“More to the point, atheism is not a system of morality. It is simply an intellectual position where the holder does not believe in the existence of any gods or divinities”.

Aside from atheisms lack of belief in religion(s) Or God(s) what would make it any different then say Confucianism or Buddhism neither of which has no belief per say in God but practice there beliefs more as an enlightened way of believing, living, and of life? All three belief systems claim to think and seek enlightenment.

More to the point, atheism is not a system of morality. It is simply an intellectual position where the holder does not believe in the existence of any gods or divinities. There are moral atheists and there are immoral atheists, much as there are moral theists and immoral theists. Moral atheists have no issues condemning immoral acts by other atheists, whereas many allegedly moral theists continually defend the immoral acts of their co-religionists.

Let’s do the mathematical moral equivalence (you have to dig and think to get the “whys” and other troublesome political and religious details):
Inquisition worst case: 100K/350 = 285/year
Soviet Union best case: 25M/80 = 312,500/year

A few problems here. These atrocities are hardly comparable due to the fact that the Inquistion was not the sole misdeed in the history of Christianity, and the death tolls could not possibly be even due to the fact that the time periods involved had staggering differently world populations and weaponry. This means that the Christians of the Inquistion having a lower death toll is not indicative of higher moral fiber, but rather of the fact that they had less people to kill and not enough efficiency in their methods of killing them. This is in contrast to the nations of the 20th century and beyond, who have comparatively massive populations and have had them as of the Industrial Revolution, and have a vast array of killing devices due to the same event, the likes of which make the torture devices of the Inquisition look like grisly play-things.

Then there is issue of communism itself being more to blame for the atrocities of atheistic communist nations than atheism itself, due to the fact that communism is an explicit ideology with demands that most be followed, whereas atheism is, as you have said, a philosophy. When it comes down to it, due to the nature of atheism being merely the lack of religious belief rather than an actual doctrine demanding a certain set of behavior, it cannot be criticized as easily as one could criticize adherents to explicit doctrines such as Christianity and communism (especially when the criticized actions are justified by the ideology itself).

But, when it come down to it, this entire pissing match of determining what belief system is responsible for the most deaths is incredibly suspect, and in bad taste. Whenever these topics are brought up, they should be taken with a grain of salt. This kind of thing is beginning to get into Godwin territory….we could call it Stalin’s law…(”as a debate goes on, the chances of a person blaming another person’s ideology X for the atrocities Y of random person Z approaches 1″). I know that doing this is nothing new…but it is becoming far more rampant now and really inhibits actual honest debate.

Shall we talk about atheism in practice, perhaps at the extremes? Seems to me I remember a country whose official religious stance was atheistic. This country was documented killing between 25 and 60 million people in less than 80 years. And though the standard retort is about “The Inquisition” killing people too (5,000 to 100,000 – for researchers who include those estimated to have died in jail) over 350 years.

Let’s do the mathematical moral equivalence (you have to dig and think to get the “whys” and other troublesome political and religious details):
Inquisition worst case: 100K/350 = 285/year
Soviet Union best case: 25M/80 = 312,500/year

Hmm, let’s vote for your favorite mix of philosophy and power…

We know it isn’t real, but if it really takes that long to figure it out, then it should tell you how sad religion, especially evangelical Christianity, really is.

Landover Baptist= Satire

Westboro Baptist= God only knows.