[tommy2bad]

I don't understand. Are you claiming that all these atheistic regimes persecuting religion just happened to coincide with their economic collapse?

No I'm pointing out the possibility that you confuse coincidence with causality.

Im not making the claim that no atrocities happened because of religion or atheism. Im just asking you - how come all the atheistic regimes killed hundreds of millions and the christian ones didn't?

OK so thats your question, after page and page of text?
I'll get back to you on this but a first glance would lead me to believe that the lack of any constraint might play a part. The end justifies the means is an easy conclusion for power-hungry, ignorant, prejudiced bigoted dictators to make. But the distinction that we are trying to make is that atheism doesn't remove moral constraint, it merely moves it somewhere else. The fact that all the examples you give lacked constraint shows megalomania coupled with fanaticism armed with a state system and modern weapons can achieve a good frag count if the economic and social conditions are right. In a way they are examples of a reaction to religion. Or a misunderstanding of the use of religious instinct. Possibly a combination of both coupled with the aforementioned megalomania.

[marienbad]

Originally Posted by marienbad

Again I must correct you ISAW - your statement that the ''principle that neither atheism nor Christianity caused atrocities '' is not a statement you proposed is not the issue . It is a statement just now introduced by you and was never proposed by anyone and bears no relation to the proposition under discussion , which is

neither atheism nor theism causes atrocities- it is your insistance in conflating the meaning of words that is causing the confusion- atheism/atheistic state/ totalitarianism on the one side and theism/christianity on the other. The opposite to atheism is theism.

And since when is it for you to decide what are we concerned with here ?
hard atheism, soft atheism, new terms to me, What are their opposite might I ask - Hard theism ? lukewarm theism perhaps. More shifting the goalposts methinks.

It is a bit late now to be confining the conversation to monotheistic Christianity as I have already asked you to defend your thesis as it gives a free pass to those other belief systems to do as they please. I am still waiting for an answer on that one by the way .

Furthermore there was a ruling far back in the mists of time on this thread that it is not just monotheistic belief systems that can be included here. belief and unbelief in all their glorious varieties are allowed up for discussion.

.

ISAW , when you are ready can I have an answer to this please.

A further issue I would like to raise is the constant variety of comments you make in the mode of ''I have no problem with atheists so long as....
You do realize the consequences of lumping loads of people in to catagories based on one commonality. Take out atheists for example and substitute Jews, Blacks ,Women, Red heads . Your attitude joins the ''so long as'' list of actual examples listed below, and these are only the milder ones

''I have no problem with Black people so long as they don't intermarry with white women''

'' I have no problem with Jews so long as they don't go about in that funny dress and hairstyle''

''I have no problem with women so long as they realize their place is in the home''

And now we can add ISAW's Law !

'' I have no problem with atheists so long as they keep it to themselves and not try to proselytize or get into government''

The logical consequence of the ''so long as'' line of argument is - what would you do to prevent that possibility. So what would you do ?

[ISAW]

Originally Posted by Morbert

I mean small enough to look at in more detail. If there had been, say, 1,000 atheist regimes over history, and they had all committed atrocities, then there might be something to the claim.

So given there was only ONE Nazi regime you thing the Holocaust didn't have anything to do with Naziism?

Using population as metric is completely irrelevant.

So why did you bring it up then? your words " Do you believe the great leap forward would have killed on the order of 50 million if there were only, say 1 million people living in China?"
Why use a fictional population of 1 million as a metric to judge anything especially if it is as you claim "irrelevant" ? By the way the metric i was using is the sample as a percentage of the overall numbers. One country in fifteen ; one person in fifteen.

You would have took at a "regime population" throughout history. We see that the number of such regimes are small enough to analyse in more detail.

There are enough to d the analysis and enough to determine what governments were atheistic ( i.e. with "There is no god" as a central principle) . Im not aware of any "There is no God" administrations over countries that were not regimes. I know plenty of christian administrations that were not.

We can indeed look at these regimes. That is what I am asking you to do. What is the argument, based on these regimes, that atheism will lead to atrocities, as opposed to, say Totalitarianism, anti-clericalism coupled with anti-pluralism?

I didn't make the claim. the claim is that belief ( in specific in Christianity) causes atrocities.
My counter claim is "not in any way as much as atheism"
I happy to let atheists go their own way until they start attacking religion and making smug jokes about Christianity as if it is unreasonable.
All the atheistic regimes caused mayhem and left nothing for posterity but piles of skulls.
Only few christian regimes did.

