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History of atheism

Atheism is an absence of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2][3][4] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities and any statements to the contrary are false ones.[1][2][5][6] The English term 'atheist' was used at least as early as the sixteenth century and atheistic ideas and their influence have a longer history.

Philosophical atheist thought began to appear in Europe and Asia in the sixth or fifth century BCE. In ancient Greece Materialistic and antireligious philosophical Cārvāka school originated in ancient India. Materialistic philosophy was produced by the atomists Leucippus and Democritus in 5th century BCE, who explained the world in terms of the movements of atoms moving in infinite space.

The Enlightenment fueled skepticism and secularism against religion in Europe.[7][page needed]

Etymology edit

In early ancient Greek, the adjective átheos (ἄθεος, from the privative ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless". It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning "ungodly" or "impious". In the 5th century BCE, the word began to indicate more deliberate and active godlessness in the sense of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods". The term ἀσεβής (asebēs) then came to be applied against those who impiously denied or disrespected the local gods, even if they believed in other gods. Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render átheos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης (atheotēs), "atheism". Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin átheos. The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other.[8]

 
The Greek word αθεοι (atheoi), as it appears in the Epistle to the Ephesians 2:12[9] on the early 3rd-century Papyrus 46. It is usually translated into English as "[those who are] without God".[a]

The term atheist (from the French athée), in the sense of "one who ... denies the existence of God or gods",[11] predates atheism in English, being first found as early as 1566,[12] and again in 1571.[13] Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577.[14]

The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme,[15] and appears in English about 1587.[16] An earlier work, from about 1534, used the term atheonism.[17][18]

Related words emerged later: deist in 1621,[19] theist in 1662,[20] deism in 1675,[21] and theism in 1678.[22] Deism and theism changed meanings slightly around 1700 due to the influence of atheism; deism was originally used as a synonym for today's theism but came to denote a separate philosophical doctrine.[23]

Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.[b] In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of the term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as "disbelief in God".[24]

Indian philosophy edit

Who really knows?
Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

In the East, a contemplative life not centered on the idea of deities began in the sixth century BCE with the rise of Jainism, Buddhism, and various sects of Hinduism in India, and of Taoism in China. These religions offered a philosophic and salvific path not involving deity worship. Deities are not seen as necessary to the salvific goal of the early Buddhist tradition; their reality is explicitly questioned and often rejected. There is a fundamental incompatibility between the notion of gods and basic Buddhist principles, at least in some interpretations.[28] Some Buddhist philosophers assert that belief in an eternal creator god is a distraction from the central task of the religious life.[29]

Within the astika ("orthodox") schools of Hindu philosophy, the Samkhya and the early Mimamsa school did not accept a creator-deity in their respective systems.

The principal text of the Samkhya school, the Samkhya Karika, was written by Ishvara Krishna in the fourth century CE, by which time it was already a dominant Hindu school. The origins of the school are much older and are lost in legend. The school was both dualistic and atheistic. They believed in a dual existence of Prakriti ("nature") and Purusha ("consciousness") and had no place for an Ishvara ("God") in its system, arguing that the existence of Ishvara cannot be proved and hence cannot be admitted to exist. The school dominated Hindu philosophy in its day, but declined after the tenth century, although commentaries were still being written as late as the sixteenth century.

The foundational text for the Mimamsa school is the Purva Mimamsa Sutras of Jaimini (c. third to first century BCE). The school reached its height c. 700 CE, and for some time in the Early Middle Ages exerted near-dominant influence on learned Hindu thought. The Mimamsa school saw their primary enquiry was into the nature of dharma based on close interpretation of the Vedas. Its core tenets were ritualism (orthopraxy), antiasceticism and antimysticism. The early Mimamsakas believed in an adrishta ("unseen") that is the result of performing karmas ("works") and saw no need for an Ishvara ("God") in their system. Mimamsa persists in some subschools of Hinduism today.

Cārvāka edit

The thoroughly materialistic and antireligious philosophical Cārvāka (also known as Lokayata) school that originated in India with the Bārhaspatya-sūtras (final centuries BCE) is probably the most explicitly atheist school of philosophy in the region, if not the world. These ancient schools of generic skepticism had started to develop far earlier than the Mauryan period. Already in the sixth century BCE Ajita Kesakambalin was quoted in Pali scriptures by the Buddhists with whom he was debating, teaching that "with the break-up of the body, the wise and the foolish alike are annihilated, destroyed. They do not exist after death."[30]

Cārvākan philosophy is now known principally from its Astika and Buddhist opponents. The proper aim of a Cārvākan, according to these sources, was to live a prosperous, happy, productive life in this world. In the book More Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020) Ramkrishna Bhattacharya argues that there have been many varieties of materialist thought in India; and that there is no foundation to the accusations of hedonism nor to the claim that these schools reject inference (anumāna) per se as a way of knowledge (pramāṇas).[31]

The Tattvopaplavasimha of Jayarashi Bhatta (c. 8th century) is sometimes cited as a surviving Carvaka text, as Ethan Mills does in Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India: Nagarjuna, Jayarasi, and Sri Harsa (2018).[2] It has been claimed that the school died out sometime around the fifteenth century.

In the oldest of the Upanishads, in chapter 2 of the Brhadāranyaka (ca. 700 BCE), the leading theorist Yājnavalkya states in a passage often referred to by the irreligious: "so I say, after death there is no awareness."[32] In the main work by the "father of linguistics", Panini (ca. 4th c. BCE), the main (Kasika) commentary on his affix regarding nastika explains: "an atheist" is one "whose belief is that there is no Hereafter" (4.4.60). Cārvāka arguments are also present in the oldest Sanskrit epic, Ramayana (early parts from 3rd c. BCE), in which the hero Rama is lectured by the sage Javali – who states that the worship of gods is "laid down in the Shastras by clever people, just to rule over other people and make them submissive and disposed to charity."

The Veda philosopher Adi Shankara (ca 790–820), who consolidated the non-dualist Advaita Vedanta tradition, spends several pages trying to refute the non-religious schools, as he argues against "Unlearned people, and the Lokayatikas (…)"[33]

According to the historian Dag Herbjørnsrud, the atheist Carvaka schools were present at the court of the Muslim-born Mughal ruler, Akbar (1542–1605), an inquiring skeptic who believed in "the pursuit of reason" over "reliance on tradition".[34] When he invited philosophers and representatives of the different religions to his new "House of Worship" (Ibadat Khana) in Fatehpur Sikri, Carvakas were present as well. According to the chronicler Abul Fazl (1551–1602), those discussing religious and existential matters at Akbar's court included the atheists:

They do not believe in a God nor in immaterial substances, and affirm faculty of thought to result from the equilibrium of the aggregate elements (…) They admit only of such sciences as tend to the promotion of external order, that is, a knowledge of just administration and benevolent government. They are somewhat analogous to the sophists in their views and have written many works in reproach of others (…)[35]

Herbjørnsrud argues that the Carvaka schools never disappeared in India, and that the atheist traditions of India influenced Europe from the late 16th century: "The Europeans were surprised by the openness and rational doubts of Akbar and the Indians. In Pierre De Jarric's Histoire (1610), based on the Jesuit reports, the Mughal emperor is actually compared to an atheist himself: “Thus we see in this Prince the common fault of the atheist, who refuses to make reason subservient to faith (…)”

Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski concludes as follows concerning the Jesuit descriptions in her paper “East-West Swerves: Cārvāka Materialism and Akbar's Religious Debates at Fatehpur Sikri” (2015):

…The information they sent back to Europe was disseminated widely in both Catholic and Protestant countries (…) A more detailed understanding of Indian philosophies, including Cārvāka, began to emerge in Jesuit missionary writings by the early to mid-seventeenth century.[36]

The Jesuit Roberto De Nobili wrote in 1613 that the “Logaidas” (Lokayatas) "hold the view that the elements themselves are god". Some decades later, Heinrich Roth, who studied Sanskrit in Agra ca. 1654–60, translated the Vedantasara by the influential Vedantic commentator Sadananda (14th), a text that depicts four different schools of the Carvaka philosophies.[37] Wojciehowski notes: "Rather than proclaiming a Cārvāka renaissance in Akbar's court, it would be safer to suggest that the ancient school of materialism never really went away."

Buddhism edit

Buddhism is sometimes described as nontheistic because of the absence of a creator god, but that can be too simplistic a view.[38][39] The nonadherence[40] to the notion of a supreme deity or a prime mover is seen by many as a key distinction between Buddhism and other religions. While Buddhist traditions do not deny the existence of supernatural beings (many are discussed in Buddhist scripture), it does not ascribe powers, in the typical Western sense, for creation, salvation or judgement, to the "gods"; however, praying to enlightened deities is sometimes seen as leading to some degree of spiritual merit.

Buddhists accept the existence of beings in higher realms, known as devas, but they, like humans, are said to be suffering in samsara,[41] and not particularly wiser than we are. In fact the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the deities,[42] and superior to them.[43] Despite this they do have some enlightened Devas in the path of buddhahood.

Jainism edit

Jains see their tradition as eternal. Organized Jainism can be dated back to Mahavira, a teacher of the sixth century BCE, and a contemporary of the Buddha. Jainism is a dualistic religion with the universe made up of matter and souls. The universe, and the matter and souls within it, is eternal and uncreated, and there is no omnipotent creator deity in Jainism. There are, however, "gods" and other spirits who exist within the universe and Jains believe that the soul can attain "godhood"; however, none of these supernatural beings exercise any sort of creative activity or have the capacity or ability to intervene in answers to prayers.[citation needed]

Classical Greece and Rome edit

In Western Classical Antiquity, theism was the fundamental belief that supported the legitimacy of the state (the polis, later the Roman Empire). Historically, any person who did not believe in any deity supported by the state was fair game to accusations of atheism, a capital crime. Charges of atheism (meaning any subversion of religion) were often used similarly to charges of heresy and impiety as a political tool to eliminate enemies. Early Christians were widely reviled as atheists because they did not participate in the cults of the Greco-Roman gods.[44][45][46][47] During the Roman Empire, Christians were executed for their rejection of the pagan deities in general and the Imperial cult of ancient Rome in particular.[47][48] When Christianity became the Roman state religion under Theodosius I in 380, heresy became a punishable offense.

Poets and playwrights edit

 
Heinrich Füger, Prometheus Brings Fire to Mankind, c. 1817.

Aristophanes (c. 448–380 BCE), known for his satirical style, wrote in his play the Knights: "Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?"[49]

Euhemerus edit

Euhemerus (c. 330–260 BCE) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers, conquerors, and founders of the past, and that their cults and religions were in essence the continuation of vanished kingdoms and earlier political structures.[50] Although Euhemerus was later criticized for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods",[51] his worldview was not atheist in a strict and theoretical sense, because he differentiated them from the primordial deities, holding that they were "eternal and imperishable".[52] Some historians have argued that he merely aimed at reinventing the old religions in the light of the beginning of deification of political rulers such as Alexander the Great.[53] Euhemerus' work was translated into Latin by Ennius, possibly to mythographically pave the way for the planned divinization of Scipio Africanus in Rome.[54]

Philosophy edit

The roots of Western philosophy began in the Greek world in the sixth century BCE. The first Hellenic philosophers were not atheists, but they attempted to explain the world in terms of the processes of nature instead of by mythological accounts. Thus lightning was the result of "wind breaking out and parting the clouds",[55] and earthquakes occurred when "the earth is considerably altered by heating and cooling".[56] The early philosophers often criticized traditional religious notions. Xenophanes (6th century BCE) famously said that if cows and horses had hands, "then horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, and cows like cows".[57] Another philosopher, Anaxagoras (5th century BCE), claimed that the Sun was "a fiery mass, larger than the Peloponnese"; a charge of impiety was brought against him, and he was forced to flee Athens.[58]

The first fully materialistic philosophy was produced by the atomists Leucippus and Democritus (5th century BCE), who attempted to explain the formation and development of the world in terms of the chance movements of atoms moving in infinite space.

For political reasons, Socrates was accused of being atheos ("refusing to acknowledge the gods recognized by the state").[59] The Athenian public associated Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE) with the trends in pre-Socratic philosophy towards naturalistic inquiry and the rejection of divine explanations for phenomena.[60][61] Aristophanes' comic play The Clouds (performed 423 BCE) portrayed Socrates as teaching his students that the traditional Greek deities did not exist.[60][61] Socrates was later tried and executed under the charge of not believing in the gods of the state and instead worshipping foreign gods.[60][61] Socrates himself vehemently denied the charges of atheism at his trial.[60][61][62] All the surviving sources about him indicate that he was a very devout man, who prayed to the rising sun and believed that the oracle at Delphi spoke the word of Apollo.[60]

While only a few of the ancient Greco-Roman schools of philosophy were subject to accusations of atheism, there were some individual philosophers who espoused atheist views. The Peripatetic philosopher Strato of Lampsacus did not believe in the existence of gods.[63] The Cyrenaic philosopher Theodorus the Atheist (c. 300 BCE) is supposed to have denied that gods exist and wrote a book On the Gods expounding his views.

The Sophists edit

In the fifth century BCE the Sophists began to question many of the traditional assumptions of Greek culture. Prodicus of Ceos was said to have believed that "it was the things which were serviceable to human life that had been regarded as gods",[64] and Protagoras stated at the beginning of a book that "With regard to the gods I am unable to say either that they exist or do not exist".[65] Diagoras of Melos allegedly chopped up a wooden statue of Heracles and used it to roast his lentils and revealed the secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Athenians accused him of impiety and banished him from their city. Critias was said as well to deny that the gods existed.[66]

Epicureanism edit

The most important Greek thinker in the development of atheism was Epicurus (c. 300 BCE).[67] Drawing on the ideas of Democritus and the Atomists, he espoused a materialistic philosophy according to which the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention (see scientific determinism).[68] Although Epicurus still maintained that the gods existed,[67][68] he believed that they were uninterested in human affairs.[68] The aim of the Epicureans was to attain ataraxia (a mental state of being untroubled). One important way of doing this was by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational. The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and the need to fear divine punishment after death.[68]

One of the most eloquent expressions of Epicurean thought is Lucretius' On the Nature of Things (1st century BCE) in which he held that gods exist but argued that religious fear was one of the chief causes of human unhappiness and that the gods did not involve themselves in the world.[69][70] The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and hence dismissed the fear of death.[71]

Epicureans denied being atheists but their critics insisted they were. One explanation for this alleged crypto-atheism is that they feared persecution,[72] and while they avoided this their teachings were controversial and harshly attacked by some of the other schools, particularly Stoicism and Neoplatonism.

