Point 6 of John Haght's take on the "new atheist" belief system is: "Faith in God has resulted in untold evil and should be rejected on moral grounds." Little needs to be said concerning the subject of evil. From an atheistic worldview, evil and morality are irrelevant points. Why should atheism be concerned with morality in a meaningless universe? With the mention of evil/morality the logical question that needs to be asked is, "Where does evil come from?" If evil exists then a moral law exists by which one can measure what is good verses evil. So it seems odd that the "new atheists" would make a statement concerning religions as being evil or immoral. The atheist has no answer to the problem of evil1, whereas the Christian does.
One of the other misconceptions is that Christianity is the source of evil.2 When you examine the world today and see the evil acts being committed in the name of religion, I think it is easy to see why some would conclude that religion is evil. Christianity has been blamed for numerous atrocities in the past and has even been called to account for what some would see as an evil God in the Old Testament. However, the big mistake of the "new atheist" is to clump all religious groups together as opposed to evaluating each one on its on merits.
If examined fully, it is the atheist worldview that has resulted in one of the most brutal centuries (2oth) on record. It is the atheistic worldview that can potentially lead to chaos and brutality if followed through to its logical ends. Again, on the atheist worldview morality simply does not exist. A consistent atheist would see no difference between a maggot and a human baby, both would be the process of a blind, indifferent, material organisms that exist for a short time with absolutely no purpose or meaning. The "new atheists", therefore, have no right to argue for what is good/evil or moral without implying the existence of God.
1 The Free Will defense in response to the problem of evil (a rebuff of the free-will defense is given as well, but the general argument for the problem of evil is provided): http://www2.gsu.edu/~phltso/freewillD.html
2 Article dealing with the problem and origin of evil (also listed is a free-will defense to the problem of evil): http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0019.html
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