Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”: Atheism, Genocide, and Dawkins’ Head in the Sand (Part 19)

Over the past couple of posts I have covered what Richard Dawkins has said about the Old and New Testaments. The gist of my analysis of Dawkins in this respect was pretty simple: he refuses to read and interpret the content of the Old and New Testaments within their historical and literary contexts. It may come as a surprise to you, therefore, when I tell you that at the end of his chapter on the Bible, Dawkins makes the following extraordinary comment: “It is commonplace that good historians don’t judge statements from past times by the standards of their own” (303).

That’s right, at the end of a chapter in which Dawkins habitually passes judgment on the Bible without considering the historical context of the Bible, he actually says that good historians don’t do that sort of thing. I have to ask, then, “What does this say about Dawkins?” A “good historian”—Dawkins is not.

Wait…Atheists Have Done Bad Things?
You might be wondering, though, why would Dawkins say this? Well, it’s not because he suddenly realized the necessity of being a responsible, informed reader of the Bible. No, it is because, when it comes to morality, atheism in the 20^th century hasn’t come out looking so good, and so Dawkins feels obligated to at least acknowledge the fact that past atheists have done and said some pretty bad things. Never mind the atheistic dictators like Stalin and Mao, atheists like Thomas Huxley, Margaret Sanger, and H.G. Wells all held some horridly racist and despicable beliefs. For that matter, Bernard Shaw thought there was nothing wrong with killing off people who weren’t a benefit to society!

And so, Dawkins feels he must acknowledge the obvious: there have been some really, really, horrible atheists. He first quotes a particularly horrific comment by H.G. Wells, in which Wells describes that in his idea of a perfect society, the weak and feeble would be killed off for the good of humanity. Wells wrote:

“How will the New Republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the black…the yellow man…the Jew? Those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, and not a charitable institution, so I take it they will have to go. …The men of the New Republic…will have an ideal that will make the killing worth the while.” (305-306)

Amazingly, though, Dawkins essentially tries to make an excuse for Wells’ comments. He writes,

“That was written in 1902, and Wells was regarded as a progressive in his own time. In 1902 such sentiments, while not widely agreed, would have made for an acceptable dinner-party argument. Modern readers, by contrast, literally gasp with horror when they see the words. We are forced to realize that Hitler, appalling though he was, was not quite far outside the Zeitgeist of his time as he seems from our vantage-point today.” (306)

Dawkins’ point is simple: from our moral vantage point today, these guys—even Hitler—are concerned pretty bad, but at that time, they were just considered pretty normal. Judged by their own society’s standards, these people actually weren’t that bad. Now, in all fairness, I don’t think Dawkins is actually trying to excuse such behavior. He actually makes a semi-rational point: a person who grows up in a certain society is going to have his morals formed by that society. After all, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, but we still consider them great men, not because they own slaves, but despite the fact they did—owning slaves was an unfortunate part of that culture that had not yet been addressed.

Nevertheless, Dawkins’ hypocrisy is blinding. On one hand, he says, “Don’t judge Hitler too harshly, because hey, all Germans were anti-Semitic lunatics at the time. He was just a product of his time.” But when it comes to the events in the Bible, there is no hint of “Let’s understand these events in the light of their times.” There’s not even an acknowledgement that many of the bad things in the Bible (i.e. Sodom and Gomorrah) are, in fact, condemned as bad. The child sacrifice recorded in the Bible is condemned at the same time—yes, the Canaanites did that, but yes Israel at the time condemned such practices as evil. By contrast, Germans in Germany in the 30’s—as well as many “enlightened atheists” like Shaw and Huxley really did approve the killing of millions.

Let’s Defend Hitler and Stalin a Little, Shall We, Mr. Dawkins?
Now obviously, Dawkins does not the genocides of Hitler or Stalin. Nevertheless, he feels he needs to defend atheism against the charges that state the obvious: both Hitler and Stalin were anti-Christian, and Stalin was an atheist.