Pyrrhonism edit

Similar to the Epicureans, the Pyrrhonists employed a tactic to avoid persecution for atheism in which they, in conformity with ancestral customs and laws, declared that the gods exist, and performed everything which contributes to their worship and veneration, but, with regard to philosophy, declined to commit themselves to the gods' existence.[73] The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus compiled a large number of ancient arguments against the existence of gods, recommending that one should suspend judgment regarding the matter.[74] His large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers.[75]

Medicine edit

In pre-Hippocratic times, Greeks believed that gods controlled all aspects of human existence, including health and disease.[76] One of the earliest works that challenged the religious view was On the Sacred Disease, written about 400 B.C. The anonymous author argued that the "sacred disease" of epilepsy has a natural cause, and that the idea of its supposed divine origin is based on human inexperience.[76]

The Middle Ages edit

Islamic world edit

In the early history of Islam, Muslim scholars recognized the idea of atheism and frequently attacked unbelievers,[77] although they were unable to name any atheists.[78] When individuals were accused of atheism, they were usually viewed as heretics rather than proponents of atheism.[78][79] However, there were freethinkers and outspoken critics of the Islamic religion such as deists, philosophers, rationalists, and atheists in the medieval Islamic world,[78][79] one notable figure being the 9th-century scholar Ibn al-Rawandi, who criticized the notion of religious prophecy, including that of Muhammad, and maintained that religious dogmas were not acceptable to reason and must be rejected.[78][79][80] Other critics of religion in the Islamic world include the poet Al-Maʿarri (973–1057), the scholar Abu Isa al-Warraq (fl. 9th century), and the physician and philosopher Abu Bakr al-Razi (865–925).[78][79] However, al-Razi's atheism may have been "deliberately misdescribed" by an Ismaili missionary named Abu Hatim.[81][circular reference] Al-Maʿarri wrote and taught that religion itself was a "fable invented by the ancients"[82] and that humans were "of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains."[83]

Europe edit

 
Hrafnkell as depicted in an 1898 illustration.

The titular character of the Icelandic saga Hrafnkell, written in the late thirteenth century, says, "I think it is folly to have faith in gods". After his temple to Freyr is burnt and he is enslaved, he vows never to perform another sacrifice, a position described in the sagas as goðlauss, "godless". Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology observes,

It is remarkable that Old Norse legend occasionally mentions certain men who, turning away in utter disgust and doubt from the heathen faith, placed their reliance on their own strength and virtue. Thus in the Sôlar lioð 17 we read of Vêbogi and Râdey â sik þau trûðu, "in themselves they trusted",[84]

citing several other examples, including two kings. Subsequent to Grimm's investigation, scholars including J. R. R. Tolkien[citation needed] and E.O.G. Turville-Petre[citation needed] have identified the goðlauss ethic as a stream of atheistic and/or humanistic philosophy in the Icelandic sagas. People described as goðlauss expressed not only a lack of faith in deities, but also a pragmatic belief in their own faculties of strength, reason and virtue and in social codes of honor independent of any supernatural agency.

Another phenomenon in the Middle Ages was proofs of the existence of God. Both Anselm of Canterbury, and later, William of Ockham acknowledge adversaries who doubt the existence of God. Thomas Aquinas' five proofs of God's existence and Anselm's ontological argument implicitly acknowledged the validity of the question about God's existence.[85] Frederick Copleston, however, explains that Thomas laid out his proofs not to counter atheism, but to address certain early Christian writers such as John of Damascus, who asserted that knowledge of God's existence was naturally innate in man, based on his natural desire for happiness.[86] Thomas stated that although there is desire for happiness which forms the basis for a proof of God's existence in man, further reflection is required to understand that this desire is only fulfilled in God, not for example in wealth or sensual pleasure.[86] However, Aquinas's Five Ways also address (hypothetical) atheist arguments citing evil in the universe and claiming that God's existence is unnecessary to explain things.[87] See also Summa Theologica.

The charge of atheism was used to attack political or religious opponents. Pope Boniface VIII, because he insisted on the political supremacy of the church, was accused by his enemies after his death of holding (unlikely) positions such as "neither believing in the immortality nor incorruptibility of the soul, nor in a life to come".[88] Sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians were also accused of being atheistic.[89]

John Arnold's 2005 Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe discusses individuals who were indifferent to the Church and did not participate in faith practices. Arnold notes that while these examples could be perceived as simply people being lazy, it demonstrates that "belief was not universally fervent". Arnold enumerates examples of people not attending church, and even those who excluded the Church from their marriage. Disbelief, Arnold argues, stemmed from boredom. Arnold argues that while some blasphemy implies the existence of God, laws demonstrate that there were also cases of blasphemy that directly attacked articles of faith. Italian preachers in the fourteenth century also warned of unbelievers and people who lacked belief.[90]

Renaissance and Reformation edit

During the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation, criticism of the religious establishment became more frequent in predominantly Christian countries, but did not amount to atheism, per se.

The term athéisme was coined in France in the sixteenth century. The word "atheist" appears in English books at least as early as 1566.[91] The concept of atheism re-emerged initially as a reaction to the intellectual and religious turmoil of the Age of Enlightenment and the Reformation, as a charge used by those who saw the denial of god and godlessness in the controversial positions being put forward by others. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word 'atheist' was used exclusively as an insult; nobody wanted to be regarded as an atheist.[92] Although one overtly atheistic compendium known as the Theophrastus redivivus was published by an anonymous author in the seventeenth century, atheism was an epithet implying a lack of moral restraint.[93]

According to Geoffrey Blainey, the Reformation in Europe had paved the way for atheists by attacking the authority of the Catholic Church, which in turn "quietly inspired other thinkers to attack the authority of the new Protestant churches". Deism gained influence in France, Prussia and England, and proffered belief in a noninterventionist deity, but "while some deists were atheists in disguise, most were religious, and by today's standards would be called true believers". The scientific and mathematical discoveries of such as Copernicus, Newton and Descartes sketched a pattern of natural laws that lent weight to this new outlook.[94]

 
The Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza contended in the 17th century that God did not interfere in the running of the world, but rather that natural laws explained the workings of the universe.

How dangerous it was to be accused of being an atheist at this time is illustrated by the examples of Étienne Dolet, who was strangled and burned in 1546. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was also accused of atheism, but he denied it. His theism was unusual, in that he held god to be material. Even earlier, the British playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe (1563–1593) was accused of atheism when a tract denying the divinity of Christ was found in his home. Before he could finish defending himself against the charge, Marlowe was murdered. Giulio Cesare Vanini, also accused of being an atheist, was burned at the stake in 1619.

Blainey wrote that the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza was "probably the first well known 'semi-atheist' to announce himself in a Christian land in the modern era", although nowhere in his work does Spinoza argue against the existence of God.[95][96][97] It is a widespread belief that Spinoza equated God with the material universe and so his beliefs have been categorized as Pantheist.[98][99] Spinoza had been expelled from his synagogue for his protests against the teachings of its rabbis and for failing to attend Saturday services. He believed that God did not interfere in the running of the world, but rather that natural laws explained the workings of the universe. In 1661 he published his Short Treatise on God, but he was not a popular figure for the first century following his death: "An unbeliever was expected to be a rebel in almost everything and wicked in all his ways", wrote Blainey, "but here was a virtuous one. He lived the good life and made his living in a useful way. . . . It took courage to be a Spinoza or even one of his supporters. If a handful of scholars agreed with his writings, they did not so say in public".[100]

In early modern times, the first explicit atheist known by name was the German-languaged Danish critic of religion Matthias Knutzen (1646–after 1674), who published three atheist writings in 1674.[101] Knutzen was called "The only person on record who openly professed and taught atheism" in the 1789 Students Pocket Dictionary of Universal History by Thomas Mortimer.[102]

In 1689 the Polish nobleman Kazimierz Łyszczyński, who had denied the existence of God in his philosophical treatise De non-existentia Dei, was imprisoned unlawfully; despite Warsaw Confederation tradition and King Sobieski's intercession, Łyszczyński was condemned to death for atheism and beheaded in Warsaw after his tongue was pulled out with a burning iron and his hands slowly burned. In De non-existentia Dei he had demonstrated strong atheism:

II – the Man is a creator of God, and God is a concept and creation of a Man. Hence the people are architects and engineers of God and God is not a true being, but a being existing only within mind, being chimaeric by its nature, because a God and a chimaera are the same.[103] IV – simple folk are cheated by the more cunning with the fabrication of God for their own oppression; whereas the same oppression is shielded by the folk in a way, that if the wise attempted to free them by the truth, they would be quelled by the very people.[104][105]

The Age of Enlightenment edit

 
Louis Carmontelle, Portrait of Baron d'Holbach, 1766.
 
Jean-Simon Berthélemy, Portrait of man with Bust of Denis Diderot, 1784.
 
The title page of the Encyclopédie.

While not gaining converts from large portions of the population, versions of deism became influential in certain intellectual circles. Jean Jacques Rousseau challenged the Christian notion that human beings had been tainted by sin, and instead proposed that humans were originally good, only later to be corrupted by civilization. The influential figure of Voltaire spread deistic notions to a wide audience. "After the French Revolution and its outbursts of atheism, Voltaire was widely condemned as one of the causes", wrote Blainey, "Nonetheless, his writings did concede that fear of God was an essential policeman in a disorderly world: 'If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him', wrote Voltaire".[106] Voltaire's assertion occurs in his Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs, written in response to the Treatise of the Three Impostors, a document (most likely) authored by John Toland that denied all three Abrahamic religions.[107] In 1766, Voltaire tried unsuccessfully to have the judgment reversed in the case of the French nobleman François-Jean de la Barre who was tortured, beheaded, and his body burned for alleged vandalism of a crucifix.

Arguably the first book in modern times solely dedicated to promoting atheism was written by French Catholic priest Jean Meslier (1664–1729), whose posthumously published lengthy philosophical essay (part of the original title: Thoughts and Feelings of Jean Meslier ... Clear and Evident Demonstrations of the Vanity and Falsity of All the Religions of the World[108]) rejects the concept of God (both in the Christian and also in the Deistic sense), the soul, miracles and the discipline of theology.[109] Philosopher Michel Onfray states that Meslier's work marks the beginning of "the history of true atheism".[109]

By the 1770s, atheism in some predominantly Christian countries was ceasing to be a dangerous accusation that required denial, and was evolving into a position openly avowed by some. The first open denial of the existence of God and avowal of atheism since classical times may be that of Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789) in his 1770 work, The System of Nature. D'Holbach was a Parisian social figure who conducted a famous salon widely attended by many intellectual notables of the day, including Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Benjamin Franklin. Nevertheless, his book was published under a pseudonym, and was banned and publicly burned by the executioner.[citation needed] Diderot, one of the Enlightenment's most prominent philosophes and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopédie, which sought to challenge religious, particularly Catholic, dogma said, "Reason is to the estimation of the philosophe what grace is to the Christian", he wrote. "Grace determines the Christian's action; reason the philosophe's".[110] Diderot was briefly imprisoned for his writing, some of which was banned and burned.[citation needed]

In Scotland, David Hume produced a six volume history of England in 1754, which gave little attention to God. He implied that if God existed he was impotent in the face of European upheaval. Hume ridiculed miracles, but walked a careful line so as to avoid being too dismissive of Christianity. With Hume's presence, Edinburgh gained a reputation as a "haven of atheism", alarming many ordinary Britons.[111]

The culte de la Raison developed during the uncertain period 1792–94 (Years I and III of the Revolution), following the September massacres, when Revolutionary France was rife with fears of internal and foreign enemies. Several Parisian churches were transformed into Temples of Reason, notably the Church of Saint-Paul Saint-Louis in the Marais. The churches were closed in May 1793 and more securely 24 November 1793, when the Catholic Mass was forbidden.

 
Fête de la Raison ("Festival of Reason"), Notre Dame, 20 Brumaire (1793)

Blainey wrote that "atheism seized the pedestal in revolutionary France in the 1790s. The secular symbols replaced the cross. In the cathedral of Notre Dame the altar, the holy place, was converted into a monument to Reason..." During the Terror of 1792–93, France's Christian calendar was abolished, monasteries, convents and church properties were seized and monks and nuns expelled. Historic churches were dismantled.[112] The Cult of Reason was a creed based on atheism devised during the French Revolution by Jacques Hébert, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, and their supporters. It was stopped by Maximilien Robespierre, a Deist, who instituted the Cult of the Supreme Being.[113] Both cults were the outcome of the "de-Christianization" of French society during the Revolution and part of the Reign of Terror.

The Cult of Reason was celebrated in a carnival atmosphere of parades, ransacking of churches, ceremonious iconoclasm, in which religious and royal images were defaced, and ceremonies which substituted the "martyrs of the Revolution" for Christian martyrs. The earliest public demonstrations took place en province, outside Paris, notably by Hébertists in Lyon, but took a further radical turn with the Fête de la Liberté ("Festival of Liberty") at Notre Dame de Paris, 10 November (20 Brumaire) 1793, in ceremonies devised and organised by Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette.

The pamphlet Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever (1782) is considered to be the first published declaration of atheism in Britain—plausibly the first in English (as distinct from covert or cryptically atheist works). The otherwise unknown William Hammon (possibly a pseudonym) signed the preface and postscript as editor of the work, and the anonymous main text is attributed to Matthew Turner (d. 1788?), a Liverpool physician who may have known Priestley. Historian of atheism David Berman has argued strongly for Turner's authorship, but also suggested that there may have been two authors.[114]

Modern history edit

Nineteenth century edit

 
Monument to Ludwig Feuerbach in Nuremberg.
 
Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species, 1859.
 
Statue of Charles Bradlaugh.

The French Revolution of 1789 catapulted atheistic thought into political notability in some Western countries, and opened the way for the nineteenth century movements of rationalism, freethought, and liberalism. Born in 1792, Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a child of the Age of Enlightenment, was expelled from England's Oxford University in 1811 for submitting to the Dean an anonymous pamphlet that he wrote entitled, The Necessity of Atheism. This pamphlet is considered by scholars as the first atheistic tract published in the English language. An early atheistic influence in Germany was The Essence of Christianity by Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872). He influenced other German nineteenth century atheistic thinkers like Karl Marx, Max Stirner, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900).

