Having no belief in any God or supernatural being doesn't make one prone to a criminal predeliction. There are ethics that are universal and found in almost all societies and all religions.

Simply put, there are good people and bad people who are either theists or atheists. You can't say either causes evil.

I agree, but I would submit that most religious people believe their religion makes them better people. The facts indicate otherwise, namely, that religion does not make people behave more morally.

That itself is a controversial statement to the majority of religious people, I suspect.

clearly it's not sufficient, given the morals of many believers.

that Stalin had created something that most resembled a religious cult. Millions of soviet people, even those who lost their entire families to the Gulags or Siberia, sobbed uncontrollably when his death was announced.

The way he propagandized the young, controlled their education, demanded certain behavior, taught rules that might have seemed irrational to an outsider, made sense if you had faith in the system, and the punishment he meted out for failing to comply with those rules, - hell, christianity gave him every approach he took. Make people feel guilty, make them report on lawbreakers and sinners, and make them believers, all facts to the contrary.

I'm sure we will hear from one or two shortly.

Very impressive.

I thought it was the lack of belief in Santa Clause that caused all the problems.

...yours is the second post I've seen today with Santa Claus spelled "Santa Clause".

There is no "e" there, people. We are talking about the fat guy in a red suit who flies around the world on Christmas handing out gifts, not a fragment of a sentence or a proviso in a legal contract.

Thank you for your time. Now back to your regularly scheduled flame fest.

Another angle:

It takes two to fight: in Russia, it was only after centuries/millennia, of in-effect serfdom, the alleged "divine right of kings" and religious-enforced slavery, that atheists began to rebel in 1917 in Russia. Many were killed. But was it the atheists that caused/started it?

Perhaps they might have tried to break away peacefully. But "peasant" and "slave" and "intellectual" revolts, had been violently suppressed by the divine kings, over and over. So that millions of deaths had already been caused, by theocratic regimes. And when athetist/communists rebelled? Many were killed by "White Russians," and others, attempting to reassert, after all, an allegedly divine monarcy.

By the way? It is commonly asserted that the Hitler regime was "atheistic." However, Mussolini and the Pope signed a mutal non-aggression pact, in 1929; the Lateran Treaty. And they lived quite comfortably together in Rome for many years. In spite of occasional murmurings; Fascism was a deliberate coordination of Industry, the Military ... and the Church. In Italy, Spain, etc.. While in Germany? Most German soliders thought of themselves as still Christian solidiers. Indeed their priests sent them off to war, telling them that God was on their side. A slogan impressed on their very beltbuckles ("Gott mit uns" SP?).

Arguably therefore, it was not atheists who were responsible for the killing; it was the repressive religious regimes.

It takes two to fight. Blaming it all on atheists, doesn't really cover it. The Germans in WWII, usually presented themselves as Christians. And You could say the deaths caused in the Communist Revolution of 1917, were caused by the attempts of repressive religious kings, to suppress the people.

describes how he first told Stalin about plans for Operation Torch (the Anglo-American landings in North Africa in the fall of 1942). He quotes Stalin as saying, "May God prosper this undertaking." (page 419).

How this fits into the "Stalin was an atheist" meme I'm not so sure.

if atheism could cause people to commit atrocities. And if so, under what conditions would that be possible?

only if "they did it first"?

And so it cancels out

Leaving no "first" cause

Leaving Religion with no one to blame

Is it possible for atrocities to be committed in the name of atheism? If so how?

Would you like to make your question clearer?

What do you have in mind? Atheism is not value-less; it has positive as well as negative values. Therefore? it is possible for it to "sin," relative to its own value set.

Is that what you were thinking about?

One's opinion is not germane to the question.

Is it possible for an atheist or group thereof to commit an atrocity in the name of atheism?

don't worry about it. Its no big deal.

You've spent this entire subthread trying to figure out what side I'm on. It doesn't matter. Next time try not to be so quick to draw the wagons in a circle. I won't hurt you. Geez.

There is no argument. What you're "not going for" is rational discussion about a theoretical possibility.

What you are "going for" is to score cheap points off someone you don't know using sound bites you lifted from some blog or another.

I've already found out everything I expected to find, but not what I had hoped to see.

And until they find it, you can patronize everyone?

And there are no alternatives? Don't you go one way ... or the other?

