Ruth Ann Gets Atheism Wrong (No Surprise)

In her non-defense defense of the "In God We Trust" legislation, P-G Columnist Ruth Ann Dailey pushes a tired old myth about atheism:

All humans are created equal, but not all ideas are. Ideas have consequences, and the consequences of secular atheism are appalling. As the 20th century demonstrated, societies based on a vaguer, God-free foundation of “human rights” tend to have slaughtered hundreds of millions of those humans.

Yes, that's right. It was Atheism that drove Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot to slaughter all those people.  A God-free foundation of "human rights" is the culprit.

Simply absurd.  Here's Sam Harris on exactly why that's absurd:

People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

And Dailey stumbled upon a thread of this idea when she wrote:

A friend’s son suggested a brilliant synthesis: If we want “In God We Trust” on the courthouse wall, we should just tape a quarter up and call it done. (Yep, it’s right there next to George Washington’s ponytail — and in the last verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” too.)

Well, it's not exactly the same motto in the last verse of The Star Spangled Banner.  The "motto" referenced there is, "In God is our trust."  Incidentally, it's the second half of a rhymed couplet.  The first half?  It's this:

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

So when "our cause is just" and with God on our side, we must conquer.

See the trouble now?  Look around.