Is The Position Of Atheism Growing Stronger?/Chapter II

by Joseph McCabe

These preliminary considerations are offered to those who from a long tradition of rationalist literature are apt to regard the struggle as one of truth against untruth. If that were the case, it would be over in a few decades. What has really happened in Russia, we shall see, proves that. If we could put to the American people the relevant facts of history and truths of science as freely and unceasingly as the Churches put their untruths, no one can doubt the issue. Unfortunately, but very naturally, most people who quit church-going do not want to hear religion mentioned again. They switch off the sermon or religious address on the radio and skip the sermon-page in the paper. Let them get on with it, is the general sentiment. So atheistic organizations remain small and poor, opposing ridiculously slender resources and activities to a clerical organization with 250,000 servants of one kind or other and an income of a billion dollars a year. One of those literary men who feel that we aggressive Atheists are "on the wrong line" asked me how it was that we had such poor results. Like most of his class, he had not the least idea how enormously Atheism has spread, but the direct answer is that a few thousand people with almost no resources do not usually make a spectacular success against a billion-dollar corporation that controls the general education of the country.

Let us not fool ourselves with phrases like, Great is Truth and it will prevail. They knew quite a lot of truth in ancient Greece, and it was buried for 15 centuries, Yet it is an inestimable advantage to have the truth on your side, and it is the first point in the strengthening of the position of the Atheist in recent years that we have got weighty corroboration of our claim to possess the truth. Materialistic Atheism—and any other kind is so rare, comparatively, that it need not be considered here—is the kind of negative position which is, nevertheless, based upon a massive knowledge of realities. For most Theists nature proves, in one way or other, the existence of God. And this at once makes science a rival interpretation of nature and the natural enemy of religion. It is a mere quibble to insist that science has no concern whatever with God or spiritual realities, For more than a century science has been busy giving a natural explanation of phenomena which religious writers claimed to be inexplicable except by assuming that there was an infinite spirit in the heavens and a finite spirit in man. Attempts to shift the basis of Theism we will consider in later essays, but for at least four-fifths of the religious folk of America the basis of their belief in God is some aspect of nature (beauty, order, the mind, the moral sense, etc.) which, they say, science will never explain without God and the soul. Hence the question of the religious beliefs of scientific men has always had considerable fascination, and I will take this first.

1. American Men of Science

In the last essay I remarked that to a religions person it must seem singular that, while he was assured on all sides that science had ceased to be materialistic and had "created an atmosphere more favorable to religion," he heard nothing about conversions of scientific men. Possibly he gathered from the incessant droning about the beautiful harmony of science and religion that there was no need for conversions. One of the most liberal and cultivated preachers of New York said, when certain skeptical remarks of a scientist of secondary rank were reported to him: "Yes, the little men of science say these things: the big men are religious." Less liberal preachers will hardly grant us the little men. Yet there is no other country in which the opinions of scientific men about the fundamental propositions of religion—God and immortality—are so easily ascertained as they are in America. Apart from other evidence, Professor Leuba gave very definite and reliable statistics 20 years ago. That was in the bad old materialistic days, before the heavenly twins of British astronomy burst upon the scientific world. Fortunately, Professor Leuba has covered the ground once more, and we have the most positive evidence of what has really happened in the American scientific world while the press and pulpits were rejoicing in the change of heart of science.

The new analysis is, like all the new facts I here get together, a triumph for Atheism. Men of science are considerably more atheistic today than they were 20 years ago. Naturally Professor Leuba does not call himself an Atheist, and probably very few of the men whose opinions he gives would admit that title. But I have explained in what sense I use the word; and, if it be thought important, I could quote very respectable dictionary authority for that use. Contrary to a widespread belief, it is the word "Agnostic" that is loosely used in our generation. It was coined by Huxley to designate a man who holds that from its own nature the mind is incapable of answering such questions as whether there is a God or not. They do not lie merely beyond the range of science but beyond the range of thought. Why Huxley coined the new word we need not consider here. He was himself in the accepted meaning of the word an Atheist. The leading British religious apologist in his time was Gladstone, and Murray's famous Dictionary, in defining an Atheist as "one who denies or disbelieves the existence of a God"—Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary and Webster's New International Dictionary give the same definition—quote Gladstone using the word in that sense. The leading Atheist of the time, Bradlaugh, defined his position in the same sense. And since the word "disbelieve" is in the definition plainly set in contrast to "deny," it means simply one who has no belief in God. Huxley certainly had not, and not one of the thousands of Agnostics I have known (including such well-known leaders as Sir Leslie Stephen, Professor Sully, Sir E. Ray Lankester, E. Clodd, G.J. Holyoake, J.M. Robertson, etc.) or know had the least doubt whether there was a God or not or considered themselves precluded by the nature of the mind from valuating the evidences for Theism.

