Novus Ordo Seclorum

Unfortunately, the figures are not able to show up, but their absence will not make a big difference.

Novus Ordo Seclorum

Winston Churchill said at Harvard University in 1943 that “the empires of the future will be empires of the mind” (McGrath xi). Churchill was referring to the world powers of his era, mainly Nazism and Marxism, but his words still ring true in the twenty-first century. Instead of nations truly governing the world, ideologies would rule over the people. One of the most influential empires, according to Churchill’s definition, is atheism. It has been estimated that the empire of atheism held sway over half the world’s population in 1960. Unlike a political body, atheism reaches to every corner of the globe, crossing language and social barriers as its citizenship is acceptance of the natural world and rejection of the supernatural one (xi). As a result, degrees of atheism range from universal doubt like the ancient philosophers to modern scientific empiricism to hostile militant atheism (Baggini 150; Hecht ix). Though this “empire of the mind” is now an established world order, it has not always been as accepted as it is today.

Doubt of the supernatural outdates much of religion, as the first record of atheistic ideas dates two and a half millennia ago (Hecht xxi). Its acceptance was minimal if not nonexistent until the eighteenth century, and even then, it was near taboo. It was not until the nineteenth century that atheism came to be considered an established worldview (xix). Since that time, scientists and governments alike have regarded themselves under the banner of atheism. Nevertheless, atheism has emerged from its long metamorphosis of countless generations into what it is today, an empire of the mind, a new secular order.



Ancient History

The birth of atheism is often argued, whether its start coincided with that of Western thought in ancient Greece or if its beginning was not until its surfacing in the Enlightenment centuries later. Author Julian Baggini offers a solution to this problem by suggesting that the seed of atheism was sown in ancient Greece, but it was not until the eighteenth century that it became accepted. The reasoning behind his argument is that atheism, in addition to being the rejection of religion, is also the belief of naturalism, the idea that there is only the natural world, and naturalism first introduced itself in ancient Greece with the first philosophers (110).

Historian Jennifer Hecht suggests that ancient Greece owed its religion to the writings of Homer and Hesiod, two poets who wrote stories whose entire plots twisted with the whims of a plethora of gods. These numerous gods were seemingly active in the Greek society, with rituals, prayers, and sacrifices to the gods being commonplace. They were like humans with their lies, lusting, and vices, but they were eternal and made the world function. The gods were such a part of culture, the Greeks saw them as real spiritual beings, and doubting that the gods existed was illogical, not to mention heretical (2-3).

However, some intellectuals of that time began to discover how the universe really worked, and they described the world without reference to the gods (3). Anaximandros, one of the first Western philosophers, argued that the world functioned in cycles without any help from the gods and explained these processes without mention of them. Already, philosophy ignored the gods (4). A later philosopher, Protagoras, wrote a controversial book titled Concerning the Gods, all of which remains is the first sentence, in which he states that he neither agrees nor disagrees that the gods exist because there is not enough information to back up their existence. He was later indicted for blasphemy for his belief (6). Epicurus later argued that the only three things keeping humans from being happy are fear of death, fear of pain, and fear of the gods. Getting rid of the gods would be synonymous to taking one step closer to human happiness (Hecht 34). His views, however, were considered immoral and were ignored (O’Hair).

As philosophers began to discover more about how the world functioned, the Greek gods were talked of less (Hecht 5). The culture still honored their gods though, and denial of their existence still meant heresy. People at this time started using the term “atheist”, but Alister McGrath suggests that its meaning was quite different from its modern definition. Rather than an atheist being one who denies the supernatural, an atheist in Greece was one who rejected the traditional Athenian religion (8).

Though the Greeks faded into history, the Romans kept the Greek gods and the term atheist, though modified its meaning to one who rebelled against the Roman Empire by refusing to worship its deities (9). Paradoxically, Christians under the Roman Empire were called atheists because they denied the dominance of the pagan religious system, even though they believed in God (8). Despite its persecution, Christianity grew, and by the seventh century, God had become to Europe what the pantheon had been for the Greeks. The church became a government over the people, stabilizing it during the time of intellectual darkness coming (10). During the Middle Ages, the church forced doubt out of Europe, and atheism entered a time of hibernation (216).