Modern Japan has a largely atheist population.

Who was it stated that they were not referring to post WWII Japan accusing me of dishonesty?...

A deliberately dishonest tactic. Emperor divinity only collapsed after WWII. Modern Japan is not religious. Japan during WWII was not only religious, but theistic,

and now you want to refer to "modern" Japan

Modern Japan produced Aum Shriya do you know of any other country who used SARIN gas in a terrorist attack? No doubt you might claim christian influence.

In fact, it is an example of a secular pluralist society, where Christianity et al are in the minority, but free to practise their religion without persecution. Do you believe they are on the road to another massacre?

I hope not. But i dont think "ther is no god" is a central tenet of the Japanese constitution.
Which was influenced by the US and their constitution. Which was written to avoid religious division. The irish constitution as it happenms acts in a diffferent way to support religion in schools. If only the US example existed people would never realise that "freedom of belief" or "rights of the family" can mean the State supports such things as religion.

I am not insisting they are different. I have said before that I want neither. I want secular pluralism.

Im happy for you to want it. I wont be voting for 50% of schools losing their ethos.

Sure, I would be pleased if atheists were in the majority, but only if this came through discourse and not oppression.

I dont think the Church of Ireland or Catholic church are oppressive regimes.

I am specifically addressing the claim that atheism causes atrocities: That if a society becomes atheist, through whatever means, they will start killing people.

Whenever they got in control in the past they did. But Im happy to leave you alone if you accept that they are not in charge and that Christian people when in power using Christian principles did not oppress and actually built society.

Does this mean you are now changing your position from "Atheism causes atrocities." To "state-enforced Christianity is comparatively benign"?

It means as always if you state "neither atheism or Christianity caused atrocities " I am willing to let that go because it means your claim ( I only make counter claims) means you won't criticise the past of Christianity in the future.

Stop trying to change the claimn to ME claiming "Atheism causes atrocities." when the original claim was yours "neither atheism or Christianity caused atrocities "

You are the one who brought them into it when you said history shows that atheism causes atrocities. It is perfectly appropriate that theist atrocities are up there as well, implying other causes.

Christian theist atrocities (and indeed no doubt other mainstream religions - i gave you the stats) are in no way "up there" compared to atheistic Mao Stalin etc.


They are all regimes but
1. atheistic regimes dwarf the others.
2. Atheistic regimes always murder
3. christian regimes dont always kill everyone
4. There are non regime Christian governments.

I have made it perfectly clear what I mean by population density (not just population). From my post #1830 (A post I assumed you missed, as you did not respond to it) :

I probably did. But instead of stating that I missed it you instead accused me of dishonesty.

"And I refer you to my earlier remark about not imposing other discussions onto this one. I have never made the "Leopold of Belgium is evidence of Christianity causing regimes in the Congo" argument (as I have pointed out numerous times),

So you can leave Leopold out of your repertoire of Christian regimes then.
Mind you the Congo can re enter as another atheistic nightmare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marien_Ngouabi
Africa's first Marxist Leninist state - i.e. atheist

and I am well aware that high population does not automatically result in famine. Mao's famine was entirely state-sponsored. It was a repulsive socio-economic experiment in rapid industrialisation that cost millions of lives. But the number of deaths is directly linked to the high population. Is it an excuse? Of course not, but you are acting like atheism was the contingency, when it was clearly a number of factors, none of which being atheism."

If atheism is equally as bad as Christianity how come there are few christian caused famines and atrocities which killed few people and so many killed by atheists . Especially since atheists are ain tiny numbers and christians are the largest group on the planet.? and how come if you look at famines it is the Christians who are first on the scene and the atheists are nowhere to be found?

Bingo. Atheism is not the reason the death toll was so high.

So how come the atheistic regimes have all the high totals and the Christians even after 2000 years don't?
Do you really think naziism and the nazi philosophy had nothing to do with the Holocaust and it was just coincidence that they killed so many people at the same time they had an anti Jew and anti Gypsy philosophy?

And I am not saying it was Christianity.

You are not saying it wasn't are you?


Do you mean:

"I no longer believe atheism is a root cause."

or

"I still believe atheism is a root cause, but I will not supply an argument for why I think this."

I have supplied you with the stats. It is completely plausible when most slaughter do insides with "there is no god" regimes and a tiny proportion with "christian God" regimes to consider that the philosophy might have something to do with it. Do you really think naziism and the nazi philosophy had nothing to do with the Holocaust? But apparently atheism of the Stalinist and Maoist regimes had nothing at all to do with their killing of non committed atheists?

