Religions don’t kill people, people do.

Dinesh D’Souza has an interesting opinion column in the Christian Science Monitor about the idiotic claim that religion is the most malevolent force in history, leading to more wars and deaths than any other. He correctly states that the atheistic regimes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao have killed far more people than all religiously-motivated conflicts throughout history.

I’ve always wondered if “atheist evangelists” like Dawkins and Harris are actually committing an elementary logical error in their stance on war and religion. Men are naturally religious, and men also make war. It is terrible logic to then conclude that religions cause war. That’s like saying that because I’m a molecular biologist and I play basketball, that I enjoy basketball because I’m a biologist. Put in those terms, you can surely see how silly is the athevangelists’ claim.

If anything, as Mr. D’Souza points out, Christianity acts as a check on belligerence. But, for the blind atheist faithful, religions are evil regardless of evidence to the contrary. Fideism, it appears, is not limited to fundamentalist Christians and Muslims.

(HT for the D’Souza article: Mercatornet)