Reformation and Renaissance

Centuries later, the church still reigned over Europe, and those who said that Christian belief was based on myth were deemed heretics and often killed (259). Islam also had the same power in the East, and lost its impact as religion controlled the world (216). However, the religious power gradually began to be challenged as, like with the Greeks, scientists and philosophers began to question the established beliefs of the church. With the Protestant Reformation and Renaissance bringing medieval Europe into the Enlightenment, this period of two centuries also brought human mind into enlightenment, and atheism emerged from the shadows.

Though the Protestant Reformation (1517-1555) was primarily a Christian movement, the schism helped to lay a more stable foundation for atheism (McGrath 10). The vulgar people were immersed in religious superstition as the Catholic church held a monopoly over not only the physical life but also the spiritual one (Hecht 269). This absolute power led to increasing wealth, influence, and corruption in the church (10). Some intellectuals decided to deal with the corrupt church by separating from it, such as Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli, but others attempted to defeat the institution by attacking the ideas that acted as the church’s foundation, believing that if the church’s teachings were no longer trusted, the establishment would collapse (10-11). As a result of this idea to destroy the corruption of the church by denying its credibility, the appeal of atheism surfaced, not necessarily because of atheistic principles, but instead because of its potential to demolish the world’s oppressor (11).

The Catholic church lost much of its influence over Europe as a result of the Reformation, not only because of the arrival of Protestantism, but also because it opened up the possibility of an alternative to religion. The Protestants removed the necessity of the Catholic church by asserting that the Bible was the gateway to heaven. Thus, the church establishment was cut out as a step toward God (McGrath 199). According to author R. G. Price, as people began to explore these religious alternatives, each step further from Catholicism resulted in one step closer to atheism (1-2).

Atheistic principles brooded in the minds of the people, but it was still not fully developed. The Renaissance (1550-1650) encouraged atheism as science developed in such a way that clashed with what science the church had taught for centuries, challenging its authority even more (2). Giordano Bruno was one such scientist who heretically agreed with the Copernican theory that the earth revolved around the sun, directly contrasting with the established Christian belief that the earth was the center of the universe. He also believed that each star was the center of its own solar system and that space and time were infinite, directly refuting what the church had said was fact. The authorities arrested him in 1592 as his views were deemed heretical, and he refused to recant them. He was sentenced to death in 1600 and burned at the stake as a result (2-3).

Galileo Galilei was another scientist who clashed with the church through science. Bruno had encouraged the Copernican theory, but it was Galileo who supported this view through scientific evidence. In addition to contradicting the church through science, he criticized religion as a whole, though not openly because heresy and being burnt alive were closely related. In 1616 Galileo was put under trial, and he was banned from popularizing the Copernican theory (3).

Galilei’s most famous writing criticizing the church was titled Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Given permission to write it by the pope, the Dialogue was supposed to give equal evidence supporting the church and Copernican theories. However, Galilei presented the case with a bias that portrayed the church’s theory as erroneous. Moreover, the Dialogue presents those who agree with the church’s theory as naïve and unintelligent. His book was deemed heretical, and he was put on trial where he recanted his views to save his life (3-4).

As the world emerged from an age of darkness, the power of the church came to be seen as an oppressive force, hindering the progress of science and mankind. The Protestant Reformation greatly weakened the Catholic Church’s power, and the Renaissance did much to encourage that the church could be wrong. Challenge to religion not only meant intellectual freedom but also rebellion to the establishment that had reigned supreme and oppressive for so long (McGrath 12).



Enlightenment

The weakened religious structure of the Renaissance had not long to recover before it was struck by another intellectual advancement, the Enlightenment (1650-1790). The Enlightenment is characterized by both scientific advancement and philosophical reform. It also marked the most innovative period of atheistic experimentation and progress (12). It came to be understood that the world was in fact observable. For the religious this meant that man could understand how the natural laws God established to make the world function; for the nonreligious this provided a chance to explain the world without God. Rationality and humanism spread as education served to enhance human principles. The church was also challenged even more as people began to turn to alternatives such as science (Price 6).

In conjunction with the Enlightenment, French materialism began to grow. This threatened the church as this widespread movement was led by the upper class that was primarily negative toward the church (20). In addition, the bourgeois was immensely dissatisfied with the monarchy and believed that the church was an outdated establishment that taught false ideas. As the church and state were politically tied together, the people believed that destabilizing one would help topple the other. Atheism began to grow even more as a method of freeing the people (McGrath 24).

Surprisingly, many of the antireligious philosophers of the Enlightenment were not in fact atheist but deist, supporting not the Christian God but a natural, philosophical one (25). Voltaire was one such philosopher in the eighteenth century who greatly criticized the corrupt Christian establishment in France. Despite his callous criticisms of the church, he supported the view of a divine authority who had been misrepresented by the church. In no way did he encourage atheism, believing that the more corrupt and dysfunctional the church was, the more people were attracted to atheism (26-27).

Perhaps Voltaire’s greatest condemnation of the French Catholic Church was his satire Candide, in which he discusses how the church has lost all focus of its primary belief in God because it is too preoccupied in maintaining the system it established. In the satire Voltaire humiliates the church hierarchy and deems it unnecessary. However, nowhere does he criticize the belief or idea of God (26-27).

Voltaire, though attacking the faults of the church, withheld from criticizing God, but not all philosophers in the eighteenth century acted this way, and some had an agenda to further atheism (29). One such philosopher, Julien Offray de La Mettrie, had to continuously escape from persecution because his writings were so heretical. La Mettrie was decidedly atheistic, and he believed that all the troubles in the world came to be as a result of religion (Price 21). Human happiness, in his view, relied on atheism prevailing over sinful religion (McGrath 33). His major work, Man a Machine, professed this view, but the controversy it brought was enough to make other atheists and materialists wish its banishment (Price 21).

Another atheist philosopher was Baron d’Holbac, often considered the first vocal atheist (Baggini 118). Not only attacking the church like most other philosophers of the time, d’Holbac offered a worldview of morality based on atheism. His major work, The System of Nature, was the first book since the time of the ancient Greeks that openly professed atheism (Price 25). His book argues for empiricism, concluding that religion is misinterpreted human imagination (McGrath 30). He proposes that God results from lack of understanding nature and that “all children are atheists – they have no idea of God” (d’Holbac qtd. in Price 27).

The Enlightenment period combines the rejection of religious superstition and the hatred of the monarchy to the conclusion that atheism is a better answer (Baggini 120). Seventeenth century writers could not even fathom someone professing himself an atheist, yet a century later, atheism bloomed into society. Religion had been such a part of society for so long that, at one time, denying God would have been like denying the existence of the sun (121). Yet atheism battled against the odds and worked to its advantage through the intelligentsia of the day. The penned up bitterness against the church and state in France, the intellectual hub of Europe, verged on revolution (McGrath 21).



French Revolution

When Louis XVI inherited the throne of France in 1774, he also inherited an extravagant debt from his predecessors. France’s Third Estate directed anger at the monarchy as Louis XVI raised their taxes. The queen, Marie Antoinette, earned the people’s resentment by squandering monarchial funds. Dissatisfaction came to a head with a dreadful famine in 1788, resulting in starving people with a detested government (22-23). Revolution resulted, and on July 14, 1788, angry citizens tore down the ominous Bastille, a fortress symbolizing the oppression of the French monarchy (1).

McGrath suggests that the fall of the Bastille frames the emergence of atheism from the outskirts of thought into the spotlight (1). The revolution pushed aside the superstition and tyranny of the French monarchy and church and brought forth the idea that the elimination of God would bring about freedom (21). It removed the old religious order by inviting in freedom of thought; atheism became a possible choice that would not result in being burned as a heretic (22). Some people held the idea that their oppression under the church and government could be boiled down to the belief in God (37).

However, the French Revolution cannot be deemed purely atheistic. Atheism served as a motivation for those fighting for freedom toward the end of the Revolution, but the Revolution’s main purpose was to undermine the authority of the institution of French Christianity rather than to eliminate religion entirely; nevertheless, once the monarchy fell apart, the church lost much of its influence (39, 45). Now that philosophers were able to express their opinions without fear of being called heretics, deists and atheists alike worked together to establish a new secular-based political system (38). For the first time in history, an atheistic based government was experimented with (46).

In order for atheism to truly take root in society, both political and intellectual levels had to be permeated. With the emergence of a revolutionary government, the former was established. Intellectually, atheism penetrated into society as the intellectuals of the day, now a recognized social class with the absence of the monarchy, wrote numerous books presenting the once heretical views. Shortly thereafter, their atheistic ideas became commonplace, and it was difficult to believe that it had ever been different (49). The Revolution reshaped France politically and socially, but its primary significance lies in how it influenced the minds of the intellectuals to come (47).



