7
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Added section 'arguments in favor', will build on it soon.
Karl Marx was an atheist himself and took up a skeptical position about religion in his writings. Marxism itself has little to say about religion, being a secular, materialistic philosophy, but Communist states have taken up a hostile position to all religions, though have not succeeded in eradicating religious belief. Poland and Russia retained a high proportion of churchgoers throughout decades of Communist rule.
Atheism is accepted in most Western Countries. Atheists have been prominent in the defence defense of church-state separation in the United States. Atheism remains a minority position in most countries. ===Arguments in Favor=== The arguments in support of atheism can either gear towards the existence of god(s) or towards religions themselves. ====Believers rationalize evidence==== Christopher Hitchens, a prominent atheist, has argued that "god is an infinitely expanding tautology." Two examples of this are the shift from geocentricism to heliocentricism and the shift from special creation to theistic evolution. During the trials of Galileo, many biblical verses were used to argue that the sun revolved around the earth such as 1 Chronicles 16:30 and Joshua 10:12-13. Geocentricism, the belief that all heavenly bodies revolve around the earth, matched several biblical verses as well as the Christian framework itself: God made earth for his special creation, and had sent his only son to earth. However, heliocentricism would come to triumph, but this, Hitchens argues, is of no consequence since belief in a god can be made to fit with any evidence. A similar story occurs with evolutionary theory, he claims. Christianity supported the doctrine of special creation until Darwin. However, today, believing scientists such as Francis Collins will hold to a theistic version of evolution. Unlike intelligent design which is critical of evolution, theistic evolution is the belief that God created the universe, and used evolution as a natural process just as He could create gravity to keep us on earth. According to critics however, this is just another case of rationalizing evidence to fit a presupposed conclusion: is creation true? God exists! Is creation false? God still exists!
===Reasons for and against atheism===
