[AntiGuv]

You should grab yourself a good Medieval or Early Modern history text and you'll discover that an absolute morality and absolute ethics are similarly insufficient to restrain the basest instincts of man. This is what we saw in the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries after the broad conversion to Christianity and before Darwin. Look what was going on in what used to be called the Holy Roman Empire just for starters. All those murderous agendas were supposedly carried out in the name of Christianity.

[Alamo-Girl]

To keep things in perspective, here's some information for the discussion on democide: Murder by Government

[gore3000]

You should grab yourself a good Medieval or Early Modern history text and you'll discover that an absolute morality and absolute ethics are similarly insufficient to restrain the basest instincts of man. This is what we saw in the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries after the broad conversion to Christianity and before Darwin.

You are making some very false assumptions there one of which that there were no atheists before Darwin. The most destructive European war before the 20th century was the one started by the atheistic French Revolution. Just about all the wars of Christianity - including the Crusades - before 1500 were defensive wars against atheist Norsemen, atheist nomads from Asia and the followers of the evil prophet Mohammed. If you knew anything about the Middle Ages you would know that war was a very gentlemanly thing in those times and civilian populations were almost completely unaffected by it. The only stain on Christianity came afterwards with the wars of the Reformation. While they might have claimed to be religious wars they clearly were using religion to incite the populace into unChristian actions for the purpose of conquest. Such were the wars of the English against the Scots and the Irish for example. So overall, Christianity has indeed shown a most civilizing effect on mankind and held back the barbaric passions we have seen displayed way too often by atheistic societies.