Another example: If you are hungry, but you don't take the position that you should decidedly eat something, you might starve to death.

Ambiguity, no decision, seems profound. And it is useful. But? In real life, when overdone, it is often literally fatal.

out of your own brain chemistry starvation is not a problem, although gluttony is a danger.

Granted, gluttony is the Great Sin of our time. Especially in America.

to the question at hand.

Still trying to figure out what side I'm on eh?

Last edited Sun Feb 26, 2012, 12:53 PM - Edit history (1)

that you have successfully avoided so far. A pretty pointless exercise in obfuscation ensued.

Last edited Sun Feb 26, 2012, 06:25 PM - Edit history (1)

Atheism, and even more agnosticism, would at first seem too uncommitted to any higher value, to first of all 1) fight for it. Or attack others for the lack of it. It would seem hard to fight for "no god." However? Atheism actually does have some strong values it might fight for: fighting against religion for example. And if even seems to have some positive values: much of atheism, is strongly attached to say, Reason and Science.

First, therefore? Atheists can and often do, fight for their beliefs. Though to be sure? In many ways its main belief is not positive; and might not motivate such strong passions finally. (This by the way, is one of the reasons that Liberals were rather ineffective, against 80's and contemporary Neo-Cons: liberals were permissive by nature; and it has been hard for them to therefore, REALLY get into Conservative's faces, in some ways, loud and strong. To so do it the opposite of their value system).

Could it commit atrocities? Here again, if Atheism lacks positive values, if it defines itself more as "not-religion"? Then it would seem to lack the positive passion to do such things.

2) Related to this? If it doesn't really have positive values? Then in a sense, nothing is an "atrocity" to it. Since nothing violates its values. Everything is allowed. And nothing is absurd or disallowed or "atrocious"; at least to itself.

3) Yet? Though to be sure a-theism defines itself at first in a negative way, seemingly lacking energy - as merely being "not theistic"? There would be a possile atrocity here, even in its own terms: being religious. Here negatives might become quite negative; and have a certain energizing power.

4) And furthermore, again? Atheists as a matter of fact, tend to have a set of some more, positive values: Science and Reason, usually. So that logically too? Having some positive values, having a value system? Atheists COULD commit sins against it; against something, a value system they normally hold dear. And that would therefore, be considered an "atrocity" from their own point of view.

So first of all? Is there anything logically inherent in atheism that would make it committing what would appear to itself to be an outrageous act? In epistemological/ontological terms, is it logically possible? Yes. Though ... they are perhaps less motivated to do such thing than others. Being rational, and essentially defined by a lack, more than by a positive direction.

5) So finally: are atheists emotionally prepared to do atrocious things? Historically, yes. Though here again, you might expect less motivation in them; for the above reasons.

Here in fact, an interesting recent example, of the anti-motivated nature of much of atheism, would be the discussion in DU, just a week or so ago; the discussion on the Atheist march in Washington. Surprisingly at first? The unexpected main complaint, by a dozen apparent atheists, was that .... marching, being a positive movement, was too organized and positive. The complaint was that being an organized group with a direction, was ... much too much like organized religion.

The very idea of being positive, and organized, and active, was alien to many. Most American atheists in this situation therefore would not be expected to be motivated to take any strong direction whatsoever; much less commit atrocities.

The non-committed attitude inherent to American atheism, this disinclination to action and organization, might at first be unexpected to many. (Especially as compared to extremely militant Russian atheist communism, say).

And yet however? The otherwise-strange passivity of American atheists, makes a certain amount of sense. When we indeed, consider the things deep within the very logical concept of a-theism, that define it in an essentially non-activist way. And that might, in come climates - like the America of today? - might even disencline American contemporary atheists at least, to committ "atrocities."

I tend to agree.

It seems people seem to commit atrocities out of passionate attachment for something be it a deity or a nation state. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to consider atrocities either on a small scale or a large scale crimes of passion. Since religion is a function of emotional expression it's not too difficult for unscrupulous individuals to push people to commit atrocities in the name of religion.

And indeed, since atheism is, by definition, a lack of belief in a deity it follows that there is no emotional attachment to inflame that which might result in such crimes. And yet, every atheist I have ever met or heard about, including myself, is human. And humans have emotions. I find it difficult to believe that atheists are so perfectly rational and atheism such a panacea for the extremes of human nature that it would be impossible for an atheist to engage in an atrocity in the name of atheism. Theoretically, if enough atheists cared enough about atheism they might be driven to do some pretty horrible things in the name of that ideology.

