by Neal Painter

Created on: June 08, 2009   Last Updated: June 14, 2009

The debate between atheism and religion (theism) is an old debate. Elementary theism originates at the point where man could conceive of his position and function in the universe. This realization relates to man's inability to absolutely control the material environment. Observation and experience, or empirical evidence, was basic. For example, man could create the movement of air by forcibly exhaling or moving an object at a pace that disrupted air but what about the wind? Man could disrupt the path of water and find it useful but what about the tides? What forces controlled the uncontrollable?

As man developed and began to attempt to explain the environment, absolute explanation became more elusive. Polytheistic religion would naturally develop simply because the tools that were needed to help explain the unexplainable were not available. As knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge became more sophisticated and, as a result, the environment became more definable, monotheistic considerations would emerge as a more logical possibility.

Of course, I can't rewrite The Ascent of Man, pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy, or the Bible here. But the point is that belief in God or gods is easily explained even prior to considering man's inevitable conception of his own death.

So where did atheism emerge? Actually, serious philosophical considerations of atheism began to be debated from 300 500 BCE in the Greco-Roman world and in the Far East. Atheism evolved from philosophical considerations at that time to secular humanism beginning in the Middle Ages through the 20th and 21st centuries. Secular humanism and atheism were compassionate responses to the dogmatic self-righteousness and subsequent control and abuse of humanity by organized religion. This fact is indisputable on a grand scale or world view. But the abuses, from exile, excommunication, execution and torture, and war are not only part of a world view for religion; there were pockets of every form of exclusion and punishment in individual churches and communities and this exclusionary form is alive today. Since man tied this evolutionary faith process to God, it is logical in the face of this situation that some part of man would turn completely away from God. There are two important considerations that should be analyzed in all this. First, atheism occurred after theism. Second, atheism as a compassionate response and philosophical understanding is not new.

Atheism is not a rational solution for

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>