The freethinker Charles Bradlaugh (1833–1891) was repeatedly elected to the British Parliament, but was not allowed to take his seat after his request to affirm rather than take the religious oath was turned down (he then offered to take the oath, but this too was denied him). After Bradlaugh was re-elected for the fourth time, a new Speaker allowed Bradlaugh to take the oath and permitted no objections.[115] He became the first outspoken atheist to sit in Parliament, where he participated in amending the Oaths Act.[116]

In 1844, Karl Marx (1818–1883), an atheistic political economist, wrote in his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." Marx believed that people turn to religion in order to dull the pain caused by the reality of social situations; that is, Marx suggests religion is an attempt at transcending the material state of affairs in a society—the pain of class oppression—by effectively creating a dream world, rendering the religious believer amenable to social control and exploitation in this world while they hope for relief and justice in life after death. In the same essay, Marx states, "[m]an creates religion, religion does not create man".[117]

Friedrich Nietzsche, a prominent nineteenth century philosopher, is well known for coining the aphorism "God is dead" (German: "Gott ist tot"); incidentally the phrase was not spoken by Nietzsche directly, but was used as a dialogue for the characters in his works. Nietzsche argued that Christian theism as a belief system had been a moral foundation of the Western world, and that the rejection and collapse of this foundation as a result of modern thinking (the death of God) would naturally cause a rise in nihilism or the lack of values. He called for a re-evaluation of old values and a creation of new ones, hoping that in doing so humans would achieve a higher state he labeled the Overman (Übermensch).

Atheist feminism also began in the nineteenth century. Atheist feminists oppose religion as a main source of female oppression and gender inequality, believing that the majority of religions are sexist and oppressive to women.[118]

Twentieth century edit

The spread of atheism edit

 
Collected works of American secularist and freethinker Robert G. Ingersoll.

Atheism in the twentieth century found recognition in a wide variety of other, broader philosophies in the Western tradition, such as logical positivism, Marxism, anarchism, existentialism, secular humanism, objectivism,[119] feminism,[120] and the general scientific and rationalist movement. Neopositivism and analytical philosophy discarded classical rationalism and metaphysics in favor of empiricism. Proponents such as Bertrand Russell emphatically rejected belief in God.

A. J. Ayer asserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements, citing his adherence to the empirical sciences. J. N. Findlay and J. J. C. Smart argued aganist the existence of God. Naturalists and materialists such as John Dewey considered the natural world to be the basis of everything.[121][122]

State atheism edit

Although revolutionary France had taken steps in the direction of state atheism, it was left to Communist regimes in the twentieth century to embed atheism as an integral element of national policy.

 
Cover of the Soviet League of Militant Atheists magazine Bezbozhnik in 1929.

The Russian Orthodox Church was suppressed by the Soviet government.[123] In 1922, the Soviet regime arrested the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.[124] Following the death of Vladimir Lenin, with his rejection of religious authority as a tool of oppression and his strategy of "patently explain," Soviet leader Joseph Stalin pursued the persecution of the church through the 1920s and 1930s.[125][126] Many priests were killed and imprisoned. Thousands of churches were closed, some turned into hospitals. In 1925 the government founded the League of Militant Atheists. The regime relented in its persecution following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.[123] Stalin re-opened Russia's churches to steel the Soviet population in the battle against Germany.[127][128]

The central figure in Italian Fascism was Benito Mussolini.[129] In his early career, Mussolini was an atheist and a strident opponent of the Church, and the first Fascist program, written in 1919, had called for the secularization of Church property in Italy.[130] Mussolini later moderated his stance, and in office, permitted the teaching of religion in schools and came to terms with the Papacy in the Lateran Treaty.[129] Pope Pius XI condemned Mussolini's Fascist movement's "pagan worship of the State" and "revolution which snatches the young from the Church and from Jesus Christ" in his encyclical in 1931.[131]

The Nazi Germany held a range of views on religion.[132] Hitler's movement said it endorsed a form of Christianity stripped of its Jewish origins and certain key doctrines such as belief in the divinity of Christ.[132][133] In practice, however, the Nazi regime worked to reduce the influence of Christianity in Germany, seeing it as a barrier to their taking over associations and schools belonging to the churches as part of their path of total control over society.[134] Richard J. Evans wrote that "Hitler emphasised again and again his belief that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on modern science. Science, he declared, would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition ... 'In the long run', [Hitler] concluded in July 1941, 'National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together' [... The ideal solution would be to leave the religions to devour themselves, without persecutions'".[135][136]

The majority of Nazi Party members did not leave their churches. Evans wrote that, by 1939, 95 percent of Germans still called themselves Protestant or Catholic, while 3.5 percent were gottgläubig (lit. "believing in god") and 1.5 percent atheist. Most in these latter categories were "convinced Nazis who had left their Church at the behest of the Party, which had been trying since the mid 1930s to reduce the influence of Christianity in society".[137] The majority of the three million Nazi Party members continued to pay their church taxes and register as either Roman Catholic or Evangelical Protestant Christians.[138] Gottgläubig was a nondenominational Nazified outlook on god beliefs, often described as predominantly based on creationist and deistic views.[139] Heinrich Himmler was a strong promoter of the gottgläubig movement and did not allow atheists into the SS, arguing that their "refusal to acknowledge higher powers" would be a "potential source of indiscipline".[140]

 
The Foucault pendulum inside the cathedral in USSR.

Across Eastern Europe following World War II, new Communist states were antipathetic to religion. Persecutions of religious leaders followed.[141][142][123] Nearly all schools of the churches and many of the church buildings were closed Children were taught atheism, and clergy were imprisoned by the thousands.[143] Albania under Enver Hoxha became in 1967 a formally declared atheist state, the only such as of 2022,[144][145][146] going far beyond what most other countries had attempted—completely prohibiting religious observance and systematically repressing and persecuting adherents. Article 37 of the Albanian Constitution of 1976 stipulated, "The state recognizes no religion, and supports atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people."[147][148]

Further post-war communist victories in the East saw religion purged by regimes across China, North Korea and much of Indo-China.[143] In 1949, mainland China became a Communist state under the leadership of Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party. Under Mao, China became officially atheist, and though some religious practices were permitted to continue under state supervision, religious groups deemed a threat to order have been suppressed — as with Tibetan Buddhism from 1959 and Falun Gong in the 21st century.[149] Religious schools and social institutions were closed, foreign missionaries expelled, and local religious practices discouraged.[143] During the Cultural Revolution, Mao instigated "struggles" against the Four Olds: "old ideas, customs, culture, and habits of mind".[150] In 1999, the Communist Party launched a three-year drive to promote atheism in Tibet, saying intensifying propaganda on atheism is "especially important for Tibet because atheism plays an extremely important role in promoting economic construction, social advancement and socialist spiritual civilization in the region".[151] According to Encyclopædia Britannica in 2022, around half of the population claimed to be nonreligious or atheist.[149]

Secularism edit

 
E. V. Ramasami

In India, E. V. Ramasami (Periyar), a prominent atheist leader, fought against Hinduism and the Brahmins for discriminating and dividing people in the name of caste and religion.[152][153]

During the Cold War, wrote Thomas Aiello the United States often characterized its opponents as "godless communists", which tended to reinforce the view that atheists were unreliable and unpatriotic.[154] Against this background, the words "under God" were inserted into the pledge of allegiance in 1954,[155] and the national motto was changed from E Pluribus Unum to In God We Trust in 1956.

Atheist Vashti McCollum was the plaintiff in a landmark 1948 Supreme Court case (McCollum v. Board of Education) that struck down religious education in U.S. public schools.[156][157] Madalyn Murray O'Hair brought forth the 1963 Supreme Court case Murray v. Curlett which banned compulsory prayer in public schools.[158] In 1963 she founded American Atheists, an organization dedicated to defending the civil liberties of atheists and advocating for the complete separation of church and state.[159][160] It has been assisted by non-profit organizations such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation in the United States (co-founded by Anne Nicol Gaylor and her daughter, Annie Laurie Gaylor, in 1976 and incorporated nationally in 1978).[161][162]

Twenty-first century edit

 
Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss and Julia Galef in 2015.

The early twenty-first century has continued to see secularism, humanism and atheism promoted in the Western world, with the general consensus being that the number of people not affiliated with any particular religion has increased.[163][164] Atheist organizations aim to promote public understanding and acknowledgment of science through a naturalistic, scientific worldview,[165] defense of irreligious people's human, civil and political rights who share it, and their societal recognition.[166] In addition, a large number of accessible atheist books, many of which have become bestsellers, have been published by scholars and scientists such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Lawrence M. Krauss, Jerry Coyne, and Victor J. Stenger.[167][168][169]

This period saw the rise of "New Atheism", a label that has been applied to outspoken critics of theism and religion,[170] prompted by a series of essays published in late 2006, including The God Delusion, Breaking the Spell, God Is Not Great, The End of Faith, and Letter to a Christian Nation. Atheist feminism has also become more prominent in the 2010s.[171]

On 16 December 2016, Barack Obama signed into law the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, which amends the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 by specifically extending protection to non-theists as well as those who do not claim any particular religion.[172]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ The word αθεοι—in any of its forms—appears nowhere else in the Septuagint or the New Testament.[10]
  2. ^ In part because of its wide use in monotheistic Western society, atheism is usually described as "disbelief in God", rather than more generally as "disbelief in deities". A clear distinction is rarely drawn in modern writings between these two definitions, but some archaic uses of atheism encompassed only disbelief in the singular God, not in polytheistic deities. It is on this basis that the obsolete term adevism was coined in the late 19th century to describe an absence of belief in plural deities.

