Peter Kavanagh: Immoral Man?

Last night, I returned from Melbourne after having just finish my GAMSAT (went well, if you were wondering). I decided to have a read of the paper, as I do almost every day. When I reached the ‘Your Say’ section, I came across the following monstrosity of a letter:

“Anti-religious calls not new.

Contrary to common presumptions, demands for anti-religious governments by atheists are nothing new.

Such movement resulted in places like Auschwitz, the gulags of the Soviet Union, famine and extermination campaigns in China and the killing fields of Cambodia.

Among the ideological underpinnings for these massive atheistic slaughters was surely the belief that human beings are not creations of God.

Assumptions of intellectual superiority by atheist are not restricted to Melbourne’s recent ‘Atheist Conference’.

I have found few atheists have even considered why, if religious convictions of others must have no influence on government policy, their own political convictions (based on anti-religious beliefs) should not also be ‘separated from the state’.

Peter Kavanagh
DLP, Western Victoria”

Suffice to say, this motivated me to write my own response (and if you feel as outraged as I do, I suggest you do the same). Here it is:

“I was shocked and disgusted by the blatant dishonesty displayed by Peter Kavanagh (GA 20/3) in suggesting that the atheist worldview is responsible for the worst genocides of the last century.

Anyone who has even a basic understanding of these horrible events could see why Mr. Kavanagh’s view is flatly wrong. For those of you who do not, here is a quick overview.

Hitler, the main individual responsible for the Holocaust, considered himself a Catholic. He also believed that his ‘final solution’ was ‘God’s will’. He was most definitely not an atheist.

The slaughters committed under the rule of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were done in the name of Communism. Their suppression of religion was based purely on the fact that religious organisations posed a political threat to their regimes, not because they didn’t have a belief in God.

Mr. Kavanagh goes on to confuse the distinction between secular and atheist. Secular, which is what our government is, means that you do not take a side on religion in official policy. It is a private matter for each individual to decide upon for themselves, not to have dictated to them by an oppressive government.

The ‘intellectual atheists’ Mr. Kavanagh refers to support secularism. While they would rather each individual rationally looked at the evidence and came to the same conclusion they have, they are not trying to invoke policy to make religious belief illegal.

I demand that Mr. Kavanagh make a public apology for his misrepresentation of history. Not to me, not to atheists, not to everyone who support secularism, but to the millions of individuals who died under the dictatorships of the previously mentioned individuals. He has disgraced their memory by distorting the motivations that lead to their deaths, all to bolster his own position.

He should be do the right thing and apologise.”

At the time of writing, it has yet to be published, so keep a look out for it. If I get a response from Mr. Kavanagh or anyone else, I will be reproducing it here.

Lord Bishington.