Friedrich Schiller’s in his 1783 play, The Robbers, sought to reinforce religious doctrines, but it arguably presents a strong case in favour of atheism. The characters Karl and Franz are in great inner turmoil and seek a reality outside the constraints of religious dogma. The valid questions they raise about god shocked the plays original audience. Unable to even contemplate an alternative outcome, the characters end up in tragic circumstances. Many of the arguments aggressively presented by Schiller in The Robbers have surprising contemporary significance portraying a world in which church and state collude in a corrupt partnership surrounded by a world in crisis. With what is arguably an unconvincing dénouement, reading The Robbers from a contemporary atheist perspective the question arises whether atheism is the answer when god is the question?
If we acknowledge firstly that during the Enlightenment key atheist texts were produced with very similar if not sometimes identical points of view as contemporary atheists, we can accept that at least theoretically the option of atheism was available. Secondly if we accept, as Schiller himself acknowledges, that those during his time who “pass for genius” in the arts, sciences and philosophy, derided and scrutinized god with great vigour then once again it is perhaps not unreasonable to suggest that theoretically atheism could have been and probably (even if clandestinely) was, an option if not an answer to some, when god became the question. At the dawn of the, increasingly secular, twenty-first century it is true that atheism, as proposed by writers like Dawkins, Onfray and Hitchens, is a certainly a viable alternative, indeed the answer, for many, who question god.
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