A Tale of Two Murderers, one Christian and one Atheist

Scenario A: Alex the Christian Murderer

Alex is a Christian active in his church, a deacon and Sunday school teacher. One day Alex comes to hold the belief that God wants him to kill his wife, and so he strangles her and then flees the city. Alex is picked up a few days later in a neighboring state and the media is saturated with images and stories about this Christian and his heinous deed. Alex's church is featured in the news, his pastor and some congregatns are interviewed. Many people suspect that there must be something wrong with that church. Alex's trial and his lurid description of God's direction creates a media sensation. Alex's lawyer pleads insanity. Many people suspect it is the religion that is crazy, and Alex is just one more casualty.

Scenario B: Alex the Atheistic Murderer

Alex is an atheist who attended a free thinkers meeting twice but otherwise has no relationship with a wider atheist community. However he has read a few new atheist books and regularly reads Skeptic and Skeptical Enquirer at the library. One day Alex comes to hold the belief that since there is no God then neither is there any absolute right or wrong. With this conviction as motivation, he devises a plan to kill his wife and collect the insurance money. He then strangles her in a parkade and attempts to make it look like a random home invasion. But when Alex realizes that he was filmed in the parkade on CCTV he flees the city. Alex is picked up a few days later in a neighboring state and the media is plastered with images and stories about this individual and his heinous deed. The role his atheism played in the plot is never mentioned in all the heavy media coverage of the crime or the ensuing trial.

The Moral of the Story

When people are members of a formal organization then their actions tend to taint that organization. (For example: one case of food poisoning at a Taco Bell or one case of discriminatory hiring at a Walmart can create negative image problems for the entire corporation that do not happen when the same thing happens at an independent Taco stand or discount store.)

With a couple billion people is it any wonder that Christianity gets an inordinately high level of blame and bad press for all sorts of heinous deeds committed by a tiny minority of those two billion members?

But the real question is this: are Christian beliefs more likely than atheist beliefs to produce people who perform heinous actions? Certainly atheists have never shown this to be the case, but my question is more basic: how could they ever begin to make a case?