Atheists have no Defense against Genocide

Approximately 100,000,000 people – an unthinkable number - had been exterminated under atheistic communism. One atheist responded back that these genocides had nothing to do with atheism:

·         “There is nothing about atheism that says it is ok to commit genocide. Atheism is just the disbelief in god. So your tarnish of atheism is unwarranted. If people are the problem, even when they are Christians, then why is atheism the problem? [Previously, I had distinguished the horrible things done under the name of Jesus from the actual teachings of the New Testament.] You don't seem logically consistent.”

Here’s my response:

While I acknowledge that, linguistically, atheism merely means “disbelief in god,” once you have embraced this “disbelief,” you have also inherited its implicit implications:

1. There can be no possible basis for an objective and universal moral system. Therefore, genocide can only be rejected on pragmatic, relativistic grounds. However, it might be deemed pragmatic to commit genocide. The Communists resorted to genocide on many occasions for pragmatic reasons. Without God, pragmatism can justify anything!

2. Once you reject God, you also reject any basis for the dignity of humankind. Instead of bearing meaning and the image of God, we become no more than a sack of randomly assembled chemicals, lacking freewill and transcendent value. And, if we are merely an animalistic, pre-determined, electro-chemical robot, then there is no reason to treat one another as if we have dignity. Instead, we are a pathetic accident, ignorantly trying to find meaning on a cold, barren and totally apathetic landscape. We are therefore the red meat for the powerful, to be used and abused according to their “progressive” cause. Finally, after we have served our purpose, we are thrown on the junk heap with the rest of the robots.

3. Without meaning and objective values, there are no adequate reasons for moral persuasion. If then unity and compliance cannot be obtained through moral reasoning, then they will be won through coercion and manipulation! It is therefore unsurprising that communist/atheist leaders justified any violence to secure their goals.

4. By rejecting God, atheism has also rejected any basis for unalienable human rights. Once God was rejected, the atheistic communists uniformly trampled upon these rights. If our rights are merely granted by government, then government can just as easily retract those rights.

God has stacked the deck against you. You cannot reject Him without also rejecting your very self – all those things you were created to require. The atheist has rejected God in hope of becoming the master of his own life. However, in the process, he has reduced himself to the status of an animal. The Apostle Paul said it this way:

·         For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. (Rom. 1:21-25)