Therefore, while Professor Leuba distinguishes between believers, disbelievers, and doubters, I take both the latter groups as men who are without belief in God and therefore Atheists. For those, however, who regard the distinction as of any importance I may say that of the nearly 2,000 men of science who replied to the question whether they believed in a personal God only 30 percent said Yes; 56 percent said No (disbelievers, and only 14 percent were classed as Doubters (which seems to mean Agnostics). Religious writers were severely hit by the book, Belief in God and Immortality, in which Professor Leuba published his results in 1916, and they tried frantically to discredit his procedure. It was ideally fair, and he repeated it in 1933. Of the 23,000 names in Cattell's American Men of Science for 1933 he took one-tenth and sent his questions to them. About 75 percent replied, and there could not possibly be a fairer test. The only weakness I see is one that favors the Godly. Cattell's list includes teachers of science in religious colleges and universities, and we are not prepared to take these as quite impartial witnesses of the same value as the others.

But Professor Leuba knows well that the gross results are not enough, and he classifies his men into Greater and Lesser and into the four categories of Physicists, Biologist, Sociologists, and Psychologists. The distinction between Greater and Lesser is taken from Cattell, and the names that are starred as of special distinction in his book were selected by leading authorities in each branch of science. Again, therefore, the procedure is ideally impartial, and the result adds to the triumph of Atheism and the rout of preachers who say that it is "only the small men" who are Atheists. Of the Lesser scientists 35 percent believe in God; of the Greater only 13 percent. The Atheists are 65 percent of the Lesser and 87 percent of the Greater. Do not forget that the believers include an unknown proportion of teachers in religious institutions.

The further analysis gives just as encouraging results. In the last number I explained that since evidence for God is not found in the world of "dead matter" but begins in the world of life and is supposed to be strongest in the world of mind, the opinion of physicists is of less value than that of biologists, and much less value than that of sociologists and psychologists. It fully confirms what I said when we find that of the physicists 38 percent (43 percent Lesser and 17 Greater) believe in God: of the biologists only 27 percent (12 percent Greater): of the sociologists 24 percent (20 percent Greater and 5 percent Greatest, according to a further refinement he makes in this case); of the psychologists only 10 percent, and of the Greater Psychologists only 2 percent. It does not concern me here and will be reported in a later number, but it may be useful to say, briefly that while 41 percent of the physicists believe in an immortal soul, only 9 percent of the psychologists (mostly Lesser) believed.

And the final point is the most encouraging of all. Since 1916, when the earlier results were published, frantic attempts have been made to secure the names of scientific men for religions lists. The late Dr. Osborn and Dr. Millikan made one attempt, in the hope that it would check the Fundamentalist menace to the teaching of science. It was a dismal failure, only about a dozen men of science answering the call. The Churches used their insidious pressure and intrigue, and they got a few university men, who in some cases were seriously threatened by pressure, to begin to attend chapel (which means nothing in such institutions) and go on the lists. Now we get an impartial and scientific test of such change as there has been in the attitude of science to the God-idea in the last 20 years. I trust Professor Leuba will not mind if, as is necessary, I borrow his cold statistical summary of the change in regard to belief in God.

 Scientific Believers (percent)

Lesser Men Greater Men

1914 1933 1914 1933

Physicists 50 43 34 17
Biologists 39 31 17 12
Sociologists 29 30 19 13
Psychologists 32 13 13 12

Henceforward any preacher or writer who claims that the big men are believers, who quotes "A little learning is a dangerous thing" or "The fool said in his heart," who tells his people that it is "the camp-followers of science" who represent its teaching as materialistic, is guilty of frigid and calculated inaccuracy or has not read the outstanding piece of documentary evidence.

