Atheism :: essays research papers

Atheism, from the Greek a ("without") and theos ("deity"), commonly and loosely refers to the theoretic or practical denial of the existence of a deity. The concrete meaning of godlessness has varied considerably in history even the earliest Christians were denominate "atheists" because they denied the existence of the Roman deities. In westward culture, where monotheism has been the dominant mode of spectral belief, atheism has broadly referred to the denial of the existence of a transcendent, perfect, personal condition of the universe. To be an atheist need not mean that one is nonreligious, for at that place are "high" religions, such as Buddhism and Taoism, that do not put forward the existence of a supernatural being.Monotheism has been so basic to and compounded with Western moral and philosophical beliefs as well as political institutions that until tardily 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 be the death penalty. When Christianity finally became the dominant religion in the West, atheism and heresy were thought to be worthy of exile or death because, as Thomas Aquinas argued, it was a much more serious way out to corrupt the soul than to damage the body. Atheism was also dangerous to the political authority of Western monarchies that claimed to rest upon perceive right. Even during the Enlightenment when the divine right of kings was challenged and religious toleration defended, John Locke, a staunch propose of toleration, denied free speech to atheists on the grounds that they undermined and destroyed religion. The believability of atheism seems directly proportionate to the growth of the sciences and the emergence of humanism since the Renaissance. In the nineteenth century the biological sciences seemed to make theological explanations of the origins of the universe and of the emergence of humanity unnecessary. Particularly important were the writings of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, which established that attempts to prove the existence of idol from the world order were invalid. In the mid-19th century, explicitly atheistic and humanistic systems of doctrine 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.