Footnotes edit

  1. ^ a b Harvey, Van A. Agnosticism and Atheism, in Flynn 2007, p. 35: "The terms ATHEISM and AGNOSTICISM lend themselves to two different definitions. The first takes the privative a both before the Greek theos (divinity) and gnosis (to know) to mean that atheism is simply the absence of belief in the gods and agnosticism is simply lack of knowledge of some specified subject matter. The second definition takes atheism to mean the explicit denial of the existence of gods and agnosticism as the position of someone who, because the existence of gods is unknowable, suspends judgment regarding them ... The first is the more inclusive and recognizes only two alternatives: Either one believes in the gods or one does not. Consequently, there is no third alternative, as those who call themselves agnostics sometimes claim. Insofar as they lack belief, they are really atheists. Moreover, since the absence of belief is the cognitive position in which everyone is born, the burden of proof falls on those who advocate religious belief. The proponents of the second definition, by contrast, regard the first definition as too broad because it includes uninformed children along with aggressive and explicit atheists. Consequently, it is unlikely that the public will adopt it."
  2. ^ a b Simon Blackburn, ed. (2008). "atheism". The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (2008 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-954143-0. Retrieved 21 November 2013. Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none. Sometimes thought itself to be more dogmatic than mere agnosticism, although atheists retort that everyone is an atheist about most gods, so they merely advance one step further.
  3. ^ Most dictionaries (see the OneLook query for "atheism" September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine) first list one of the more narrow definitions.
    • Runes, Dagobert D., ed. (1942). Dictionary of Philosophy. New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams & Co. Philosophical Library. ISBN 978-0-06-463461-8. Retrieved 9 April 2011. (a) the belief that there is no God; (b) Some philosophers have been called "atheistic" because they have not held to a belief in a personal God. Atheism in this sense means "not theistic". The former meaning of the term is a literal rendering. The latter meaning is a less rigorous use of the term though widely current in the history of thought – entry by Vergilius Ferm
  4. ^ . OxfordDictionaries.com. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  5. ^ Rowe 1998: "As commonly understood, atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. So an atheist is someone who disbelieves in God, whereas a theist is someone who believes in God. Another meaning of 'atheism' is simply nonbelief in the existence of God, rather than positive belief in the nonexistence of God. ... an atheist, in the broader sense of the term, is someone who disbelieves in every form of deity, not just the God of traditional Western theology."
  6. ^ J.J.C. Smart (2017). "Atheism and Agnosticism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. from the original on 11 December 2016.
  7. ^ Bullivant, Stephen; Ruse, Michael, eds. (2021). The Cambridge History of Atheism. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108562324. ISBN 978-1-0090-4021-1. S2CID 227318325.
  8. ^ Drachmann, A.B. (1977) [1922]. Atheism in Pagan Antiquity. Chicago: Ares Publishers. ISBN 978-0-89005-201-3. Atheism and atheist are words formed from Greek roots and with Greek derivative endings. Nevertheless, they are not Greek; their formation is not consonant with Greek usage. In Greek they said átheos and atheotēs; to these the English words ungodly and ungodliness correspond rather closely. In exactly the same way as ungodly, átheos was used as an expression of severe censure and moral condemnation; this use is an old one, and the oldest that can be traced. Not till later do we find it employed to denote a certain philosophical creed.
  9. ^ 2:12
  10. ^ Robertson, A.T. (1960) [1932]. "Ephesians: Chapter 2". Word Pictures in the New Testament. Broadman Press. from the original on 12 March 2021. Retrieved 9 April 2011. Old Greek word, not in LXX, only here in N.T. Atheists in the original sense of being without God and also in the sense of hostility to God from failure to worship him. See Paul's words in Ro 1:18–32.
  11. ^ "atheist". American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 2009. from the original on 27 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  12. ^ Martiall, John (1566). A Replie to Mr Calfhills Blasphemous Answer Made Against the Treatise of the Cross. English recusant literature, 1558–1640. Vol. 203. Louvain. p. 49. from the original on 23 April 2017. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  13. ^ Rendered as Atheistes: Golding, Arthur (1571). The Psalmes of David and others, with J. Calvin's commentaries. pp. Ep. Ded. 3. The Atheistes which say ... there is no God. Translated from Latin.
  14. ^ Hanmer, Meredith (1577). The auncient ecclesiasticall histories of the first six hundred years after Christ, written by Eusebius, Socrates, and Evagrius. London. p. 63. OCLC 55193813. The opinion which they conceaue of you, to be Atheists, or godlesse men.
  15. ^ Merriam-Webster Online:Atheism, from the original on 21 November 2013, retrieved 21 November 2013, First Known Use: 1546
  16. ^ Rendered as Athisme: de Mornay, Philippe (1581). A Woorke Concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion: Against Atheists, Epicures, Paynims, Iewes, Mahumetists, and other infidels [De la vérite de la religion chréstienne (1581, Paris)]. Translated from French to English by Arthur Golding & Philip Sidney and published in London, 1587. Athisme, that is to say, vtter godlesnes.
  17. ^ Vergil, Polydore (c. 1534). English history. Retrieved 9 April 2011. Godd would not longe suffer this impietie, or rather atheonisme.
  18. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary also records an earlier, irregular formation, atheonism, dated from about 1534. The later and now obsolete words athean and atheal are dated to 1611 and 1612 respectively. prep. by J.A. Simpson ... (1989). The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-861186-8.
  19. ^ Burton, Robert (1621). deist. Part III, section IV. II. i. Retrieved 9 April 2011. Cousin-germans to these men are many of our great Philosophers and Deists {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  20. ^ Martin, Edward (1662). "Five Letters". His opinion concerning the difference between the Church of England and Geneva [etc.] London. p. 45. To have said my office ... twice a day ... among Rebels, Theists, Atheists, Philologers, Wits, Masters of Reason, Puritanes [etc.].
  21. ^ Bailey, Nathan (1675). An universal etymological English dictionary.
  22. ^ "Secondly, that nothing out of nothing, in the sense of the atheistic objectors, viz. that nothing, which once was not, could by any power whatsoever be brought into being, is absolutely false; and that, if it were true, it would make no more against theism than it does against atheism" Cudworth, Ralph. The true intellectual system of the universe. 1678. Chapter V Section II p. 73
  23. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary (2 ed.). Oxford University Press, USA. 1989. ISBN 0-19-861186-2.
  24. ^ Martin 2006.
  25. ^ Kenneth Kramer (January 1986). World Scriptures: An Introduction to Comparative Religions. Paulist Press. pp. 34–. ISBN 978-0-8091-2781-8.
  26. ^ David Christian (1 September 2011). Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. University of California Press. pp. 18–. ISBN 978-0-520-95067-2.
  27. ^ Upinder Singh (2008). A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Pearson Education India. pp. 206–. ISBN 978-81-317-1120-0.
  28. ^ "The Buddhist Attitude to God". budsas. Retrieved 29 August 2015.
  29. ^ "Principled Atheism in the Buddhist Scholastic Tradition" (PDF). www.unm.edu. Retrieved 25 March 2020.
  30. ^ . AGORA. Archived from the original on 15 June 2006. Retrieved 26 June 2006.
  31. ^ "More Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata - Cambridge Scholars Publishing". www.cambridgescholars.com. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  32. ^ Upanisads Reissue Owc :Pb. OUP Oxford. 17 April 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-954025-9.
  33. ^ Herbjørnsrud, Dag (16 June 2020). "The untold history of India's vital atheist philosophy | Blog of the APA". Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  34. ^ Herbjørnsrud, Dag (24 June 2020). "India's atheist influence on Europe, China, and science | Blog of the APA". Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  35. ^ Jarrett, H. S. (1894). Ain I Akbari Vol. 3.
  36. ^ Wojciehowski, Hannah Chapelle (1 July 2015). "East-West Swerves: Cārvāka Materialism and Akbar's Religious Debates at Fatehpur Sikri". Genre. 48 (2): 131–157. doi:10.1215/00166928-2884820. ISSN 0016-6928.
  37. ^ "Vedantasara by Sadananda". www.swamij.com. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  38. ^ According to Merv Fowler, some forms of Buddhism have incorporated concepts that resemble that of Brahman, which suggests theism. Merv Fowler, Buddhism: Beliefs and Practices (Brighton: Sussex Academic, 1999), p. 34: "It was inevitable that the non-theistic philosophy of orthodox Buddhism should court the older Hindu practices and, in particular, infuse into its philosophy the belief in a totally transcendent Absolute of the nature of Brahman."
  39. ^ Wallace, B. Alan Ph.D. (November 1999). (PDF). National Conference of the American Academy of Religion lectures. Boston. p. 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 22 July 2014."Thus, in light of the theoretical progression from the bhavaºga to the tath›gatagarbha to the primordial wisdom of the absolute space of reality, Buddhism is not so simply non-theistic as it may appear at first glance."
  40. ^ Bhikku, Thanissaro (1997). Tittha Sutta: Sectarians. Then in that case, a person is a killer of living beings because of a supreme being's act of creation... When one falls back on lack of cause and lack of condition as being essential, monks, there is no desire, no effort [at the thought], 'This should be done. This shouldn't be done.' When one can't pin down as a truth or reality what should & shouldn't be done, one dwells bewildered & unprotected. One cannot righteously refer to oneself as a contemplative.
  41. ^ John T Bullitt (2005). "The Thirty-one planes of Existence". Access To Insight. Retrieved 26 May 2010. The suttas describe thirty-one distinct "planes" or "realms" of existence into which beings can be reborn during this long wandering through samsara. These range from the extraordinarily dark, grim, and painful hell realms all the way up to the most sublime, refined, and exquisitely blissful heaven realms. Existence in every realm is impermanent; in Buddhist cosmology there is no eternal heaven or hell. Beings are born into a particular realm according to both their past kamma and their kamma at the moment of death. When the kammic force that propelled them to that realm is finally exhausted, they pass away, taking rebirth once again elsewhere according to their kamma. And so the wearisome cycle continues.
  42. ^ Susan Elbaum Jootla (1997). "II. The Buddha Teaches Deities". In Access To Insight (ed.). . Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society. Archived from the original on 4 February 2013. Many people worship Maha Brahma as the supreme and eternal creator God, but for the Buddha he is merely a powerful deity still caught within the cycle of repeated existence. In point of fact, "Maha Brahma" is a role or office filled by different individuals at different periods.", "His proof included the fact that "many thousands of deities have gone for refuge for life to the recluse Gotama" (MN 95.9). Devas, like humans, develop faith in the Buddha by practicing his teachings.", "A second deva concerned with liberation spoke a verse which is partly praise of the Buddha and partly a request for teaching. Using various similes from the animal world, this god showed his admiration and reverence for the Exalted One.", "A discourse called Sakka's Questions (DN 21) took place after he had been a serious disciple of the Buddha for some time. The sutta records a long audience he had with the Blessed One which culminated in his attainment of stream-entry. Their conversation is an excellent example of the Buddha as "teacher of devas," and shows all beings how to work for Nibbana.
  43. ^ Bhikku, Thanissaro (1997). Kevaddha Sutta. Access To Insight. When this was said, the Great Brahma said to the monk, 'I, monk, am Brahma, the Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Sovereign Lord, the Maker, Creator, Chief, Appointer and Ruler, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be... That is why I did not say in their presence that I, too, don't know where the four great elements... cease without remainder. So you have acted wrongly, acted incorrectly, in bypassing the Blessed One in search of an answer to this question elsewhere. Go right back to the Blessed One and, on arrival, ask him this question. However, he answers it, you should take it to heart.
  44. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Atheism" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  45. ^ Winiarczyk, Marek (2016). Diagoras of Melos: A Contribution to the History of Ancient Atheism. Translated by Zbirohowski-Kościa, Witold. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 61–68. ISBN 978-3-11-044765-1.
  46. ^ Ferguson, Everett (1993). Backgrounds of Early Christianity (second ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. pp. 556–561. ISBN 978-0-8028-0669-7.
  47. ^ a b Sherwin-White, A.N. (April 1964). "Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted? – An Amendment". Past and Present. 27 (1): 23–27. doi:10.1093/past/27.1.23. JSTOR 649759.
  48. ^ Maycock, A.L. and Ronald Knox (2003). Inquisition from Its Establishment to the Great Schism: An Introductory Study October 30, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. ISBN 0-7661-7290-2.
  49. ^ Classic Drama Plays by Greek, Spanish, French, German and English Dramatists ... – Albert Ellery Bergh. Kessinger. August 2004. ISBN 978-1-4179-4186-5. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  50. ^ Fragments of Euhemerus' work in Ennius' Latin translation have been preserved in Patristic writings (e.g. by Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea), which all rely on earlier fragments in Diodorus 5,41–46 & 6.1. Testimonies, especially in the context of polemical criticism, are found e.g. in Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus 8.
  51. ^ Plutarch, Moralia – Isis and Osiris 23
  52. ^ Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel II.45–48 (chapter 2); Euhemerus also acknowledged that the sun, moon, and the other celestial bodies were deities (cf. also Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars, Oxford 1991, p. 55), and he regarded elemental earthly phenomena such as the wind as divine, for they had "eternal origin and eternal continuance". Nevertheless he concluded that the Titans and all next-generation deities such as the Olympian deities existed only as culturally and religiously constructed divine entities with a human past (cp. also Harry Y. Gamble, "Euhemerism and Christology in Origen: 'Contra Celsum' III 22–43", in Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1979), pp. 12–29).
  53. ^ "Euhemeros", in Konrat Ziegler & Walther Sontheimer, Der Kleine Pauly, Bd. 2 (1979), cols. 414–415
  54. ^ Spencer Cole, "Cicero, Ennius and the Concept of Apotheosis at Rome". In Arethusa Vol. 39 No. 3 (2006), pp. 531–548
  55. ^ Anaximander, ap. Hippolytus of Rome, Refutation of all Heresies, i. 6
  56. ^ Anaximenes, ap. Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies, i. 7
  57. ^ Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, v. 14
  58. ^ Diogenes Laërtius, ii. 6–14
  59. ^ Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World. New York 2016.
  60. ^ a b c d e Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 311–317. ISBN 978-0-674-36281-9.
  61. ^ a b c d Bremmer, Jan. Atheism in Antiquity, in Martin 2006, pp. 14–19
  62. ^ Brickhouse, Thomas C.; Smith, Nicholas D. (2004). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates. Routledge. p. 112. ISBN 978-0-415-15681-3. In particular, he argued that the claim he is a complete atheist contradicted the other part of the indictment, that he introduced "new divinities".
  63. ^ Cicero, Lucullus, 121. in Reale, G., A History of Ancient Philosophy. SUNY Press. (1985).
  64. ^ Cicero, De Natura Deorum, i. 42
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References edit

  • Alexander, Nathan G. (2019). Race in a Godless World: Atheism, Race, and Civilization, 1850-1914. New York/Manchester: New York University Press/Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-4237-5
  • Armstrong, K. (1999). A History of God. London: Vintage. ISBN 0-09-927367-5
  • Berman, D. (1990). A History of Atheism in Britain: from Hobbes to Russell. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04727-7
  • Buckley, M. J. (1987). At the origins of modern atheism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • Drachmann, A. B. (1922). Atheism in Pagan Antiquity. Chicago: Ares Publishers, 1977 ("an unchanged reprint of the 1922 edition"). ISBN 0-89005-201-8
  • Flynn, Tom, ed. (25 October 2007). The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-59102-391-3. OL 8851140M.
  • McGrath, A. (2005). The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World. ISBN 0-385-50062-9
  • Rowe, William L. (1998). "Atheism". In Edward Craig (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-07310-3. Retrieved 9 April 2011.
  • Sedley, David (2013). Stephen Bullivant; Michael Ruse (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-964465-0.
  • Stewart, Matthew (2007). The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0393071047.
  • Thrower, James (1971). A Short History of Western Atheism. London: Pemberton. ISBN 1-57392-756-2

Further reading edit

  • Le Beau, Bryan F. (2003). The Atheist: Madalyn Murray O'Hair. ISBN 978-0-8147-5285-2.
  • LeDrew, Stephen. The evolution of atheism: The politics of a modern movement (Oxford University Press, 2015).
  • Ford, James C. (2023). Atheism at the agora: a history of unbelief in ancient Greek polytheism. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781032492995.
  • Meagher, Richard J. Atheists in American politics: Social movement organizing from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries (Lexington Books, 2018).
  • Obbink, Dirk (1989). "The Atheism of Epicurus". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 30 (2): 187–223.
  • Stroumsa, Sarah (1999). Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn Al-Rāwandī, Abū Bakr Al-Rāzī, and Their Impact on Islamic Thought. Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004452848. ISBN 978-90-04-31547-1.
  • Winiarczyk, Marek (2016). Diagoras of Melos: A Contribution to the History of Ancient Atheism. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde. Vol. 350. Translated by Zbirohowski-Kościa, Witold. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110448047. ISBN 978-3-11-044377-6.

External links edit

  • Dr. Gordon Stein, at positiveatheism.org.
  • Dag Herbjørnsrud, "The untold history of India's vital atheist philosophy" at the Blog of the American Philosophical Association (APA), June 2020.

