Atheism and sociopathy

The perverse and cruel atheist Marquis de Sade in prison, 18th century line engraving. See also: Atheism and sadism

A sociopath is "a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience."

Below is some material relating to atheism and sociopathy.

Atheistic communism, mass murder and sociopathic leaders

Joseph Stalin's atheistic regime killed tens of millions of people.

See also: Atheism and mass murder and Atheist atrocities and Atheism and human rights violations and Atheism and violence and Atheism and leadership

Historically, atheism has generally been an integral part of communist ideology (see: Atheism and communism).

According to the University of Cambridge, historically, the "most notable spread of atheism was achieved through the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought the Marxist-Leninists to power."

In a Washington Post article entitled Lessons from a century of communism Ilya Somin wrote:

“

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power, which led to the establishment of a communist regime in Russia and eventually in many other nations around the world. It is an appropriate time to remember the vast tide of oppression, tyranny, and mass murder that communist regimes unleashed upon the world. While historians and others have documented numerous communist atrocities, much of the public remains unaware of their enormous scale. It is also a good time to consider what lessons we can learn from this horrendous history. Collectively, communist states killed as many as 100 million people, more than all other repressive regimes combined during the same time period... There is no doubt communist governments had more than their share of cruel and even sociopathic leaders.

”

Vox Day notes concerning atheism, mass murder and sociopathic atheist leaders:

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Apparently it was just an amazing coincidence that every Communist of historical note publicly declared his atheism … .there have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed atheists at the helm … These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal acts of the sort committed by Stalin and Mao … The total body count for the ninety years between 1917 and 2007 is approximately 148 million dead at the bloody hands of fifty-two atheists, three times more than all the human beings killed by war, civil war, and individual crime in the entire twentieth century combined. The historical record of collective atheism is thus 182,716 times worse on an annual basis than Christianity’s worst and most infamous misdeed, the Spanish Inquisition. It is not only Stalin and Mao who were so murderously inclined, they were merely the worst of the whole Hell-bound lot. For every Pol Pot whose infamous name is still spoken with horror today, there was a Mengistu, a Bierut, and a Choibalsan, godless men whose names are now forgotten everywhere but in the lands they once ruled with a red hand. Is a 58 percent chance that an atheist leader will murder a noticeable percentage of the population over which he rules sufficient evidence that atheism does, in fact, provide a systematic influence to do bad things? If that is not deemed to be conclusive, how about the fact that the average atheist crime against humanity is 18.3 million percent worse than the very worst depredation committed by Christians, even though atheists have had less than one-twentieth the number of opportunities with which to commit them. If one considers the statistically significant size of the historical atheist set and contrasts it with the fact that not one in a thousand religious leaders have committed similarly large-scale atrocities, it is impossible to conclude otherwise, even if we do not yet understand exactly why this should be the case. Once might be an accident, even twice could be coincidence, but fifty-two incidents in ninety years reeks of causation!

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Day also wrote: "I believe that a small minority of atheists are rational sociopaths - unfortunately, these are the ones who seem to have the will to power."

Day wrote about the secular left and mass murder:

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...it does, however, cast serious doubt on the common atheist assertion that a godless society will be a peaceful one. The significant question has never been if atheism causes political leaders to kill in large quantities, it is why political leaders who happen to be atheist have been inordinately inclined to kill in large quantities. As I wrote in TIA, the answer is probably to be found in the fact that atheists who have committed great historical crimes are almost exclusively left-wing atheists with utopian visions of restructuring human society; Ayn Rand atheists aren't exactly known for attempting to violently restructure societal order.

”

Atheists with a sociopathic personality structure and the occult

See also: Atheism and the occult and Irreligion and superstition and Atheism and satanic deception and Atheism and the supernatural and Atheism and life after death

The journal article Atheism and the occult published in the Journal of Social Sciences indicated:

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Atheists with a sociopathic personality structure have a greater degree of predisposition to express different forms of occult practice. The results of canonical discriminant analysis have shown that occultist syndrome in atheists is a component of a kind of sociopathic aggression whose latent structure is defined by materialistic-hedonistic orientation, impulsive aggression and asocial aggression in the positive direction, and altruism in the negative direction. Atheists with a sociopathic personality structure have a greater degree of predisposition to express different forms of occult practice. (Google translated version of the journal article).