German Intellectuals

The French Revolution tried to force change, but, as McGrath wittingly writes, “decapitating people is never the best way of proving a new idea” (48). Now instead of a physical revolution, a mental one needed to occur to further atheism, one that replaced the Christian God with human skepticism (48-49). The writings of several German intellectuals morphed the revolutionary hypothesis of change into an established political and social order, forever changing how religion was to confront the masses (47). With the invention of the printing press, Germany became the leader of reforms against the church because of its ability to provide and distribute numerous quantities of literature, a number of which contained a theme of atheism. The massive amounts of philosophical writings in Germany during the nineteenth century signaled the close of the age of Enlightenment and the start of modernity (Price 35).

Arnold Schopenhauer was the first well-known German philosopher who focused on atheism. Because of a large inheritance, Schopenhauer was able to focus on his writings without worry of money. His views were extremely pessimistic as his writings form the foundations for nihilism and existentialism. Schopenhauer saw life as chiefly meaningless and that the will to live served as the only motivation for life. Interestingly, his views predated Darwin’s theories of natural selection. Though he wrote much against religion, Schopenhauer respected the institution as it served as a distraction for people living an ultimately meaningless life (35-36). He saw Christianity at a disadvantage, seeing that “it is not a pure system of doctrine: its chief and essential feature is that it is a history . . . it is this history which constitutes dogma, and belief in it is salvation” (Schopenhauer qtd. in Price 36). Despite his sympathy for religion, Schopenhauer maintained that society needed to establish morality without the aid of God, thus asserting that atheism was necessary (36).

Germany in the nineteenth century had an excess of theologians, and Ludwig Feuerbach was one such theology student who was unable to acquire a teaching position. Thanks to his marriage, he was, like Schopenhauer, able to write without financial worry (McGrath 54). However, he was both geographically and intellectually disconnected from the rest of the world because of where he lived and his philosophical style respectively. He was neither religious nor scientific, so his works were not considered among either group. Feuerbach did not believe in God, but he did not consider himself an atheist. Instead, he saw God and religion as tangible realities of mankind’s hopes (Price 37). To Feuerbach, God was very real, but mankind fell away from the truth when they believed that God existed outside of them (Hecht 373).

Feuerbach’s major work, The Essence of Christianity, aims at proving how mankind created the same religion that was oppressing them. Humans grant the title of “God” to their desire for immortality and complete virtue without realizing completely what they have done (McGrath 56-57). Feuerbach saw man assigning God in France as the revolutionaries replaced the old religious order with a new one based on humanity, proving in his mind that religion centered on mankind, not vice versa (56). Feuerbach’s major conclusion in his book is that “consciousness of God is human self-consciousness; knowledge of God is human self-knowledge” (Feuerbach qtd. in McGrath 57). Because of man’s confusion relating to the origin of religion, those who create the illusion of religion believe that it exists completely independent from them as the creators (57). Religion’s imaginers thus believe that they are subject to the very institution they created and strive for the perfection they see in their God. Feuerbach also understood that when religion becomes too controlling and distant from the people it is trying to serve, atheism prospers. Feuerbach saw this firsthand as this exact situation played out in Germany (55).

Arguably the most important impact The Essence of Christianity had was its influence on Karl Marx (Price 37). Considered the most famous atheistic philosophers of Germany, Marx, born Jewish, was discontent with his inherited religion and looked longingly toward Christian philosophy and the universal acceptance it exhibited as opposed to the Jewish Chosen People limitation. In spite of this, Marx put high esteem in the idea of humanism, believing that mankind had the ability to better the world for its own good. Because of this, he became much more popular than the Nihilists of his day (38). Marx agreed with Feuerbach’s perception of the origin of religion, but he took it a step farther, saying that not only did religion rise from the longing of an individual but also from his social situation (McGrath 63). Religion resulted from the world’s cruel systems; people needed religion because their lives were rotten, so making their lives better would remove the need of religion (Hecht 390). Thus, Marx concluded that “the religious world is but the reflex of the real world,” that one’s need for religion comes from his social position (Marx qtd. in McGrath 64). Marx affirms that it is pointless to believe religious dogma in its own terms because religion varies based on economic conditions. Religion, Marx claims, has its origins not in the intellectual but in the socioeconomical (64).