history, atheism, atheism, absence, belief, existence, deities, narrower, sense, atheism, specifically, position, that, there, deities, statements, contrary, false, ones, english, term, atheist, used, least, early, sixteenth, century, atheistic, ideas, their, . Atheism is an absence of belief in the existence of deities 1 2 3 4 In a narrower sense atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities and any statements to the contrary are false ones 1 2 5 6 The English term atheist was used at least as early as the sixteenth century and atheistic ideas and their influence have a longer history Philosophical atheist thought began to appear in Europe and Asia in the sixth or fifth century BCE In ancient Greece Materialistic and antireligious philosophical Carvaka school originated in ancient India Materialistic philosophy was produced by the atomists Leucippus and Democritus in 5th century BCE who explained the world in terms of the movements of atoms moving in infinite space The Enlightenment fueled skepticism and secularism against religion in Europe 7 page needed Contents 1 Etymology 2 Indian philosophy 2 1 Carvaka 2 2 Buddhism 2 3 Jainism 3 Classical Greece and Rome 3 1 Poets and playwrights 3 2 Euhemerus 3 3 Philosophy 3 3 1 The Sophists 3 3 2 Epicureanism 3 3 3 Pyrrhonism 3 4 Medicine 4 The Middle Ages 4 1 Islamic world 4 2 Europe 5 Renaissance and Reformation 6 The Age of Enlightenment 7 Modern history 7 1 Nineteenth century 7 2 Twentieth century 7 2 1 The spread of atheism 7 2 2 State atheism 7 2 3 Secularism 7 3 Twenty first century 8 See also 9 Notes 10 Footnotes 11 References 12 Further reading 13 External linksEtymology editIn early ancient Greek the adjective atheos ἄ8eos from the privative ἀ 8eos god meant godless It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning ungodly or impious In the 5th century BCE the word began to indicate more deliberate and active godlessness in the sense of severing relations with the gods or denying the gods The term ἀsebhs asebes then came to be applied against those who impiously denied or disrespected the local gods even if they believed in other gods Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render atheos as atheistic As an abstract noun there was also ἀ8eoths atheotes atheism Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin atheos The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists with each side attributing it in the pejorative sense to the other 8 nbsp The Greek word a8eoi atheoi as it appears in the Epistle to the Ephesians 2 12 9 on the early 3rd century Papyrus 46 It is usually translated into English as those who are without God a The term atheist from the French athee in the sense of one who denies the existence of God or gods 11 predates atheism in English being first found as early as 1566 12 and again in 1571 13 Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577 14 The term atheism was derived from the French atheisme 15 and appears in English about 1587 16 An earlier work from about 1534 used the term atheonism 17 18 Related words emerged later deist in 1621 19 theist in 1662 20 deism in 1675 21 and theism in 1678 22 Deism and theism changed meanings slightly around 1700 due to the influence of atheism deism was originally used as a synonym for today s theism but came to denote a separate philosophical doctrine 23 Atheism was first used to describe a self avowed belief in late 18th century Europe specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god b In the 20th century globalization contributed to the expansion of the term to refer to disbelief in all deities though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as disbelief in God 24 Indian philosophy editMain article Atheism in Hinduism Who really knows Who will here proclaim it Whence was it produced Whence is this creation The gods came afterwards with the creation of this universe Who then knows whence it has arisen Nasadiya Sukta concerns the origin of the universe Rig Veda 10 129 6 25 26 27 In the East a contemplative life not centered on the idea of deities began in the sixth century BCE with the rise of Jainism Buddhism and various sects of Hinduism in India and of Taoism in China These religions offered a philosophic and salvific path not involving deity worship Deities are not seen as necessary to the salvific goal of the early Buddhist tradition their reality is explicitly questioned and often rejected There is a fundamental incompatibility between the notion of gods and basic Buddhist principles at least in some interpretations 28 Some Buddhist philosophers assert that belief in an eternal creator god is a distraction from the central task of the religious life 29 Within the astika orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy the Samkhya and the early Mimamsa school did not accept a creator deity in their respective systems The principal text of the Samkhya school the Samkhya Karika was written by Ishvara Krishna in the fourth century CE by which time it was already a dominant Hindu school The origins of the school are much older and are lost in legend The school was both dualistic and atheistic They believed in a dual existence of Prakriti nature and Purusha consciousness and had no place for an Ishvara God in its system arguing that the existence of Ishvara cannot be proved and hence cannot be admitted to exist The school dominated Hindu philosophy in its day but declined after the tenth century although commentaries were still being written as late as the sixteenth century The foundational text for the Mimamsa school is the Purva Mimamsa Sutras of Jaimini c third to first century BCE The school reached its height c 700 CE and for some time in the Early Middle Ages exerted near dominant influence on learned Hindu thought The Mimamsa school saw their primary enquiry was into the nature of dharma based on close interpretation of the Vedas Its core tenets were ritualism orthopraxy antiasceticism and antimysticism The early Mimamsakas believed in an adrishta unseen that is the result of performing karmas works and saw no need for an Ishvara God in their system Mimamsa persists in some subschools of Hinduism today Carvaka edit The thoroughly materialistic and antireligious philosophical Carvaka also known as Lokayata school that originated in India with the Barhaspatya sutras final centuries BCE is probably the most explicitly atheist school of philosophy in the region if not the world These ancient schools of generic skepticism had started to develop far earlier than the Mauryan period Already in the sixth century BCE Ajita Kesakambalin was quoted in Pali scriptures by the Buddhists with whom he was debating teaching that with the break up of the body the wise and the foolish alike are annihilated destroyed They do not exist after death 30 Carvakan philosophy is now known principally from its Astika and Buddhist opponents The proper aim of a Carvakan according to these sources was to live a prosperous happy productive life in this world In the book More Studies on the Carvaka Lokayata Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2020 Ramkrishna Bhattacharya argues that there have been many varieties of materialist thought in India and that there is no foundation to the accusations of hedonism nor to the claim that these schools reject inference anumana per se as a way of knowledge pramaṇas 31 The Tattvopaplavasimha of Jayarashi Bhatta c 8th century is sometimes cited as a surviving Carvaka text as Ethan Mills does in Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India Nagarjuna Jayarasi and Sri Harsa 2018 2 It has been claimed that the school died out sometime around the fifteenth century In the oldest of the Upanishads in chapter 2 of the Brhadaranyaka ca 700 BCE the leading theorist Yajnavalkya states in a passage often referred to by the irreligious so I say after death there is no awareness 32 In the main work by the father of linguistics Panini ca 4th c BCE the main Kasika commentary on his affix regarding nastika explains an atheist is one whose belief is that there is no Hereafter 4 4 60 Carvaka arguments are also present in the oldest Sanskrit epic Ramayana early parts from 3rd c BCE in which the hero Rama is lectured by the sage Javali who states that the worship of gods is laid down in the Shastras by clever people just to rule over other people and make them submissive and disposed to charity The Veda philosopher Adi Shankara ca 790 820 who consolidated the non dualist Advaita Vedanta tradition spends several pages trying to refute the non religious schools as he argues against Unlearned people and the Lokayatikas 33 According to the historian Dag Herbjornsrud the atheist Carvaka schools were present at the court of the Muslim born Mughal ruler Akbar 1542 1605 an inquiring skeptic who believed in the pursuit of reason over reliance on tradition 34 When he invited philosophers and representatives of the different religions to his new House of Worship Ibadat Khana in Fatehpur Sikri Carvakas were present as well According to the chronicler Abul Fazl 1551 1602 those discussing religious and existential matters at Akbar s court included the atheists They do not believe in a God nor in immaterial substances and affirm faculty of thought to result from the equilibrium of the aggregate elements They admit only of such sciences as tend to the promotion of external order that is a knowledge of just administration and benevolent government They are somewhat analogous to the sophists in their views and have written many works in reproach of others 35 Herbjornsrud argues that the Carvaka schools never disappeared in India and that the atheist traditions of India influenced Europe from the late 16th century The Europeans were surprised by the openness and rational doubts of Akbar and the Indians In Pierre De Jarric s Histoire 1610 based on the Jesuit reports the Mughal emperor is actually compared to an atheist himself Thus we see in this Prince the common fault of the atheist who refuses to make reason subservient to faith Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski concludes as follows concerning the Jesuit descriptions in her paper East West Swerves Carvaka Materialism and Akbar s Religious Debates at Fatehpur Sikri 2015 The information they sent back to Europe was disseminated widely in both Catholic and Protestant countries A more detailed understanding of Indian philosophies including Carvaka began to emerge in Jesuit missionary writings by the early to mid seventeenth century 36 The Jesuit Roberto De Nobili wrote in 1613 that the Logaidas Lokayatas hold the view that the elements themselves are god Some decades later Heinrich Roth who studied Sanskrit in Agra ca 1654 60 translated the Vedantasara by the influential Vedantic commentator Sadananda 14th a text that depicts four different schools of the Carvaka philosophies 37 Wojciehowski notes Rather than proclaiming a Carvaka renaissance in Akbar s court it would be safer to suggest that the ancient school of materialism never really went away Buddhism edit Main articles Creator in Buddhism and Buddhist cosmology Buddhism is sometimes described as nontheistic because of the absence of a creator god but that can be too simplistic a view 38 39 The nonadherence 40 to the notion of a supreme deity or a prime mover is seen by many as a key distinction between Buddhism and other religions While Buddhist traditions do not deny the existence of supernatural beings many are discussed in Buddhist scripture it does not ascribe powers in the typical Western sense for creation salvation or judgement to the gods however praying to enlightened deities is sometimes seen as leading to some degree of spiritual merit Buddhists accept the existence of beings in higher realms known as devas but they like humans are said to be suffering in samsara 41 and not particularly wiser than we are In fact the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the deities 42 and superior to them 43 Despite this they do have some enlightened Devas in the path of buddhahood Jainism edit See also Jainism and non creationism Jains see their tradition as eternal Organized Jainism can be dated back to Mahavira a teacher of the sixth century BCE and a contemporary of the Buddha Jainism is a dualistic religion with the universe made up of matter and souls The universe and the matter and souls within it is eternal and uncreated and there is no omnipotent creator deity in Jainism There are however gods and other spirits who exist within the universe and Jains believe that the soul can attain godhood however none of these supernatural beings exercise any sort of creative activity or have the capacity or ability to intervene in answers to prayers citation needed Classical Greece and Rome editIn Western Classical Antiquity theism was the fundamental belief that supported the legitimacy of the state the polis later the Roman Empire Historically any person who did not believe in any deity supported by the state was fair game to accusations of atheism a capital crime Charges of atheism meaning any subversion of religion were often used similarly to charges of heresy and impiety as a political tool to eliminate enemies Early Christians were widely reviled as atheists because they did not participate in the cults of the Greco Roman gods 44 45 46 47 During the Roman Empire Christians were executed for their rejection of the pagan deities in general and the Imperial cult of ancient Rome in particular 47 48 When Christianity became the Roman state religion under Theodosius I in 380 heresy became a punishable offense Poets and playwrights edit nbsp Heinrich Fuger Prometheus Brings Fire to Mankind c 1817 Aristophanes c 448 380 BCE known for his satirical style wrote in his play the Knights Shrines Shrines Surely you don t believe in the gods What s your argument Where s your proof 49 Euhemerus edit Euhemerus c 330 260 BCE published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers conquerors and founders of the past and that their cults and religions were in essence the continuation of vanished kingdoms and earlier political structures 50 Although Euhemerus was later criticized for having spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods 51 his worldview was not atheist in a strict and theoretical sense because he differentiated them from the primordial deities holding that they were eternal and imperishable 52 Some historians have argued that he merely aimed at reinventing the old religions in the light of the beginning of deification of political rulers such as Alexander the Great 53 Euhemerus work was translated into Latin by Ennius possibly to mythographically pave the way for the planned divinization of Scipio Africanus in Rome 54 Philosophy edit The roots of Western philosophy began in the Greek world in the sixth century BCE The first Hellenic philosophers were not atheists but they attempted to explain the world in terms of the processes of nature instead of by mythological accounts Thus lightning was the result of wind breaking out and parting the clouds 55 and earthquakes occurred when the earth is considerably altered by heating and cooling 56 The early philosophers often criticized traditional religious notions Xenophanes 6th century BCE famously said that if cows and horses had hands then horses would draw the forms of gods like horses and cows like cows 57 Another philosopher Anaxagoras 5th century BCE claimed that the Sun was a fiery mass larger than the Peloponnese a charge of impiety was brought against him and he was forced to flee Athens 58 The first fully materialistic philosophy was produced by the atomists Leucippus and Democritus 5th century BCE who attempted to explain the formation and development of the world in terms of the chance movements of atoms moving in infinite space For political reasons Socrates was accused of being atheos refusing to acknowledge the gods recognized by the state 59 The Athenian public associated Socrates c 470 399 BCE with the trends in pre Socratic philosophy towards naturalistic inquiry and the rejection of divine explanations for phenomena 60 61 Aristophanes comic play The Clouds performed 423 BCE portrayed Socrates as teaching his students that the traditional Greek deities did not exist 60 61 Socrates was later tried and executed under the charge of not believing in the gods of the state and instead worshipping foreign gods 60 61 Socrates himself vehemently denied the charges of atheism at his trial 60 61 62 All the surviving sources about him indicate that he was a very devout man who prayed to the rising sun and believed that the oracle at Delphi spoke the word of Apollo 60 While only a few of the ancient Greco Roman schools of philosophy were subject to accusations of atheism there were some individual philosophers who espoused atheist views The Peripatetic philosopher Strato of Lampsacus did not believe in the existence of gods 63 The Cyrenaic philosopher Theodorus the Atheist c 300 BCE is supposed to have denied that gods exist and wrote a book On the Gods expounding his views The Sophists edit In the fifth century BCE the Sophists began to question many of the traditional assumptions of Greek culture Prodicus of Ceos was said to have believed that it was the things which were serviceable to human life that had been regarded as gods 64 and Protagoras stated at the beginning of a book that With regard to the gods I am unable to say either that they exist or do not exist 65 Diagoras of Melos allegedly chopped up a wooden statue of Heracles and used it to roast his lentils and revealed the secrets of the Eleusinian Mysteries The Athenians accused him of impiety and banished him from their city Critias was said as well to deny that the gods existed 66 Epicureanism edit The most important Greek thinker in the development of atheism was Epicurus c 300 BCE 67 Drawing on the ideas of Democritus and the Atomists he espoused a materialistic philosophy according to which the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention see scientific determinism 68 Although Epicurus still maintained that the gods existed 67 68 he believed that they were uninterested in human affairs 68 The aim of the Epicureans was to attain ataraxia a mental state of being untroubled One important way of doing this was by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and the need to fear divine punishment after death 68 One of the most eloquent expressions of Epicurean thought is Lucretius On the Nature of Things 1st century BCE in which he held that gods exist but argued that