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A very prevalent view of the occult is that it is Satanic (see also: Atheism and satanic deception).

Former atheist David Wood and sociopathy

See also: Former atheist David Wood and sociopathy

David Wood

Joe Carter at the Gospel Coalition wrote about the ex-atheist David Wood who is currently a Christian apologist:

“

A sociopath is person who behaves in a dangerous or violent way towards other people yet doesn’t feel remorse or guilt about such behavior.* An example is David Wood, who was a murderous sociopath—until he came to Christ. Wood’s story is both a chilling portrait of nihilistic atheism and a profound testimony of the power of Christ to transform the human heart. This superbly produced video is long (about 30 minutes), but well worth every minute. (Caution: the video includes disturbing descriptions of evil and acts of violence.) At about the 23-minute mark, Wood discusses a version of the moral argument and how it persuaded him of the existence of God. But long before then anyone listening to his testimony will have a hard time believing that, as he says, “right and wrong are just useful fictions.” The reaction we have to Wood’s story is itself evidence that we recognize both the need for the existence of the moral law and a Moral Law giver. As I’ve often claimed in this series, denying the reality of God is more a matter of the will and passions than of reason and intellect. But as Wood’s story shows, there is one argument for the existence of God that appeals to the will, passions, reason, and intellect in a way that ontological or cosmological arguments are unable to do. Ironically, while those heady forms have been used since ancient times, the moral argument is a product of modernity. The moral argument for the existence of God takes the simple form: If objective moral values exist, then God exists. Objective moral values exist. Therefore, God exists.

”

Premier Christianity wrote about David Wood:

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As a young atheist, David Wood rebelled against society’s moral values and attempted to murder his father. In prison, his arguments with a Christian led him to salvation. I don’t remember ever not living with violence in the family. My mum was habitually with very abusive boyfriends. One of my earliest memories was hearing a lot of screaming and walking into the kitchen and seeing blood everywhere, and my mum saying: ‘It’s ketchup, go back to bed.’ Another of my earliest memories is of my dog dying and having no feelings about it, so there was probably something genetic going on that led to my mental health problems. But I thought: ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, it’s everyone else who has a problem. I’m the only smart, sane one.’ My atheist world view was: throughout the universe or through time, we’re collections of cells. Whatever we do we’re determined to do by natural cause and effect. You could kill 1,000 people; you could spend your entire life helping people – it doesn’t make any real difference. You might as well just do whatever you feel like doing with the time you’ve got. My view of ethics was affected by my not having normal emotional attachments to people. When someone died, it didn’t affect me. I was angry at society for brainwashing me into thinking that I had to follow their rules when I really didn’t. By the time I was 18 years old, I thought, ‘I don’t have to do any of this. I can do whatever I feel like doing. Who are you to stop me? You are sacks of molecules, just like I am.’... I thought I had to do something that would really get to the heart of the matter. That’s when I decided to kill my dad. I wanted to make it look like someone else did it. I decided to use multiple weapons so it looked like many people had attacked him. I had a hammer and a knife. So I walked in, stood over him for a while and tried to get angry. At that time, I usually got angry very easily. I tried to think of something he’d done to me. Right now I can think of all kinds of things, but right there I couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong to me. I thought: ‘This is good; this is how it has to be. I’m not killing him out of anger, I’m just doing it.’ I drew back the hammer and whacked him as hard as I could. I hit him in the head, and I assumed that if a 230-pound guy whacks someone in the middle of the forehead with a ball-peen hammer, he would be dead. But he wasn’t, so I carried on hitting him. Blood spilt everywhere... When I heard my dad was still alive, I thought, ‘Now they’re on to me... I was in my cell one night reading the Gospel of John, and I couldn’t help but think that Jesus was better than me... ...I became a Christian...

