“…what are the fruits of militant secularism? Are the lives of Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao not instructive? And have we no personal knowledge of the utter misery that has plagued friends who mistakenly thought they could live happy and completely secular lives? As for wholly secular states, Oz Guinness, writing in the Wilson Quarterly (Spring 2005) observed, “It’s a simple fact…that, contrary to the current scapegoating of religion, more people were slaughtered during the 20th century under secularist regimes, led by secularist intellectuals, and in the name of secularist ideologies, than in all the religious persecutions in Western history.” Read that again, slowly”. –Historian Thomas C. Reeves, writing in the History News Network
Are you getting religious?
No, not religious, just anti-communist.
You forgot the greatest secular state. THE US of A. As a strict constructionist you should note that the constituion does not once mention god or the lord (other than stating the year of the lord after the date, which at the time was like saying AD). This was not an accident.
That’s not necessarily true, while God is not mentioned in the constitution, God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” and than the famous “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
Since we’re quoting people about God and humanity, I think this quote from H.G.Wells - an atheist historian of significant socialist leanings - takes the discussion up a whole notch.
When you extend the Christian propensity to kill beyond the qualification of “religious persecutions” in the West, you find that millions have died as a result of the marauding European Christian exploits in “new worlds.” My thoughts turn to the millions of peoples of Sub-Saharan African, Asia and the Americas, all of whom have a common oppressor and killer- the Christian European. The Christian European and his decedents are unsurpassed in the, numerically speaking, killing of human beings; in that endeavor they truly are the greatest.
Indeed, if you truly believe the Christian superstition, it was the Christian deity who called for millions of human sacrifices.
“That’s not necessarily true, while God is not mentioned in the constitution, God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence”
-HP
The Declaration of Independence was rhetoric, not laws by which the US was governed. If it were law, than it would defy logic- are all man created equal in every aspect of life?
Hey O,
No, not in every aspect, but do have ‘certain inalienable rights’.
As for the rest of your post, you bring up a good point, if religion or atheism is not the commmon denominator among mass killing entities, than what is? Maybe it’s just plane old Europeans? I kid…