religious fear was one of the chief causes of human unhappiness and that the gods did not involve themselves in the world 69 70 The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and hence dismissed the fear of death 71 Epicureans denied being atheists but their critics insisted they were One explanation for this alleged crypto atheism is that they feared persecution 72 and while they avoided this their teachings were controversial and harshly attacked by some of the other schools particularly Stoicism and Neoplatonism Pyrrhonism edit Similar to the Epicureans the Pyrrhonists employed a tactic to avoid persecution for atheism in which they in conformity with ancestral customs and laws declared that the gods exist and performed everything which contributes to their worship and veneration but with regard to philosophy declined to commit themselves to the gods existence 73 The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus compiled a large number of ancient arguments against the existence of gods recommending that one should suspend judgment regarding the matter 74 His large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers 75 Medicine edit In pre Hippocratic times Greeks believed that gods controlled all aspects of human existence including health and disease 76 One of the earliest works that challenged the religious view was On the Sacred Disease written about 400 B C The anonymous author argued that the sacred disease of epilepsy has a natural cause and that the idea of its supposed divine origin is based on human inexperience 76 The Middle Ages editIslamic world edit See also Pre Islamic Arabia and Religion in pre Islamic Arabia In the early history of Islam Muslim scholars recognized the idea of atheism and frequently attacked unbelievers 77 although they were unable to name any atheists 78 When individuals were accused of atheism they were usually viewed as heretics rather than proponents of atheism 78 79 However there were freethinkers and outspoken critics of the Islamic religion such as deists philosophers rationalists and atheists in the medieval Islamic world 78 79 one notable figure being the 9th century scholar Ibn al Rawandi who criticized the notion of religious prophecy including that of Muhammad and maintained that religious dogmas were not acceptable to reason and must be rejected 78 79 80 Other critics of religion in the Islamic world include the poet Al Maʿarri 973 1057 the scholar Abu Isa al Warraq fl 9th century and the physician and philosopher Abu Bakr al Razi 865 925 78 79 However al Razi s atheism may have been deliberately misdescribed by an Ismaili missionary named Abu Hatim 81 circular reference Al Maʿarri wrote and taught that religion itself was a fable invented by the ancients 82 and that humans were of two sorts those with brains but no religion and those with religion but no brains 83 Europe edit nbsp Hrafnkell as depicted in an 1898 illustration The titular character of the Icelandic saga Hrafnkell written in the late thirteenth century says I think it is folly to have faith in gods After his temple to Freyr is burnt and he is enslaved he vows never to perform another sacrifice a position described in the sagas as godlauss godless Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology observes It is remarkable that Old Norse legend occasionally mentions certain men who turning away in utter disgust and doubt from the heathen faith placed their reliance on their own strength and virtue Thus in the Solar liod 17 we read of Vebogi and Radey a sik thau trudu in themselves they trusted 84 citing several other examples including two kings Subsequent to Grimm s investigation scholars including J R R Tolkien citation needed and E O G Turville Petre citation needed have identified the godlauss ethic as a stream of atheistic and or humanistic philosophy in the Icelandic sagas People described as godlauss expressed not only a lack of faith in deities but also a pragmatic belief in their own faculties of strength reason and virtue and in social codes of honor independent of any supernatural agency Another phenomenon in the Middle Ages was proofs of the existence of God Both Anselm of Canterbury and later William of Ockham acknowledge adversaries who doubt the existence of God Thomas Aquinas five proofs of God s existence and Anselm s ontological argument implicitly acknowledged the validity of the question about God s existence 85 Frederick Copleston however explains that Thomas laid out his proofs not to counter atheism but to address certain early Christian writers such as John of Damascus who asserted that knowledge of God s existence was naturally innate in man based on his natural desire for happiness 86 Thomas stated that although there is desire for happiness which forms the basis for a proof of God s existence in man further reflection is required to understand that this desire is only fulfilled in God not for example in wealth or sensual pleasure 86 However Aquinas s Five Ways also address hypothetical atheist arguments citing evil in the universe and claiming that God s existence is unnecessary to explain things 87 See also Summa Theologica The charge of atheism was used to attack political or religious opponents Pope Boniface VIII because he insisted on the political supremacy of the church was accused by his enemies after his death of holding unlikely positions such as neither believing in the immortality nor incorruptibility of the soul nor in a life to come 88 Sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians were also accused of being atheistic 89 John Arnold s 2005 Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe discusses individuals who were indifferent to the Church and did not participate in faith practices Arnold notes that while these examples could be perceived as simply people being lazy it demonstrates that belief was not universally fervent Arnold enumerates examples of people not attending church and even those who excluded the Church from their marriage Disbelief Arnold argues stemmed from boredom Arnold argues that while some blasphemy implies the existence of God laws demonstrate that there were also cases of blasphemy that directly attacked articles of faith Italian preachers in the fourteenth century also warned of unbelievers and people who lacked belief 90 Renaissance and Reformation editDuring the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation criticism of the religious establishment became more frequent in predominantly Christian countries but did not amount to atheism per se The term atheisme was coined in France in the sixteenth century The word atheist appears in English books at least as early as 1566 91 The concept of atheism re emerged initially as a reaction to the intellectual and religious turmoil of the Age of Enlightenment and the Reformation as a charge used by those who saw the denial of god and godlessness in the controversial positions being put forward by others During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the word atheist was used exclusively as an insult nobody wanted to be regarded as an atheist 92 Although one overtly atheistic compendium known as the Theophrastus redivivus was published by an anonymous author in the seventeenth century atheism was an epithet implying a lack of moral restraint 93 According to Geoffrey Blainey the Reformation in Europe had paved the way for atheists by attacking the authority of the Catholic Church which in turn quietly inspired other thinkers to attack the authority of the new Protestant churches Deism gained influence in France Prussia and England and proffered belief in a noninterventionist deity but while some deists were atheists in disguise most were religious and by today s standards would be called true believers The scientific and mathematical discoveries of such as Copernicus Newton and Descartes sketched a pattern of natural laws that lent weight to this new outlook 94 nbsp The Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza contended in the 17th century that God did not interfere in the running of the world but rather that natural laws explained the workings of the universe How dangerous it was to be accused of being an atheist at this time is illustrated by the examples of Etienne Dolet who was strangled and burned in 1546 The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes 1588 1679 was also accused of atheism but he denied it His theism was unusual in that he held god to be material Even earlier the British playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe 1563 1593 was accused of atheism when a tract denying the divinity of Christ was found in his home Before he could finish defending himself against the charge Marlowe was murdered Giulio Cesare Vanini also accused of being an atheist was burned at the stake in 1619 Blainey wrote that the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza was probably the first well known semi atheist to announce himself in a Christian land in the modern era although nowhere in his work does Spinoza argue against the existence of God 95 96 97 It is a widespread belief that Spinoza equated God with the material universe and so his beliefs have been categorized as Pantheist 98 99 Spinoza had been expelled from his synagogue for his protests against the teachings of its rabbis and for failing to attend Saturday services He believed that God did not interfere in the running of the world but rather that natural laws explained the workings of the universe In 1661 he published his Short Treatise on God but he was not a popular figure for the first century following his death An unbeliever was expected to be a rebel in almost everything and wicked in all his ways wrote Blainey but here was a virtuous one He lived the good life and made his living in a useful way It took courage to be a Spinoza or even one of his supporters If a handful of scholars agreed with his writings they did not so say in public 100 In early modern times the first explicit atheist known by name was the German languaged Danish critic of religion Matthias Knutzen 1646 after 1674 who published three atheist writings in 1674 101 Knutzen was called The only person on record who openly professed and taught atheism in the 1789 Students Pocket Dictionary of Universal History by Thomas Mortimer 102 In 1689 the Polish nobleman Kazimierz Lyszczynski who had denied the existence of God in his philosophical treatise De non existentia Dei was imprisoned unlawfully despite Warsaw Confederation tradition and King Sobieski s intercession Lyszczynski was condemned to death for atheism and beheaded in Warsaw after his tongue was pulled out with a burning iron and his hands slowly burned In De non existentia Dei he had demonstrated strong atheism II the Man is a creator of God and God is a concept and creation of a Man Hence the people are architects and engineers of God and God is not a true being but a being existing only within mind being chimaeric by its nature because a God and a chimaera are the same 103 IV simple folk are cheated by the more cunning with the fabrication of God for their own oppression whereas the same oppression is shielded by the folk in a way that if the wise attempted to free them by the truth they would be quelled by the very people 104 105 The Age of Enlightenment editMain article Atheism in the Age of the Enlightenment nbsp Louis Carmontelle Portrait of Baron d Holbach 1766 nbsp Jean Simon Berthelemy Portrait of man with Bust of Denis Diderot 1784 nbsp The title page of the Encyclopedie While not gaining converts from large portions of the population versions of deism became influential in certain intellectual circles Jean Jacques Rousseau challenged the Christian notion that human beings had been tainted by sin and instead proposed that humans were originally good only later to be corrupted by civilization The influential figure of Voltaire spread deistic notions to a wide audience After the French Revolution and its outbursts of atheism Voltaire was widely condemned as one of the causes wrote Blainey Nonetheless his writings did concede that fear of God was an essential policeman in a disorderly world If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him wrote Voltaire 106 Voltaire s assertion occurs in his Epitre a l Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs written in response to the Treatise of the Three Impostors a document most likely authored by John Toland that denied all three Abrahamic religions 107 In 1766 Voltaire tried unsuccessfully to have the judgment reversed in the case of the French nobleman Francois Jean de la Barre who was tortured beheaded and his body burned for alleged vandalism of a crucifix Arguably the first book in modern times solely dedicated to promoting atheism was written by French Catholic priest Jean Meslier 1664 1729 whose posthumously published lengthy philosophical essay part of the original title Thoughts and Feelings of Jean Meslier Clear and Evident Demonstrations of the Vanity and Falsity of All the Religions of the World 108 rejects the concept of God both in the Christian and also in the Deistic sense the soul miracles and the discipline of theology 109 Philosopher Michel Onfray states that Meslier s work marks the beginning of the history of true atheism 109 By the 1770s atheism in some predominantly Christian countries was ceasing to be a dangerous accusation that required denial and was evolving into a position openly avowed by some The first open denial of the existence of God and avowal of atheism since classical times may be that of Baron d Holbach 1723 1789 in his 1770 work The System of Nature D Holbach was a Parisian social figure who conducted a famous salon widely attended by many intellectual notables of the day including Denis Diderot Jean Jacques Rousseau David Hume Adam Smith and Benjamin Franklin Nevertheless his book was published under a pseudonym and was banned and publicly burned by the executioner citation needed Diderot one of the Enlightenment s most prominent philosophes and editor in chief of the Encyclopedie which sought to challenge religious particularly Catholic dogma said Reason is to the estimation of the philosophe what grace is to the Christian he wrote Grace determines the Christian s action reason the philosophe s 110 Diderot was briefly imprisoned for his writing some of which was banned and burned citation needed In Scotland David Hume produced a six volume history of England in 1754 which gave little attention to God He implied that if God existed he was impotent in the face of European upheaval Hume ridiculed miracles but walked a careful line so as to avoid being too dismissive of Christianity With Hume s presence Edinburgh gained a reputation as a haven of atheism alarming many ordinary Britons 111 The culte de la Raison developed during the uncertain period 1792 94 Years I and III of the Revolution following the September massacres when Revolutionary France was rife with fears of internal and foreign enemies Several Parisian churches were transformed into Temples of Reason notably the Church of Saint Paul Saint Louis in the Marais The churches were closed in May 1793 and more securely 24 November 1793 when the Catholic Mass was forbidden nbsp Fete de la Raison Festival of Reason Notre Dame 20 Brumaire 1793 Blainey wrote that atheism seized the pedestal in revolutionary France in the 1790s The secular symbols replaced the cross In the cathedral of Notre Dame the altar the holy place was converted into a monument to Reason During the Terror of 1792 93 France s Christian calendar was abolished monasteries convents and church properties were seized and monks and nuns expelled Historic churches were dismantled 112 The Cult of Reason was a creed based on atheism devised during the French Revolution by Jacques Hebert Pierre Gaspard Chaumette and their supporters It was stopped by Maximilien Robespierre a Deist who instituted the Cult of the Supreme Being 113 Both cults were the outcome of the de Christianization of French society during the Revolution and part of the Reign of Terror The Cult of Reason was celebrated in a carnival atmosphere of parades ransacking of churches ceremonious iconoclasm in which religious and royal images were defaced and ceremonies which substituted the martyrs of the Revolution for Christian martyrs The earliest public demonstrations took place en province outside Paris notably by Hebertists in Lyon but took a further radical turn with the Fete de la Liberte Festival of Liberty at Notre Dame de Paris 10 November 20 Brumaire 1793 in ceremonies devised and organised by Pierre Gaspard Chaumette The pamphlet Answer to Dr Priestley s Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever 1782 is considered to be the first published declaration of atheism in Britain plausibly the first in English as distinct from covert or cryptically atheist works The otherwise unknown William Hammon possibly a pseudonym signed the preface and postscript as editor of the work and the anonymous main text is attributed to Matthew Turner d 1788 a Liverpool physician who may have known Priestley Historian of atheism David Berman has argued strongly for Turner s authorship but also suggested that there may have been two authors 114 Modern history editNineteenth century edit nbsp Monument to Ludwig Feuerbach in Nuremberg nbsp Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species 1859 nbsp Statue of Charles Bradlaugh The French Revolution of 1789 catapulted atheistic thought into political notability in some Western countries and opened the way for the nineteenth century movements of rationalism freethought and liberalism Born in 1792 Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley a child of the Age of Enlightenment was expelled from England s Oxford University in 1811 for submitting to the Dean an anonymous pamphlet that he wrote entitled The Necessity of Atheism This pamphlet is considered by scholars as the first atheistic tract published in the English language An early atheistic influence in Germany was The Essence of Christianity by Ludwig Feuerbach 1804 1872 He influenced other German nineteenth century atheistic thinkers like Karl Marx Max Stirner Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 1860 and Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 1900 The freethinker Charles Bradlaugh 1833 1891 was repeatedly elected to the British Parliament but was not allowed to take his seat after his request to affirm rather than take the religious oath was turned down he then offered to take the oath