atheism and communism

[Tristesse]

Originally Posted by idea

It seems those who do not believe in God have killed far far more people than those who do believe in God.

Atheism - Conservapedia

ok, to me it doesn't matter who has killed more, it matters whether or not it's true. But atheism isn't what provoked the onslaught of killings, it was other ideologies that provoked it. The disbelief in something doesn't provoke violent actions taken in that disbelief, it's what you believe that provokes those actions. These men had other hideous ideologies. They happen to have been atheists, but their atheism wasn't what provoked those actions.

[Nepenthe]

OmarKhayyam, Copernicus, Humanistheart, dogsgod, and Tristesse aleady pointed out how atheism wasn't the impetus for the mass murders, but there's also the specifics as far as Stalin's actual beliefs; they were ambiguous at best. Stalin most definitely made many derisive comments about religion including the infamous "all this talk about God is sheer nonsense" but his daughter claims he was a theist and that he actually admired Christ. As dogsgod pointed out Stalin also worked closely with the Russian Orthodox Church. He omitted any literature critical of religion from his personal library referring to it as "antireligious waste-paper". Stalin was a poet who wrote much poetry that praised and glorified God.
It's impossible to know conclusively what Stalin's innermost personal opinions on God were, but it's clear Stalinism was not the inherent consequence of atheism and was not the inspiration for his crimes.