Does the World Need Religion?

[phoenix31]

What do you say to those who make the argument that more atrocities have been committed by atheists than by religions?

I don't know if this question was addressed to me but I think I may have a different opinion to some atheists about this in the sense that I don't care about it.

I find it not outside the realms of possability that Hitler, Stalin and many great leaders who have been held responsible for lots of death held an atheistic view point at some stage.

The bad things other people have done couldn't convince me that the story of Adam and Eve happened.

The bad things I do can't convince me of that. 

Let's say hypothetically that the bible/quran has great advice in and if we all just followed it everything would be great, atheists are evil and the ones spoiling the party, killing raping and mass murdering.  Even if that were scientifically proven true all that might make me do is try to pretend to be religious a bit. I couldn't do much more than that.  If I even bothered to do that.

So my answer is yeh maybe.

I find it more likely that the world leaders who commited war crimes and great atrocities in history probably experienced varying religious perspectives from the spectrum of beliefs in their lives.  Ghengis Khan called himself the flail of god, Hitler seemed to have some spiritual beliefs, no idea about Stalin but they might have just been smart and used religion as a tool but who knows.
I can't read their mind and I'm sure their minds changed over time.  Especially the ones on drugs.  Epecially if they were old, demented, they had some simple disease that was incurable/common in ancient times.  I think Caligula had some kind of medical problem known to cause strange behavior.

I like this. I don't really feel like I can prove that atheism doesn't cause more harm to the world but I myself just choose to try to live in a way that is uplifting to humanity. You're right that pretending couldn't really help with anything at all. I'm an atheist. It is what it is.

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They listed where they were getting their information from. All of the books are listed. I just can't post the link. I don't think one needs a peer reviewed scientific journal to estimate how many lives were taken in specific points in history. That's well documented in books.

If "it's in a book" is enough to convince you, then I can't help you. Good luck out there.

Are you willing to refute their arguments? I don't have the time or the know-how to look for peer reviewed studies on every atrocity in history.

Do you know anyone who has looked into this and refutes the claims that these many people died?