it deals causation is
invariable and universal. But if we are to assume the operations of a
"God" at any time or point every scientific calculation would have to be
accompanied with the D.V. of a prayer meeting. To argue from the past to
the future would be futile. God might have operated then, no one could
be certain he will operate now. Or he might have operated in the far
past, but he might not in the future. In either case the assumption of a
God would be fatal to exact scientific calculations. Thus in sheer self
defence, in order to preserve its character as science, science is
compelled to discard even the possibility of the existence of a
controlling intelligence. As one eminent theistic advocate admits,
"Science has no need, and indeed, can make no use, in any particular
instance of the theistic hypothesis."[6] It is only when supernaturalism
is partly excluded from human thought that science can be said to really
commence its existence; and in proportion as our conception of the
universe becomes that of an aggregate of non-conscious forces--or of a
single force with many forms producing given results under given
conditions, only then does our view of the universe reach completion.

A study of the nature and tendency of human development does, therefore,
provide a very strong presumption in favour of atheism. All growth here
is in favour of atheism and away from theism. In the beginning we have
the gods everywhere and dominating everything. They do everything and
control everything. "God" is the one universal primitive hypothesis. And
all subsequent development is to its discrediting. There is no growth in
the idea of god, there is only an attenuation. The gods grow fewer as
the race approaches maturity. Their activities cease as man becomes
aware of the character of the forces around him. And it may be further
noted that this decline of the belief in deity is brought about as much
by sheer pressure of experience as by pure reason. The majority of
people do not reason themselves out of the belief in god, they outgrow
it. People cease to believe in the gods because they experience no
compulsion to believe in them. The logic of fact is ultimately more
powerful than the logic of theory, and as environmental forces brought
the gods into existence, so environmental forces carry them out again.

Now Atheism does but make explicit in words what has long been implicit
in practice. It takes the god-idea, examines it, an