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Can Atheists Reason in an Age of Unreason?
A Brief History of Reason in the West
What is there for an atheist to think about? Since atheists reject the existence of God, why should they think about anything in the first place? What’s the point of it all? There is no afterlife ‒ just darkness when we die. Christians can think about God because it can result in a better relationship with Him, the Creator of the Universe.
They can find fulfillment and meaning in that assurance. Atheists, Christians claim, have a more difficult time defending a meaningful or thoughtful life. Our thoughts are an accident and the random by-product of evolution, they insist. So how will atheists deal with the ubiquitous “Age of Unreason” that I addressed in my previous blog post?
A Brief History of ‘Reason’
Pre-Socratics
In the West, most of our discussions concerning morality, reason, and the natural sciences originated with those we call the “pre-Socratics,” the ones that preceded Socrates, more than 2,000 years ago in Ancient Greece. The thinkers most known from this period include Thale, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Pythagoras. The pre-Socratics are responsible for several important developments in geometry, mathematics, and astronomy, to name but a few fields of interest. Of…
