It is estimated that in the past 100 years, governments under the banner of atheistic [[communism]] have caused the death of somewhere between 40,472,000 and 259,432,000 human lives.<ref name=blackbook/> Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the range of computations of loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.<ref>Rummel, R. J. (November 1993). [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM "How many did communist regimes murder?"] University of Hawaii website; Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War. Retrieved July 19, 2014.</ref>
[[File:Vox Day.jpg|thumbnail|right|160px|[[Vox Day|Theodore Beale]] ]]
[[Vox Day|Theodore Beale]] notes concerning atheism and mass murder:
{{cquote|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 [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] and [[Mao Zedong|Mao]] …
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!<ref>Multiple references:
*[[Vox Day]] (Theodore Beale) (2008). ''The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens'' (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books), p. 17.
*Ammi, Ken (June 11, 2009). [https://creation.com/atheism#atheism-communism "Atheism [quoting Vox Day]"]. Creation Ministries International website. Retrieved on July 19, 2014.</ref>}}
=== Atheistic, Chinese communism and torture ===
According to a 2012 Worldwide Independent Network/Gallup International Association (WIN/GIA) poll, 47% of Chinese people were convinced atheists, and a further 30% were not religious. In comparison, only 14% considered themselves to be religious.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130524174009/http://www.winmr.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf ''Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism''] (July 27, 2012). PDF file (Worldwide Independent Network/Gallup International), p. 3. Republished at ''Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research and Opinion Poll'' website. Archived at ''Internet Archive '' website on May 24, 2013.</ref> See: [[China and atheism]]
The Chinese communist regime has used beatings, harassment and torture to suppress religion in China and continues to use these practices.<ref name="Amnesty1">Multiple references:
[[East Asia]] contains about 25 percent of the world’s population. China’s population represents 20 percent of the people on earth.<ref>[http://www.sbts.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/10/Pages-from-SBJT-V15-N2_Terry.pdf The Growth of Christianity in East Asia]</ref>
Razib Khan points out in ''Discover Magazine''magazine, "most [[secular]] nations in the world are those of East Asia, in particular what are often termed “[[Confucianism|Confucian]] societies.” It is likely therefore that the majority of the world’s [[Atheism|atheists]] are actually East Asian."<ref>[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/11/most-atheists-are-not-white/ Most atheists are not white & other non-fairy tales], Discover magazine</ref> See: [[Asian atheism]] and [[Global atheism]]
In 1955, [[China|Chinese]] [[communism|communist]] leader Zhou Enlai declared, "We Communists are atheists".<ref>Noebel, David, The Battle for Truth, Harvest House, 2001.</ref> In 2014, the Communist Party of China reaffirmed that members of their party must be atheists.<ref>Multiple references:
*[[Atheism and morality]]
*[[Atheists and historical illiteracy]]
*[[Secular Europe and eugenics]]
== External links ==