Atheism, a dangerous idea?

In every religious, political, and social movement you can find extremists who view anything contrary to their beliefs as "evil". In this respect, the Christian fundamentalists in the US are not very different than what you can find in any other political movement. What makes Protestant fundamentalism so visible in the US is that they are proving to be useful to the ruling classes in the US (who I suspect actually have contempt for the fundamentalists, aside from their usefulness).

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

The phrase "useful idiots" pops into my mind when I think of the Religious Right as a political movement.Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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I think the great majority of theists either accept biological evolution theory (call it "Darwinism" if you wish) or are indifferent about it.

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I would guess that most atheists probably don't care all that much about evolution, either. Most of the atheists (and agnostics) that I have known seem to think that the intensity of my interest in the subject is another of my eccentricities.-

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I think that Jimmy Carter was probably the most religious of the recent Presidents.

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Born again Baptist, I believe.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

Hi, LinearAq.I almost agree with your point, and almost made it myself. However, I do think there is a difference between the Christian/Islamic based ideologies and atheistic ones. Namely, there are plenty of atrocities that are committed by people saying, "I do this in the name of Christianity/Islam/whatever." Very few that I am aware have said, "I do this in the name of atheism."Now, maybe the atheistic part can be blamed when Christians, Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists are singled out for persecution for their religious beliefs; however, these then become a small part of the overall number of victims of ideologies that officially endorse atheism, so it is still possible that the persecutions due to atheism is smaller than those due to other religious bigotry.That said, I agree even so called "religious" conflicts, just like so-called "tribal" conficts, can be traced to more mundane political factors. But plenty of followers have been inspired to atrocities directly by religious fervor; I am having trouble thinking of an example where atheism itself is a direct inspiration to great atrocities.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline