Atheism didn't occur overnight. It was a long process that began because of the Roman Catholic Church. For almost a thousand years, anyone who disagreed with the teachings of the church was persecuted, tortured, or killed. This led to people associating a religious system's totalitarianism with God. When people had enough of being told what they could or could not believe by threat of death, they revolted.
Matthew 23:13-15- But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
The turmoil from both the church and the ruling classes' actions in France fueled a revolution. Protest mobs started attacking nobility and clergy, and executions of anyone from the ruling class or a religious sect swept the country. If clergy, aristocrats, wealthy nobles, commoners, and soldiers are included, the estimated number of deaths was up to 1,000,000.
This civil war ushered in a time of reforms in France, which spread to Europe and across the world. The Age of Enlightenment was the intellectual and philosophical movement that occurred in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries.
The "Enlightenment" featured a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and of empiricism and political ideals such as natural law, liberty, and progress, toleration, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state.
Inevitably, this method of empiricism was applied to religion itself. This thought process was the beginning of the rise of "reason" and the theory of evolution, which is the backbone of atheism.
James Hutton believed that the physical world's remote history can be inferred from evidence in present-day rocks. He developed the theory that geological features could not be static but underwent continuing transformation over indefinitely long periods of time. From this he argued, in agreement with many other early geologists, that the Earth could not be young.
Ecclesiastes 1:5-9- The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Building on this idea, Charles Lyell wrote Principles of Geology which described how he believed the Earth's surface was changing over time. This thought process became known as uniformitarianism, the idea that Earth’s geologic processes acted in the same manner and with essentially the same intensity in the past as they do in the present and that such uniformity is sufficient to account for all geologic change. His book convinced many scientists that evolution had occurred.
Many scientists argued about the theory of natural selection over the next hundred years. It wasn't until the early 1900's that the theory of evolution became known as it is today. Julian Huxley, actually came up with the name "evolution" when describing modern synthesis, a combination of the ideas of natural selection, Mendelian genetics, and population genetics. Evolution is the idea that the genetic material of a population changes over time, resulting in adaptations to environmental changes. These changes can lead to new species, traits, and altered genes.
Romans 1:21-23, 25- Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
The conclusion of this theory was that All life on Earth shares a universal common ancestor which lived over 3 billion years ago. Fossils and living creatures today are a result of repeated formations of new species, changes within species, and the loss, or extinction, of species throughout the evolutionary history of life on Earth. Evolution can occur if there is genetic variation over time within a population which influences specific behavioural and physical adaptations.
If life was billions of years old, then the earth must be older. Evolutionists believe the earth is roughly 5 billion years old (or older). A self-replicating molecule was thought to have occurred around 4 billion years ago, and then half a billion years later the common ancestor of all life existed. The current scientific consensus is that the complex biochemistry that makes up life came from simpler chemical reactions.
According to evolutionists, the history of life was that of the evolution of multicellularity (more than one cell) about 610 million years ago when multicellular organisms began to appear in the oceans. Soon after the emergence of these first multicellular organisms, a remarkable amount of biodiversity appeared over approximately 10 million years, known as the Cambrian explosion. Then, roughly 500 million years ago, plants and fungi colonised the land and were soon followed by arthropods and other animals. Amphibians first appeared around 364 million years ago, followed by early amniotes and birds around 155 million years ago (both from "reptile"-like lineages), mammals around 129 million years ago, Homininae around 10 million years ago and modern humans around 250,000 years ago.
In their minds, this explains everything. There's no need for a Creator when a chemical cocktail could potentially cause a complex living organism. Hence, the atheist was born, and their motto 'God is dead' began the ideology behind all current social mores. Ethics and morals are not defined by God and therefore one only needs to do what feels right to them. There is no fear of judgment by an all powerful, all knowing entity, therefore forbidden curiosities and rational impossibilities are no longer inhibited, and live and let live has been the anthem of the last few decades.
Romans 1:28-31- And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
What is the end of this mindset? Solomon found out, and laid it all out for us in the book of Ecclesiastes. His summary was utter hopelessness.
Ecclesiastes 2:18-20- Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity. Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun.
