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THE PHILOSOPHY OF ATHEISM

The Philosophy of Atheism

By Joseph Lewis

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF ATHEISM

The Philosophy of Atheism

by Joseph Lewis

(Address Delivered February 20, 1960,

Over Radio Station WIME, Miami, Florida)

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

This is Joseph Lewis speaking.

Although as a child I was instructed in the religion of my parents, I never came under the

spell of religious training long enough to so warp my mentality as not to be able to see

any other viewpoint.

I was never trained to espouse the cause of Atheism. I came to accept Atheism as the

result of independent thought and self-study.

I came to my conclusions after a full analysis and an impartial consideration of the

various religious creeds and the different systems of philosophy. In my study of the

different fields of thought, I found no philosophy that contained so many truths, and

inspired one with so much courage, as Atheism. Atheism equips us to face life, with its

multitude of trials and tribulations, better than any other code of living that I have yet

been able to find. It is grounded in the very roots of life itself. Its foundation is based on

Nature, without superfluities and false garments. No sham or shambles are attached to it.

Atheism rises above creeds, and puts Humanity upon one plane. There can be no "chosen

people" in the Atheist philosophy. There are no bended knees in Atheism; no

supplications, no prayers; no sacrificial redemptions; no "divine" revelations; no washing

in the blood of the lamb; no crusades, no massacres, no holy wars; no heaven, no hell, no

purgatory; no silly rewards and no vindictive punishments; no christs and no saviors; no

devils, no ghosts, and no gods.

Atheism breaks down the barriers of nationalities and, like, "one touch of nature makes

the whole world kin." Systems of religion make people clannish and bigoted.

Atheism is a vigorous and a courageous philosophy. It is not afraid to face the problems

of life, and it is not afraid to confess that there are problems yet to be solved. It does not

claim that it has solved all the questions of the universe, but it does claim that it has

discovered the approach, and learned the method, of solving them.

It has dedicated itself to a passionate quest for the truth. It believes that truth for truth's

sake is the highest ideal, and that virtue is its own reward.

It believes that love of humanity is a higher ideal than a love of God. We cannot help

God, but we can help mankind. "Hands that help are better far than lips that pray."

Praying to God is humiliating; worshipping God is degrading.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF ATHEISM

It believes with the great Robert G. Ingersoll, when he said, "Give me the storm and

tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish

me from Eden when you will, but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge."

Atheism is a self-reliant philosophy. It makes one intellectually free. He is thrilled to

enthusiasm by his mental emancipation and he faces the universe without fear of ghosts

or gods. It teaches man that unless he devotes his energies and applies himself whole-

heartedly to the task he wishes to achieve, the accomplishment will not be made. It warns

him that any reliance upon prayers, or "divine" help, will prove a bitter disappointment.

To the philosophy of Atheism belongs the credit of robbing Death of its horror and its

terror. It brought about the abolition of Hell.

If Atheism writes upon the blackboard of the Universe a question mark, it writes it for the

purpose of stating that there is a question yet to be answered. Is it not better to place a

question mark upon a problem while seeking an answer than to put the label "God" there

and consider the matter solved? Does not the word "God" only confuse and make more

difficult the solution by assuming a conclusion that is utterly groundless and palpably

absurd?

"God," said Spinoza, "is the Asylum of Ignorance." No better description has ever been

uttered. Shelley said God was a hypothesis, and, as such, required proof. Can any

minister of any denomination of any religion supply that proof? Facts and not merely

opinions are what we want. Emotionalism is not a substitute for the truth.

If Atheism is sometimes called a "negative" philosophy, it is because the conditions of

life make a negative philosophy best suited to meet the exigencies of existence, and only

in that sense can it be called "negative." Some ministers of religion ignorantly call

Atheism a "negative" philosophy because Atheism must first destroy the monume ntal

ignorance and the degrading superstition with which religion, throughout the ages, has so

shamelessly stultified the brain of man.

A negative attitude in life is sometimes essential to proper conduct. Life itself very often

depends upon negation. It is a negative attitude when we are cautious about overeating. It

is a negative attitude when we do not indulge our appetites or give vent to our impulses.

And on many occasions, I have seen illustrated editorials sermonizing upon the fact that

the hardest word in our language to pronounce is the word "No!" It is only when we have

the courage to say NO to certain temptations that we can avoid the consequences that are

the results of following those temptations. Progress, also, very often consists in negation.

Man finds himself in a universe utterly unprepared and poorly equipped to face the facts

and conditions of life. He must overcome the illusions and the deceptive forces that are

forever present in Nature. When the light of intelligence first came into the mentality of

man, he found himself in a world that was a wilderness; a world reeking with pestilence

and populated with shrieking beasts and brutal and savage people. No wonder that man's

distorted intellect gave rise to a series of ideas concerning God, that makes one shudder at

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF ATHEISM

its hideousness. His primitive imagination conceived gods of a multitude of heads, of

grotesque parts, of several bodies, of numberless eyes, and legs, and arms. In order that

man may think clearly and rationally upon the facts of life, all these concepts must be

destroyed. That is only one of the tasks of Atheism. "To free a man of error is to give, not

take away," said Schopenhauer.