WWII Japan was not an atheist regimes.

Nor was it christian.

While North Korea and Stalinist Russia can be called atheist (North Korea came close to theism when it was suggested Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were the same, transcendant being), the Emperor of Japan was a God. Again, I do not tender examples to argue that they committed atrocities because they were theists. I do it to show that atrocities stem from something other than atheism.

But not from Christianity. I admit Nazis and other non atheists who also were not christian committed atrocities.

Do you see, for example, similarities between atheist regimes like Stalin's russia, and "non atheist" regimes like Nazi Germany, or WWII Japan, or a variety of examples in Africa?

Yes . they were all non Christian.

North Korea is definitely atheist (Though WWII Japan wasn't).

It had only recently become nationalist just as Germany had.

You specifically said atheist religions all cause atrocities.

Yes i did. all atheist regimes i.e. any givernment with "ther is no god" as a central tenet.

Jainism is an example of a peaceful atheist religion, as are atheist branches of Unitarianism

As Is Buddhism sometimes. But what examples have you of them actually controlling the government or constitution of a country?
I admit Jainism has positives. Im sure there are positive atheists like yourself as well. I don't think running the world based on jainism or Falun Gong or Bhuddism would be ideal but it would be a far sight better than basing it on atheism.

[ISAW]

Originally Posted by tommy2bad

No I'm pointing out the possibility that you confuse coincidence with causality.

I'm well aware that just because it happened at the same time does not mean atheism taking over government caused atrocities.
Im also aware while it does not logically prove it, if every time atheism is in command people die in droves and if everytime christianity is in charge people do not die in droves that after 2000 years of this it is reasonable to suspect a causal connection.

Similarly statistical incidence of cholera correlating with where sewers discharge doesn't
mean cholera is spread by water contamination . ( especially when microbiology was unknown to the person who found out the correlation)

[tommy2bad]

This board needs a 'banging your head against a brick wall' smiley just for this thread.

[PDN]

Originally Posted by tommy2bad

This board needs a 'banging your head against a brick wall' smiley just for this thread.

[ISAW]

Originally Posted by tommy2bad

This board needs a 'banging your head against a brick wall' smiley just for this thread.

http://www.criticalthinking.com/comp...-reasoning.jsp

Most arguments are mainly inductive. In fact, inductive reasoning usually comes much more naturally to us than deductive reasoning.

Inductive reasoning moves from specific details and observations (typically of nature) to the more general underlying principles or process that explains them (e.g., Newton's Law of Gravity).

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/dedind.php

I observe that atheistic regimes killed people en masse. It isn't invalid reasoning having looked at such a pattern to arrive at a hypothesis that atheism when used as a central tenet of society resluts in destruction and christianity when adopted as a central tenet doesn't! No amount of "correlation is not causality" or "you can't logically deduce atheism causes atrocities" will dismiss that.

[tommy2bad]

No amount of "correlation is not causality" or "you can't logically deduce atheism causes atrocities" will dismiss that.

No but it don't mean its right.
You have to also show the method or means of cause. Evolution demonstrates that having looked at such a pattern to arrive at a hypothesis isn't enough we needed knowledge of genetics to prove it. Up till then Lamarckism seemed valid. (of course the irony here is Dawkins reusing Lamarck for his meme theory)

[ISAW]

Originally Posted by marienbad

ISAW , when you are ready can I have an answer to this please.

I already addressed it but :
You asked two questions

1. since when is it for you to decide what are we concerned with here ?

It is a matter of definition. I you claim "god ordered rape" or "Christianity caused atrocities but atheism didn't" then ift is for you to provide evidence.

2. hard atheism, soft atheism, new terms to me, What are their opposite might I ask - Hard theism ?


Actaull if you do a search you will not i have been uasing them for years and have referred to the Triniuty college "nones" survey several times before. If you never heard the term before your ignorance is not my problem. I clearly stated exactly what I meant by atheism , i.e. "There is/are no God(s)" I have clearly stated this umpteen times. Ther is no fudging or muddying waters or any other unclear definition as you seem to want others to believe.
Not alone that you asked for a definition. Having supplied one you asked for a definition from a reference work. You now have one. Feel free to consult ARIS whenever you need to look up what "nones" are.
http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/

A further issue I would like to raise is the constant variety of comments you make in the mode of ''I have no problem with atheists so long as....
You do realize the consequences of lumping loads of people in to catagories based on one commonality.

