*trigger warning* What if atheism's not all it seems?

[The Grand Nudger]

Second, making note of consequences is one of the foundations of empiricism. The consequences of a purely rational analysis, particularly with respect to questions of value, are often disastrous in practice. Examples include the Cultural Revolution in China, the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France, and Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal". If any rational analysis forces us to abandon basic concepts like human dignity and personal autonomy, we might want to view that analysis with suspicion also.

Meh, my rational analysis doesn't force me to abandon any of that, so NP right?  I think it might be more accurate to reference times in which some analysis caused people to doubt the traditional justifications for those concepts...but, if those traditional justifications were in error the tradition itself shares culpability in setting the sub-ideology up for failure.  For example, if you lived in a society which had, for thousands of years, maintained that human life only had value because the tiki stone said so..and if that civilization had actively destroyed any competing ideology for that same time..it should come as no surprise...when tiki stone is found to be a fraud..that some of the denizens of tikiland begin to think that human life has no value.  

I see a great deal of that, plenty of "that's just stuff the religionists said".  Babies and bathwater.  While historical context is always fun, nowadays, the most active moral meta-ethics is realist, and it's a field predominantly advocated for and studied by atheists using what they call a "super-rational" framework (impossible for us to implement in practice but it serves as a useful elaboration).   The consequences of their rational analysis do not lead where the dogma of the sino-russian communist split led - nor where the reactionary populism of the french revolution led. 

Is there anyone who looks back on either of those incidents and says..."Oh my, what rational actors they all were, doing rational things in rational ways for rational reasons!"...................................?

If we wanted to be accurate, nothing about either of those examples you mentioned derived from some "purely rational analysis" -of anything.  They had their roots in response to conflict and how it manifested itself through powerful individuals (or a powerful mob).  Swifts modest proposal..was a satire of illogical solutions in the first place, so..ignoring that the other two don't really speak to the point of contention..this one seems entirely out of place.