Rise Of Atheism Research Paper

Explain the reasons for the rise of atheism
There are many different reasons that are seen as factors for the rise of atheism. However, many peoples description of atheism is different. Some people think of it is as not believing in a God at all, but others see it as being confused about your religion and not having strong beliefs about one certain religion. The reasons for the rise of atheism range from being scientific to belief in other religions.
One of the first reasons for a rise in atheism is due to our increased scientific knowledge, which is now being described as ‘the supreme catalyst’ for the rise of atheism. The reason for science having such an influence is due to the fact that it now gives us natural explanations for many
Something is proved true or false through sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. An empiricist holds the belief that we can hold no knowledge of anything beyond the bounds of sense experience and that knowledge can only be gained through these experiences. To some extent, empiricism can be thought of as the basis of the development of science that has previously been considered. This is due to the fact that science bases its theories and conclusions on the basis of experience in the form of experiments and such. Empiricists such as John Locke have tried to justify the belief in God on empirical grounds, however Gavin Hyman argues that God cannot be touched, smelt, tasted seen or heard and thus he is nonempirical. Hume however argues that we have to draw our conclusions ‘merely from known phenomena’. Empiricism further tarnishes theism with A.J. Ayer’s verification principle. This is the principle that says unless we know in principle how to verify a statement (true or false), then the statement is meaningless. Although, Ayer accepted the empiricist view that the only way to verify a statement is through empirical evidence, except for those statements that are true by definition. However he concludes that statements about God are meaningless as they cannot be verified by either method and thus we
A moral absolute is the idea that there are God given rules and that those who break them are immoral. Some examples of moral absolutes are the 10 commandments and the 7 deadly sins. 1960’s brought a sexual and moral revolution, which was seen as a major catalyst for atheism of symptom of growing atheism. People began to reject religion on the grounds that they wanted to have sex without it being thought of a sin if it is not within marriage. The invention of the pill and the beginnings of capitalism in the 1980’s lead to us rejecting sexual ethics and beliefs that greed/gluttony/sloth were wrong. Capitalism encouraged us to embrace our desires. When we embraced capitalism and the new sexual freedom given to us by contraceptives we lost interest in religion and what seemed like an old fashioned morality. The rejection of moral absolutes means that we are going against God’s will of how He wants us to act therefore with the rejection of moral absolutes, we are rejecting religion, thus we are not following a religion which classes us as atheists and this gives another explanation to the rise of