In the course of time, you always find groups of people believe in no religion or a god at all. In fact, such groups stand for abnormality among humans[1]. But, this increased due to the conflict against the church in Europe rached its highest point.

This made the many of the philosophers and  historians to oppose and set upon religion altogether and invent theories explaining the life and existence regardless of god.

Newton[2] discovery for the laws of motion[3] acted as severe blow for the beliefs of the church which teaches: "Every thing running in the universe is done by the power of god", whereas Newton discoveries profess that the motion occurring in the universe is controlled by certain lws, but not under the auspices of god and no heavenly power controls it.

Also, Newton talked about the gravitation law which interpreted the movement of the objects from bottom to top and vice versa.

Though views held by Copernicus[4] (died on 1543 AD), Brunu[5] (died on 1600 AD) and Galileo[6] (1642 AD) disapproved implicitly the importance of the Earth to the universe and thus the heavenly revelations to it, Newton theory wiped out the notion of deity presence and disapproved the presence of a will directing the universe.

However, it is a set of natural and strict regulations having the least relation to the good or evil, belief or disbelief.

It did not take long before the notable biologist scientist Charles Darwin[7] (1882 AD) came to light through his research activities in monitoring the relationship between the living Creatures and their reactions and how they adapt to their enviroment which in turn led to the conclusion that the creatures develop according to their circumstances and their needs for living and that they develop to better creatures.

We believe that unless the conflict condition at that time where religion was thought anti-science and vice versa, the views of Darwin would never be rerceive such result which contradict the essence of the scientific research and approaches toward the tenets.

In short, if the conditions at that time between science and religion were in concord, the normal result were to be : glory to who created and proportioned, destined and [then] guided.

The church could not put up such views, thus it censored the books and publications of those scientists and their followers not to spread views cortadict the views of the catholic creed.

The church widely formed inquisitions and during the period 1488-1499, different  sentences have been issued against 90023 individuals.

As well, the inquisitions banned reading the books of Galileo, Brunu, Copernicus and Newton and ordered such books be burnt. For example, in Granada, 8000 books and manuscripts were burnt for their contradition to the view of the church[8].

During the time of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Darwin, lots of philosophers, thinkers and authors adopted views contradictory to the church vehemently in general.

This was the stage of emergence of the western thought which denies the presence of god and adopts chance, developmenet or skepticism norms and venerates the reason and trasnfer the authority from and legislation power from god to people.

Such views evolved as a reaction for the pracitices of the western church where it to assumed complete control of the public lives of people that no one can manage his iwn affairs away from the Control of the Church and the Pope blessing, otherwise he would be subject to sanctions of the Church which in some cases reaches killing.

On the other hand, the one meeting the satisfacion of the church would have all doors open before him to the extent he may have a indulgence and becomes of people of paradise.

Even the prominent scientists could not escape such false conditions that no sooner the signs of the European renaisance that affected by the civilization of Muslims in Andalusia appeared,- after translation of the islamic and Greek sciences to the Latin, and some of the scientists unclosed the falsness of the scientific views of the church especially those related to Geography and Astronomy, the church confronted them fiercely using the most offensive and repugnant ways of torture and opression to compel them accept its views with the least discussion or inferring their own opinions[9].

Accordingly, this null policy led the European thought to adopt two theories concerning the explanation of the origin of the universe:

First: derived from Aristotle[10] who advocated that the universe is created by god who joined it with its laws regulating it  and then let it as god is more magnificent to concern himself with something less magnificient, that is the universe.

This is the same example of the watch maker who enclosed it with its laws for motion and then left it.

Second: god in fact is nothing but a part of the nature itself and thus is subject to its laws or god himself acts as its law and the secret of its power.

Therefore, god can be apprehended more through delving and closely examining the laws of the nature and the rules of the universe.

It is equally marginalizing the god whetehr he is emobied with his creatures or completely let the universe alone[11].

In this respect, a fourth fator still not discussed, that is Karl Marx[12] who together with his friend Frederick Engels[13] (died on 1895AD) influenced by Darwin which in total led to the material thought to explicitly be revealed in the great principle of communism (No god- life is a substance- religion is the opium of peoples- all the human history may be interpreted in material way only).

Marx adopted the notion of the hunger and the economic issue. This trend is the basic for the communism revolution which increased the numbers of atheists worldwide until now.

No doubt that atheism is a bond amongst its followers though variant in their detailed views. Atheism depends on disregarding god and make the reason or man the source of the legislation.

It is astonishing that though they are in plain aberrance, they hold followers of the heavenly religions as ignorants, underdeveloped and people of superstition.

Every secularist venertes those holding the notion that religions are a superstition and that they are human made or made by their tyrrant rulers in the immemorial ages  to easily control people and lead them toward their desires and personal lusts.

Secularism like the other perverted trends appeard in this gloomy era due to the opression of the clerics of the church and their absurdities.

Secularism came into being due to torture and the inquisitions which mastered the means of killing people in the form of crushing bones, amputation and others. worth mentioning that the inquisitions made no distinction between men and women in the sentences[14].

Clerics of he church kept persuing the scientists and science due to fear that their posts get lost by any new views or findings by the scientists. Such clerics were narrow-minded to welcome the findings of the scientists and thinkers or to indulge in argument.

On the contrary, they faced the findings and views of the scientists by violence which finally was in the interest in the thinkers and their theories which attracted the public everywhere.

Secularism came to existence in Europe at a time of prevailence of the stray thoughts and the intellectual doctrines due to the severe sircumstances the European continent[15] experienced for long centuries under the control of the tyrrant of rulers and the clergymen who overreched the oppression and superstitions in haughtiness, contradiction, gross injustice, sujugating people and enslaving them and confronting all opinions contradict that of theirs.

Thinkers at that period of time experienced trenets not approved by reason or logic and moral crimes includeing sex, lavishness, foolishness and dissoluteness among the nuns and monks.

William James Durant, author of "encarta of civilization story" stated that the records of the monasteries included 20 volumes of trials due to the sexual relations between the nuns and monks[16].

Thinkers became watchful of this spread corruption, oprression not opposed even in the name of religion, seeking closer to god by blind obedience to the monks and sujugation to them. As a result, they called upon the peoples to be cautious about the distortions the church made to their tenets and that they must shake off the ignorance.

Therefore, peoples gave response like the agitated volcanos and asked for puttig aside the religion and its representitives from their way.

They vehemently objected as if they are seeking revenge which asfterwards led to veiled and unveiled conflicts between the church on one hand and the thinkers and their followers on the other. The action led to infinite numbers of killings.

This state continued till the outbreak of the public revolution in France on 17/6/1789 AD.

The French revolution acted as the milestone for the secularism that originally the revolution in France outbreaked guided by the unjust teachings of the church after the French people experienced kinds of the neediness, starvation and misery and after they found out that the crises they endure out of the nobile and the ruling clerical class.

Thus, they marched in their noted revolution which finally resulted in the victory of the French people and the eradication of the clerics and all matetrs relate to religion as a kind of avenging the clerics for wrongs they have been committing against the public for long time.

The French revolution was a momentous incident in the course of forming the secularism and the disappear of the tyrrants of the clerics of the church and the call for putting down the atheism and laws they form instead of the laws of the church and its philosophy[17].

The article extracted from book " Story of the secularism), by Dr. Ragheb El-Sergani

https://islamstory.com/en/artical/3407588