Thus, in order to have a truly humanist state and remove religion entirely, the entire economic and societal situation that gave need to religion would have to be destroyed in addition to banning the teaching of religion (Price 39). Revolution through society, not science, would disseminate religion (Hecht 390). Marx’s basis for “irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion . . . Religion is the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has . . . not yet found himself . . . To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness” (Marx qtd. in Price 39-40) Only when mankind understands that they control their own world can religion be abolished and real happiness exist. The entire purpose behind economic planning and Communism, according to Marx, was to bring an end to religion and free man (39). However, Marx did not write much on religion. Even in his Communist Manifesto, religion is an afterthought as it is mentioned in only a few lines. Strangely enough, Marxism ended up assuming many qualities of religion (Hecht 390).

While Marx remained relatively neutral toward Christianity, a later German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, was tremendously anti-Christian. His main goal was to discover a human morality that was not based on faith, and he believed that religion quenched man’s freedom. He is most famously remembered for saying that “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. . . . Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it?” (Nietzsche qtd. in Price 41). Price claims that the God Nietzsche to in this statement is not a divine supernatural being but rather a value system based on a belief in an absolute truth such as religion (Price 41). By saying that man’s previous value system based on God was gone, people should view all of religion as false, including its value system. Essayist Bernardino Bonasea offers another view, saying that the God Nietzsche refers to is the traditional God of mankind, specifically the Christian one. By saying that man has killed God, Nietzsche implies that man has become his own God to replace the hole the traditional God once filled (27) Nietzsche saw Christian morality as being inferior for lifting up the humble, weak, and submissive. The religion as a whole first expanded to the poor, and Nietzsche believed that it suited them well (Hecht 401).

With input from these German philosophers and others like them, such as Sigmund Freud and Georg Hegel, the challenge to theism first instigated in the Enlightenment was completed (McGrath 77). Like their predecessors, these philosophers vied for science and philosophy instead of religion, and now they openly called out for it (Hecht 371). Philosophical and scientific progress had virtually eliminated God from the world, and what was left of religion seemed like old superstitions. Western culture appeared to drastically alter its dogmatic belief from religion to science and godlessness (McGrath 77).



Early American Disbelief

Quite unlike the physical revolution in France and intellectual one in Germany, the American Revolution did not push toward atheism any more than it pushed away. Since America’s first European inhabitants were religious refugees, their Puritan background became a foundation for their lives in colonial America. Instead of battling between Christianity and atheism as the European revolutions did, the American's was a struggle between a refined, pure church and a corrupt state church. Instead of the elimination of religion, Americans sought to purify it. (McGrath 28-29).

The Founding Fathers were primarily deists, and most believed in a philosophical, natural God. Whenever they referred to God in documents or speeches, they referenced to a principally deistic God, such as “Creator” or “Almighty Judge” (Price 27-28). Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, did not believe in the God-nature of Jesus (28). He instead supported the Epicurean philosophy of human happiness, evident in the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” of the Declaration of Independence. He also fought for complete religious freedom in the United States, supporting that someone’s established view cannot truly be changed (Hecht 390). Jefferson’s view on Christianity, however, was negative enough to call belief in it insane, writing that “many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations [Jesus’ human brilliance], while perfectly sane on all other subjects” (Jefferson qtd. in Hecht 361).

Thomas Paine is probably early America’s most recognized deist. Coming to America in 1774, Paine began writing, and he was very successful. He might have been the one of the richest Americans as his books were so popular, but he refused much of his earnings or gave them to charities. After the American Revolution, he traveled to France where he became imprisoned. In jail, Paine wrote his most influential book, The Age of Reason. Paine denounces Christianity in his book and criticizes it as being harmful, even backward, to society, focusing on its inconsistencies and pagan mysticism of Jesus (Price 33-34). He wrote that he does “not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church … by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church” (Pain qtd. in Price 34). Oddly enough, it was his opposition to atheism that sent him to jail, in which he wrote a book condemning Christianity. This is because Paine believed in God, but only so far as the laws of nature allow man to know God; God for Paine was simply the creator of the universe (Price 34).

Other early American deists included Benjamin Franklin (who became deist after reading a book that argued against deism), George Washington, and John Adams (Hecht 492; Price 28). The God of these men was not supernatural but natural, a God who created all of nature and then stepped back (Price 28). Because of their beliefs, the Americans’ agenda their in revolution included preventing any one form of Christianity from becoming too dominant as the Catholic Church had done in Europe, and thus the church and state were separated. In America, Christianity of diverse forms served as a motivation and guide through the revolution. Religion served as their ally whereas European revolutionaries saw religion as an enemy. As a result, the formation and early history of America did little to encourage the atheism that was spreading epidemically over Europe (McGrath 29). Instead, European atheism began to influence America near the close of the nineteenth century (76). Atheism and religion seemed to be at war across the world, and atheism had an ally that the latter could hardly compete with.



