Democritus
All That Exists are Particles and the Space Between Them. Everything Else is Speculation.
If any of this sounds vaguely familiar, it should. Democritus didn't have many followers in his day—pretty much everyone believed in the gods, so philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle were more likely to find acceptance. His writings were rediscovered in the 15th century, however, and while they were dressed up to appear in harmony with Scripture to begin with, as time passed their true colors were allowed to become more dominant. By the 18th century, more and more were fine with adopting an atheist stance, and by the 19th century when atoms were theorized, they reached back to the Greek term Democritus had given his smallest particles: 'a' meaning not, and 'tom' meaning divisible = "not divisibles" or "atoms."
Plato is said to have wanted the writings of Democritus burned, but some followers of Pythagoras convinced him it would not help since they were already widely read. The two philosophers could not have been more different in their outlooks (see Plato) and today we see our culture having less and less in common with believers in God. Epicurus was influenced by Democritus (remember the Stoics and Epicureans in Paul's "Mars Hill Address" of Acts 17?)
From the 19th century on "Modernism," with its disbelief in miracles or supernatural intervention, began to seep into the Church—the ideas of Democritus were even finding footholds there. Biblical "scholars," much like the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' time, claimed to have knowledge of Scripture but denied its power. They were not convinced of the Divine origin of the Scriptures, seeing it as the ideas of men, denied the supernatural birth of Jesus, questioned the resurrection and the notion of heaven, and saw little hope of Christians ever living a Christ-like life. There have been at least three international conferences on Democritus since the 1970s and I fear the interest in him will continue to grow as he has beome the patron philosopher of our age (yes, much like a patron saint, as atheism is as much religion as any other—it takes an equal amount of faith to disbelieve in God as it does to believe in Him, since neither position can be proven using scientific proofs).
By the time we hit the present, our entire culture is looking to Democritus for inspiration. The "multiverse," which is a direct reference to things Democritus, is found in so many movies as to almost make it old hat. Secular culture is based on the belief that our universe is only made of randomly colliding particles without purpose or design. Art is only something to make one "happy," and in the sense of Democritus, that means since life is meaningless if it makes the futility any more bearable, why not?
The philosophies of men are quite dangerous if they are used to aid in the interpretation of Scripture, and we will see that this has happened over and over throughout the history of the Church.