Of course after the fight starts it doesn't matter who's right, only who's left. So if atheists respond in kind to the assaults of those whose ideologies differ from their own, I don't really consider that so much a defense of atheism but simply defense. Any atrocities committed for any reason are wrong, no matter the ideology in question. A more interesting paradox is the possibility of a group of atheists initiating violence in the name of atheism.

It is possible to have a religion without a deity. As long as a group feels the same way about something and possibly conducts some sort of organized ritual to share that feeling, you've got yourself a religion. Such activities could include anything from a Pentecostal revival to a baseball game. In fact, the greatest threat to religion today isn't atheism, but professional sports.

So the question might be how do we take the emotional involvement of atheists and direct it in some other way than toward something they do not believe in? Well, most of the time your average atheist values reason and science. This might be a popular response to the common disregard of of same by most religious institutions throughout history who had a tendency to barbecue people who disagreed with them on rational grounds. Be that as it may, it might be a good place to start to look for such an impetus.

There has been an ongoing controversy regarding whether Communism was atheistic or religious. I consider it a religion built on a cult of personality. But Communism purported itself to be scientific and rational in nature, based on the inevitability of historical materialism. If any religion could be grounded in the stuff of reality, communism was the largest scale attempt to do so. It seems to me that if one wanted atheists to commit atrocities one would have to channel their emotional attachment to rationality and empirical evidence to give them something to fight for. But that's the catch - communism wasn't just a religion devoted to rationality, but a cult of personality centered around Marx and Lenin and whoever else would do at the time. It seems that, in a way, it might start out as atheism but become something else before the fighting started. Of course there is nothing to keep atheists from committing atrocities in the name of nationalism. Who knows how many atheists participated in the My Lai massacre for instance.

It seems to me that when it comes to matters of faith atheists are cultural anarchists. They seem to be against everything everybody else seems to be for. While there seems to have always been some sort of religion, there have always been a few atheists causing existential problems, and usually getting burned alive for their trouble. Given the trajectory of human cultural development, not believing means not cooperating. And cooperation is essential for the creation of a numerically significant group of people to perpetrate an atrocity of any consequence. So while it is theoretically possible that atheists, being human, are capable of committing atrocities, atheism by its very nature does not lend itself to the kind of cohesion required to generate sufficient focused passion for the ideology to commit such offenses. But that could change.

Religion, as we currently understand it, is on the wane. As societies become more advanced, religion seems to become redundant. But the human tendency toward emotional attachment shows no sign of waning any time soon. In fact, we produce so many sources for emotional attachment now that one of the greatest problems of our modern culture is not a lack of faith, but anomie from an excessive dispersion of faith. Our technological culture can produce and put into motion systems of thought and action just like any other widget. Such man made systems could possibly be ripe ground for the flowering of a sort of atheism not unlike the explosion of transcendence in the axial age two thousand years ago. Maybe. If that's the case, those who believe in the guy with the white beard in the sky may have good reason to cuss us for the next few thousand years.

That is not the same thing as saying that under atheist dictators, and by atheists, more people were killed in the 20th century than all religious wars. That is simply fact. And, to say that it was all done in the name of atheism is wrong, however, much of it was done squarely in that name, as is easily proven.

It is also foolish to say that atheists have no morals. It is also foolish to say that all believers always operate based on some moral imperative.

Atheists fought back.

Even here, religion was in the middle of it.

"scientific atheism" was declared the official institution replacing state religion?

"Atheist wars?" I was told just last week that if I ever heard of any atheist wars, I was supposed to let that party know.

Religion having oppressed the masses for so long, and having warred against their attempts at liberation.

enemies of which you speak. That taught them a lesson.

"“No wonder they hated and libeled Russia! For the news is spreading, and is triumphing even over reactionary opposition that Russia is doing the finest and soundest reconstructive work of our time, and it is doing this, not only without God, but on a basis of militant Atheism.” Joseph McCabe, 1936

"Slaves, obey your masters" the Bible told us. Pro-slavery southerers in the Confederacy often quoted this part of the Bible, specifically.

