Europe's Loss of Christian Faith in the 17th Century Caused the Holocaust. Yep.

Another whackjob joins The Corner:

... One grave consequence of post-war Europe's loss of faith is its approaching demographic extinction. The Italians are on pace to be as dead as the Romans. The Russians are headed there even faster. Can you be free if you don't exist? Or even worse, if you end up under Islamic law?

I'd also point to pre-war Europe, whose loss of religious faith (it's not like it started in 1960 — try 1660) had ghastly ideological consequences — Communism, German National Socialism — that led to countless deaths.

Matthew Yglesias remarks, drily, "Basically, the decline in religious fanaticism represented by the English Restoration in 1660 and the end of Oliver Cromwell's theocratic regime led directly to Nazism."