I just had a thought. It may be that first-generation atheist have troubles with their parents – but I can guess why: faithful dad disapproves of kid’s new reason.

Additionally, I don’t think the correlation holds up well; I loved my dad – but then, he was an atheist, too.

Moreover, I think that the alienated father is a symptom of any religious conversion – even deconversion.

Osama Bin Laden, believe it or not, does not have a limit on how many he can kill. Rather, he has no bounds except the ones that HE chooses to set for himself, since regardless of if there is a higher power or not, individuals must make choices as an individual. The bounds that he chooses are a radical, radical form of Islam. This doesn’t mean that Allah actually sets a kill limit of 25 million or that an Islam sets a kill limit of 25 million. Rather, it is all up to people who will devise ways to kill each other over the silliest things. It isn’t that theists have higher powers to limit them and atheists don’t. It’s that theists and atheist both have free will (or at least, an illusion of it) and the potential to use these free wills in rather perverse ways. God, if he exists, is rather inconsequential, because humans will act regardless and God seems to do very little either way.

So, it makes no sense to call a century an “atheist” century or a “Christian” century. What MIGHT make sense is to say that current years have featured more wherewithal to kill more people (e.g., the most recent century has had the most advanced kinds of bombs, etc., etc.,) but that throughout all of history, there have been people of all stripes who have been willing to use whatever the technology du jour to kill. Don’t ignore plausible explanations for pet hypotheses that conveniently serve your position.

So, it is not a sign of maturity to mislabel and confuse the issue. That is a sign of ignorance.

On your quote:
The whole argument about Mao and Stalin has been debunked repeatedly. While they may have been atheists, they didn’t kill in the “name of atheism.”

I think that is overreaching. The argument has been debunked. Why? Because Dawkins said so?

How do you kill in the name of atheism? I do not think that anybody argues that they killed in the name of atheism, but it proves beyond doubt that an atheist (one who does not believe that they will ever be held accountable for their deeds and has the power) is very capable of doing terrible things (he does not have to be ‘religiously’ motivated).

To put it in a different way: even Osama has a limit (I hear that an imam gave him a high bound of 25 million people to kill) on how many he can kill. An atheist has no bounds except the ones that HE chooses to set for himself, since he has no higher power to limit him.

Am I saying that all atheists are bad and they are prone to do terrible things? Certainly NOT. All I am saying is that the atheist century has produced many many more atrocities that all the Christian ones combined.

It is a sign of maturity if you face this fact.

P.S. The point with the fathers is certainly an interesting one. How are you getting along with your fathers? I think it would be interesting to take a poll on this atheistic site. Maybe you will prove or disprove RW.

I did have strong relationship with my grandfather, who was an apatheist, and with my stepfather, who was an open atheist. Papaw was the father of my early childhood. He died, and right before my mother remarried. My stepdad was the father after that, and we had a relationship that could only be described as terrific, everything a father-daughter relationship is supposed to be.

Both men taught me basic decency and never to be afraid or ashamed of who I was,

I loved them both, so much, and it is insulting to all of us, and the memories of these tremendous people, to imply what Warren has.