richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

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if we accept that Hitler and Stalin shared atheism in common, they
both also had moustaches, as does Saddam Hussein. So what? The
interesting question is not whether evil (or good) individual human
beings were religious or were atheists. We are not in the business of
counting evil heads and compiling two rival roll calls of iniquity.
The fact that Nazi belt buckles were inscribed with 'Gott mit uns'
doesn't prove anything, at least not without a lot more discussion.
What matters is not whether Hitler and Stalin were atheists, but
whether atheism systematically influences people to do bad things.
There is not the smallest evidence that it does.
There seems no doubt that, as a matter of fact, Stalin was an
atheist. He received his education at an Orthodox seminary, and his
mother never lost her disappointment that he had not entered the
priesthood as she intended - a fact that, according to Alan Bullock,
caused Stalin much amusement. 106 Perhaps because of his training
for the priesthood, the mature Stalin was scathing about the
Russian Orthodox Church, and about Christianity and religion in
general. But there is no evidence that his atheism motivated his
brutality. His earlier religious training probably didn't either, unless
it was through teaching him to revere absolutist faith, strong
authority and a belief that ends justify means.
The legend that Hitler was an atheist has been assiduously
cultivated, so much so that a great many people believe it without
question, and it is regularly and defiantly trotted out by religious
apologists. The truth of the matter is far from clear. Hitler was born
into a Catholic family, and went to Catholic schools and churches
as a child. Obviously that is not significant in itself: he could easily
have given it up, as Stalin gave up his Russian Orthodoxy after
leaving the Tiflis Theological Seminary. But Hitler never formally
renounced his Catholicism, and there are indications throughout
his life that he remained religious. If not Catholic, he seems to have
retained a belief in some sort of divine providence. For example he
stated in Mein Kampf that, when he heard the news of the declaration
of the First World War, 'I sank down on my knees and
thanked Heaven out of the fullness of my heart for the favour of
having been permitted to live in such a time.' 107 But that was 1914,
when he was still only twenty-five. Perhaps he changed after that?
In 1920, when Hitler was thirty-one, his close associate Rudolf