Atheism :: essays research papers

Atheism, from the Greek a ("without") and theos ("deity"), comm but and loosely refers to the theoretical or practical defensive structure of the existence of a deity. The concrete meaning of ungodliness has varied easily in history even the earliest Christians were labeled " deists" because they denied the existence of the papistic deities. In westward culture, where monotheism has been the dominant mode of unearthly belief, atheism has largely referred to the denial of the existence of a transcendent, perfect, personal creator of the universe. To be an atheist need not mean that one is nonreligious, for there are " uplifted" religions, such as Buddhism and Taoism, that do not postulate the existence of a supernatural being.Monotheism has been so basic to and compounded with Western moral and philosophic beliefs as well as political institutions that until recently atheism has been widely believed to be both immoral and dangerous to society. Plato not only viewed atheism as irrational but argued that certain atheists deserved the death penalty. When Christianity in the end became the dominant religion in the West, atheism and heresy were thought to be worthy of exile or death because, as Thomas doubting Thomas argued, it was a much more serious matter to corrupt the mortal than to damage the body. Atheism was also dangerous to the political authority of Western monarchies that claimed to rest upon divine right. Even during the Enlightenment when the divine right of kings was challenged and religious toleration defended, John Locke, a staunch advocate of toleration, denied free talking to to atheists on the grounds that they undermined and destroyed religion. The believability of atheism seems directly relative to the growth of the sciences and the emergence of humanism since the Renaissance. In the 19th century the biologic sciences seemed to make theological explanations of the origins of the universe and of the e mergence of humankind unnecessary. Particularly grave were the writings of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, which established that attempts to prove the existence of God from the world gild were invalid. In the mid-19th century, explicitly atheistic and humanistic systems of philosophy appeared. Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche were not only atheists but also militant critics of religion generally and of Christianity particularly. Modern philosophical atheism is based on both theoretical and practical reasons.