Ideologically, human history can be divided into two major phases—before the development of modern science and since the development of modern science. In the former, religion was the primary arbiter for most of humankind, but after the emergence of modern science this situation has completely changed.

Now it is science—without itself being either for or against religion— that has acquired the position of arbiter. Despite the unbiased role of science, due to various reasons, an atheistic ideology has come to dominate all intellectual disciplines. How did this happen? We present here a review of this situation.

Man, who has inhabited this planet for thousands of years, sees things such as the rising sun, the falling rain, and the blowing winds etc. on a daily basis. Traditionally, most humans believed that some divinity was instrumental in these happenings. This belief, for them, was certain. They believed it to be the established truth.

It was atheist thinkers rather than scientists who, by hijacking the concept of causation, equated it to the denial of God.

After the emergence of modern science, however, it was learnt that apparently there existed a material cause behind all happenings. For instance, in the apocryphal story of Isaac Newton (b. 1642) sitting in his garden, an apple fell from a tree. Newton began thinking about why the apple had fallen and after giving the matter deep thought succeeded in deducing the Law of Gravity. It was because of gravity that things fell downwards.

Scientific study has made great progress. Finally, scientists discovered that all the events happening in this world invariably have a cause. They thus formulated the principle of causation. This thinking—that all happenings were the result of some cause—continued to grow until it finally dominated all scientific and academic human activities. Prior to this, happenings had been explained with reference to God: now references to God were replaced with the reference to cause.

This scientific discovery initially had a purely physical meaning, and although natural phenomena were now explained with reference to cause instead of God, this did not amount to a denial of God. It was atheist thinkers rather than scientists who, by hijacking this concept of causation, equated this to the denial of God. From this point onwards, modern atheism began to hold sway.

By laying much emphasis on this scientific discovery, modern atheists sought to convince people that there was no longer any need to make any reference to God for an explanation of events. For if events were due to natural causes, they were not due to supernatural causes.

If events were due to natural causes, they were not due to supernatural causes.

We will explain later how there is an irrefutable gap in the logic of this argument. This gap notwithstanding, this theory gained extraordinary popularity among modern scholars. Consciously or unconsciously, they began to regard the concept of cause and effect as a substitute for God. This way of thinking dominated all scientific disciplines. Here are a few examples to illustrate this point.

Materialism

Materialism is a philosophy as well as a culture. Looked at practically, materialism is the notion that there is now no need to wait for the next world where God will bless us with paradise, a world where all desires can be fulfilled, because the ‘cause’ by which paradise can be built right here on this earth has finally been understood. And this ‘cause’ is modern technology.

That is why ‘paradise’ on earth began to be ‘constructed’ by means of modern technology and modern industry. A whole civilization was brought into being in the name of materialism. Today’s man, totally oblivious of God, rushed towards the acquisition of paradise in the concrete forms of modern civilization.

Houses were built and cities developed with the help of modern technology and a modern life style could be seen everywhere. This material paradise in the wake of modern civilization has yet to be completed. But the latest research has proved that it is impossible to build paradise on earth and, moreover, further studies in physical sciences have shown that the law of entropy applies to our world. That means that in submission to this law, the world is irrevocably moving towards its end: a day will come when it will be extinct.

In the twenty-first century further research has been carried out which demonstrates that this period of the world’s demise has come very close. Now it is believed that within fifty years all those resources will be destroyed with the help of which the supposed material paradise was being constructed. In other words, soon those ‘causes’ will no longer be there, on the basis of which the plans for a material paradise were conceived.

Darwinism or Evolution

For thousands of years man believed that all living species, including man, were created by God—that it was the Lord of the world who brought into existence all the living species by directly creating them. But Charles Darwin (d. 1802) supposedly managed to find a ‘cause’ here as well. According to him, this cause—‘natural selection’—was responsible for bringing into existence all living species. That is, in the biological process, for various physical causes, many living species continued to evolve one from another. That is to say, all living species, including man, were brought into existence by a material cause rather than a non-material God.