Jeff, I’m not sure how one can glean from Russell’s article that Stalin read the Origin and presto, became a murderer, and furthermore, that everyone else who does the same will. However, it is a recorded historical fact that upon reading the Origin, he felt justified in rejecting the notion that the God of the Bible existed. (A fairly rational conclusion, I might add.) Now the following should be obvious, but let’s walk through it anyway.

Imagine if we were comparing two very large groups of people, who were in all other respects comparable (in terms of the distribution of gender, age, occupation etc. etc.) except that one group believed that they were accountable to a holy and just God after death, i.e. actions have eternal consequences, and the other which didn’t. Now, while no one is claiming that such a restraining belief will operate perfectly, least of all the Christian who believes in a fallen and sinstained world, it seems a ‘no-brainer’ that the group with no such restraining belief will produce more of those who commit actual acts of murder, for example. I.e. this is an ‘on average’ argument. It does not ignore other factors like psychopathy, upbringing, aggravation, opportunity, you name it. It merely makes the relatively trivial and self-evident claim that a person with a murderous thought or predilection will be on average less likely to restrain themselves from the impulse to carry it out (if they believe they are likely to get away with it on Earth, as a despot in power would be able to, e.g.). Note that your last line actually reinforces this point about retribution, to an extent.

Then there is the additional point that when professing Christians do such things, they are being inconsistent with the teachings of their faith’s founder. But when a materialist does them, he/she is not being inconsistent with anything of the sort, in fact is being quite consistent with the notion that there is no ultimate reason for one collection of randomly evolved atoms that once were pond scum now rearranged not to do what it wants with another such collection. Note that this does not say that an atheist cannot be a moral person, just that there is no objective basis for such morality.

Note, too, the historical evidence supporting this self-evident chain of reasoning (as if it were necessary, in a sense). Despite the horrors of the 30 years war, the number of people who have been killed in Christian atrocities, and all religious wars pales into insignificance next to the number of people killed in the 20th Century alone by those who had an evolution-based view of the world, were fiercely anti-Christian, and feared no judgment after death. For example, during the Inquisition, loathsome as it was, some “3,230 people were sentenced to death, hardly the bloodbath of millions that it is sometimes made out to be.” See A review of The Irrational Atheist.

See for more documentation and discussion ‘Christian’ vs evolutionary atrocities, and note too that the nearly 100m killed in the murderous rampages of the ideologically driven dictators of last century mostly killed, often systematically, their own people.

An individual who is influenced by another is not thereby less responsible, nor has CMI ever claimed that. But it would be naive not to be aware of the influencing factors. My recent book (see www.onehumanfamily.us) shows how even my own mother was influenced by the milieu of her times (Nazi Germany's social Darwinism). See also responses to Jeff on this comments thread.

One doesn't know where to start; Hitler was raised a Catholic, but never went to any seminary. For a thoroughly documented refutation of the myth about Nazis being Christian (they actually planned to exterminate the church) type the words 'Hitler' and 'Christian' into our search engine and read several of the articles that appear, particularly The Christian Nazi Myth Refuted. See also comments responding to Jeff on this thread.