The New Atheism: Less Religion, Less Violence?

Unlike traditional atheism, the “new” atheists believe that had humanity possessed the scientific data we have now religion would’ve never gotten off the ground. Furthermore, they advocate that religion is detrimental to society, retarding humanity’s progress, and that simply put: the world would be a better place without religion. To oversimplify things, the thesis of “The God Delusion” is religion causes bombings. There’s no doubt that in some cases religion has wielded its power and influence in ways which are contrary to the teachings of Jesus (e.g. Spanish Inquisition, N. Ireland, etc.) Perhaps this is what John Lennon was suggesting in “Imagine” when he asks us to imagine a world without religion implying; get rid of religion and the world will be a better, safer, and more harmonious place.
However, atheism has proved to be an equal if not worse oppressor. Case and point would be the Soviet Union. The atrocities and human rights violations that occurred in the atheistic Soviet Union have been well documented. In 1922 Lenin, who was frustrated by the tardiness of Russia’s people to adopt atheism said that the “protracted use of brutality” would be a necessary means to achieve the goal. It’s a very unfashionable and politically incorrect topic but the fact is that some of the greatest human rights atrocities of the 20th century were committed by governments that espoused atheism (Soviet Russia, the People's Republic of China, Vietnam). The thesis that a society which doesn’t believe in God would be a kinder, gentler, and morally superior society is a myth. The truth is that because of sin, both the atheist and the religious possess the capability of doing appalling things for what they think is right.
It was Karl Marx who said. “religion is the opium of the people.” The idea here is that some how religion dulls our senses to the troubles of the world and that the idea of God helps us deal with it better. Later, a poet would say, “A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged…The true opium of modernity is the belief that there is no God, so that humans are free to do precisely as they please” – Czeslaw Milosz who lived under the oppression of both Nazism and then Stalinism