Stalin: a real atheist

This is pawn. Um, this is a message for YouTube Christians, especially those who like to point to the evils of atheism. So, I have atheism in common with some of the most murderous dictators of the 20th century, and I hope I can explain why that doesn't bother me.

First of all, please notice that I'm happy to accept that Stalin, for example, was an atheist, and I'm not going to try and distance myself from him by saying, “But he wasn't a real atheist,” or “Stalinistic atheism is a perversion of true atheism.” Now, I think we can safely assume that he really didn't believe in any supernatural beings. So, me and Stalin have that in common; we're both real atheists.

I shouldn't—by shouldn't—I be a little ashamed by this? Don't I feel in some way complicit in the gruesome bloodbaths that atheist dictators have orchestrated? Not at all. Um, atheism isn't the foundation of my worldview in the way that Christianity is the foundation of yours. And this is a really important point. There's an asymmetry here that's important to understand. My atheism is not foundational; rather, it's a detail or a consequence of other underlying principles—in my case, a commitment to critical thought, skepticism, and reason.

Like most of the other atheists I've spoken to, in fact, so people with quite different worldviews can arrive at atheism, um, or can have atheism as a consequence of other underlying principles. For instance, um, the religion in which you were raised may in fact be atheistic, or instead of a dogma of theistic religion, a person might have been indoctrinated with an atheistic dogma, such as Soviet communism, for example.

What I'm trying to show is that when theists point to the great atrocities of the 20th century and claim that they were the result of atheism, they're missing the point. It's a kind of—it's a claim with no teeth. It doesn't hurt atheists, and that's because atheism is not equivalent to Christianity as a motivating force. Instead, it's a consequence of a person's worldview, and two worldviews that have atheism in common can be radically different.

Apart from that, you might be thinking, “Well, wait a minute. Doesn't atheism mean that you can do whatever you like and there's no real right and wrong?” No, it doesn't mean that. Um, atheism only means moral chaos if the atheist thinks that only a god could serve as a valid source of morality. The examples of Sweden as a country and Jainism as a religion show that a compelling sense of right and wrong doesn't have to come from a god.

So when these try to point to the evils of atheism in the 20th century, they give atheism far too much credit. Atheism is almost completely free of content. What counts is a person's worldview, the things that underlie their atheism, and this is an important point to get. I'm going to mention it again: atheism is not equivalent to Christianity in this respect. Christianity is a worldview, and atheism is not.

Um, so I don't know any, uh, Jains, um, but like almost every other atheist I've spoken to on YouTube and elsewhere, my worldview emphasizes the importance of empirical evidence, skepticism, and reason, and these are the words on a banner under which I'd be happy to march. Uh, not—I wouldn't—you wouldn't find me under a banner that read “Atheism.” It's just not that important.

So I'm not at all worried that the principles on which I base my view of the world will lead to murder or mayhem. I think Sam Harris put it best when he said, “I know of no society in recorded history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”