2. Tests in Great Britain

I have been severely rebuked both by religious writers and certain scientific men for saying, as they represent, that men of science are generally Atheists. I have, of course, never said that. I have always said that the opinion of a scientific man on the subject might be worth less than that of a truck driver who has read critical literature about it—look at the drivel written on the subject by Millikan, Pupin and Osborn—but that the success of their various branches of science in giving us a materialistic interpretation of reality so impresses them, that four-fifths of them do not believe in God and not one in 10 is a Christian believer. It will be understood that I was using the word "men of science" in the British fashion. We mean men who are prominent in the service of science, not any college-teacher of physics or biology. And it seems that, according to this exact British test, I kept my words, as I usually do, well within the truth. Not 20 percent, but only about 10 percent, of the more distinguished men of science believe in a personal God.

The situation is the same in England. Here no straight questionnaire has been issued, and we have no exact statistics. But there has in the last 20 years been the same frantic attempt as in America to induce them to stand out on the side of the angels, especially since Bishop Barnes was, on the strength of a knowledge of mathematics, admitted to the higher scientific world. In the weightiest of scientific periodicals, Nature, there actually appeared a few years ago an editorial imploring men of science to see that Atheism led to the "horrors" of the French and the Russian Revolutions. It was a sordid appeal and from the angle of historical fact on the level of a parochial magazine. But the response has been no better than to the Osborn-Millikan appeal in America. As I showed in the last volume of my 'Rise and Fall of the Gods,' only a small proportion of British men of science have gratified the Churches by publishing professions of belief. The Congresses of the Church of England can no more attract them than do the Conferences of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America. No scientific man of any distinction belongs to the Catholic, the Baptist, or the Methodist Church, and few but certain aged and very heterodox scientists with a mystic vein associate even with the Modernists of the Church of England.

That the situation is the same as in America is curiously shown by a document recently published to prove the opposite. I referred to one aspect of it in the last number. The British Christian Evidence Society issued in 1932 a small work, The Religion of Scientists, which purported to give the answers of Fellows of the Royal Society to six questions about religion. The book is, as I said, marked by the customary trickery of the man of God. It boasts throughout of having received 200 expressions of opinion and nowhere tells the readers that there are 503 Fellows of the Royal Society, so that no less than 300 disdained to reply to it. I am quite certain that Barnes secured a reply from every religious Fellow. Further, the book grossly deceives the public by giving them the impression that all the Fellows of the Royal Society are men of science, if not the cream of British scientists. The rules of the Society expressly state that candidates are not necessarily of distinction in science but may be "such that their election would be of signal benefit to the Society." Hence it includes five royal princes, who could not tell a seismograph from a saccharometer, five rich peers, a few ecclesiastics, lawyers, admirals, statesmen (like Baldwin), and other odds and ends. What is more important, it includes 47 foreigners, a large number of colonial professors who are admitted often on imperialist grounds, and a singularly large number of men with no academic position and, as far as I can see—I have read through the entire list—of no name whatever in science. Finally, distinction in science for the purpose of the Society means distinction in applied science (engineering, agriculture, etc.) as well as pure science.

It is thus easy to see that the Society might yield 100 favorable replies that did not include a single man of science of any distinction or whose opinion is of the least value. Yet on the two questions that afford something like a definite test only 47 and 74 respectively replied favorably. The first question of the six was: Do you credit the existence of a spiritual domain? As I have already pointed out, the word "spiritual" is now so ambiguous that the fact that 121 (out of 503) replied in the affirmative means nothing. It is interesting to note that only 24 out of the 121 permitted the publication of their names, and that 80 of them were engaged in the physical sciences! The second question was even more ambiguous; Is man in some degree responsible for his acts of choice? They might as well ask if free will accounted for acts of free will. It is meaningless that 173 replied Yes, but worthy of noting that 80 of them were in the physical sciences, and only four were psychologists or physiologists—the only men fitted to judge. The third question was: Is it your opinion that belief in evolution is compatible with belief in a Creator? The ambiguity of this will be seen when I say that Bertrand Russell is amongst those who said yes: also Professor E.B. Bailey, who has taken the chair for atheistic lectures of mine and made it clear in his letter to the Society that he did not believe in a Creator. The fourth question is worse: Do you believe that science negatives the idea of a personal God as taught by Jesus Christ? It was open to any atheistic scientist to reply No, since science never discusses God, yet, significantly, the favorable replies now fell to 103 (mostly chemists, physicists, and mathematicians), and 26 said yes. It illustrates the relative morale of Atheists and believers that 25 of the 26 Atheists allowed the publication of their names, and only 67 of the pious 103 gave such permission.

