Marshall, All those you name killed (assuming the charges against them are accurate) not for religious reasons. Rather, they did so for political reasons. Even Hindutva is a political ideology, not a religious one.
In addition, as Eddie D'Sa points out, the first part of the list is partly based on Cold War propaganda. Colonialism, slavery, capitalism and a number of other -isms (with which religion had a truck) can also be implicated in a number of mass deaths. Of course, the deaths may have not been due to religion, but the latter turned a convenient blind eye to the same. Specifically to counter the charge that religion alone does not have a monopoly over charity, groups like Hivos [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hivos] have set up charities that are based on non-religious/irreligious lines. Then, there is the ideology of secular humanism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism] which also goes on to make the point that non-religious-people-can-also-be-well-motivated, in theory and in action. Inspite of all this, I do not however believe that those who don't believe should thrust their views or mock those among us who are believers. Or, vice versa. FN On 27 July 2017 at 11:18, Marshall Mendonza <[email protected]> wrote: > Roland, would appreciate if you could kindly provide answers to the > following two questions: > > 1. What is special in atheism that in the last couple of centuries the most > barbarous lot happened to be atheists like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il > Sung, Hitler, etc. who killed and butchered millions and millions of people > and brought misery to the world. Closer home we had Jinnah and Advani. And > now Savarkar whose followers are running amuck in the country. > > 2. Can you name some prominent atheists who have been engaged with > alleviating human suffering by tending to lepers and HIV Aids people, or > mentally and physically challenged people, or the dying and destitutes, or > the homeless and needy, or to discarded babies and women in distress. And I > mean people who have soiled their hands and not thrown money. > > Regards, > > Marshall -- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ Frederick Noronha +91-9822122436 _/ (Please SMS if you can't get through) _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