Dawkins first acknowledges that Stalin was an atheist and then calls Hitler’s atheism “dubious.” And to that, I would agree. Hitler was more of a pagan than an atheist, in my opinion. But then Dawkins says something truly extraordinary: Their atheism was irrelevant to the killing they engaged in. Dawkins writes:

“Even if we accept that Hitler and Stalin shared atheism in common, they both also had moustaches, as does Saddam Hussein. So what? …What matters is not whether Hitler and Stalin were atheists, but whether atheism systematically influences people to do bad things. There is not the smallest evidence that it does.” (309)

I have to say it, the banality displayed here is breathtaking. Who, Dawkins? He’ll defend atheism even in light of genocide? Why not?

Let’s put this into perspective. The Communist regimes of the 20th century were, by all accounts, the first completely ideologically atheistic regimes in human history. They were also the most murderous regimes in human history. They were responsible for over 200 million deaths within the 20th century alone. If that doesn’t even consist of even “the smallest evidence” against atheism for Dawkins, I don’t know what would. Read and study the actual Communist ideology, and there you will find it, clear as day: kill religious leaders, arrest up to 25% of believers, put them in concentration camps, and work them to death! The remaining folk will fall in line. Such ideology stems from Marx’s Dialectical Materialism—a thoroughly atheistic worldview. There is absolutely no denying this…

Yet somehow, Richard Dawkins does.

Let’s Blame Stalin’s Purges on Christianity!
And yes, somehow, Richard Dawkins finds a way to blame Stalin’s genocide on….you guessed it, Orthodox Christianity! Dawkins writes: “Perhaps because of his training for the priesthood, the mature Stalin was scathing about the Russian Orthodox Church, and about Christianity and religion in general. But there is no evidence that his atheism motivated his brutality” (309).

That’s right, Richard Dawkins actually puts forth the idea that the Orthodox Church was so mean to Stalin in his younger years, he just got a little out of control later on in life when he attempted to systematically liquidate all traces of Christianity throughout the Soviet Union! I can almost hear Dawkins say, “I mean, sure, he went a little overboard, but those Orthodox priests had it coming!”

And We All Know…Hitler Was a Good Catholic!
As for Hitler, Dawkins, just like Christopher Hitchens, promotes the absurd claim that Hitler was a good Catholic throughout his life. Yes, throughout his life. Let’s clear this up: yes, he was born into a Catholic family; yes, as he ascended to power, he claimed to be doing the Lord’s work; but once Hitler got power, he went about systematically taking over the churches, persecuting any Christian or church that spoke out against him. He called Christianity one of the great “scourges” of history, he said, “through the peasantry we will be able to destroy Christianity,” and he declared, “One is either a German or a Christian…you cannot be both.”

Does that sound like Hitler was a good Christian? Of course not.

Atheists Aren’t Bad! We’d Never Destroy Religious Artifacts or Holy Sites
I finish this post with one final absurdity from Dawkins. Remember, read this following quote with a full understanding of the systematic attempts put forth by Communist regimes around the world to destroy all religions, and even current atheistic movements to use the law courts to completely eradicate Christianity from the public square. Dawkins writes:

“I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca—or Chartres, York Minster or Notre Dame, the Shwe Dagon, the temples of Kyoto or, of course, the Buddhas of Bamiyan.” (283)

Let me just say that I doubt very much that Dawkins has ever talked to Jews who survived the Holocaust, or Christians and Buddhists who were persecuted by Communist China, or Christians who were victims of the USSR. I’m pretty sure if he had, they would have told him, “Yes, those regimes destroyed a lot of religious artifacts and holy places.”

Obviously, not all atheists want to blow up religious buildings and shrines. It’s good to know that Dawkins himself would never dream of destroying Hagia Sophia or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. But the reality of history shows that systematic acts of destruction by atheistic regimes were, and are, par for the course. Dawkins his fellow atheists, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens might call themselves “ The Brights” all day long, but the reality is, he is completely in the dark in regards to oh, so many things.