I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else. We have lethal Sunni v Shia, Catholic against Protestant, but no agnostic suicide bombers attack crowded atheist pubs.
Simon Hoggart
There was the Athiest shooter in Texas though. Even Buddhists can be militant.
The cultural revolution in China, the invasion of about a dozen nations from 1944 to 1987 by the USSR, the repeated conquest of Tibet by the PRC, and the Khmer Rouge.
I am no fan of organized religion but we can't deny that countries and political forces that were officially atheist have committed democide.
The number of jews killed by the Soviet union may actually exceed the holocaust. The cultural revolution saw the beating an execution of monks across urban China, the multiple "police" across Tibet saw the near complete destruction of monasteries and the population within. The Khmer rogue by percentage is the most complete democide in history with over 20% of the population dead in under a decade. The khmer rogue was no fan of religion.
This of course ignores little incidents like the wiping out of Christians in North Korea, the subjection of muslims in western China, the wave of terrorist attacks by communist agitation that swept Europe in two waves one in the 1960s and one in the 1870s.
If Buddhism is not considered a faith (personally I think it is but some people say it is not) the history gets many times more bloody.
As I said I am not a fan of religion but it is not accurate to say secular forces are less bloodthirsty.
The Sugarland TX shooter was raging against his spouse mother in law and grandmother in law over his obsession with his child ALL REPORTS that he killed for Atheism were branded false by the pastor of the church who knew the family well
Check out this article in Huffington Post if religion is the cause of wars. I think it is.
Hitler waged a Lutheran with Catholics war on Jews where he was worshipped as Fuerher every German belt buckle read: " gott MIT UNS " gawd with us
To be fair a couple of mass shooters in the USA have identified as one of the various types of non-religious and some of them have left evidence that resentment of religion was one of the things that motivated them to engage in their murderous activities. The guy who murdered 25 people during a service in that church in Sutherland Springs, Texas is among the more recent of these.
We mustn't allow ourselves to fall into the thinking that atheism automatically means you've given careful thought to your moral code, that you're mentally healthy, or that you're a good person. It just means that you see the reality that it is overwhelmingly unlikely that there is any supernatural entity worth considering.
While I don't want to offend anyone here who identifies as an "anti-theist," I do think that we're obliged, even if it's unpleasant, to respect other people making different choices about religious belief. Too strong an association of religious belief with immoral conduct opens the door to an (erroneous) intellectual shortcut of thinking that because religion is not true, those who practice it must be somehow immoral people who need to be stopped. And if a person combines that intellectual error with other kinds of mental health issues, then that person may very well do something violent and awful intended to advance an "anti-theistic" agenda. Which will only add fuel to the fires of bigotry already burning bright in those who think that we non-religious people are inherently immoral.
Better, I think, to acknowledge that a person's moral worth has nothing to do with their religiosity and insist that we judge all people by their actions and not their avowed creeds.
I would not assert that all atheists are good people. I would, however, take Hitchens stance that religion is the root of all evil. I don't mind if you don't care for the quotes I am posting. Should they bother you, please, don't read them.
Not bothered at all. Just having a discussion here. Cheers!
@Ad4hubby The NT doesn't call money a root of may kinds of evil lightly. Government can be a root of evil (e.g. militarily executed massacres). Pure selfishness can be a root of evil; sexual pleasure or dominance; the mere drive to be fed, or to defend your loved ones (e.g. how gorillas can be evil without any religion); and, yes, religion too.
All of them simultaneously can be the support structure for a hideous collective action.
@SamMcGlone I appreciate that the fellow was a troller and maybe he was a poseur too. There was also the guy who shot up the Discovery Channels' offices, and who knows what else. Even if it's never happened that a mentally ill atheist got angry enough to target Christians for a deranged killing spree, which seems improbable, very sadly I think we all know that it's all but an inevitability in a nation that endures 4+ victim shooting sprees on an average pace of one every three days.
Agreed most Atheists are pacifists that I know Veterans For Peace. ...as for the lie Stalin brought Atheism to Soviets truth is he was Jesuit educated and murderously enslaved millions in the so called communist party CULT OF PERSONALITY