[Hank Kerchief]

Good points, but - officially atheist regimes in the last century deliberately killed over 100 million people.

Not because they were atheist, but because they were totalitarian. And the figures are not exactly correct. The Nazis (21 million murdered) Chaing Kai-shek Nationalist Regime (10 million murdered) Japan (6 million murdered) Turkey (2 million murdered) Poland's ethnic cleansing (1.6 million murdered) and at least a million each -- Mexico and Feudal Russia, were not atheist at all and these account for 57 million murders by governments. (The actual total figure is more like 169 million, so your 100 million figure is correct for officially atheistic regimes, meaning they were not alone in their enterprise, just the most efficient.)

Irrationality and murderousness are not necessarily limited to the religious mindset.

But certainly religion is no protection from them. The cause of mass murders and oppression by government is ideology, specifically any ideology that believes men have the right to use unlimited force and coercion to impose their ideology on others. Except for those remnants of Marxism, Atheism today rejects all use of physical coecion in relations between men, and are usually the most outspoken about protecting freedom of religion. It is only in religion today that the belief one has a right to use force, especially government force, to impose beliefs (or practices based on beliefs) on others is alive and well, and there is plenty of that in the good old USA.

(I'm only comparing Atheism to actual Religions here. There is plenty of collectivist statist ideology in the world that is a-religious, such as American liberals and almost the entire leftist educational community, from top to bottom.) Hank

[Tribune7]

Except for those remnants of Marxism, Atheism today rejects all use of physical coecion in relations between men, and are usually the most outspoken about protecting freedom of religion.

What? An universal church of atheism? :-)

[nickcarraway]

But now you are not being consistent. You talked about atheists not flying planes into a building, but then when confronted with something bad an atheist did, you excuse atheism. How can you logically have it both ways? ``Bad things religious people do are the fault of religion, bad things atheists do are the fault of something else.''

[Diamond]

It is only in religion today that the belief one has a right to use force, especially government force, to impose beliefs (or practices based on beliefs) on others is alive and well, and there is plenty of that in the good old USA.

Sorry to arrive late to the party, but the contention that it is only in religion today that the belief one has a right to use force, especially government force, to impose beliefs (or practices based on beliefs) is belied by the simple fact of abortion-killing.

Cordially,