How did atheism begin?

Atheism began during the 18th century—an era marked by religious skepticism and biblical criticism—when a wave of secularist intellectuals and Enlightenment thinkers emerged in Europe. In truth, the distorted interpretation or misinterpretation of religious texts is one of the most dangerous gateways to atheism. A widely accepted rule for sound interpretation, especially in the study of sacred texts, is that a text taken out of context becomes a pretext. That is, Scripture read without regard to context is easily misconstrued, leading to the danger of forming a false pretext based on misreading the text. Such flawed interpretation undermines the value, authenticity, and reliability of Scripture. In other words, atheism spread in the West largely due to the loss of trust in religious texts, as Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers claimed that the Bible was unreliable. It is worth noting that the so-called Muslim Enlightenment intellectuals in our own countries are pursuing a similar path. They attempt to tamper with the texts of the Qurʾān and Sunnah in order to distort their meanings and undermine their credibility. For example, while there is consensus among scholars that alcohol consumption is strictly prohibited, the Muslim Enlightenment thinker may argue that he will interpret the religious texts in such a way as to make alcohol permissible. In doing so, he imposes meaning upon the texts rather than extracting meaning from them—taking verses out of context to support conclusions he had already predetermined (in this case, that alcohol is permissible). In short, this practice contributed to the emergence of atheism in Europe and lies at the heart of the current Enlightenment project within the Islamic world.

Indeed, during the rationalist surge of the eighteenth century, anti-religious thought became widespread with the gradual eclipse of Christian theology. In other words, this era witnessed the rise of the deism movement—a belief in God that emphasized morality while rejecting the Orthodox Church’s interpretation of religion. Voltaire (d. 1778), the French philosopher, was the most prominent anti-religious figure of that era. However, it is important to note that he was not an atheist in the contemporary, terminological sense of the word atheism, for the rejection of belief in God—which defines modern atheism—had not yet fully emerged, even during this period. While Voltaire rejected the Christianity of the Church, he had no objection to explaining morality in religious terms to his household staff. He is reported to have said: “Had it not been for the existence of God, my wife would betray me, and my servant would steal from me.” Most strikingly, he built a church near his palace at the end of his life and inscribed on its entrance: “O Lord, remember your servant Voltaire!”¹ He claimed it was the only church on earth dedicated to God alone, while all others were dedicated to the saints. He regularly sent his servants to the church and covered the costs of religious education for their children. In short, many thinkers like Voltaire believed that without belief in a God who punishes wrongdoing, the moral order of society would collapse. Since atheists acknowledge no Supreme Authority, accept no divine law, and fear no eternal consequences, they were considered far more likely to destabilize society.

With the advent of the nineteenth century, the philosophical roots of atheism began to emerge in the works of materialist thinkers who rejected religion as harmful to the human mind and an obstacle to human progress. One of the earliest forms of economic theorizing in support of atheism appeared in the writings of Karl Marx (d. 1883), the founder and principal theorist of Marxism. Marx regarded the economy as the fundamental infrastructure of society, asserting that all aspects of human life—including morality and social structures—are ultimately rooted in economic conditions. He promoted atheism and believed that religion would eventually disappear in communist societies, giving rise to a secular or religionless form of humanistic naturalism. In addition, Charles Darwin (d. 1882) introduced his theory of evolution, which posited that new species arise naturally through a process of evolution and natural selection, rather than being created. Following Darwin, Émile Durkheim (d. 1917), the founder of the French school of sociology, rose to prominence. With regard to the origin of religion, Durkheim became the most influential proponent of the view that religion originated in the totems created by ancient human clans. He examined the development of religion—particularly totemism—from both sociological and theological perspectives. He argued that the religion of Australian Aboriginal tribes represented the most primitive form of religion, in which the basic elements of all later religious systems could be found. He noted that these tribes often bore animal names due to the sacred status of animals in their totemic beliefs. In short, the core of Durkheim’s thesis is that society and the deity of all historical religions are, in fact, one and the same. Thus, his central claim is that in worshipping the totem, the members of the clan are, in reality, worshipping society itself.

