Quote:
Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
I'd say he used religion to fuel his actions. His hatred for and propaganda railing against a religious group played a role in the holocaust.
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Hitler's hatred for the Jews was more about ethnicity than religion though, and he did try to use evolution and natural selection to his advantage (just as he did religion). Ironically, anyone who knows anything about evolution knows that genetic diversity is a positive thing to have in a population. He should have loved having Jews in Germany.
If you want an example of a world leader using atheism to justify atrocities, look at Enver Hoxha (former dictator of Albania). In 1967, he declared Albania an "Atheist State" and between 1967 and 1985, he executed more than 25,000 people for practicing religion (including public executions of priests), and he imprisoned thousands of others. This only includes those on record and not those who just "disappeared".
Don't take that as me saying "atheism is evil", but it is an "ism", and like most "isms", when people believe in them strongly enough, they can be fuel for hatred just like religion. We have roughly 8000 years of religiously inspired history to draw from when finding negative examples of religion's influence, but only a short period to draw from when looking for examples of atheist societies. It's not much of a sample size at all, but from what there has been so far, I can't say that I think non-religous societies will be more tame. In fact, a whole generation of Albanians grew up without religion, and the early returns don't look good.