DAWKIN'S ON HITLER AND STALIN:A REPLY

In Richard Dawkin's (in)famous book "The GOD Dillusion" ,he quoted a question raised many times in his public lectures:"What about Hitler or Stalin ?Arent they atheist?"(pp.272-278)

In the first paragraph of his reply he said:" Outstanding reversal,deep and terrible ones,are provided by dictators of the twentieth century.It is important to SEPARATE the evil intentions of men like Hitler and Stalin from the vast power that they wielded in achiving them."(capitals mine when appear in this article----D).

REPLY:

How can Dawkins"separate the evil intentions" of the said dictators "from the vast power they wieded in achiving them" ? Did not these "evil men" used their "vast powers " to achieve their goals and produced evil and "appaling reversals"?

As for Dawkins opinion that Hitler and Stalin "were by any standards,spectacularly evil". We can but agree with his assesment.


He brought up two assumptions that put to him by his some of his audience:"(1) were Stalin and Hitler atheist and(2)they do their terrible deeds because they were atheist." He continued":"true for Stalin and dubious for Hitler".

REPLY:

Dawins is right that Stalin is an atheist. But he did not mention that STALIN MAY HAVE BECOME AN ATHEIST BY READING DARWINIAN LITERATURE:" Official Soviet biographers and memorialists claimed that aready at Gori their hero ( Stalin---D) had read Darwin and become an atheist.but he may have acquired a vague notion of the new theory (Evolution---D) from popular summaries,and his mind turned against religion."(Deutscher 1982:27 ).

Additional information:

Mao Zedong, an atheistic Marxist mass murderer ,confessed that as a youth he "studied with great interest....Darwin's Origin of Species...." ( Snow:177)

We must not be surprised that the atheist Karl Marx ,(Stalin and Mao's idol) sent a copy of the first edition of his Das Kapital to Charles Darwin In the book's inscription he described hinself as a "sincere admirer" .In Darwin's letter of thanks,he politely described Marx' opus as a "great work". (for Marx-Darwin correspondence, see Wheen 1999 :363-369)

The mariage of The Theory of Evolution and Marxist Revolution proved to be a dangerous union that produced a dark chapter in humankind's history.(To be discussed in other future article).