To be sure though, I will concece this: I would not make out communist atheists to be blameless virgins. At times to be sure, they were very excessive, and bad.

But? There are a few mitigating factors here.

Like say, 2,000 years of religious oppression and slavery/serfdom.

I'm not going to entirely idealize atheists and let them off the hook. Not at all.

But I'm not going to let them be demonized, either. As they have been demonized by religion, for so many centuries.

If it began 2000 years ago, and since Christianity was introduced into Russia in the 9th century, what religion enslaved them up to that point?

By the way? Did I say 2,000 years? I meant at least 4,000. Since Egypt and Babylon among others, also had a repressive priest-king tradition.

Speaking not just of Christianity, but all "religions" after all.

That's why so many junked it when they had the chance.

But after all? The capital of Vietnam, as you well know, is no longer "Siagone," but "Ho Chi Minh city"

That is, it is now Communist. Suggesting some success for communism, in areas of interest to specifically, you.

Look: America actually lost THAT specific war against Communism. In at least one sphere. Though of course, it won bigger ones.

But in any case? I'm not going to defend Atheism against ALL objections; it has had problems.

Still? Let's consider the case against say, "slaves, obey your masters."

Is Christianity REALLY humble? Can it begin to look at its own sins?

religion is very much alive in Vietnam, although not without government oversight. Buddhism and Catholicism are still very much a part of the society. Officially it is state atheist.

and of course though it is "easily proven" you have offered none. The primary killers of the 1900's were believers in a divine spirit that favored them, ie, religion.

You also offer no proof.

even though it has been demonstrated to you over and over that he was not.

By the way? In service to my country, in the 1950's I lived in the southern part of Germany where Hitler got his start: Bavaria, Munchen. The south was very heavily Cartholic. And a favorite homily there, as dramatized in the Oberamagau and other Passion Plays? Was the anti-semetic homily, that insisted the "Jews Killed Jesus."

I have no doubt that Hitler's anti-semitism was learned in part, from his Catholic religious upbringing.

By the way? This traditional Catholic anti-semetic homily was played recently, and offered at face value, on EWTN.

No doubt, Hitler was a rather bad Catholic. Perhaps, with some atheistic tendencies late in life. But? There appears to be every indication that he did not officially, publicly renounce Catholicism. And most German soldiers marched off to the war, with their priests telling them that God was on their side.

Most of Germany in WWII, believed it was Christian. Not atheist. In fact, when I lived in Germany in the 1950s, there were Catholic creches and religious statues, in the corners of every field and farmhouse.

And in Italy? The Pope lived right next door to Mussolini; in Rome. While Mussolini signed a nonagression treaty with the Vatican, in 1929; the Lateran Treaty. Mussolini in fact defined fascism, as a collaboration between Government, Industry, the Military, and... the Church.

130 million number from? If you don't include WWII.

Several sources including:

The Black Book of Communism by Courtois, et al., Death by Government by R J Rummel, and Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. Also listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

attacked by historians as being wildly inaccurate.

But there is a general agreement that the number far exceeds 100 million based on archives and eyewitness accounts. They occurred over a period of about 80 years in the USSR, China, South Asia, Eastern Europe, etc.

you are arguing that famine is murder. You said "killed by", not "died under".
There is not general agreement at all. Maybe among the religious "blame atheism" crowd", but not among historians.

many died in the gulags, from overwork, exposure, and undernourishment - also on purpose. These were definitely not modern, high tech methods as has so often been referenced.

that had nothing whatsoever to do with the religious beliefs or lack thereof of either the people who died or the people who caused their deaths. More of your horseshit.

And would you mind pointing to where I said they were? But they were caused by atheists. Undeniably, unless of course it's you.

Interesting to try to calculate this one too, in the name of fairness.

Keep in mind proportion here: up to about 1100 AD, some estimate, the entire human population of the earth was about 7 million. Today, it is one thousand times larger. So that? A million casualties in say 1000 AD, would have been a gigantic number; 1/7 of the entire world's population.

While of course the Flood of Noah was sometimes said to have killed everyone on earth, except for Noah and his family.

In any case? If we include the numbers killed in all religious wars? Adding also, those killed not in large wars, but killed by small bands, or even individual bar fights and arguments, as heretics, Jews, witches, infidels, non-Christians?

