I am an atheist. This means, as those reading this are no doubt familiar, that I lack any sort of belief in a god. I think that this is simply the correct position to take on the issue, but that is not the point of writing this. The point that I am trying to make is that I am also an antitheist, which means that I believe religion is unnecessary and actually harmful to modern society.
The idea of divine power dates far back in human history. In times before modern science, people were surrounded by events that they had no explanation for. Things such as lightning, storms, and the sun’s motion across the sky defied every bit of knowledge that these people had of the workings of nature. As we are an inquisitive species by nature, we sought explanations for these phenomena. Given an inability to explain such things rationally, the idea of supernatural forces served as an ideal solution to the problem.
If we look to ancient people, such as the Greeks, we can see very clearly how this reasoning works. Lightning is caused by Zeus, storms by Poseidon’s anger, and the sun is actually Helios’ great chariot as he rides across the sky. At the time that these beliefs were actively held, these were the most reasonable, rational explanations for extraordinary events. Mortal experience could not explain why great bolts of lightning crashed down from the heavens. People do not see storms being created. All of these things are far too powerful to have been done by humans. As Richard Dawkins explains much more eloquently, people have a habit of applying human characteristics to things. From this, we end up having incredibly powerful beings actively creating the forces of nature.
These sorts of beliefs carried over quite naturally into monotheistic religion, though less obviously. Instead of having individual gods embodying the forces of nature, the Abrahamic religions leave us with one deity responsible for all action in nature. Again, I will say, at the time these explanations were conceived, they were the best sort of sense people could make of the world. God controls the forces of nature, and to account for evil, human imperfection is introduced (the subject of another discussion entirely.).
However, we now come to modern times. Science has shown us the causes of these things. Forgiving my lack of expertise in climatology, Lightning is caused by a disparity in electrical charge. Storms are caused by thermal fronts. The sun’s apparent motion in the sky is caused by the rotation of the Earth. Now we do have explanations for nearly any phenomenon you could name, and we are actively working toward explaining those that we cannot. We no longer need gods to explain how nature works. We are perfectly capable of doing so in other, much more accurate ways.
However, modern religion has not gone the way of Zeus and Poseidon. And despite humanity’s bounding advances in our understanding of the workings of the universe, in many cases religion causes people to simply disregard abundant evidence in favor of divine explanation. An unsettling number of Americans do not believe in climate change, believe that illness is caused by literal demonic influence, and that a divine being causes natural events such as earthquakes and lightning. (CITATIONS NEEDED - Don’t actually have studies with me. Links would be appreciated.)
This same principle applies to the theory of evolution. Despite an incredible amount of evidence supporting it, people still prefer to believe that a supernatural force created all life, and that evolution is false. These people are actively attempting to push their beliefs into schools, attempting to present impressionable children and largely apathetic teenagers with the idea that the difficult to understand theory of evolution is on even terms with the simpler idea that God designed life as we know it. They tell their children that what they learned in school is wrong, that the science books are full of lies against God, and that everyone should get to decide on their own version of reality.
This is one of the many reasons I am against religion. Religion leads to the suppression of knowledge, our most prized of possessions. There was a time when religion served to provide an explanation for reality. This time has passed. We are constantly discovering the nature of reality, as opposed to philosophizing about it.