If you are not interested in saying anything about atheists as a group then fine. I am referring to hardline evangelising atheists who attack religious belief as silly and attempt to degrade it. I have no problem putting all such people into a group. If you think that putting nazis , Islamofacists, revolutionary communists or religious fundamentalists into groups is segregating them unfairly or insensitive to them well that's tough. WEhatever next putting "criminals" is insensitive to people who commit crime?

Take out atheists for example and substitute Jews, Blacks ,Women, Red heads .

Nice work on the type selection. take out Jews, Blacks ,Women and Red heads and put in nazis , Islamofacists, or revolutionary communists. How does htat grab you?

Your attitude joins the ''so long as'' list of actual examples listed below, and these are only the milder ones

''I have no problem with Black people so long as they don't intermarry with white women''

'' I have no problem with Jews so long as they don't go about in that funny dress and hairstyle''

''I have no problem with women so long as they realize their place is in the home''

And now we can add ISAW's Law !

'' I have no problem with atheists so long as they keep it to themselves and not try to proselytize or get into government''

Or fascists, or Islamofacists, or Marxist Leninists, or Bolsheviks, or Nazis.

The logical consequence of the ''so long as'' line of argument is - what would you do to prevent that possibility. So what would you do ?

Well the Germans banned Nazism. I would not go that far. Indeed I have supported the right of such people to speak. I would support laws which prevent them form damaging society. I don't think the Church of Ireland or RCC have a damaging influence on society.

[ISAW]

Originally Posted by tommy2bad

No but it don't mean its right.

If right = "Logically proven" I agree.

so how many times must the sun come up before you believe it will do so tomorrow?

You have to also show the method or means of cause. Evolution demonstrates that having looked at such a pattern to arrive at a hypothesis isn't enough we needed knowledge of genetics to prove it. Up till then Lamarckism seemed valid. (of course the irony here is Dawkins reusing Lamarck for his meme theory)

The meme theory fell flat on its fact. While developing solar physics and gravitiation is a worthwhile pursuit, not having such knowledge does not invalidate the belief that the Sun will rise tomorrow doe sit? Ironically here is a genetic fallacy of mixing upi cause and origin. Suppose Galileo was first to suggest that the Earth went round the Sun and the earth rotates . Does that mean the Earth suddenly began to move when Galileo imparted that knowledge to the rest of us. So was it necessary for Galileo to prove the Earth moved for it to move ? Of course it wasn't! He didn't even need to come up with Newtonian gravitation. All he had to do was announce his hypothesis.
Apparently you think not only should Galileo say "the Earth moves" but he should have shown according to what laws it moves and the method means or cause of motion.

Yet the Earth still moved in spite of him showing how it did so.

[tommy2bad]

Apparently you think not only should Galileo say "the Earth moves" but he should have shown according to what laws it moves and the method means or cause of motion.

No, your doing it again. No one is disagreeing that atheistic regimes have caused atrocities, thats not that same as saying that atheism caused atrocities and a long way from saying that atheists will always cause atrocities.
I know you'll say you never said that but you keep on listing and quoting and turning this thread into a war of attrition. Who gives up first.
It might behove you to listen to what people say, attempt to engage with them and offer an opinion of where their wrong rather than forensically dissecting every post and this trick of holding everything said in evidence against them? Let the discussion move on, arguments develop and what was said 300 posts ago might be no longer the position held or it might be just a badly expressed version of a position.
I'v disagreed with you, Marien and several others here without having to repeat the same thing over and over.
I could be wronging you and their is some subtle point we are missing but it seems that you see any grasp of someone else's position as a lessening of yours. It isn't. You can say ISeeWhatYouMean and add IfYouSseeWhatIMean.
Hell I agree with you autocratic dictatorships do bad things and they all seem to have atheism as a common factor, it's possible their is some flaw in atheism that causes this.
But it's also possible that the same could have happened if Hitler was a pope or mullah or POTUS It could be a combination of factors or it could be nothing to do with atheism or theism and everything to do with unrestrained power.
I suspect that it's the latter, totalitarian dictators accept no master, and once in power seek to replace all authority be that secular or religious. I don't think atheism of itself leads to dictators but dictators do tend to atheism once totalitarianism becomes their goal.

[PDN]

I have to say that I find ISAW's arguments on this to be utterly unconvincing.

