What has it produced through history — its achievements, and the harms done in its name — and how does it answer for them?

A civilization of science, law, and pluralism; crimes done in its name violate its own texts and are disowned by its own scholars. Weigh the record honestly and it compares well with any rival, religious or secular.

Achievements claimed: major contributions to science, medicine, and free inquiry, and the secular arguments that ended blasphemy laws and religious coercion in much of the world. Harms on the record: 20th-century state atheism — the Soviet Union's League of the Militant Godless, demolished churches and mosques, executed clergy; Mao's campaigns against religion; Albania's outright ban on faith in 1967. Atheist thinkers answer that atheism is a single denial, not a moral program, and that those crimes flowed from totalitarian ideology rather than from disbelief itself. Critics counter that these regimes persecuted believers precisely because their doctrine was atheist, and that removing every authority above the state was itself part of the harm — an exchange the reader must weigh.

Its record is mostly indirect: agnostics helped establish scientific freedom, religious tolerance, and the secular state, and the stance has no armies, courts, or inquisitions to answer for — a position with no power structure accumulates few crimes. The honest entries on the other side: individual agnostics shared their eras' prejudices (Huxley included), and critics such as Taylor argue that the wider culture of suspended belief brings its own malaise of meaning. Agnostics reply that a diagnosis of discomfort is not a refutation — and that discomfort earned honestly beats comfort built on claims no one can verify.

Achievements: the hospital and the university are church inventions; Christians led the abolition of the slave trade (Wilberforce, driven openly by faith), built much of the West's charitable infrastructure, and shaped its art, music, and human-rights language. Harms done in its name: the Crusades, the Inquisitions, Europe's wars of religion, centuries of Christian antisemitism that helped prepare the ground for the Holocaust, and missions entangled with colonial conquest and abuses such as the residential schools. Christians answer that these betrayed Jesus' explicit teaching rather than applied it, that the loudest critics of church crimes were usually other Christians, and that the churches have formally repented — John Paul II's public apologies of 2000 being the most sweeping. Critics reply that institutions ruling in Christ's name did these things for centuries, and the record must keep both columns.

Achievements: monotheism handed to half the world, the Sabbath and the idea of rest, a legal tradition that protects the stranger and the poor, a culture of near-universal literacy and study, and outsized contributions to science and thought. Harms done in its name: the Torah's conquest commands, harsh classical passages about gentiles, and modern extremist violence — Baruch Goldstein's 1994 Hebron massacre, the assassination of Rabin — which mainstream authorities condemned as desecration. Adherents answer that the tradition itself disarmed its violent texts (the conquest categories were ruled inoperative) and note that Jews have far more often been history's victims than its persecutors.

Achievements: great monastic universities such as Nalanda, the meditation traditions, a vast art and literature, and the world's oldest dated printed book (a Diamond Sutra of 868 CE); its spread across Asia was largely without conquest. Harms in its name: warrior-monk armies in medieval Japan, Zen institutional support for Japanese militarism through World War II, and Buddhist-nationalist violence in Myanmar — including against the Rohingya — and in Sri Lanka. Buddhist leaders and scholars answer plainly that these violate the first precept; critics note the tradition produced no doctrine strong enough to prevent them.

Achievements: one of humanity's deepest philosophical literatures; yoga and meditation now practiced worldwide; temple art and sacred poetry of the first rank; and satyagraha, which inspired liberation movements far beyond India. Harms done under its sanction: centuries of caste oppression that rendered millions "untouchable," and the burning of widows (sati), practiced in some regions and eras with scriptural justifications now rejected. Hindus answer that reform came from within as well as without — Ram Mohan Roy's campaign helped end sati in 1829, temple-entry movements opened shrines to Dalits, and independent India outlawed untouchability — while critics reply that caste discrimination persists on the ground.

Achievements: the langar tradition feeding anyone who comes, without condition; a deep culture of charity and humanitarian relief; martyrs who died for another community's freedom of worship; and Ranjit Singh's Sikh empire (1799–1849), noted in its era for religious tolerance. The hard chapter is the 1980s: a militant campaign for a separate Sikh state killed civilians in Punjab; the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple (Operation Blue Star, 1984); the prime minister was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards; thousands of Sikhs were then massacred in organized riots; and Sikh extremists bombed Air India Flight 182 (1985), killing 329 people. Mainstream Sikh bodies condemn violence against civilians as contrary to the faith, and note that in 1984 Sikhs were chiefly the victims. Their answer on the militants: the Gurus' strict last-resort rules were broken, not obeyed.

Achievements: religious peace after Europe's wars, the end of blasphemy prosecutions and religious tests across much of the world, and legal shelter for minorities and dissenters of every faith. Harms done in its name: the French Revolution's dechristianization campaign, Kemalist Turkey's coercion of religious practice, and Soviet state atheism's persecution of believers — closed churches and mosques, imprisoned clergy. The mainstream secularist answer is that these were betrayals, not applications: a state that enforces irreligion has established a creed, which is exactly what the principle forbids. Critics reply that the ease with which neutrality slid into hostility is itself part of the record.

Achievements claimed: the human rights instruments, humane law reform, secular education, science-based medicine, and the humanist strand in abolition and tolerance. The harms: when secular confidence in remaking humanity turned coercive — the French Revolution’s Terror, and twentieth-century regimes that were atheist yet crushed the very dignity humanism centers — critics count these against the godless project as such. Humanists answer that manifesto humanism is defined by rights, democracy, and the individual, so those regimes broke its principles rather than applied them; but they concede the lesson that utopian confidence without limits is dangerous, and the later manifestos are written in that chastened voice.

Achievements: constitutional rights, the abolition movements it helped power, women's suffrage, religious toleration, modern science's institutional home, and unprecedented prosperity. Harms in its name: colonial empires justified in liberal language — Mill himself, an East India Company official, excluded 'barbarians' from liberty's protections; slavery coexisting with rights-talk (Locke invested in the slave trade); and the human costs of laissez-faire, from child labor to famine policy in Ireland and India. The liberal answer is that each abuse was fought and ended chiefly by appeal to liberalism's own principles; critics reply that the abuses were not accidents but the principles' shadow. Both readings are on the record.

Its achievements: the vote, property and inheritance rights, entry to universities and professions, laws against domestic violence and marital rape, and CEDAW. The harms critics charge in its name: hostility toward family and motherhood, a politics of grievance between the sexes, and #MeToo excesses where accusation outran due process. Feminists answer that the mainstream defends motherhood freely chosen, that naming injustice is not hostility, and that justice for victims and fair process are both required — while conceding that excesses have occurred.

Its achievements are enormous: decolonization and the independence of most of today's states, the unifications of Italy and Germany, revived languages, and the bounded solidarity behind democracy and the welfare state. Its harms are equally documented: nationalist fervor helped fuel the world wars, and ethnic cleansing and genocide — from the Armenian genocide to the Holocaust — were carried out in the nation's name. Defenders answer that these crimes came from ethnic supremacism and imperial ambition, corruptions the civic tradition itself condemns; critics like Kedourie reply that the line between the doctrine and its corruption has proved thin in practice. Both records stand.