page_title: Criticism of atheism
section_title: Early twentieth century
hierarchical_section_title: Criticism of atheism / Atheism and politics / Early twentieth century
context_page_description: Criticism of atheism is criticism of the concepts, validity, or impact of atheism, including associated political and social implications. Criticisms include positions based on the history of science, philosophical and logical criticisms, findings in the natural sciences, theistic apologetic arguments, arguments pertaining to ethics and morality, the effects of atheism on the individual, or the assumptions that underpin atheism.
  Various contemporary agnostics like Carl Sagan and theists such as Dinesh D'Souza have criticised atheism for being an unscientific position. Analytic philosopher Alvin Plantinga, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, argues that a failure of theistic arguments might conceivably be good grounds for agnosticism, but not for atheism; and points to the observation of an apparently "fine-tuned universe" as more likely to be explained by theism than atheism. Oxford Professor of Mathematics John Lennox holds that atheism is an inferior world view to that of theism and attributes to C.S.
context_section_description: In Julian Baggini's book Atheism A Very Short Introduction, the author notes: "One of the most serious charges laid against atheism is that it is responsible for some of the worst horrors of the 20th century, including the Nazi concentration camps and Stalin's gulags". However, the author concludes that Nazi Germany was not a "straightforwardly atheist state", but one which sacrilized notions of blood and nation in a way that is "foreign to mainstream rational atheism" and that while the Soviet Union, which was  "avowedly and officially an atheist state", this is not a reason to think that atheism is necessarily evil, though it is a refutation of the idea that atheism must always be benign as "there is I believe a salutary lesson to be learned from the way in which atheism formed an essential part of Soviet Communism, even though Communism does not form an essential part of atheism. This lesson concerns what can happen when atheism becomes too militant and Enlightenment ideals too optimistic".
  From the outset, Christians were critical of the spread of militant Marxist‒Leninist atheism, which took hold in Russia following the 1917 Revolution and involved a systematic effort to eradicate religion. In the Soviet Union after the Revolution, teaching religion to the young was criminalized. Marxist‒Leninist atheism and other adaptations of Marxian thought on religion enjoyed the official patronage of various one-party Communist states since 1917. The Bolsheviks pursued "militant atheism". The Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin energetically pursued the persecution of the Church through the 1920s and 1930s. It was made a criminal offence for priests to teach a child the faith. Many priests were killed and imprisoned. Thousands of churches were closed, some turned into temples of atheism. In 1925, the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the persecution.
  Pope Pius XI reigned from 1922 to 1939 and responded to the rise of totalitarianism in Europe with alarm. He issued three papal encyclicals challenging the new creeds: against Italian Fascism, Non abbiamo bisogno (1931; 'We do not need to acquaint you); against Nazism, Mit brennender Sorge (1937; "With deep concern"); and against atheist Communism, Divini Redemptoris (1937; "Divine Redeemer").
  In Divini Redemptoris, Pius XI said that atheistic Communism being led by Moscow was aimed at "upsetting the social order and at undermining the very foundations of Christian civilization":
  We too have frequently and with urgent insistence denounced the current trend to atheism which is alarmingly on the increase... We raised a solemn protest against the persecutions unleashed in Russia, in Mexico and now in Spain. [...] In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race.
  — Excerpts from Divini Redemptoris, Pope Pius XI, 1937
  In Fascist Italy, led by the atheist Benito Mussolini, the Pope denounced the efforts of the state to supplant the role of the Church as chief educator of youth and denounced Fascism's "worship" of the state rather than the divine, but Church and state settled on mutual, shaky, toleration.
  Historian of the Nazi period Richard J. Evans wrote that the Nazis encouraged atheism and deism over Christianity and encouraged party functionaries to abandon their religion. Priests were watched closely and frequently denou
caption: The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow during its 1931 demolition as Marxist‒Leninist atheism and other adaptations of Marxian thought on religion have enjoyed the official patronage of various one-party Communist states
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