Science and Atheism

Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the realization that natural science and religion are engaged in an eternal conflict came to light. Both establishments are constantly at war with each other, often resulting in religion being seen as an outdated superstition. In an era where empiricism outweighs conviction, taking God seriously is synonymous to intellectual suicide. Since the Middle Ages, religion has been an obstruction to scientific advancement as the two more often than not disagree with one another. As science developed, people started to have to choose between what they had been taught was true and what science proved was true (McGrath 79)

The emergence of evolution proved to be the most controversial scientific advancement in the late nineteenth century. Evolution is the mutation of genes that results over the course of many generations that results in changes to the species (Moran). Though evolutionary processes had been speculated in the decades prior, it was not until Charles Darwin that a scientific theory of evolution based on natural selection was studiously researched. Born into a Christian family, Darwin studied theology with the intent of becoming a clergyman. Through natural science courses, he learned all the arguments of intelligent design that he would later disprove. He constantly struggled with his beliefs, but his religious views finally shattered during the three years he spent on the HMS Beagle traveling the Pacific Ocean. On that ship that he began to question the inerrancy of the Bible (Price 42).

As a result of the excursion, Darwin’s faith changed from complete divine creation to evolution with divine intent, finally resting on a completely evolutionary view that cut God out of the picture. This change resulted primarily from his observations of the natural world. Though he was not comfortable in his shift of beliefs, denying the physical evidence he saw was impossible (42). His major book, The Origin of Species, compiled his observations of the world into a fundamentally evolutionary worldview. In his book, he mentions another reason why his views changed to evolution, writing that he “had no intention to write atheistically, but I own I cannot see as plainly as others do . . . evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world” (Darwin qtd. in Price 42). It was not until a later book titled The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex that Darwin, with much remorse, stated that God did not create man. From thence till his death, Darwin declared himself to be an agnostic, believing that there was not enough evidence for either evolution or creationism to choose a side (Price 42).

Darwin’s theory was tumultuously accepted through the scientific world. One of Darwin’s greatest supporters, Thomas Henry Huxley, was a biologist who assisted in bringing Darwin’s theory of evolution to the public. He was also the one who proposed using the term “agnostic”. Huxley disliked atheists for their complete refutation of religion and encouraged Bible teaching in public schools, but he did not believe in God. He wrote that even though he had no reason for believing in God and the immortality of man, there was no way he could disprove it, terming agnostic as one who neither accepted neither view without firm evidence (46).



Twentieth Century Atheism

Secular nations were born as governments expelled religion from the state in exchange for a secular state (Hecht 429). The most common forms of secular governments were socialism and communism, both of which encouraged atheistic principles. Workers in these nations were liberated from their faith and encouraged to live for the day. In exchange for heaven, people were given happiness on earth (430). The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia led to many communist successes all over the world. Marx anticipated Communism to be used in advanced, industrialized countries, but this new government policy began to be instituted in pre-industrial nations. These communist countries were all professedly atheist and militant in nature, terrorizing religion (Price 55).

Vladimir Lenin was a major political leader in the Bolshevik Party in Russia. Lenin worked to distribute Marxist ideas, but in doing so, he created Marxism-Leninism, a corruption of Marxism, appropriately titled Marxism-Leninism. Lenin worked to promote his version of Marxism and saw it as the refined result of European philosophy. Though he was an atheist and promoted such, he opposed limiting freedom of religion (Price 55-56). Lenin did agree with Marx’s view that religion was bad, but he did not directly attack religion. The Bolshevik Revolution made the Soviet Union into the first nation hostile toward religion (Hecht 430).

Lenin wished for communism to take control without any retaliation, but a large number of clergy who refused to hand over church valuables to the government were murdered at his command (Hecht 431). Following Lenin’s death in 1924, Josef Stalin came to power, and his persecution of religion was even worse. Stalin sent the members of the Russian Orthodox Church to labor camps in droves. Religion was destroyed, but it was never called illegal, and shortly thereafter, atheism became the standard (431).

