1. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #96560 by DexterMorgan on December 10, 2007 at 5:53 pm

"But 'history,' says the pope, 'has proven wrong ideologies such as Marxism which say humans had to establish social justice because God did not exist.' The Pope goes further, "It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice," and that it has left behind 'a trail of appalling destruction.'"

Mr. Morris has this exactly right, of course, but it doesn't prove what he thinks it does. The relevant part of the failure of these ideologies is not the "God did not exist" part, but the "establish social justice" part. Anytime humans try to impose a top down, centrally planned, patterned distribution of wealth according to some conception of "social" justice, cruelty and violence is sure to follow.

But such schemes are not necessarily atheistic. Many are compatible with religion, and promoted by the religious.