I was walking across campus one day and I saw something interesting that was scrawled on the sidewalk. It read to the tune of, “Don’t bring religion into schools and I won’t whine in your church.”

Two things immediately popped into my head: One, college isn’t a place for the exclusive study or “practice” of atheism, and two, why the hate?

I think one thing that atheists love to claim is that religion divided people for centuries and caused endless conflict. They will tell you that suppression of knowledge caused by the Christians stunted European creativity and inventiveness for hundreds of years as well as causing people to live miserable lives. Of course they are quick to point out Christianity’s faults, but what about atheists? What horrible things have they done?

What about Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin? Were they not atheists, too?

I would consider these three people to be atheists because they had governments that were against the practice of religion. If they supported religious suppression, they’re definitely atheist.

Why atheism then? In order to control people, you better believe they didn’t want religion in their countries. The Stalin regime killed almost 23 million people, Mao’s government killed more than 50 million, and Pol Pot systemically ordered more than 1.7 million people to their deaths. Combined, the most notorious atheists have killed more than 74.7 million people in the last century.

As for suppression of knowledge? Sure, maybe that didn’t happen under these atheists. But knowledge was used on how to dehumanize and kill people more effectively rather than improving lives. Name a Pol Pot, Maoist or Stalinist invention that has helped revolutionize how we live today.

Now I’m not writing this article to incite hate between religious groups and atheists — far from it.  This is to prove a point, that there are two sides to human nature — good and bad. There will be bad atheists and good atheists. Bad Christians and good Christians. Take into consideration some examples of positive Christian impact on communities:

When I was a kid, my local parish had tithe envelopes and on them they stated that if someone gave a tithe and ended up in financial trouble later on, the church would return their tithe along with interest. Some parasitic community, right?

What about the Salvation Army, which originally started out as a Christian organization? I guess we should stop donating to them.

Unfortunately, it took until very recently to get the idea of equality out the door — and the battle still isn’t won, but the idea is far more prevalent than it has ever been in the world.

And that’s something I want people to know. That when atheists talk about something that happened hundreds of years ago, the world had a different culture based around superiority. And it wasn’t even that long ago where we saw that with Hitler’s government. I find it funny, because the argument goes both ways.

The biggest take-home message should be that both sides should acknowledge their faults, and that the two camps, religion and atheism, should generate interesting and open debates. Don’t we already have enough to worry about? This is one thing I think we don’t need causing unnecessary problems.