Atheism until very recently was considered a slur or insult by the many on the very few. And up till little more than a century ago to be a vocal atheist was palpably dangerous. It remains so in some places. Thanks to the religions and their fervour in burning books, and their authors, the record shows very few historical accounts until very recently where anybody openly doubted.
There are a couple of references in Vedic records to a group of monks who preached an atheist reality, but nothing actually from them. And that is the only pre-Greek attempt of the kind of reasoning that eventually led to atheism.
Plato, though some argue it was Democritus, was contestably the first true atheist and atheisms first martyr. None of his actual work survives because it has all been destroyed by over 2000 years of fanatical book burners. The legend of his trial is a remarkable tale of pure courage where the plainest, most incontrovertible logic is defended to the last. Yet even here religionists are want to claim him as a believer at the end and twist his arguments to fit their pathological need. Yet that ultimate truth remains, he dies saying there are no meaningful 'gods'. That they cannot be observed in nature. For the next 2000 years the various religious hegemony's would keep an iron grip on the interpretation and distribution of knowledge. Yet there has been an unbroken line of mavericks and free thinkers that with the odds stacked against them have kept the truth from being entirely extinguished. Up until a little over 150 years ago the brutal iron rod of religious coercion ritually murdered anyone accused of heresy but "the enlightenment" was inevitable. Man has an innate need to know the truth, and some amongst them demand the real truths.
Without shadow of doubt there is a profound link between the blossoming of science in Europe and the birth of modern secular non-belief. And it was heralded in by popular uprisings against the kings and bishops. And the fragmentation of Christianity and retreat of Islam. So a kind of lull was created where scientific endeavour could flourish and the logic of its method be turned full gaze on the big questions.
With Spinoza, Hume, Descartes, Darwin, Einstein and very many more names of the greatest thinkers in our collective written history we are given the possibility to look at a whole new canvas. One that is testable, reasoned and actually works. And so we have seen a golden age driven by the scientific method. That gives us, as a species, a new capacity in technological advancement that redefines what it is to be human. What we have found is something far more complex than the black and white doctrines of the medieval battlefield. Yet medieval style warlords continue to vie with each other just as they always have. And their loyal lieutenants in the international maleducation programs called religions do their thing, thanks to the population growth, to more people than ever before.
If atheism is a battle for reason to be the dominant paradigm then this golden age has still been as yet a simple scouting mission, a head raised above the parapet. With the cancerous spread of deference of ultimate justice to a superstition people will remain disempowered and at the mercy of those who seek power from such ignorance. Around the world Bishops and Priests, Imams and Witch Doctors collect their congregations and sell them to gangsters. It is not abating but increases with the population. The age of reason has most definitely not arrived.
But surely it is inevitable? Surely the cat is out of the bag now. Certainly in Europe the majority of people under 40 are essentially atheist. But they are not evangelising it. Europe is also the safest region on Earth to be born. No accident I think. But even here the religions are desperate and determined to wrest back some control. And it is here that a quiet battle rages. In the US the battle seems almost lost, even though the American Revolution was justified with and enshrined in a secular constitution. Very sad. Now every banknote carries the legend "In God We Trust". Yet the irony seems wholly lost.
I think reason has to win through. It is inevitable if we are to survive. The internet, as it is at the moment, allows it to flourish. Yet hegemony remains all powerful. Any real progress is still centuries off. And that is sad.