”

Videos/articles on the former atheist and sociopath turned Christian apologist David Wood

• Sociopathic Atheist to a Christian Apologist. David Wood's Testimony
• Misguided Man Assaults Father with Hammer
• Sociopath Atheist Tried to Kill His Dad – Instead Prison Changed His Life Bringing Him To Jesus
• Former Atheist Sociopath, David Wood, Finds Jesus in Prison.

Times of India on the rise of sociopaths and the atheist David Kelly

See also: List of atheist shooters and serial killers and Antitheism and antisocial behavior and Atheism and social outcasts and Atheism and narcissism and Atheism and social skills

The atheist killer Devin Patrick Kelley.

In a Times of India article entitled Why are sociopaths on the rise?, Vinita Dawra Nangia wrote:

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Shockingly some of the behaviour promoted by some societies — extreme focus on the self, impulsivity, lack of guilt and irresponsibility – are exactly what is listed as the traits of sociopaths and psychopaths! Manipulating situations and people to gain what you want – a red flag for sociopaths – is increasingly gaining acceptance in some societies... There are always signs before the blast occurs. Texas killer Devin Kelley was an “outcast” who preached atheism online... It is our social responsibility to watch out for ‘weirdos’ who are misfits in society. If we remain alert and report such behavior, and if psycho-profiling became a must in some spheres, who knows how many heinous crimes we may be able to avoid!

”

See also:

• List of atheist shooters and serial killers

• Atheists and psychological factors related to mass shooters

• Antitheism and antisocial behavior

• Atheism and social outcasts

• Atheism and narcissism

• Atheism and social skills

Atheism and human rights violations

See: Atheism and human rights violations

Atheist population and immorality

See: Atheist population and immorality and Atheism and moral depravity

Antitheism and antisocial behaviors

See also: Antitheism and antisocial behavior and Atheism and narcissism and Atheism and intolerance and Atheism and anger

Antitheism is active opposition to theistic belief.

Social science research indicates that antitheists score the highest among atheists when it comes to personality traits such as narcissism, dogmatism, and anger. Furthermore, they scored lowest when it comes to agreeableness and positive relations with others.

Atheism and its anti-civilizational effects

See: Atheism and its anti-civilizational effects

List of atheist shooters and serial killers

See: List of atheist shooters and serial killers

Atheistic communism and torture

See: Atheistic communism and torture

China and involuntary organ harvesting

See: China and involuntary organ harvesting

Atheism and violence

See: Atheism and violence

Atheism and forced labor

See: Atheism and forced labor

Atheism and social/interpersonal intelligence

See also: Atheism and social/interpersonal intelligence and Atheist factions and Atheism and loneliness

According to an international study done by William Bainbridge, atheism is frequent among people whose interpersonal social obligations are weak and is also linked to lower fertility rates in advanced industrial nations (See also: Atheism and fertility rates).

Jacques Rousseau wrote in the Daily Maverick: "Elevatorgate..has resulted in three weeks of infighting in the secular community. Some might observe that we indulge in these squabbles fairly frequently."

See also: Atheist factions and Atheism and intolerance

Atheist organizations and scandals

• Atheist organizations and scandals

Denzel Washington on atheists and sociopaths

Denzel Washington

See also: Atheism and racism and Western atheism and race and Black atheism

Actor Denzel Washington discussing his movie "Safe House" stated concerning atheists and sociopaths:

“

There's a book I read called 'The Sociopath Next Door.' And -- I read something from it every day before I would go on the set. It really became my guide. When you think of a sociopath...you think of someone violent. The overwhelming majority of sociopaths aren't violent. They just have a desire to win. They just don't have a conscience -- they don't have it. The majority of them are atheists as well. So that was the book that was sort of my Bible if you will...in preparation for this part."

”

See also

• Atheism and psychopathy
• Atheism and morality
• Atheism and sadism
• Secular leftists and psychogenic illness
• Atheists and unreasonableness
• Atheism and mental illness

External links

• Official David Wood website
• Official Acts17Apologetics YouTube channel