That old chestnut huh? The deaths in Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao Zedong's People's Republic of China were not done in the name of atheism.
Always funny to watch atheists squirm away from responsibility.
Atheism is a central element of Marxism/Leninism. If it wasn't Communist regimes would have made an accommodation with religion rather than persecution and even mass killing of religious folk.
Some quotes:
“The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion” (Karl Marx)
“Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism.” (attributed to Vladimir I. Lenin)
“Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.” (V.I. Lenin)
“Let us drive out the Capitalists from the earth, and God from Heaven!” (early Soviet slogan)
The official journal of the Soviet Academy of Pedagogical Sciences published a government directive Atheistic Education in the School as a resource on how to separate God from human society. The opening paragraph is revealing: “The Soviet school, as an instrument for the Communist education of the rising generation, can, as a matter of principle, take up no other attitude towards religion than one of irreconcilable opposition; for Communist education has as its philosophical basis Marxism, and Marxism is irreconcilably hostile to religion. ‘Marxism is materialism,’ says V. I. Lenin; ‘as such, it is as relentlessly hostile to religion as the materialism of the Encyclopedaists of the eighteenth century or the materialism of Feuerbach.’”
“The World has never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized and tenaciously malevolent as that preached by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin and at the heart of their psychology, HATRED OF GOD is the principle driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. To achieve its diabolical ends, Communism needs to control a population devoid of religious and national feeling, and this entails a destruction of faith and nationhood. Communists proclaim both of these objectives openly, and just as openly put them into practice.” (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)
For example, many of the deaths in Mao's China were due to rapid forced industrialization of a primarily agricultural society (Great Leap Forward). Many of the deaths under Stalin's regime are attributable to the same thing.
What nonsense! Other societies have made the transition without millions of dead.
The Four Horsemen or New Atheists such as Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens are not representative of all atheists.
They seem to be all but worshipped by pimply atheist fanatics on he internet.