Some of our present-day religionists, emancipated to the degree that they no longer

accept deities like "Jehovah," cry for a new concept of God. They want something to put

in the place of what has been taken away. Do they want also a substitute for hell?

Will anyone be so good as to tell me what we need a new concept of God for? Haven't we

had gods enough? Hasn't it been task enough to get rid of the conglomeration that has

already plagued the human race? I plead that we no longer contaminate heaven with these

hideous creatures and frightful monsters of religious hallucinations.

Ministers also take delight in saying that Atheism is dogmatic and destructive. If Atheism

is called dogmatic it is because dogmatism is the law of nature. A fact is the most

stubborn thing in the world. Matter insists upon occupying space all by itself and motion

will continue in motion, regardless of the opinions concerning it.

Atheism is destructive in the same sense that Columbus was a destroyer, when he

corrected the erroneous conception, induced by false theological ideas, of the flatness of

the earth, when he sailed across the ocean and proved the rotundity of the planet upon

which we live.

Atheism is destructive in the sense that Galileo was a destroyer when he corrected the

erroneous conception, induced by false theological ideas, concerning the existence of

only one moon, when he discovered satellites of Jupiter.

Is a physician destructive when he cures a patient of disease?

And so throughout the history of intellectual progress is this attitude true. Call it negative,

call it dogmatic, call it destructive, call it what you will. It is the main spring of progress.

No wonder the great Buckle was prompted to say:

"Every great reform which has been effected has consisted not in doing something

new, but in undoing something old."

What hypocrisy it is on the part of ministers of religion to call Atheism a negative

philosophy, when their own Ten Commandments are a series of "Thou shalt nots."

But Atheism is also an aggressive and a militant and a constructive philosophy. It is

interested in the HERE and NOW. It finds problems enough here that require immediate

solution and it does not fly to others that it knows not.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF ATHEISM

Atheism cannot sit idly by and watch injustice being perpetrated, nor permit the

exploitation of the weak by the strong. Its ideal is the establishment of justice, man-made

justice, even though it be.

If man waited for God to feed him he would starve to death.

Atheism believes in education. It believes in telling the facts of life, in revealing the

truths as they are discovered, regardless of whom it shocks. It is ever ready and willing to

accept the new and discard the old. Atheism does not believe that man's mission on earth

is to love and glorify God, but it does believe in living this life, so that when you pass on,

the world will be better for your having lived.

That is the ideal that now inspires more hearts to help humanity in its upward march, than

ever before in the history of the human race. That is the ideal that inspired Bruno,

Galileo, and Copernicus; that inspired Voltaire, Humboldt, and Garibaldi; that inspired

Mark Twain, John Burroughs, and Luther Burbank. That is the ideal that inspired Eva

and Pierre Curie the discoverers of radium, Henri Durant the founder of The Red Cross,

Albert Einstein, and Thomas A. Edison.

If man wants help he must abandon his appeals to God. They will prove only "echoes of

his wailing cries."

Atheism does not place any trust in God. The inscription on our coins is a lie. It was not

too long ago that a person who denied the existence of a personal God, who refused to

accept the Bible as a divine revelation, who branded as absurd that Christ was

miraculously conceived, who characterized as a delusion the resurrection, and who

stigmatized as a myth the immortality of the soul, was characterized by ministers of

religion as being an "Atheist." Thomas Paine was called a "filthy little atheist" upon

evidence that he did not even approximate this. To call oneself anything but a Freethinker

or an Atheist, after the denials of these religious premises, is to belie one's own words.

Atheism has given to the human race the intellectual monarchs of the world. When the

great Darwin discovered the law of the origins of species, he was called an Atheist

because he disproved the special creation of Man. When the Chemist went into his

laboratory and discovered the indestructibility of matter, he was called an Atheist because

he proved the impossibility of a Creator. When the Astronomer pointed his telescope toe

sky and explored the regions of unlimited space, he was called an Atheist because he

found no God within the confines of space, no heaven within the region of his

explorations. When the Geologist determined the age of the earth through its rock and

soil and formations, he was called an Atheist because he, too, destroyed a belief in the

special six-day creation, and exposed the falsity of the biblical cosmogony. When the

Historian went back to ancient and prehistoric times, and discovered civilizations of high

ethical and moral culture, of intellectual achievements that are still an amazement to us,

he was called an Atheist because he exposed the myth of Adam, uncovered the mistakes

of Moses, and branded with the epithet of fraud the commands of Jehovah. When the

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