but this too was denied him After Bradlaugh was re elected for the fourth time a new Speaker allowed Bradlaugh to take the oath and permitted no objections 115 He became the first outspoken atheist to sit in Parliament where he participated in amending the Oaths Act 116 In 1844 Karl Marx 1818 1883 an atheistic political economist wrote in his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel s Philosophy of Right Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions It is the opium of the people Marx believed that people turn to religion in order to dull the pain caused by the reality of social situations that is Marx suggests religion is an attempt at transcending the material state of affairs in a society the pain of class oppression by effectively creating a dream world rendering the religious believer amenable to social control and exploitation in this world while they hope for relief and justice in life after death In the same essay Marx states m an creates religion religion does not create man 117 Friedrich Nietzsche a prominent nineteenth century philosopher is well known for coining the aphorism God is dead German Gott ist tot incidentally the phrase was not spoken by Nietzsche directly but was used as a dialogue for the characters in his works Nietzsche argued that Christian theism as a belief system had been a moral foundation of the Western world and that the rejection and collapse of this foundation as a result of modern thinking the death of God would naturally cause a rise in nihilism or the lack of values He called for a re evaluation of old values and a creation of new ones hoping that in doing so humans would achieve a higher state he labeled the Overman Ubermensch Atheist feminism also began in the nineteenth century Atheist feminists oppose religion as a main source of female oppression and gender inequality believing that the majority of religions are sexist and oppressive to women 118 Twentieth century edit The spread of atheism edit nbsp Collected works of American secularist and freethinker Robert G Ingersoll Atheism in the twentieth century found recognition in a wide variety of other broader philosophies in the Western tradition such as logical positivism Marxism anarchism existentialism secular humanism objectivism 119 feminism 120 and the general scientific and rationalist movement Neopositivism and analytical philosophy discarded classical rationalism and metaphysics in favor of empiricism Proponents such as Bertrand Russell emphatically rejected belief in God A J Ayer asserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements citing his adherence to the empirical sciences J N Findlay and J J C Smart argued aganist the existence of God Naturalists and materialists such as John Dewey considered the natural world to be the basis of everything 121 122 State atheism edit Main article State atheism Although revolutionary France had taken steps in the direction of state atheism it was left to Communist regimes in the twentieth century to embed atheism as an integral element of national policy nbsp Cover of the Soviet League of Militant Atheists magazine Bezbozhnik in 1929 The Russian Orthodox Church was suppressed by the Soviet government 123 In 1922 the Soviet regime arrested the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church 124 Following the death of Vladimir Lenin with his rejection of religious authority as a tool of oppression and his strategy of patently explain Soviet leader Joseph Stalin pursued the persecution of the church through the 1920s and 1930s 125 126 Many priests were killed and imprisoned Thousands of churches were closed some turned into hospitals In 1925 the government founded the League of Militant Atheists The regime relented in its persecution following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 123 Stalin re opened Russia s churches to steel the Soviet population in the battle against Germany 127 128 The central figure in Italian Fascism was Benito Mussolini 129 In his early career Mussolini was an atheist and a strident opponent of the Church and the first Fascist program written in 1919 had called for the secularization of Church property in Italy 130 Mussolini later moderated his stance and in office permitted the teaching of religion in schools and came to terms with the Papacy in the Lateran Treaty 129 Pope Pius XI condemned Mussolini s Fascist movement s pagan worship of the State and revolution which snatches the young from the Church and from Jesus Christ in his encyclical in 1931 131 The Nazi Germany held a range of views on religion 132 Hitler s movement said it endorsed a form of Christianity stripped of its Jewish origins and certain key doctrines such as belief in the divinity of Christ 132 133 In practice however the Nazi regime worked to reduce the influence of Christianity in Germany seeing it as a barrier to their taking over associations and schools belonging to the churches as part of their path of total control over society 134 Richard J Evans wrote that Hitler emphasised again and again his belief that Nazism was a secular ideology founded on modern science Science he declared would easily destroy the last remaining vestiges of superstition In the long run Hitler concluded in July 1941 National Socialism and religion will no longer be able to exist together The ideal solution would be to leave the religions to devour themselves without persecutions 135 136 The majority of Nazi Party members did not leave their churches Evans wrote that by 1939 95 percent of Germans still called themselves Protestant or Catholic while 3 5 percent were gottglaubig lit believing in god and 1 5 percent atheist Most in these latter categories were convinced Nazis who had left their Church at the behest of the Party which had been trying since the mid 1930s to reduce the influence of Christianity in society 137 The majority of the three million Nazi Party members continued to pay their church taxes and register as either Roman Catholic or Evangelical Protestant Christians 138 Gottglaubig was a nondenominational Nazified outlook on god beliefs often described as predominantly based on creationist and deistic views 139 Heinrich Himmler was a strong promoter of the gottglaubig movement and did not allow atheists into the SS arguing that their refusal to acknowledge higher powers would be a potential source of indiscipline 140 nbsp The Foucault pendulum inside the cathedral in USSR Across Eastern Europe following World War II new Communist states were antipathetic to religion Persecutions of religious leaders followed 141 142 123 Nearly all schools of the churches and many of the church buildings were closed Children were taught atheism and clergy were imprisoned by the thousands 143 Albania under Enver Hoxha became in 1967 a formally declared atheist state the only such as of 2022 update 144 145 146 going far beyond what most other countries had attempted completely prohibiting religious observance and systematically repressing and persecuting adherents Article 37 of the Albanian Constitution of 1976 stipulated The state recognizes no religion and supports atheistic propaganda in order to implant a scientific materialistic world outlook in people 147 148 Further post war communist victories in the East saw religion purged by regimes across China North Korea and much of Indo China 143 In 1949 mainland China became a Communist state under the leadership of Mao Zedong s Chinese Communist Party Under Mao China became officially atheist and though some religious practices were permitted to continue under state supervision religious groups deemed a threat to order have been suppressed as with Tibetan Buddhism from 1959 and Falun Gong in the 21st century 149 Religious schools and social institutions were closed foreign missionaries expelled and local religious practices discouraged 143 During the Cultural Revolution Mao instigated struggles against the Four Olds old ideas customs culture and habits of mind 150 In 1999 the Communist Party launched a three year drive to promote atheism in Tibet saying intensifying propaganda on atheism is especially important for Tibet because atheism plays an extremely important role in promoting economic construction social advancement and socialist spiritual civilization in the region 151 According to Encyclopaedia Britannica in 2022 around half of the population claimed to be nonreligious or atheist 149 Secularism edit nbsp E V RamasamiIn India E V Ramasami Periyar a prominent atheist leader fought against Hinduism and the Brahmins for discriminating and dividing people in the name of caste and religion 152 153 During the Cold War wrote Thomas Aiello the United States often characterized its opponents as godless communists which tended to reinforce the view that atheists were unreliable and unpatriotic 154 Against this background the words under God were inserted into the pledge of allegiance in 1954 155 and the national motto was changed from E Pluribus Unum to In God We Trust in 1956 Atheist Vashti McCollum was the plaintiff in a landmark 1948 Supreme Court case McCollum v Board of Education that struck down religious education in U S public schools 156 157 Madalyn Murray O Hair brought forth the 1963 Supreme Court case Murray v Curlett which banned compulsory prayer in public schools 158 In 1963 she founded American Atheists an organization dedicated to defending the civil liberties of atheists and advocating for the complete separation of church and state 159 160 It has been assisted by non profit organizations such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation in the United States co founded by Anne Nicol Gaylor and her daughter Annie Laurie Gaylor in 1976 and incorporated nationally in 1978 161 162 Twenty first century edit nbsp Richard Dawkins Lawrence Krauss and Julia Galef in 2015 The early twenty first century has continued to see secularism humanism and atheism promoted in the Western world with the general consensus being that the number of people not affiliated with any particular religion has increased 163 164 Atheist organizations aim to promote public understanding and acknowledgment of science through a naturalistic scientific worldview 165 defense of irreligious people s human civil and political rights who share it and their societal recognition 166 In addition a large number of accessible atheist books many of which have become bestsellers have been published by scholars and scientists such as Sam Harris Richard Dawkins Daniel Dennett Christopher Hitchens Lawrence M Krauss Jerry Coyne and Victor J Stenger 167 168 169 This period saw the rise of New Atheism a label that has been applied to outspoken critics of theism and religion 170 prompted by a series of essays published in late 2006 including The God Delusion Breaking the Spell God Is Not Great The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation Atheist feminism has also become more prominent in the 2010s 171 On 16 December 2016 Barack Obama signed into law the Frank R Wolf International Religious Freedom Act which amends the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 by specifically extending protection to non theists as well as those who do not claim any particular religion 172 See also edit nbsp Philosophy portalA Brief History of Disbelief 3 part PBS series 2007 List of atheist philosophers Lists of atheistsNotes edit The word a8eoi in any of its forms appears nowhere else in the Septuagint or the New Testament 10 In part because of its wide use in monotheistic Western society atheism is usually described as disbelief in God rather than more generally as disbelief in deities A clear distinction is rarely drawn in modern writings between these two definitions but some archaic uses of atheism encompassed only disbelief in the singular God not in polytheistic deities It is on this basis that the obsolete term adevism was coined in the late 19th century to describe an absence of belief in plural deities Footnotes edit a b Harvey Van A Agnosticism and Atheism in Flynn 2007 p 35 The terms ATHEISM and AGNOSTICISM lend themselves to two different definitions The first takes the privative a both before the Greek theos divinity and gnosis to know to mean that atheism is simply the absence of belief in the gods and agnosticism is simply lack of knowledge of some specified subject matter The second definition takes atheism to mean the explicit denial of the existence of gods and agnosticism as the position of someone who because the existence of gods is unknowable suspends judgment regarding them The first is the more inclusive and recognizes only two alternatives Either one believes in the gods or one does not Consequently there is no third alternative as those who call themselves agnostics sometimes claim Insofar as they lack belief they are really atheists Moreover since the absence of belief is the cognitive position in which everyone is born the burden of proof falls on those who advocate religious belief The proponents of the second definition by contrast regard the first definition as too broad because it includes uninformed children along with aggressive and explicit atheists Consequently it is unlikely that the public will adopt it a b Simon Blackburn ed 2008 atheism The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy 2008 ed Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 954143 0 Retrieved 21 November 2013 Either the lack of belief that there exists a god or the belief that there exists none Sometimes thought itself to be more dogmatic than mere agnosticism although atheists retort that everyone is an atheist about most gods so they merely advance one step further Most dictionaries see the OneLook query for atheism Archived September 30 2007 at the Wayback Machine first list one of the more narrow definitions Runes Dagobert D ed 1942 Dictionary of Philosophy New Jersey Littlefield Adams amp Co Philosophical Library ISBN 978 0 06 463461 8 Retrieved 9 April 2011 a the belief that there is no God b Some philosophers have been called atheistic because they have not held to a belief in a personal God Atheism in this sense means not theistic The former meaning of the term is a literal rendering The latter meaning is a less rigorous use of the term though widely current in the history of thought entry by Vergilius Ferm Atheism OxfordDictionaries com Oxford University Press Archived from the original on 11 September 2016 Retrieved 23 April 2017 Rowe 1998 As commonly understood atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God So an atheist is someone who disbelieves in God whereas a theist is someone who believes in God Another meaning of atheism is simply nonbelief in the existence of God rather than positive belief in the nonexistence of God an atheist in the broader sense of the term is someone who disbelieves in every form of deity not just the God of traditional Western theology J J C Smart 2017 Atheism and Agnosticism Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University Archived from the original on 11 December 2016 Bullivant Stephen Ruse Michael eds 2021 The Cambridge History of Atheism Cambridge University Press doi 10 1017 9781108562324 ISBN 978 1 0090 4021 1 S2CID 227318325 Drachmann A B 1977 1922 Atheism in Pagan Antiquity Chicago Ares Publishers ISBN 978 0 89005 201 3 Atheism and atheist are words formed from Greek roots and with Greek derivative endings Nevertheless they are not Greek their formation is not consonant with Greek usage In Greek they said atheos and atheotes to these the English words ungodly and ungodliness correspond rather closely In exactly the same way as ungodly atheos was used as an expression of severe censure and moral condemnation this use is an old one and the oldest that can be traced Not till later do we find it employed to denote a certain philosophical creed 2 12 Robertson A T 1960 1932 Ephesians Chapter 2 Word Pictures in the New Testament Broadman Press Archived from the original on 12 March 2021 Retrieved 9 April 2011 Old Greek word not in LXX only here in N T Atheists in the original sense of being without God and also in the sense of hostility to God from failure to worship him See Paul s words in Ro 1 18 32 atheist American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 2009 Archived from the original on 27 November 2013 Retrieved 21 November 2013 Martiall John 1566 A Replie to Mr Calfhills Blasphemous Answer Made Against the Treatise of the Cross English recusant literature 1558 1640 Vol 203 Louvain p 49 Archived from the original on 23 April 2017 Retrieved 23 April 2017 Rendered as Atheistes Golding Arthur 1571 The Psalmes of David and others with J Calvin s commentaries pp Ep Ded 3 The Atheistes which say there is no God Translated from Latin Hanmer Meredith 1577 The auncient ecclesiasticall histories of the first six hundred years after Christ written by Eusebius Socrates and Evagrius London p 63 OCLC 55193813 The opinion which they conceaue of you to be Atheists or godlesse men Merriam Webster Online Atheism archived from the original on 21 November 2013 retrieved 21 November 2013 First Known Use 1546 Rendered as Athisme de Mornay Philippe 1581 A Woorke Concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion Against Atheists Epicures Paynims Iewes Mahumetists and other infidels De la verite de la religion chrestienne 1581 Paris Translated from French to English by Arthur Golding amp Philip Sidney and published in London 1587 Athisme that is to say vtter godlesnes Vergil Polydore c 1534 English history Retrieved 9 April 2011 Godd would not longe suffer this impietie or rather atheonisme The Oxford English Dictionary also records an earlier irregular formation atheonism dated from about 1534 The later and now obsolete words athean and atheal are dated to 1611 and 1612 respectively prep by J A Simpson 1989 The Oxford English Dictionary 2nd ed Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 861186 8 Burton Robert 1621 deist Part III section IV II i Retrieved 9 April 2011 Cousin germans to these men are many of our great Philosophers and Deists a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a work ignored help Martin Edward 1662 Five Letters His opinion concerning the difference between the Church of England and Geneva etc London p 45 To have said my office twice a day among Rebels Theists Atheists Philologers Wits Masters of Reason Puritanes etc Bailey Nathan 1675 An universal etymological English dictionary Secondly that nothing out of nothing in the sense of the atheistic objectors viz that nothing which once was not could by any power