The chief basis of Atheism is the teaching of science, and we now see that that foundation is firmer than ever. Tens of thousands of times in the last 10 years people have been assured that there was a change of heart in the scientific world and that what Atheists and Materialists had claimed to be their strongest basis was ruined. We have found this a statement that can escape the charge of unveracity only on the supposition that the religious writers who made it never study facts. In spite of all the frantic appeals and subtle cajolery of prelates and their rich supporters, who have often serious influence on universities, the proportion of men of science who believe in God has fallen. We speak on the ground of the most positive evidence when we say that only about one in 10 of the more distinguished men of science now believe in a personal God and that the majority of these believers belong to those branches of science which least of all equip a man to pass a critical judgment on the subject; and I may add, both from the published names and published confessions of belief, that most of these scientific Theists are men of the departing generation. The younger men, especially in anthropology, psychology, physiology, ethics, sociology, paleontology, and biology, have seen the progress of research in the last 20 years afford a massive and entirely consistent confirmation of the position of the Atheist and Materialist. Our basis is sound. Science may almost be called atheistic; and there is no higher authority in the modern world upon which the people may rest their faith.
Hence God's apostles and publicity-agents strike a new note. We will later notice the miserable sophistry that tries to persuade people that if they have a "sense of God" or a religious intuition or instinct that assures them of his existence, they need no proof. This is, we shall see, whether it is said by Sir Arthur Eddington (a dreamy Quaker in the non-scientific half of his brain) or by some vapid Modernist preacher, as crude, in the light of modern psychology, as is the belief in a flat earth. The new note which I have here in mind is a sort of perversion or prostitution of pragmatism or humanism: a theory which, with all respect to its authors, is apt to lead to such consequences. Distrust rational arguments, is the new appeal, for man is no mere logical machine. His interests and emotions are the things that matter in shaping his opinions. If these demand God, pay no attention to the syllogisms of the Atheist. Smile at the philosophers who tell you that they are agreed that all the old arguments for the existence of God from the order and beauty and power of nature are as illogical as the arguments of the old alchemists. We are all sociologists, all practical men, today. Mix up a lot of discredited history, some warm rhetoric about the world's troubles, and a little pulpit-verbiage, and you can prove that if God did not exist we should have to invent him. A Father Coughlin (with his economic guides behind the curtain) becomes the savior of the race. A Canadian bible-teacher, Aberhardt, switches in a year from lessons on Moses and Jezebel to the economic control of a province. And so on. God is found to be vital to our civilization.