religious/catholic) rule as well as by Christian presidents and congress.
Hitler -- around just under 5 million jew --
Need proof of his belief?
Kyle J. Gerkin's year 2001 critique of Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith, entitled "Objections Sustained!"
On the subject of Hitler:
Hitler was born and raised Catholic. "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so," Hitler himself told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals, in 1941. In Mein Kampf he says, "Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." And at a Nazi Christmas celebration in 1926 Hitler declared: "Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews ... The work that Christ started but could not finish, I--Adolf Hitler--will conclude." So why should we possibly consider him an atheist? Because he was evil and killed millions? Undoubtedly this is why Strobel would like us to think so, but it is a bigoted and insulting lie.
Witch hunts: 63,000 in 300 years. (Source: The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (Harlow, UK: Longman, 1995), p. 25.)
The following source names a plethora of other deaths by leaders who held religious beliefs, though each individual one is not grouped together as the figure of Communism is. Anyone want to tally it up? No matter the score, it was high enough to prove the point that religious people, like secular communist people can be capable of genocide.
Source:
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#European
On the side of secular led murders:
Stalin estimate is 20-40 million with the majority count being at 20 million.
Stalin is attributed as an atheist by many, but the Russian Orthodox Church was allowed to remain as a patriotic organization under his rule and became the state recognized religion. So it's debatable that Stalin himself was completely secular. In any case, he wanted absolute power. The largely secular population of ethnic Jewish people in U.S.S.R. were kept in the dark about a great number of the killings Stalin did as he would publish papers condemning anti-semetism, but allowed Hitler to purge Jewish people, and was responsible for setting up quotas of violence. Were the people evil, or the dictator, I ask. I am on the side of the dictator having mislead his people, like Hitler, into doing unethical things.
Khmer Rouge: over 2 million - (source http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_cambodia1.html) -- "All political and civil rights were abolished. Children were taken from their parents and placed in separate forced labour camps. Factories, schools and universities were shut down; so were hospitals. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and professional people in any field (including the army) were murdered, together with their extended families. Religion was banned, all leading Buddhist monks were killed and almost all temples destroyed. Music and radio sets were also banned. It was possible for people to be shot simply for knowing a foreign language, wearing glasses, laughing, or crying. One Khmer slogan ran 'To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.'"
Estimates of all deaths by all Communist leaders seems to hover around the 100 million mark. There is no clear idea of what individual events are counted among that figure. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union)
Read carefully the body counts from the referenced sites I've listed. I think overall, you'll see that genocide seems to be practiced regardless of belief, supporting the idea that religosity has no greater or less bearing on the propensity for committing genocide than being secular.
Tags: secular morality atheist atheism christianity christians Khmer Rouge Soviet Russian genocide democide
