Page:The Necessity of Atheism (Brooks).djvu/305

Rh the idea of God completely discarded as a useless and false relic of bygone days, is the essence of atheism. "Atheism is more than the speculative philosophy of a few, that it is in sober truth the logical outcome of mental growth. So far as any phase of human life can be called inevitable, atheism may lay claim to being inescapable. All mental growth can be seen leading to it, just as we can see one stage of social development giving a logical starting point for another stage, and which could have been foretold had our knowledge of all the forces in operation been precise enough. Atheism is, so to speak, implicit in the growth of knowledge, its complete expression is the consummation of a process that began with the first questionings of religion. And the completion of the process means the death of super-naturalisms in all forms. Circumstances may obstruct its universal acceptance as a reasoned mental attitude, but that merely delays, it does not destroy the certainty of its final triumph." (C. Cohen.} The philosophy of atheism leads man to a critical, analytical, and logical examination of his environment, and it is this that has lead to all of our advances. Religion creates a stunted standard of reasoning. The pathetic cry of St. Augustine, "But if I was shapen [sic] in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, where I pray thee, O my God, where, Lord, or when was I, thy servant innocent?" typifies the major concern of the the narrow, egotistical mystic. From the time that the ideas of the later Greek philosophers had been forgotten until the present time, man has floundered in a sea of supernaturalism. It is high time that man faced his realities with fortitude in his own mentality, and when he does this, there will be produced a race of men who will seek, for truth, for truth's sake, a race of supermen who will lead the world intellectually.