It gets tiresome. Again and again, we run into the argument from non-believers, especially in the comments sections of social media, that Christianity has caused far more deaths than anything caused by atheists. ‘Religion is the major cause of wars’ is the usual line.
Avoid ‘whataboutery’
When meeting this argument, we must first be honest and admit to our shame that there are events in the past where Christians, in the name of Christ, have perpetrated wars and slaughter, usually of fellow Christians. We have also too often allowed our faith to be used as a pretext for war or to justify war.
Our first instinct is to argue that even the most cursory look at the history of the last century alone would prove that atheist regimes have slaughtered people on an industrial scale. There has never been such a mass bloodletting as that seen in the twentieth century, and it is difficult to detect any done in the name of Christ. Even Irish terrorists on both sides, while using sectarianism as a pretext for murder in pursuit of political and social ends, did not murder and torture for Christ’s sake.
Even Irish terrorists on both sides, while using sectarianism as a pretext for murder in pursuit of political and social ends, did not murder and torture for Christ’s sake.
However, when encountering this accusation, we should try to avoid ‘whataboutery’ and swapping horror stories or comparing numbers killed in a kind of league table of horror, as this is futile. ‘Your side killed more than my side’ does nothing to further the discussion and only increases antagonism.
Not in the name of atheism
If our atheist is honest, his immediate response will be to admit that the historical record shows that atheists have indulged in mass slaughter. But he then gets to the core of the issue and insists that there is a fundamental difference between Christians and atheists with regard to warfare: ‘Yes, Stalin, Hitler, Mao and the others were bad, indeed evil, but they weren’t motivated by their atheism, they didn’t follow the dictates of a supposedly holy book.’ The argument is that atheists have done great evils, but they haven’t done them in the name of or in order to advance atheism. There were other aims behind their actions.
At this point the unbeliever thinks that he has brought forward a strong, even clinching, argument as the surface evidence supports him. After all, it is indeed apparent that Stalin in his reign of terror didn’t slaughter people by the tens of millions in order to advance atheism: rather, he thought it would preserve and advance his regime and personal power.
... it is indeed apparent that Stalin in his reign of terror didn’t slaughter people by the tens of millions in order to advance atheism: rather, he thought it would preserve and advance his regime and personal power.
Mao launched the Cultural Revolution to turn China from an agricultural economy into an industrial one. This may have caused the greatest famine in history, resulting in between 30 million and 55 million deaths, but it wasn’t perpetrated in the name of atheism. The Holocaust, far from having a religious base, was conceived in large part to wipe out a religious based race, but it was perpetrated from a foundational principle of race, not of atheism.
Far from making the point the non-believer wishes to establish, this argument can be effective only if we completely ignore how humans think. Those horrendous events perpetrated by atheist regimes are more than the accidental by-products of actions taken by despotic regimes which coincidentally just happened to be atheist in nature.
Foundations matter
Our underlying principles shape how we think and what we think shapes how we act. Christians do not see themselves as the final arbiters of right and wrong, truth and justice. Our foundational principle is that our supreme rule in faith and life is God’s revelation in Scripture followed by His revelation in nature. We try to shape our thinking and our actions on what we understand to be God’s will. Christians accept that we don’t get to make up our own rules of life and that there are restraints on our actions. Although we sometimes fail to live up to the foundational principles of our world-view, they do exist and they shape our actions.
Those horrendous events perpetrated by atheist regimes are more than the accidental by-products of actions taken by despotic regimes which coincidentally just happened to be atheist in nature.
The atheist, having rejected the very concept of God, has put himself in God’s place and decides by his own reflection what is wrong and what is right. For some, this leads to a liberal humanism which can be of benefit to others. Unfortunately, the same subjective view of morality can also result in unmitigated horror. It was this which allowed Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot and many others to consider the deaths of millions as being a necessary price to further their own aims.
We can accept that these atheist mass murderers weren’t directly motivated to kill millions because of their atheist principles, although religious people, including Christians, were persecuted by them all. The despots’ ability to rationalise their actions and to persuade other people to support them was a product of the sense in which, in the absence of God, they thought they could get to decide on whatever moral rules suited their purposes.
Without a world-view in which we are all worthy of dignity and respect by virtue of being made in the image of God, they were able to consider other human beings as nothing more than statistics on paper. Without God, we are at the mercy of the powerful who believe that might makes right, that power shapes morality. As Stalin is supposed to have asked dismissively, ‘How many divisions has the Pope?’
Without God, we are at the mercy of the powerful who believe that might makes right, that power shapes morality.
We accept that their atheism did not directly cause these monstrous despots to bring death and destruction upon tens of millions of innocents. Their atheism did, however, open the door to this slaughter by creating the conditions in which they could justify such actions to themselves and their followers.
History shows that we Christians have too often failed to live up to the principles of our faith. But we can also see that atheists have too often lived out the utterly tragic failures of theirs.
The Rev. Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack is a retired Church of Scotland minister; now a member of the Free Church of Scotland. Check out his many incisive articles on his blog, A Grain of Sand.