Just as the Roman Empire celebrated Christianity as its state religion after Constantine, so the Soviet Union celebrated atheism as its state religion after Lenin. In the middle of the twentieth century, atheism began to spread around the world. Some believed that God would soon be eliminated, even as early as the year 2000 (McGrath 168-169). Mao Zedong followed Lenin when he came to power in China in 1935 and asserted that religion was inherently bad. Not only did science disprove it, religion used up precious resources from the state and misled people in terms of reality. Monasteries and churches were destroyed, millions were murdered for their beliefs, and religion was forced out of China (Hecht 434).

All over the world, atheism was becoming powerful. Its influence created governments that in return promoted atheistic doctrines and ideologies. If this atheism was to last as long as the Christian Church had hand in hand with the government, atheism could not be expected to leave the world spotlight anytime shortly.

Following WWII, a mutual feeling of anti-communism and all its ideals, including atheism, swept over America. Atheists came to be considered communists and thus anti-American, especially during the Red Scare in the middle of the twentieth century (Price 62). American textbooks began to teach Atheism as a philosophy based in atheism and materialism (65). In the 1950s the United States began to adopt religious elements as if doing so combated the communists. The motto was changed to “In God We Trust”, and the Pledge of Allegiance accepted a new phrase, “under God”. Following the end of WWII, atheism in America all but disappeared (65).



Modern Atheism

A decade later in the 1960s, modern atheism slowly emerged from hiding alongside Post-Modernism and New Age religions (Price 66). By this time, atheism had matured and grown into what it is today. According to Bonansea, modern atheism exists in three forms, each of which rebels against God through one of man’s abilities. Intellectual atheism, the belief that all reality stems from natural functions, defies God through human intelligence, specifically science, and as a result, God becomes unnecessary and a lie. A second form of modern atheism is emotional atheism, the view that God cannot exist in the midst of the wickedness in the world, thus rejecting God and religion. The third variation of atheism Bonsea discusses concerns the human will. This volatile atheism takes the freedom of human will as denial of God, for, in God is just, he would never allow free will for the sin that surely follows. Each of these standpoints of modern atheism conflicts directly against God and religion and can be categorized militant (6-7).

Militant atheism, atheism with hostility toward religion, had been experimented with over the centuries. It found a home in communist nations and, as atheism rose up again in America, established its hold on many influential atheists. Militant atheism is more than just the denial of religion. It is characterized by a hatred of religious institutions with the belief that not only is religion false, it is often harmful (Baggini 150). Some militant atheists follow Nietzsche’s doctrine that religion robs joy in this life by making people worry about the next one (155). Though there are atheists opposed to this view, several prominent figures in the recent history of atheism have been militant (156). Even America’s founding principles of religious freedom were tested in the Supreme Court in the years leading up to the twenty-first century.

McCollum v. Board of Education, School District 71 was the first of three major court cases that challenged the teaching of religion in public school. The schools in this district offered an optional class during the day for religious studies. Students not wishing to participate would be sent to another class while those students who obtained a parent permission slip were able to take part in the religion class. This issue was taken to the Supreme Court where an almost unanimous ruling deemed the class unconstitutional. Their reasoning was that a separation of church and state must be maintained, and using tax money to teach religion meant that the government was helping spread religion. The Court insisted that its refusal should not be interpreted as hostility toward religion but as maintaining a separation of church and state.

The year 1963 saw two cases that involved religion in public schools, both of which dealt with Bible readings. Abbington School District v. Schempp challenged a Pennsylvania law that maintained that ten verses from the Bible would be read at the start of every school day. Students not wishing to participate in the reading could be excused with permission from a parent. The second case, Murray v. Curlett, disputed the reading of the Lord’s Prayer every school day. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against the tolerance of the religious actions as they were deemed supportive of religion and not equally secular.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the prosecutor in the Murray v. Curlett case, was an extremely influential militant atheist. When her son, William Murray, told her that his school started every day with Bible readings and prayer, O’Hair filed the lawsuit that earned her fame throughout the atheistic circles in America. After the case, she founded American Atheists, a project that soon became the largest atheist organization in America. However influential O’Hair was, she was not widely liked as she was known to be aggressive and arrogant. In 1965, Playboy magazine named her the “most hated woman in America”, a title she wore proudly. When asked what she was proudest of accomplishing, her response was that, because of her work, atheists in America could say that they were atheists without being labeled a Communist. Oddly enough, many atheists are now embarrassed by the connection atheism has with O’Hair (Hecht 248). One of her strongest arguments supporting atheism was that without the demand to love God, people could love each other more efficiently. Atheism, according to O’Hair, was to be the source of philanthropy (McGrath 248). However, as O’Hair personal life began to struggle, so did her American Atheists organization. American Atheists still exists today, though perhaps more militant than when it was founded (254).

