I can feel your anger

[Gambit]

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http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/secularism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/secular

As much of a citation as you could ever get. We are both right in a sense but totalitarianism is much more the guilty party here than secularism. Your case is based on loose abstracts and convolution and it's becoming very telling that it's based on shaky premises and a lot of "what-ifs." Your rising levels of condescension, which I have come to expect from the faithful whenever they realize their silliness isn't being taken as seriously as they think it should be, also needs to stop immediately. Just because your points are hard to follow because you can't keep your train of thought on the rails is not my fault, it's yours for being incapable of conveying basic ideas. Drop the condescension because I will not deal with someone who acts that way, got it? This is your only warning.

And yeah, the "negation operator" is the "un" of "unbelief," and can be exchanged with "non" for the same meaning but one less letter, making it more efficient to write. I learned that back when I was still sitting at the kiddy table and drinking from juices boxes. How come you didn't?

Because "un-" doesn't always mean "not". "Unmake" doesn't mean "not make", "undo" doesn't mean "not do", etc.

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Ok Clive, I get what you are driving at. You are right of course, but it only serves to challenge the context in which the words are used. The intention of the statements are unchanging; in that, if we replace theism/theist with the word catholic, protestant, muslim etc. the cause of the atrocities is still inherently linked to religious beliefs, and a justification from the same. Can you give an example of an/group of atheist(s) committing an atrocity which was linked so closely to a common belief system, i.e. the victim believing in a god? I don't think your correlation works after the initial problem of context/semantics is resolved.

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Well, suppose (and if you don't think it's plausible, just suppose it for the sake of argument) that it could be shown that Communism was directly responsible for the deaths caused by Stalinism. And suppose (again, for the sake of argument) that it could be shown that Communism implements atheism.

Wouldn't it be true, then, that the core belief system motivating the deaths caused by Stalinism was atheist in nature?

Although atheism is heavily linked with communism it is not a necessary requirement of the ideology. In the case of communism, it was not so much about persecuting those with a religion, as it was about eliminating any perceived threat to the progress of communism. Cuba, for instance, adapted the trend in communism of eliminating religious institutions; however, it later abandoned that approach and instead allowed citizens to worship within the confines of law.

So, it has nothing to do with atheism, and everything to do with pushing communism. Had Marx decided that one religion was above all others and fit in with his/Lenin's idea of a communist state, it would have been atheists who made up the greatest number of those persecuted. What I am saying is, it was communism that adopted atheism and not the other way around.