I think it is legitimate to point out the atrocities caused by atheist regimes, if you are responding to the oft-repeated canard that "religion is the cause of all the wars and suffering in history". It makes sense, in that particular context, to point out that those who got rid of religion still proved to just as capable of causing wars and suffering as anyone else.

(Of course, you'll still get the occasional moron who will try to argue that such atheistic regimes are actually a form of religion, but there probably isn't much point in even trying to discuss the issue with someone if they are that dishonest and that willing to twist language).

However, outside of that limited context, I think there is little point to go on banging about 'atheist atrocities' all the time. Given the horrible things done in the name of religion over the years, it is a classic example of people in glass houses throwing stones.

The simple truth is that human nature, while occasionally capable of great nobility, has a very nasty bestial streak running through it that makes us capable of exploiting any ideology or philosophy in order to grab power and, in seeking to maintain that power, in oppressing and torturing our fellow human beings. (The biblical, and more concise, way of saying that is that we are all sinners. And, given the right circumstances and opportunities, we can sin big time.)

[gimmebroadband]

The fallen nature of mankind has more to do with atrocities caused than religion has. If mankind would adhere to the teachings of Christ, then the world would be a better place.

I like your Christ but I don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ! (Ghandi)

[Morbert]

Originally Posted by ISAW

So given there was only ONE Nazi regime you thing the Holocaust didn't have anything to do with Naziism?

Perfect example: If the only pieces of data we had were "There was one Nazi regime" and "An atrocity happened under the Nazi regime", then we would not be justified in declaring the Nazi's were responsible for the atrocity. We would have to look at the incident in detail. Perhaps there was a civil war. Perhaps the Nazis were a peace-loving democracy that suffered a military coup. When we did look, we would note the anti-Semitism, the Nazi-run death camps, and the Megalomania of Hitler. We would then be justified in declaring the Nazis responsible.

So why did you bring it up then? your words " Do you believe the great leap forward would have killed on the order of 50 million if there were only, say 1 million people living in China?"
Why use a fictional population of 1 million as a metric to judge anything especially if it is as you claim "irrelevant" ? By the way the metric i was using is the sample as a percentage of the overall numbers. One country in fifteen ; one person in fifteen.

You are swapping contexts back and forth. You brought up number of deaths caused by Mao's famine, and I pointed out that a high population density, not atheism, was why the death toll was as high as it was.

There are enough to d the analysis and enough to determine what governments were atheistic ( i.e. with "There is no god" as a central principle) . Im not aware of any "There is no God" administrations over countries that were not regimes. I know plenty of christian administrations that were not.

Ok I'll do the analysing for you. Were any of these governments democracies? Were any of them secular pluralists? What leads you to believe that a democratic government of atheist secular pluralists will cause atrocities?

I didn't make the claim. the claim is that belief ( in specific in Christianity) causes atrocities.
My counter claim is "not in any way as much as atheism"
I happy to let atheists go their own way until they start attacking religion and making smug jokes about Christianity as if it is unreasonable.
All the atheistic regimes caused mayhem and left nothing for posterity but piles of skulls.
Only few christian regimes did.

Stop trying to change the claimn to ME claiming "Atheism causes atrocities." when the original claim was yours "neither atheism or Christianity caused atrocities

Yes you did claim atheism causes atrocities. I specifically asked you if you genuinely believed atheism causes atrocities, or if, instead, you were using it as a rhetorical device to highlight the absurdity of the claim "Christianity causes atrocities". You said you genuinely believed it.

Who was it stated that they were not referring to post WWII Japan accusing me of dishonesty?...

and now you want to refer to "modern" Japan

Yes. Modern Japan is an example of a predominantly atheist, but still secular pluralist, society. It falsifies your inference.

Modern Japan produced Aum Shriya do you know of any other country who used SARIN gas in a terrorist attack? No doubt you might claim christian influence.

Are you serious? Really? Really?!? You are arguing that a terrorist attack against Japanese society, perpetrated by religious nut jobs who believe in a mish-mash theology, run by a guy who draws similarities between himself and the Lamb of God, is an instrument of atheism? Seriously??? This places modern Japan on the same list as Mao and Stalin?

I hope not. But i dont think "ther is no god" is a central tenet of the Japanese constitution.
Which was influenced by the US and their constitution. Which was written to avoid religious division. The irish constitution as it happenms acts in a diffferent way to support religion in schools. If only the US example existed people would never realise that "freedom of belief" or "rights of the family" can mean the State supports such things as religion.