The numbers killed in the war of religion, against atheists and others, might be quite large too.

Anybody here have any good numbers on this one?

I'm not a statistician. But here are some rough considerations.

1) Here, absolute numbers are important.

2) But perhaps the fairest index would probably be ... the number killed by religious conflicts, as a percentage; a percentage of the total human world population at the time.

E.g., a religious war in 300 BC, that killed 1,000 people, would have killed 1,000/7,000,000, or 1/7,000 of the world pop.
While it would take a religious war in 1930 to kill roughly 700,000, in a world pop of 5 billion, to equal 1/7,000. (?)

3) What should we include? Probably the vast majority of ALL WARS THROUGHOUT HISTORY, included a religious component. When Egypt goes to war with Babylonia, or Assyria, one of the major issues is one religion vs. another. "Nations" are defined in part, by common gods, often. Determine what percentage of each of those conflicts were partially religious in nature. In some cases - like the wars narrated in the Bible - the % seems to be nearly 100%; "God" is involved in every single conflict. Generally the % will be slightly lower though.

4) Add to that number, a percentage of nearly all Tribal conflicts and ...

5) ... Add a percentage of even individual fights, of individual persons. SInce they are often religion-inspired in part. Someone's own tribal cult fetish and belief, offends your neighbor ... and conflict, death, is the result.

6) Add civil executions of one religion, by another; trials and burnings of witches, heretics, other religions, etc.. Including acts partially motivates by religious sentiments (using % calculation).

7) Add in the total number of civilians, killed directly by military action as "collateral damage";

8) Add in the total of civilians killed indirectly, by the military destruction of their infrastructure: food supply, and so forth

For another number? 9) Add in number of deaths caused by dysfunctional religious beliefs: proscribed clothing, that caused people to freeze; religious food practices, that caused starvation or disease, etc..



Anyone want to do this?

Calculate the % of religious inspiration, for all acts of violence causing death. Then calculate the number of deaths, worldwide, through all of history from religious-inspired conflict. First say, as a raw number relative to each historical era. And then as a percentage of the world of the time?

No doubt there many other aspects to this. But this might given someone a rough idea how to start. With this important calculation: the total number of human deaths, caused by religious conflict, throughout history. Expressed particularly, as a percentage of the entire world population.

Then to be fair? Compare this to possible deaths caused by lack of religion or compassion/etc.?

Still, the number of deaths caused by religious conflict throughout all of history, must be ... quite, quite large.

Expressed as % of total world population? My admittedly very, VERY rough guesstimate? Would be that the religious element in violent conflict, has killed about, say, 20% of the world population, from one era to the next. (Though adding in various dysfunctionalities, caused by physically dangerous religious practices - food and clothing prohibitions and so forth - might push the next number, up to as high as 40%.)

In terms of the modern population average, of about 5 billion, c. 1930-2012? That number would indicate an expectation of say, more than one billion deaths caused by religion. Though it appears that the number of deaths overall, is in decline, due to civilization and progress: better medical care, housing, food, and even somewhat lower violence levels.

Of course, all this is VERY rough. Expect to see errors in my math. We need about a dozen good PhD professional statisticians, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, to get this even remotedly close to right. But? It could be done.

Of course, finally, this is a ghastly number to look at. But? We need to look at it. It is only when religious folks begin to actually see and face, confess their own sins, that they can begin to fix those sins.

However, the deaths that occurred in atheistic states were all fairly recent, and more readily examined. For example, there were about 96,000 local League of Militant Atheist chapters spread out across a nation that spanned 11 time zones, and those groups along with other groups were charged with reporting any unauthorized religious activities or religious believers. There were thousands of villages and many were wiped out, or completely changed. It's not too hard to see why the numbers are so high.

The largest religiously motivated massacre of a population is thought to be the Muslim invasion of India, which took place over a period of around 800 years. Those numbers are more difficult to pinpoint, because of the time element and lack of population records. Estimates vary widely, some as high as 70 million.

The Soviet Union was indeed, HUGE. And that was precisely the problem.

The USSR incorporated huge territories, and infinitely more intense ethnic diversity - and conflict - than the US. In the US, nearly all citizens (who were not quickly killed to be sure) soon spoke English. And were soon, of mostly one religion. Furthermore, most settled territories, had only very short independent existence before being federalized. Homogeneity was quickly imposed.