However, contemporary sociologists and anthropologists have criticized Durkheim’s perspective on the grounds that there are entire nations and civilizations across various continents whose people clearly believe in God—an omnipotent being—despite having no totemic traditions.² In other words, they strongly opposed the formulation of totemism as the oldest religion, arguing that many cultures around the world have never passed through a totemic stage at all. Durkheim’s critics insist that totemism has nothing to do with religion, asserting that totems are merely ethnic symbols used to identify tribes by their lineages—in much the same way that flags identify modern-day nations. Further objections were raised against Durkheim’s theory due to his devaluation of the individual dimension of religious experience. He subordinated the personal aspects of faith to the social, whereas religion is, in reality, the fundamental life stance of an individual who believes in a transcendent reality. It is, at its core, a personal relationship between the human being and his Lord. A number of important questions arise: How does the collective mind generate religion? Has any religion ever been accepted directly by society at the moment of its emergence? In fact, throughout thousands of years, people of various nations have consistently responded to the call of the Prophets with resistance and hostility. That is, rebellion and transgression have been the repeated, fixed response of ignorant peoples in every era to those who called them to worship Allāh and lead a God-conscious life. Moreover, Durkheim’s theory fails to address perfectly legitimate questions: Where did the concept of God—as an omnipotent being and Creator of all things—originate? And if religion, as he claimed, arose from totemic practices, then in which particular clan or primitive tribe did this idea take form? How, then, were people across different regions and throughout prophetic history invited to the way of Allāh? Most importantly, it is worth noting that other scholars have concluded that the concept of the totem in ancient tribes was economic in nature, not religious. Unfortunately, Durkheim’s flawed claims have been taught as historical facts in European universities for decades. For instance, he alleged that the erotic manifestations of tribal orgies were an essential component of the social and religious psychology of primitive societies. However, it has since been shown that such gatherings were in fact acts of rebellion against the established social and religious order of the tribe. This remains Durkheim’s most notorious and fraudulent misrepresentation, especially considering that tribal systems across all known societies are fundamentally based on strict separation between the sexes.

In a nutshell, a great deal of misinformation was introduced into the European mind through the works of Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, and Émile Durkheim—leading to a widespread wave of skepticism and atheism. Incontestably, atheism began to take concrete shape at the onset of the twentieth century, as many countries adopted Karl Marx’s economic theory. As a result, numerous Eastern European countries, along with Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and others, embraced the ideology of communism. Moreover, Adolf Hitler—one of the most infamous eugenicists in history—adopted the social Darwinist interpretation of “survival of the fittest.” He drew inspiration from this concept in formulating Nazi Germany’s racially based policies, which targeted specific groups and ethnicities for extermination on the grounds that they were biologically inferior. In fact, the Second World War was driven, in part, by this ideology: the belief in survival of the fittest and the extermination of so-called “sub-humans” or “degenerate races,” under the pretext of improving the human species by eliminating those deemed undesirable.³

By and large, atheistic ideologies led to the disappearance of the meaning of Man—which is precisely why they ultimately failed to endure. Nazism declined after exposing the grotesque reality of racism, and the Soviet Union disintegrated with the collapse of communism. Without a doubt, these distorted atheistic theories are fundamentally incapable of adequately analyzing or understanding the human phenomenon. Nevertheless, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, proponents of atheism began to claim that science had made it more acceptable to be an atheist, arguing that scientific progress explains how the world works and, in their words, eliminates the need for a “God of the gaps.” New atheists, under the pretense of being evidence-based thinkers, began asserting that they do not believe in God because they believe in science. In doing so, they dressed up atheism in the clothing of science and falsely labeled it “scientific atheism.” In other words, new atheists, in their campaign against faith, claim that science supports their worldview—that atheism is the ideology of the educated and enlightened, and the only reasonable mindset for rational, scientifically minded individuals. Unfortunately, they wield the appeal of science to entice the half-informed and the younger generation by means of sciolism—that is, superficial knowledge. Indeed, their pseudo-scientific claims are no less shallow than the outdated arguments of earlier atheists. Yet, fake science poses a very real danger to humanity. Accordingly, the objective of this book is to demonstrate that New Atheism is fundamentally inconsistent with science, and to debunk the myth that science and faith are in conflict.