The evils of Azeusism

Over at Conversational Atheist they've posted a pretty cool answer for one of the most complicated arguments to respond to from the religious: atheism has lead to more deaths than religion.

This is usually in response to us pointing out just how many horrible things have been done in the names of various religions throughout history, with genocide, ethnic cleansing, witch hunts, crusades, etc. wiping out countless people, all to appease their deity of choice. Now most people you make this argument to really DON'T have an answer for it. But the educated(ish) ones will start pointing out Hitler (not accurate, his propaganda was filled with Christianity and talk of God), Pol Pot, Mao, and several serial killers. Their point being that atheists have killed as many people, if not more.

I'll let their article go into the details, but calling out the horrors performed by those who don't believe in Zeus does a pretty good job in calling out the flaw in their counter-argument. See, when we point out the evils done in the name of religion, we're not describing things done merely by people who were religious. I don't go around pointing to people on death row and saying, "Christian, Muslim, Christian, Christian, Catholic, Baptist, yep, look at all these people who killed their wives, neighbors, coworkers, strangers for reasons unrelated to their religion. See how evil religion is?" But I will point out when entire populations of people are slaughtered for belonging to the wrong religion. I will point out when planes are flown into skyscrapers for the glory of their god who they believe they're doing the work of. I will call out when someone believes their god ordered them to kill an innocent person.

But their counter-argument doesn't take this into account. Instead it equates unrelated concepts. "Lucy hates pizza and kicked a dog. Pizza-haters are mean to dogs." They're missing our entire point, and proving it by spouting back something completely nonsensical. Now this may stem partially from their constant inaccurate belief that atheism is a religion. That one's infuriating enough. I guess since they can't imagine a life without religion, they can't imagine anyone else living without one. So our lack of beliefs must BE our belief. But even this misses the point. The atheists they call out for committing crimes don't do so in the NAME of no god. Their crimes are not connected to their lack of belief.

In the end, this is just more evidence of an argument Phil Plait made in a recent blog post about paying attention to what you argue. It's easy to get drug down into trying to argue the facts, which are frequently useless against the reasonless, but sometimes if you just pay close enough attention to the question and find the flaw there, you can nip the whole thing in the bud. The creationists (or Intelligent Design advocates, or whatever they are now) have proven extremely good at adapting (but, but, isn't adaptation an attribute of evolution?) and adjusting not only their arguments, but their entire strategies. From what I've heard out of Texas recently, the scientific community has finally stepped up, got their ducks in a row, and headed them off relatively successfully. We all need to learn this strategy and start thinking differently, and learn to bob and weave at least as well as they do."

Instruction Manual for Life

 

This one need only speak for itself. It's beautiful, and non-confrontational. I doubt anyone could truly disagree with it.

Introducing the new xkcd Air

Keynote - xkcd.com

There's simply nothing I can add to this. xkcd's never been better.