The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great

by Ben Shapiro

The original drive to discard God in Western thought grew from three intertwined forces. First, the drive against religion sprang from the dissolution of Catholic dominance; that dissolution created religious schisms and vacuums that all too often invited brutal violence. Critics of Judeo-Christian faith saw in the internecine religious warfare proof that religious fundamentalism inhibited human freedom rather than deepening it. Second, atheism and agnosticism saw a dramatic upswing among intellectuals thanks to the rise in religious fundamentalism: both Lutheranism and Calvinism were, at least in part, responses to the perceived secularization of the Catholic Church. And the Catholic Church moved to mitigate such religious insurgencies by cracking down on its own tendencies toward secular learning.