And nobody is arguing for placing "there is no God" as a central tenet of the constitution. We are arguing for a secular pluralism, where atheists and theists are free to be as plentiful as they like, and to hold as many governmental positions as society wishes.

<snip>

The rest of the post is a repetition of points we have been over before.

[ISAW]

Originally Posted by Morbert

Perfect example: If the only pieces of data we had were "There was one Nazi regime" and "An atrocity happened under the Nazi regime", then we would not be justified in declaring the Nazi's were responsible for the atrocity. We would have to look at the incident in detail. Perhaps there was a civil war. Perhaps the Nazis were a peace-loving democracy that suffered a military coup. When we did look, we would note the anti-Semitism, the Nazi-run death camps, and the Megalomania of Hitler. We would then be justified in declaring the Nazis responsible.

Let us take the example of the Jews who are central to the WWII Holocaust.
But you are then saying it isn't meglomania of Hitler because he would have killed anyone ( and maybe he would have eventually if given the chance so i would thin dont give him the chance to go any further based on what he did in the past)
but his particular anti-Jew policy as outlined in the Nazi philosophy which led to Jews being singled out.

You don't have to go looking for other reasons. "our superiour way is better than the Jews" was enough to lead to the persecution of Jews. The philosophy of their way being better and the promotion of that philosophy. A bit like promoting "there is no God" ?

You are swapping contexts back and forth. You brought up number of deaths caused by Mao's famine, and I pointed out that a high population density, not atheism, was why the death toll was as high as it was.

I brought up the deaths caused by people with atheism central to their system. They may have had other things as well . But if you look at other varioboles e.g. communism; totalitarianism; authoritarianism; freedom to do what you want; having moustaches; religious zealots etc. you can always find exceptions . Only atheistic regimes don't have exceptions when we have to look at the incidents in detail.

Ok I'll do the analysing for you. Were any of these governments democracies?

very few. More importantly there were democracies which did not commit atrocities

Were any of them secular pluralists? What leads you to believe that a democratic government of atheist secular pluralists will cause atrocities?

Democracies do sometimes. They don't ALL THE TIME that is the point!
What atheistic regime didn't commit atrocities?

Yes you did claim atheism causes atrocities. I specifically asked you if you genuinely believed atheism causes atrocities, or if, instead, you were using it as a rhetorical device to highlight the absurdity of the claim "Christianity causes atrocities". You said you genuinely believed it.

If adopted as a central tenet of a government which is why I call it an "atheistic" system. Is use "regime" because i dont know of atheistic government systems that were not regimes.

On the other hand Christianity has a record of NOT causing atrocities when in charge of the country.

Yes. Modern Japan is an example of a predominantly atheist, but still secular pluralist, society. It falsifies your inference.

Not atheistic = government with "ther is no god" as a central tenet.
On the other hand government with "there is a God" were not all terror regimes.

Ther can be a majority of atheists in Ireland. so long as parents can have religion on schools protected by the constitution the Christians don't have a problem with their majority. It is when they start oppressing others the problems start. and this is when they have a tiny percentage of militants egging them on.

Are you serious? Really? Really?!? You are arguing that a terrorist attack against Japanese society, perpetrated by religious nut jobs who believe in a mish-mash theology, run by a guy who draws similarities between himself and the Lamb of God, is an instrument of atheism? Seriously??? This places modern Japan on the same list as Mao and Stalin?

It is symptomatic of a society that allows such fundamentalists to come about. By "allow" I dont mean "gives freedom to " but creates a philosophical tableau whereby the subjective norm dominates. relativism and absence of values prevail. they the of society that has no moral values but relativism like the atheists want or that makes out that morals or "meaningless" a philosophy which nihilists like you promote. It places a moral burden for similar atrocities ion the shoulders of those that deny moral values. The whole central issue of "there is a God" is not that God exists but that we assume it is a benevolent caring God depicting moral decency.

And nobody is arguing for placing "there is no God" as a central tenet of the constitution.

Plenty argued it! Maoists, Stalinists. The league of the Godless.
When you say "morality is meaningless" you make a similar argument!
You are basically saying "we don't need God"

We are arguing for a secular pluralism, where atheists and theists are free to be as plentiful as they like, and to hold as many governmental positions as society wishes.

So long as they don't impinge on Christians ( and others) rights to school their kids in ethos schools - fine by the Chrtistians.