"These people were pyschos".   As I recall, we can add Saddam to the list.   He was aggressively secular until he reallzed he could exploit religion in a national sense.

Look, atheists, when in power have a rather dismal record--not that I would say "perfectly wretched".   Perish the thought.

Non-atheists have a mixed record.


And there are two blazingly obvious reasons, both of which have already been brought up.


1)   Atheism makes it easy for the leader to put himself forward as a God-substitute.

2)   Sure it's possible for people to be good without religion, but a lack of religion makes it just too easy to change moral guidelines to suit man.



I would dearly like an atheist to name one successful atheist civilization.

And there is a reason this is not likely to happen anytime soon.