The Necessity of Atheism

commonly expressed in the term "Providence," if they ascribed to the
belief in personal immorality, if they themselves believed in the
existence of a "soul," if they ascribed to the statement that "prayer"
influenced the opinion of an all-powerful being to intercede for them in
their problems and grief, if they believed that the Bible was a book
dictated by God, or that a god caused to be written for him his
"revelations"; that heaven and hell exist in the meaning that
theologians assure their adherents that they do; that sin and morality
is what theologians still hold it to be; that there has been a "fall"
and therefore the necessity for a "redemption" of man; and that creed
and dogma are necessary factors in the worship of a deity,--what would
their answers be? Eddington, Jeans, Einstein, and Whitehead would answer
these questions exactly as would the most militant atheists.

The mental attitude of these men can best be explained when one
considers certain similarities between theological asceticism and
scientific asceticism. And it is the duty of the freethinker clearly to
point out why this confusion has arisen. During the ages of faith, the
world beheld a swarm of men and women who retired from the grim
realities of a world which at that time was made abhorrent to all
sensitive men by the most exacting insistence of theologians that
"faith" was the all necessary ingredient of life, and that closed its
eyes completely to the degrading actualities of life that this
insistence led to. Multitudes of men retired to the desert and to the
protective walls of monasteries. There, by constant privations,
fastings, continual prayer, flagellation, and introspection, they spent
their lives. These ascetic individuals by these means were enabled to
enter what may be called a "theologic trance" and their subsequent
hallucinations, illusions, and delusions gave to them what they deemed
to be a transcendental insight into the construction of the universe
and what was expected between "fallen" and debased man and his
omnipotent creator. These men keenly apprehended what some today, in a
gentler age, have called "cosmic consciousness."

I do not mean to imply that these before-mentioned scientists have
applied such a rigor to their lives. What is meant to be stated is that
these men by their research and comprehension of the vastness of the
universe stand in awe and fear before this brain-benumbing aspect.
Modern astrophysics, to one who attempts to comprehend its vastness,
imposes on the mind but a faint comprehension of the vastness of the
universe in space, time, and size; but imposes a deep conviction of the
infinitesimal meaning of our planet Earth, both as to size and its
relation to the millions of related heavenly bodies. The evolution of
man on our planet in this broad conception of space and time is most
infinitesimal. It has been just a few hours ago in this widened
conception of time that Halley's comet was excommunicated from the skies
by Pope Calixitus III, who looked upon this comet as one of unheard-of
magnitude and from the tail of which was flung down upon the earth,
disease, pestilence, and war.

Most certainly the minds of Jeans and Eddington carry in their recesses
a vast amount of knowledge that was not common to men living in 1456,
the year in which the above-mentioned comet caused such consternation.
Much as one admires the superiority of the minds of these present-day
physicists, yet one cannot help but think that if our present rate of
progress meets no serious obstacle, then in another five hundred years,
the attitude of awe of Jeans and Eddington towards the vastness of our
universe will be held in some similar position to which Jeans and
Eddington now hold the misguided conception of Halley's comet in the
year 1456. The mind of man is just beginning to emerge from its
swaddling clothes and we cannot assume to judge what its broadest
capabilities may be. Certain great modern minds, therefore, when they
contemplate this vastness of astrophysics are apt to dwell a bit too
literally on the "music of the heavenly spheres," and under the
influence of these celestial harmonies fall into the trance of
scientific asceticism. Men who can no longer seriously hold to a belief
in an anthropomorphic god, the soul and immortality are apt to allow
themselves when in this mood to emotionalize their knowledge; and these
same men are the ones who would in their scientific endeavors be the
first to eliminate all emotions from their reasoning efforts in their
laboratories. One seems justified, therefore, in stating that this
conception of "cosmic consciousness" is but another instance of the mere
illusions of a craving heart.

Discussing the question as to whether science and religion conflict, the
physicist Professor Bazzoni, of the University of Pennsylvania, in a
recent work "Energy and Matter," makes the following pointed comment:
"Some scientists resort to metaphysics and make contact with a kind of
mysticism which may be taken for a religious belief at precisely that
point where ignorance prevents further progress along sound scientific
lines. The primitive medicine man appealed to the gods to explain the
precipitation of rain and the phase changes of the moon, and some modern
scientists appeal to metaphysics and mysticism to explain the limits of
the infinite and the nature of electricity."

He further cautions theologians against placing undue emphasis on the
opinions of scientists when they express their minds on religious
topics, and he remarks: "They (the laity) should realize that in the
spiritual field the opinion of an eminent scientist has exactly the
same weight as the opinion of any other cultivated and thoughtful
individual."

When the scientist examines with the impartial mind of the laboratory
the science of the origin of religious beliefs and delves into the
complicated intricacies of religious history, he becomes as convinced as
any other thoughtful individual that the facts of science and history
are deadly to religion. Moreover, as man contemplates the construction
and forces at work in the universe he still must exclaim, "end,
beginning, or purpose, it knows not of."