The Irish standard., 1896-03-07
DO ANY ATHEISTS EXIST?
The Difference Between Negative
and Positive Atheists and
Skeptics.
Whether Educated or Not All Men
r1ust Conclude That There
s....
Is a God.
Works of Nature, the Star r,
Heavens and All Else Pro-
claim Such.

They are called atheists who either are
first, entirely ignorant of Gods existence
or second, deny it; or third doubt o1
it. If thoroughly ignorant of Gods
existence, they are negative atheists
if they try to prove that he does not ex.
ist, they are called positive or dogmatit
atheists; if they only doubt of it, they
are called skeptics. Some of these dog.
matte atheists are open in their atheism
others are yelled atheists, viz, such az
obstinately hc,d doctrines concerning
the nature Of the soul from which it
the nature of the soul, from which is
would evidently follow that there was
no God says the Philadelphia Catholic
standard and Times -. - - -
These last, although they generally
hold some kind of Pantheism, do not
hesitate to speak of God" or the "Great
Architect of the Universe ETC. All ma
terialists are either open or, more often
yelled atheists.
The history Of dogmatic atheism finds
it's beginning with the materia.istic ato-
mists. Leucippus and Democritus, who
denied that the order we see in the world
was from an intelligent first cause and
taught it to be from the chance coming
together of atoms. The sophists Gorgias,
Protagoras, Diagoras, ETC.. followed, who
taught that belief ir the gods was in
vented by lawmakers as an easy means
of keeping the people in subjection.
Epicurus held Democritus' theory OF the
origin of the world and from it deduced
practical atheism as a doctrine, viz, not
theoretically deny that gods existed, but,
he said, as they did nothing to form the
world, so they cared nothing for the
world, or for our doings. Such care on
their part would be, he furthermore
said, against the very idea of happiness
which God-or the gods must enjoy
This atheism, which Christianity had
destroyed as a system OF many centur-
les. was revived in England in the sew
enteenth century by Hobbies, Toland and
Hume, and in France in the eighteenth
by De la Metric, Diderot, D'Aiembert,
Holbach, Helvetius and Lalande, and in
! the nineteenth by the positivists Comte
and Littre (whO afterwards became
Catholic) There followed them horde
of materialists as Buchner, Molesschott,
Vogt, ETC.. many evolutionists, especially
Haeckel, and lastly the Cat least) vei4et
atheists of our own day such as the utll-
itarians Stuart Mill and others, who deny
| OH
mans final end in his happiness here be-
low, and they who, like H. Spencer and
Mansel, teach that we cannot by reason
know that God exists.
| Now, can men really be atheists? To
which we answer, first, there cannot be
negative atheists. l. e., men who al
| though sane and having reasoning pow
ers, are so ignorant Of God that they
never had even a thought of Gods eXls-
tence. 1t is not denied that for short
! time even sane and reasoning men may
exist who are entirely ignorant OF Cod,
but we deny that such ignorance can
be casting or perpetual. Consequently,
we, are not here concerned with such
as live but short time or whose sur
roundings are such that they are de-
priyed of all means needed for the evOlv-
| ing of their reasoning powers. Thus, e.
g., we do not refer to those whose mental
powers are far below the normal or to all
such as pass their lives under very de-
grading conditions
| To the question then, can men be
really atheists, we answer that to men
of ordinary capacity and living under the
common conditions which affect the
lives of most men. the existence OF God
cannot long remain unknown, since even
to such a probable reason or suspicion
| that there is such Being is easy. For
by it's nature our reasoning FACULTY nat
urally and necessarily seeks for the
causes or reasons of things, especially
the cause of whatever is very beautiful
or magnificent. This is especially so
when it contemplates the immensity and
the beauty of the world about us, the
splendor of the heavens, and the ques-
tion suggests itself, Whence do these
Gomez" "Who made them can never be
when the mind sees the order existing in
the world, e. g., the wonderful structure
of organic beings SO perfectly adapted
! to the ends of each. it is impossible that
some suspicion should not occur to him
that an intelligent Being has so con-
structed and ordered them and the uni
verse.
From the point Of view also of the natu-
raj law, the knowledge of whose first prin
cples is so easy, e. g., that there is some
difference between good and evil, that
order is to be preserved, that great dis
orders are to be avoided, are Illicit or for
hidden, that great crimes deserve punish
nlent, ETC., it is easy to acquire some
knowledge of God as a law-giver, i. e., as
the punisher of the ey.adoers.
But more than this, such an idea Of
Coo IS not only easily formed, but. as is
evident from what has been said, our ra-
tional nature. the world outside us and
| the voice of conscience so strongly impe!
/ Ills to some conception of Gods existence
/ that no ordinary man can long be without
at least a suspicion of Gods existence,
/ that is to say, the very facility of attain
1 ing to this suspicion that there may be
such a Being easily passes to an actual
suspicion that He does N fact exist.
Besides this, man is by nature inclined
to seek perfect and lasting happiness
1 For that are all our strivings and worry
lines and discontsnts and, as one learns
/ by sad experience. that no finite good is
ilasti1g and therefore that nome of them
p