The Soviet Union however was quite different; there were hundreds of different nationalities, tribes within it; incuding many ancient rivals and enemies. Often speaking no common tongue at all. So that? The USSR inherited a territory that had historically been at war with itself. And Stalin therefore inherited, an ... internal civil war so to speak. And though these wars did not often manage to mobiize armies, they did manage to mobilize individuals. Many of them attached specifically to the old religious-based states. And abolutely, religiously dedicated to destroying Stalin, and the USSR.

Stalin therefore, I suggest, was always dealing with an internal, near civil war. And in fact? Beginning 1989,the Soviet Union per se, seemed for the moment to have collapsed. Precisely from those internal divisions.

Were Stalin's vicious efforts therefore justified, as a sort of internal "war" effort, against internal insurgencies? I'd hate to try to firmly say THAT. Still, it's interesting to think about the very, very violent internal conflicts he faced

Thanks for the figure on India/Isalm. Or today, India/Pakistan.

Next? How many people have religious conflicts killed, or average pop %, in the last 100 years or so? I think my first VERY rough gestimate above, on the number of deaths caused, may be too high. But? If we consider by religion as one of two players after all, in the war for the USSR? And then add these numbers to religious/ethnic conflicts in India, Africa, China, etc.?

The number of world deaths in which religion played an essential role over say the last century? Including both the Russian Revolution, and perhaps WWI and II? (Especially German v. Russia?). Might easily hit, say, the 500,000,000 figure: 1) Communist Rev. against religion: 200 mil; 2) India 50; 3) WWI & II, 150 mil.; 4) Other Random religious and civil conflicts, 100 million.

Atheists might take half the responsiblity for some of those numbers. Or perhaps not. Considering.

In any case though? I'd definitely lay a VERY large part of the blame, on conventional Religion. And not on atheists.

Last edited Fri Feb 24, 2012, 05:59 PM - Edit history (1)

without sources. And the war against religion in the Soviet Union was anything but two equally matched armies. One had weapons, the other did not. Deaths from WWII- around 50 million. WWI- 30 million.

As far as numbers? I mentioned several time these were VERY rough, "guess-timations." Though many are from remembered sources ... similar to your own. Possibly there is no really good data at all out there yet, however.

Possily the "Civil War" analogy for Stalin's situation with the USSR, was strained. Still? The fact that our US police forces are better armed than criminals, does not make their prevention of crimes, immoral. And for that matter? Many anti-Soviet insurgents did arm themselves. And/or knew the value and power of verbal opposition; and attempted to incite others to violence. Though for that matter, as I recall, White Russians, then the Yugoslav and Hungarican armies, to be sure, did employ elements of their military, once or twice? While possibly there were many more minor actions.

But in any case? If no one is denying religious atrocities here? Perhaps we don't really have an argument. We see to agree, at least in some key essentials.

Not much point in pretending to disagree. Just to kept the ball in play?

Most members of this particular forum seems actually, pretty much in agreement?

No point kicking up a fight, where there normally wouldn't be one.

instead of saying that they died under dictators with dark hair (also simply fact), unless you were dishonestly trying to imply the same false equivalency that the author explodes?

And "much of it" done in the name of atheism? Easily proven? You've been challenged over and over to show how many of those people died specifically in the name of atheism, and you've never been able to. And please, don't weary our ears with your old "I've shown you the evidence, but I'm not going to do it again or even point to where I did it before" horseshit. No one's buying that any more.

"drivel" would be more appropriate.

you have nothing of substance to respond with when your BS arguments are exploded. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Thanks for playing.

As noted above, most (if not all) GermanS, even Nazis, thought of themselves as Christians. And indeed Germany invaded Russia, in part precisely because, it was said, it was not a Christian nation, and was full of "atheist bolsheviks."

So that? Most of WWII, or at least the German campaign against the USSR, should be seen not as an "atheist war." But as yet another Christian war. Christians warring against other religions. Or in this case, Christians trying to suppress atheism.

Anything can be done in X's name

But to really identify it as a part of 'X' ism....

The Crusades was specifically a "holy war" done in the name of Christ. Of course we should blame religion on it. Religion was the reason for the Crusades.
We should not blame All Christians by any means, but blame religion? Yes.