The Necessity of Atheism | Page 4

gods as
well. It is, therefore, the contention of freethinkers that if man had
given to the service of man all that he had given to the gods in the past,
our present stage of civilization would be much in advance of where it
is today.
If there is anything in the discussion to follow that may seem irreverent
to the reader, the author wishes to call attention that he has but
presented well substantiated facts. It is not only his opinion that he is
voicing, but it is the facts as he has found them recorded in the
researches of numerous sincere men. Finally, it is the conviction of all
freethinkers that, as Professor James H. Leuba has stated, "It is,
furthermore, essential to intellectual and moral advances that the beliefs
that come into existence should have free play. Antagonistic beliefs
must have the chance of proving their worth in open contest. It is this
way scientific theories are tested, and in this way also, religious and
ethical conceptions should be tried. But a fair struggle cannot take
place when people are dissuaded from seeking knowledge, or when
knowledge is hidden."
The cultivation of the intellect is a duty that is imposed on all men.
Even those who still cling to the dying beliefs must admit the force of
what Winwood Reade said, "To cultivate the intellect is therefore a
religious duty; and when this truth is fairly recognized by men, the
religion which teaches that the intellect should be distrusted and that it
should be subservient to faith, will inevitably fall."

When the principles of freethought shall have dispelled the intellectual
cloud of the God-idea and the vanishing dream of a heaven which has
too long drawn men's eyes away from this earth, then, and then only,
will these words of Cicero have widespread meaning:
"Men were born for the sake of men, that each should assist the others."

THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM
CHAPTER I
THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
To early man, the gods were real in the same sense that the mountains,
forests, or waterfalls which were thought to be their homes were real.
For a long time the spirits that lived in drugs or wines and made them
potent were believed to be of the same order of fact as the potency itself.
But the human creature is curious and curiosity is bold. Hence, the
discovery that a reported god may be a myth.
MAX CARL OTTO.
The geologists estimate that the age of the earth is somewhere between
80 and 800 millions of years; that the Neanderthal race existed for more
than 200,000 years; that between 40,000 and 25,000 years ago, as the
Fourth Glacial Period softened towards more temperate conditions, a
different human type came upon the scene and exterminated Homo
Neanderthalensis. These first "true men" descended from some more
ape-like progenitors and are classed by ethnologists with the same
species as ourselves, and with all human races subsequent to them
under one common, specific term, Homo Sapiens.
The age of cultivation began with the neolithic phase of human affairs
about 10,000 or 12,000 years ago; about 6000 or 7000 years ago men
began to gather into the first towns and to develop something more than
the loose-knit tribes which had hitherto been their highest political

organization. Altogether, there must have elapsed about 500,000 years
from the earliest ape-like human stage of life on this planet to the
present time.
It necessarily follows that the age of our present civilization is by no
means that which the Bible stipulates, but is merely an atom in the vast
space-time of this earth. The reason for this disparity is that with the
development of the mind of man throughout the ages there was
conceived also his self-made religious systems, based on a subjective
interpretation of the universe, and not on an objective one, devoid of
emotional bias.
"Primitive man did not understand the natural cause of shadows, echoes,
the birth and death of vegetable and animal organisms. Of this
ignorance religion was born, and theology was evolved as its art of
expression." (Draper.)
Our story takes us back some twelve thousand years to neolithic man.
Squatting in his rude hovel or gloomy cave, he listens to the sounds of
a storm without. The howling of the wind, the flashes of lightning, and
crashing of thunder give rise to that elemental emotion--fear. Fear was
always with him, as he thought of the huge stones that fell and crushed
him, and the beasts which were so eager to devour him. All things
about him seemed to conspire for his death: the wind, lightning,
thunder, rain and storm, as well as the beasts and falling trees; for in his
mind he did not differentiate animate from inanimate objects. Slowly,