Do you get weary of hearing what a terrible train of death and destruction the Christian Church has wreaked upon the world? Me too.
To be sure, there have been black spots in the history of the Church, the most infamous, perhaps being the inquisitions in which several thousand people died over several centuries. But as bad as they were the inquisitions were scarcely a drop in the ocean of atrocious behavior compared to the legacy bequeathed us by state atheism in the eighty years from 1920 to 2000.
The Black Book of Communism documents the carnage wrought by atheists in pursuit of the millenial kingdom they tried to usher into the world under the banner of Marxist-Leninism. Here's the tally:
- 65 million in the People's Republic of China
- 20 million in the Soviet Union
- 2 million in Cambodia
- 2 million in North Korea
- 1.7 million in Africa
- 1.5 million in Afghanistan
- 1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
- 1 million in Vietnam
- 150,000 in Latin America
- 10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international communist movement and communist parties not in power."
The statistics of victims includes executions, intentional destruction of population by starvation, and deaths resulting from deportations, physical confinement, or through forced labor. It's quite a record - 94 million people - all in the space of a single lifetime.
When the Church has engaged in murderous behavior it was acting contrary to the principles upon which it was founded. There is no justification in the teaching of Christ or the apostles for persecuting and murdering those with whom one has theological disagreements. In fact, quite the opposite is true.
When atheists engage in mass murder on a scale almost impossible to imagine, however, there is no contradiction whatsoever with the basic assumptions of their worldview. If atheism is true might makes right, and whatever those who have the power do to achieve their goals is simply the way things are.
Lenin put it this way:
We repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas....Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. Everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting social order....(emphasis mine)
Lenin also observed once that in order to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs. Ninety four million is a lot of eggs. Remember that number the next time someone harangues you about the terrible atrocities committed by the Christian Church.
RLC