The fifth question was honest enough: Do you believe that the personalities of men and women exist after the death of their bodies? The affirmers now fell with a bang to 47 (including, one psychologist and no physiologist), while 41 said No. So 47 out of 503—by no means all scientists—believe in immortality. It would have been interesting if the next question had been: Do you believe in a personal God? But such honesty would have been fatal. It was: Do you think that the recent remarkable developments in scientific thought are favorable to religious beliefs? Yet even to this non-committal question the favorable replies were only 74, and most of them explained that they meant that the new physics had discredited Materialism. My book on the subject appeared in England soon afterwards, and I am told that they would not get even 74 affirmatives today. In short, of 503 Fellows of the Royal Society only 47 made a definite profession of belief in a fundamental religious doctrine, and of these eight were physicists, eight chemists, four botanists, three mathematicians (one a bishop), and three geologists, but not a single one of England's great physiologists. The document proves nothing, but suggests that, as in America, only about one in 10 of the greater men of science believe in God.

3. Other Countries

For other countries we have no statistics. Professors of science generally resent such inquisitions, and in many places the Atheist professor has only too good ground to do so. But we can easily show that the proportion of atheistic scientists in the more advanced countries of the world is about the same as in America and Great Britain. In the first place, nearly all the distinguished professors of science in France, Russia, and Japan are Atheists, and this would balance any less proportion of them in other countries. It would, however, he useless to inquire how many scientists are Atheists under the present regime in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Spain. A large number of atheistic professors have been dismissed and are in exile. In Italy the university professors were so far atheistic 22 years ago (1913) that the Minister of Education sent in their name a public telegram of congratulation to Ernest Haeckel on his 80th birthday. From Spain and even Austria the Catholic could get no more scientific support than from France. The lists of "loyal sons of the Church" who were also "great scientists" which are given in Catholic literature are amusing. They suggest that the species became extinct about half a century age. Just a few living men like Marconi are quoted; and what Marconi thinks today about religion and what his thoughts are worth we know not.

In 1931 Mr. Edward H. Cotton published a symposium to which he gave the meretricious title 'Has Science Discovered God?' He soon found that the number of American scientists who would help in the holy work could be counted on one's fingers, so he made the quest international. Jeans and Eddington spread their familiar plumes in his columns, and even Julian Huxley, who does not believe in God, contributed. Dr. Malcolm Bird and even Langdon-Davies were dragged in to support the angelic doctors, and still the body of men representing "science" was paltry. So the summons sped to Germany, and Einstein, who was still there, was invited to respond. But all that Einstein, who is very emotional and pacific, has said (in a speech at Berlin in 1933) about his religion is that "the sense of the mysterious" is "at the root of religion and beauty." On other occasions he has seemed willing to apply the word God in a Spinozistic sense to "the power of the universe"—meaning, of course, the universe itself—but he is totally uninterested in religion except in a humanitarian sense of the word and it does not matter much what he says.

Dr. Luther Fry has tried another method. In the 'Scientific Monthly' in 1933 he professed to analyze, the creed of the distinguished Americans in Who's Who for 1910 and 1930 and find a positive growth of religion in the 20 years. We know those "distinguished Americans"; bankers, rich businessmen, clerics, artists, judges, politicians, etc. Moreover, for some reason best known to himself Dr. Fry examines only two-thirds of the names for 1910 and all of them for 1930, and he vaguely admits that in the meantime there was some change in the method of getting the religious affiliation of the victims. The only religious significance of the creed-descriptions in 'Who's Who' is that which Professors Huntingdon and Whitney pointed out. It is the stark poverty of the Roman Catholic Church in men of distinction. They have only seven per 100,000 of their members in Who's Who, to the Unitarians 1,185 per 100,000; and how many of these Catholic supermen are simply prelates, politicians, businessmen, etc., we are not told. But the very fact that the intellectually distinguished amongst the 30,000 men and women in 'Who's Who' so remarkably prefer to say that their affiliation is Unitarian is significant enough. Large numbers of Unitarian congregations do not demand belief in God in their members.