Dinesh D’Souza blames atheism for genocide

About 5 min into this video, Dinesh D’Souza begins to attribute the holocaust and other atrocities to atheism. He believes that worse crimes are committed because of atheism than religious motivations.

I was going to address this fallacy, but I found this blog post that did an excellent job of expressing what I wanted to say.

The one thing I would like to comment on is the difference between blaming crimes on certain religions vs blaming the aforementioned atrocities on atheism:

First of all, I would never suggest that anyone in either of these camps should be “blamed” for any crime committed by someone that espouses the same beliefs; the average Christian cannot be blamed for the Crusades, just as an atheist cannot be blamed for Stalinism.

The question here; however, is whether or not the religion itself can be blamed for crimes. In the end, I believe the individual committing the crime is responsible, but in some cases his or her religion can be shown to be the motivating factor.

The fundamental difference between atheism and any religion is belief vs denial of that belief:

Religions have texts, customs, rituals, and guidelines that its followers believe to be true.

Atheism does not have any of these: It simply feels that claims made by believers are false. There is no code to live by. No shared set of morality or beliefs. No rituals or traditions to abide by. The only thing that unites atheists is a common disbelief.

So when a religious apologist commits a crime in the name of his or her faith, one must examine the faith and its teachings to see if its principles support the crime.

For example, the bible says:

If a man has sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman, the two of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves (Leviticus 20:13).

I’m not a religious scholar, and I have not read the bible, so taking this out of context may not be the proper interpretation; however, If someone kills a homosexual person on the basis of his or her religion, one can look at this verse as a motivating factor.

Obviously, the responsibility for committing a murder falls on that individual and his or her interpretation, since nearly all Christians do not take this passage to be literally true.

So, one cannot blame Christians for heinous acts committed in the name of Christianity; however, I feel it is a fair criticism to look at the text of the religion to see if an interpretation of the text can lead to the behavior.

With that off my chest, the whole debate between Dinesh and Daniel Dennett is pretty good. I really like Dan Dennett and his honest pursuit of intellectual inquiry. The whole debate starts here and there are 15 parts.