There is a column in the Christian Science Monitor which has as its premise that "Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history". And then it goes off about how most of the religious based killing in the past has been minor compared to the damage done by modern "atheists". And some of what the columnist says is pertinent. However, towards the end of the column, he shoots himself in the foot with this statement: "...cannot explain why, if Nazism was directly descended from medieval Christianity, medieval Christianity did not produce a Hitler."
Well, the short answer is that the rise of Hitler required the technology of the 20th Century. Also, while Hitler's motives were complex, his antisemitism was, in fact, a direct result of centuries of religious persecution. The deaths of over six million Jews can be laid directly at the feet of religious intolerance. Nope, sorry...Harris, Dawkins et al have a point which needs to be considered.
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Given much larger world population now than in the past, D'Souza makes some minor points, that non-religious ideologies can kill too. Stalin was a murderous tyrant. Mao was such a bungler that he is responsible for the deaths of millions. As far as Hitler goes, I always though he was a romantic pseudo pagan rather than a Christian (his writings can be interpreted more than one way). Yes, atheism can kill too, but even if we add the KGB and the Stasi, we are talking about small potatoes.
The other minor point is that many of the events that we remember today were much smaller than the accounts of the time recorded. Protestant accounts of the Inquisition overstated the number of bodies. In Spain must also remember that the Inquisition was itself a reaction to a religiously motivated empire imposed by Muslims (who failed to capture France). Even if one sees the Crusades as a crude response to Muslim oppression (as I do) one cannot ignore that it was God on the banner - well not God but the cross - and his ministers doing the recruiting.
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