Excerpts from
The Philosophy of Atheism
by Emma Goldman
Published February 1916, in the Mother Earth journal
"The concept God… has become more indefinite and obscure in the course of time and progress. In other words, the God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events
God, today, no longer represents the same forces as in the beginning of His existence; neither does He direct human destiny with the same Iron hand as of yore… In the course of human development the God idea has been forced to adapt itself to every phase of human affairs, which is perfectly consistent with the origin of the idea itself.
The decline of theism is a most interesting spectacle, especially as manifested in the anxiety of the theists, whatever their particular brand…
Have not all theists painted their Deity as the god of love and goodness? Yet after thousands of years of such preachments the gods remain deaf to the agony of the human race. Confucius cares not for the poverty, squalor and misery of people of China. Buddha remains undisturbed in his philosophical indifference to the famine and starvation of outraged Hindus; Jehovah continues deaf to the bitter cry of Israel; while Jesus refuses to rise from the dead against his Christians who are butchering each other.
Beauty as a gift from heaven has proved useless. It will, however, become the essence and impetus of life when man learns to see in the earth the only heaven fit for man. Atheism is already helping to free man from his dependence upon punishment and reward as the heavenly bargain.
Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued parity with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy… [Atheists] knew that justice, truth, and fidelity are not, conditioned in heaven, but that they are related to and interwoven with the tremendous changes going on in the social and material life of the human race; not fixed and eternal, but fluctuating, even as life itself…" Emma Goldman
"Emma Goldman (1869 – 1940) was an anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the 20th century.
Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues. She was also part of a plan to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick as an act of ‘propaganda of the deed’. Goldman was imprisoned several times for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.
Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues. The following are extensive excerpts from an article she wrote on atheism." Peter Rollins
I let another day go by with a body lacking energy to expound on this... so I will let Emma and Peter do the talking once again. I have included segments of Emma's essay... these snippets are what moved me the most in the reading.