Not all militant atheists act out their beliefs in the way O’Hair did. Richard Dawkins, one of the most renowned British scientists and atheists, argues on behalf of atheism and evolutionary biology through research (Richard Dawkins 1). He is also an author, writing extensively on evolution and atheism. Dawkins’s atheism bases on Darwin’s evolutionary principles, writing that “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist” (Dawkins qtd. in Price 77). More recently, Dawkins’s atheism has turned militant, especially following the terrorist attacks in September of 2001. He states that “faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate” (Dawkins qtd. in Price 80).

One of Dawkins’s books, The God Delusion, argues that the theory of God both teaches ignorance and is socially backward, causing the very sins it argues against (Richard Dawkins 4-5).Overall, the book illustrates how religion is unnecessary and a hindrance to society, but many atheists believe that religion is necessary to comfort its believers. Dawkins laughingly responds by saying that the search for comfort is childish, as though believers in religion need some divine being to carry them whenever anything goes wrong. He also points out that just because something is comforting does not mean it is true, asserting that no one can base comfort on “the neurologically highly implausible premise that we survive the death of our brains” which religion offers as truth (Dawkins 21). On this premise, religion serves only as a false hope and a hindrance from living to the fullest in the only life people have.

Religious freedom in public schools has been tested in the twenty-first century as well. In 2006, Kathryn Nurre, a senior at Henry M. Jackson High School in the Everett School District, was unable to play an instrumental version of “Ave Maria” at her graduation because of the song title’s religious implications. The school district contended that since the ceremony was not long enough to contain both religious and secular elements, playing “Ave Maria” could offend some people who were not religious. Four years later, Nurre challenged this decision in the Supreme Court, saying that it infringed on her freedom of speech. The Supreme Court rejected the case on March 22, 2010, letting stand the ruling that the school district had the right to ban an inherently religious piece. This episode has raised concerns over the right students have to express their religious beliefs at school. The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that schools cannot endorse religion, but that does not affect the right students have to display their own beliefs. Some people believe that a variety of explicitly religious works of art and music could be banned from schools as a result of the Court’s decision (Thompson).



Conclusion

Atheism has progressed from a time when the slightest belief contrary to religion resulted in death to a time of cultural acceptance. Though atheism has increased in the most recent decades, McGrath proposes that atheism is just a fleeting fancy (255). He believes that atheism is declining, finding itself in a twilight of its golden age (279). Furthermore, McGrath claims that atheism’s future depends on religion. If religious institutions form into corrupt establishments as they did in the past, atheism would again flourish (278).

Dawkins believes otherwise, claiming that atheism is rising in the world, even though the number of religious people is staggering (26). In addition, he encourages secular teaching in schools as what children learn in school stays with them, which would include religious teaching. Dawkins believes that religions seem to be almost like inherited positions. He affirms that “a child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents” (382). In Britain where there is no separation of church and state, children are sent to schools that teach a specific religion, and this religion often stays with them through adulthood. In fact, a number of individuals around the world do not exhibit the same belief as their parents. Dawkins believes that the best way to combat the handing down of religions and withholding the belief of an elementary school is by secularizing schools and letting children come to their own conclusions about the incompatibility of religion (382-383).

In America, atheism is surprisingly low, maintaining a lower rate of atheism than any other major industrialized country; Israel has a more widespread atheism than the United States (Price 82). One reason why atheism remains low in America is because of the Cold War, attitudes toward atheists have been primarily negative. Such opinions of atheists became established in American society, and it still lingers (82-83). Even though atheism is subdued, its influence is rising, mainly among intellectuals and scientists. Atheism has survived for centuries, each new phase strengthening the hold this worldview has over the minds of people. World nations are now strictly atheist where once atheism was deemed heretical. Atheism now holds more power in education as religious activities are deemed unconstitutional. Churches in Europe are rapidly fading, and ones in America are slowly following suit (Hecht 482). Popular culture icons, such as comedian Gorge Carlin and musician John Lennon, have come forward as atheists, encouraging those too ashamed to admit themselves as one to also step out. Atheism is here to stay. It has taken a long time to make it to where it is now, but its roots have grown deep in the world’s societies. Atheism is a new secular order.







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