whatsoever be brought into being is absolutely false and that if it were true it would make no more against theism than it does against atheism Cudworth Ralph The true intellectual system of the universe 1678 Chapter V Section II p 73 The Oxford English Dictionary 2 ed Oxford University Press USA 1989 ISBN 0 19 861186 2 Martin 2006 Kenneth Kramer January 1986 World Scriptures An Introduction to Comparative Religions Paulist Press pp 34 ISBN 978 0 8091 2781 8 David Christian 1 September 2011 Maps of Time An Introduction to Big History University of California Press pp 18 ISBN 978 0 520 95067 2 Upinder Singh 2008 A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India From the Stone Age to the 12th Century Pearson Education India pp 206 ISBN 978 81 317 1120 0 The Buddhist Attitude to God budsas Retrieved 29 August 2015 Principled Atheism in the Buddhist Scholastic Tradition PDF www unm edu Retrieved 25 March 2020 Elements of Atheism in Hindu Thought AGORA Archived from the original on 15 June 2006 Retrieved 26 June 2006 More Studies on the Carvaka Lokayata Cambridge Scholars Publishing www cambridgescholars com Retrieved 5 February 2021 Upanisads Reissue Owc Pb OUP Oxford 17 April 2008 ISBN 978 0 19 954025 9 Herbjornsrud Dag 16 June 2020 The untold history of India s vital atheist philosophy Blog of the APA Retrieved 5 February 2021 Herbjornsrud Dag 24 June 2020 India s atheist influence on Europe China and science Blog of the APA Retrieved 5 February 2021 Jarrett H S 1894 Ain I Akbari Vol 3 Wojciehowski Hannah Chapelle 1 July 2015 East West Swerves Carvaka Materialism and Akbar s Religious Debates at Fatehpur Sikri Genre 48 2 131 157 doi 10 1215 00166928 2884820 ISSN 0016 6928 Vedantasara by Sadananda www swamij com Retrieved 5 February 2021 According to Merv Fowler some forms of Buddhism have incorporated concepts that resemble that of Brahman which suggests theism Merv Fowler Buddhism Beliefs and Practices Brighton Sussex Academic 1999 p 34 It was inevitable that the non theistic philosophy of orthodox Buddhism should court the older Hindu practices and in particular infuse into its philosophy the belief in a totally transcendent Absolute of the nature of Brahman Wallace B Alan Ph D November 1999 Is Buddhism Really Non Theistic PDF National Conference of the American Academy of Religion lectures Boston p 8 Archived from the original PDF on 4 March 2016 Retrieved 22 July 2014 Thus in light of the theoretical progression from the bhavaºga to the tath gatagarbha to the primordial wisdom of the absolute space of reality Buddhism is not so simply non theistic as it may appear at first glance Bhikku Thanissaro 1997 Tittha Sutta Sectarians Then in that case a person is a killer of living beings because of a supreme being s act of creation When one falls back on lack of cause and lack of condition as being essential monks there is no desire no effort at the thought This should be done This shouldn t be done When one can t pin down as a truth or reality what should amp shouldn t be done one dwells bewildered amp unprotected One cannot righteously refer to oneself as a contemplative John T Bullitt 2005 The Thirty one planes of Existence Access To Insight Retrieved 26 May 2010 The suttas describe thirty one distinct planes or realms of existence into which beings can be reborn during this long wandering through samsara These range from the extraordinarily dark grim and painful hell realms all the way up to the most sublime refined and exquisitely blissful heaven realms Existence in every realm is impermanent in Buddhist cosmology there is no eternal heaven or hell Beings are born into a particular realm according to both their past kamma and their kamma at the moment of death When the kammic force that propelled them to that realm is finally exhausted they pass away taking rebirth once again elsewhere according to their kamma And so the wearisome cycle continues Susan Elbaum Jootla 1997 II The Buddha Teaches Deities In Access To Insight ed Teacher of the Devas Kandy Sri Lanka Buddhist Publication Society Archived from the original on 4 February 2013 Many people worship Maha Brahma as the supreme and eternal creator God but for the Buddha he is merely a powerful deity still caught within the cycle of repeated existence In point of fact Maha Brahma is a role or office filled by different individuals at different periods His proof included the fact that many thousands of deities have gone for refuge for life to the recluse Gotama MN 95 9 Devas like humans develop faith in the Buddha by practicing his teachings A second deva concerned with liberation spoke a verse which is partly praise of the Buddha and partly a request for teaching Using various similes from the animal world this god showed his admiration and reverence for the Exalted One A discourse called Sakka s Questions DN 21 took place after he had been a serious disciple of the Buddha for some time The sutta records a long audience he had with the Blessed One which culminated in his attainment of stream entry Their conversation is an excellent example of the Buddha as teacher of devas and shows all beings how to work for Nibbana Bhikku Thanissaro 1997 Kevaddha Sutta Access To Insight When this was said the Great Brahma said to the monk I monk am Brahma the Great Brahma the Conqueror the Unconquered the All Seeing All Powerful the Sovereign Lord the Maker Creator Chief Appointer and Ruler Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be That is why I did not say in their presence that I too don t know where the four great elements cease without remainder So you have acted wrongly acted incorrectly in bypassing the Blessed One in search of an answer to this question elsewhere Go right back to the Blessed One and on arrival ask him this question However he answers it you should take it to heart Herbermann Charles ed 1913 Atheism Catholic Encyclopedia New York Robert Appleton Company Winiarczyk Marek 2016 Diagoras of Melos A Contribution to the History of Ancient Atheism Translated by Zbirohowski Koscia Witold Berlin Germany Walter de Gruyter pp 61 68 ISBN 978 3 11 044765 1 Ferguson Everett 1993 Backgrounds of Early Christianity second ed Grand Rapids Michigan William B Eerdmans Publishing Company pp 556 561 ISBN 978 0 8028 0669 7 a b Sherwin White A N April 1964 Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted An Amendment Past and Present 27 1 23 27 doi 10 1093 past 27 1 23 JSTOR 649759 Maycock A L and Ronald Knox 2003 Inquisition from Its Establishment to the Great Schism An Introductory Study Archived October 30 2015 at the Wayback Machine ISBN 0 7661 7290 2 Classic Drama Plays by Greek Spanish French German and English Dramatists Albert Ellery Bergh Kessinger August 2004 ISBN 978 1 4179 4186 5 Retrieved 1 March 2012 Fragments of Euhemerus work in Ennius Latin translation have been preserved in Patristic writings e g by Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea which all rely on earlier fragments in Diodorus 5 41 46 amp 6 1 Testimonies especially in the context of polemical criticism are found e g in Callimachus Hymn to Zeus 8 Plutarch Moralia Isis and Osiris 23 Eusebius of Caesarea Preparation for the Gospel II 45 48 chapter 2 Euhemerus also acknowledged that the sun moon and the other celestial bodies were deities cf also Alan Scott Origen and the Life of the Stars Oxford 1991 p 55 and he regarded elemental earthly phenomena such as the wind as divine for they had eternal origin and eternal continuance Nevertheless he concluded that the Titans and all next generation deities such as the Olympian deities existed only as culturally and religiously constructed divine entities with a human past cp also Harry Y Gamble Euhemerism and Christology in Origen Contra Celsum III 22 43 in Vigiliae Christianae Vol 33 No 1 1979 pp 12 29 Euhemeros in Konrat Ziegler amp Walther Sontheimer Der Kleine Pauly Bd 2 1979 cols 414 415 Spencer Cole Cicero Ennius and the Concept of Apotheosis at Rome In Arethusa Vol 39 No 3 2006 pp 531 548 Anaximander ap Hippolytus of Rome Refutation of all Heresies i 6 Anaximenes ap Hippolytus Refutation of all Heresies i 7 Clement of Alexandria Stromata v 14 Diogenes Laertius ii 6 14 Tim Whitmarsh Battling the Gods Atheism in the Ancient World New York 2016 a b c d e Burkert Walter 1985 Greek Religion Cambridge Massachusetts Harvard University Press pp 311 317 ISBN 978 0 674 36281 9 a b c d Bremmer Jan Atheism in Antiquity in Martin 2006 pp 14 19 Brickhouse Thomas C Smith Nicholas D 2004 Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates Routledge p 112 ISBN 978 0 415 15681 3 In particular he argued that the claim he is a complete atheist contradicted the other part of the indictment that he introduced new divinities Cicero Lucullus 121 in Reale G A History of Ancient Philosophy SUNY Press 1985 Cicero De Natura Deorum i 42 Cicero De Natura Deorum i 23 Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book III Section 218 a b Grafton Anthony Most Glenn W Settis Salvatore 2010 The Classical Tradition Cambridge Massachusetts and London England The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press pp 96 97 ISBN 978 0 674 03572 0 a b c d Epicurus Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Plato stanford edu Retrieved 10 November 2013 BBC Ancient atheists BBC Retrieved 13 June 2012 Long and Sedley A A and D N 1985 The Hellenistic Philosophers vol 1 Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 144 149 ISBN 0 521 27556 3 Julius Caesar 100 44 BCE who leaned considerably toward Epicureanism also rejected the idea of an afterlife which e g lead to his plea against the death sentence during the trial against Catiline where he spoke out against the Stoic Cato cf Sallust The War With Catiline Caesar s speech 51 29 amp Cato s reply 52 13 Sedley 2013 p 131 Sextus Empiricus Against the Physicists Book I Section 49 Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book III Chapter 3 Stein Gordon Ed 1980 The History of Freethought and Atheism Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism New York Prometheus Retrieved 2007 APR 03 a b Epilepsy Contemplating The Sacred Disease Neurology Today 5 1 31 January 2005 doi 10 1097 00132985 200501000 00006 Mir Mustansir 2006 Polytheism and Atheism In McAuliffe Jane Dammen ed Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾan Vol IV Leiden and Boston Brill Publishers doi 10 1163 1875 3922 q3 EQCOM 00151 ISBN 978 90 04 14743 0 a b c d e Stroumsa Sarah 2016 1999 The Religion of the Freethinkers Freethinkers of Medieval Islam Ibn al Rawandi Abu Bakr al Razi and Their Impact on Islamic Thought Islamic Philosophy Theology and Science Texts and Studies Vol 35 Leiden and Boston Brill Publishers pp 121 141 doi 10 1163 9789004452848 007 ISBN 978 90 04 45284 8 ISSN 0169 8729 Although various Muslim theologians in the early ʿAbbasid period wrote treatises Against the Unbelievers most of these works are lost The earliest extant work bearing this title is probably the Radd ʿala al mulḥid of the ninth century Zaydi theologian al Qasim b Ibrahim Nevertheless in the discussions of God s existence the actual opponents are not identified as individuals As a group they are sometimes referred to as heretics unbelievers materialists or skeptics These designations often appear together and they do not always seem to be clearly distinguished in the authors mind a b c d Stroumsa Sarah 2006 FREETHINKERS In Meri Josef W ed Medieval Islamic Civilization An Encyclopedia Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages Vol 1 New York and London Routledge pp 268 269 ISBN 978 0 415 96691 7 LCCN 2005044229 OCLC 59360024 Encyclopaedia of Islam 1971 Volume 3 page 905 Muhammad ibn Zakariya al Razi Views on religion Reynold Alleyne Nicholson 1962 A Literary History of the Arabs page 318 Routledge Freethought Traditions in the Islamic World Archived 14 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine by Fred Whitehead also quoted in Cyril Glasse 2001 The New Encyclopedia of Islam p 278 Rowman Altamira Jacob Grimm 1882 Teutonic Mythology Part 1 page 6 Bullivant Stephen and Michael Ruse The Oxford Handbook of Atheism Oxford University Press 2015 a b Frederick Copleston 1950 A History of Philosophy Volume II Medieval Philosophy From Augustine to Duns Scotus London Burns Oates amp Washbourne pp 336 337 SUMMA THEOLOGIAE The existence of God Prima Pars Q 2 John William Draper 1864 History of the intellectual development of Europe page 387 Schultz T 2016 Assault on the Remnant The Advent Movement The Spirit of Prophecy and Rome s Trojan Horse Expanded ed Dog Ear Publishing p 39 ISBN 978 1 4575 4765 2 Retrieved 3 March 2023 John Arnold 30 June 2005 Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe Bloomsbury Academic ISBN 978 0 340 80786 6 Martiall John 1566 English recusant literature 1558 1640 A Replie to Mr Calfhills Blasphemous Answer Made Against the Treatise of the Cross Vol 203 p 51 Armstrong Karen 1999 A History of God London Vintage p 288 ISBN 0 09 927367 5 Hecht Jennifer Michael 2004 Doubt A History HarperOne pp 325 ISBN 0 06 009795 7 Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 p 388 Stewart 2007 p 352 Simkins James 2014 On the Development of Spinoza s Account of Human Religion Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies 5 1 Jones Tod E Benedict de Spinoza Unpublished Essays by an Impoverished Scholar PDF Picton J Allanson Pantheism Its Story and Significance 1905 Fraser Alexander Campbell Philosophy of Theism William Blackwood and Sons 1895 p 163 Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 p 343 Winfried Schroder in Matthias Knutzen Schriften und Materialien 2010 p 8 See also Rececca Moore The Heritage of Western Humanism Scepticism and Freethought 2011 calling Knutzen the first open advocate of a modern atheist perspective online here Mortimer Thomas 1789 Students Pocket Dictionary 1789 Czlowiek jest tworca Boga a Bog jest tworem i dzielem czlowieka Tak wiec to ludzie sa tworcami i stworcami Boga a Bog nie jest bytem rzeczywistym lecz bytem istniejacym tylko w umysle a przy tym bytem chimerycznym bo Bog i chimera sa tym samym IV Prosty lud oszukiwany jest przez madrzejszych wymyslem wiary w Boga na swoje uciemiezenie tego samego uciemiezenia broni jednak lud w taki sposob ze gdyby medrcy chcieli prawda wyzwolic lud z tego uciemiezenia zostaliby zdlawieni przez sam lud Andrzej Nowicki 1957 not specific enough to verify Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 pp 390 391 Voltaire Society of America If God did not exist it would have to be invented whitman edu Whitman College Retrieved 14 April 2019 1 This book of the Three Imposters is a very dangerous work full of coarse atheism without wit and devoid of philosophy Full title Memoire des pensees et sentiments de Jean Meslier pretre cure d Etrepigny et de Balaives sur une partie des erreurs et des abus de la conduite et du gouvernement des hommes ou l on voit des demonstrations claires et evidentes de la vanite et de la faussete de toutes les religions du monde pour etre adresse a ses paroissiens apres sa mort et pour leur servir de temoignage de verite a eux et a tous leurs semblables a b Michel Onfray 2007 Atheist Manifesto The Case Against Christianity Judaism and Islam Arcade Publishing ISBN 1 55970 820 4 p 29 The Philosophe Pinzler com Retrieved 1 March 2012 Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 p 392 Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 pp 397 8 War Terror and Resistance Archived from the original on 16 August 2018 Retrieved 31 October 2006 see Berman 1988 Chapter 5 British Humanist Association Charles Bradlaugh 1833 91 Hansard Oaths Bill 1888 Second Reading 14 March 1888 Third Reading 9 August 1888 Karl Marx February 1844 A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel s Philosophy of Right Deutsch Franzosische Jahrbucher Retrieved 24 July 2009 Does God Hate Women New Statesman Retrieved 26 July 2010 Leonard Peikoff The Philosophy of Objectivism lecture series 1976 Lecture 2 Overall Christine Feminism and Atheism in Martin Michael ed 2007 The Cambridge Companion to Atheism pp 233 246 Cambridge University Press Zdybicka Zofia J 2005 Atheism p 16 in Maryniarczyk Andrzej Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy 1 Polish Thomas Aquinas Association Smart J C C 9 March 2004 Atheism and Agnosticism Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 2007 04 12 a b c Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 p 494 Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 p 493 Martin Amis Koba the Dread Vintage Books London 2003 ISBN 1 4000 3220 2 p 30 31 Alan Bullock Hitler and Stalin Parallel Lives Fontana Press 1993 pp 412 Richard Pipes Russia under the Bolshevik Regime The Harvill Press 1994 pp 339 340 Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 p 494 a b Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 pp 495 6 F L Carsten The Rise of Fascism Methuen amp Co Ltd London 1976 p 77 Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Fascism identification with Christianity web Apr 2013 a b in October 1928 Hitler said publicly We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity in fact our movement is Christian Speech in Passau 27 October 1928 Bundesarchiv Berlin Zehlendorf from Richard Steigmann Gall 2003 Holy Reich Nazi conceptions of Christianity 1919 1945 Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 60 61 298 In 1937 Hans Kerrl the Nazi Minister for Church Affairs explained Positive Christianity as not dependent upon the Apostle s Creed nor in faith in Christ as the son of God upon which Christianity relied but rather as being represented by the Nazi Party saying The Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation William L Shirer 1960 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich London Secker amp Warburg pp 238 39 Richard J Evans The Third Reich at War Penguin Press New York 2009 p 546 Richard J Evans The Third Reich at War Penguin Press New York 2009 p 547 Trevor Roper H R Weinberg Gerhard L 18 October 2013 Hitler s Table Talk 1941 1944 Secret Conversations Enigma Books p 8 ISBN 978 1 936274 93 2 Richard J Evans The Third Reich at War Penguin Press New York 2009 p 546 The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933 1945 By John S Conway p 232 Regent College Publishing Valdis O Lumans Himmler s Auxiliaries 1993 p 48 Michael Burleigh The Third Reich A New History 2012 p 196 197 1 Peter Hebblethwaite Paul VI the First Modern Pope Harper Collins Religious 1993 p 211 Norman Davies Rising 44 the Battle for Warsaw Viking 2003 p 566 amp 568 a b c Geoffrey Blainey A Short History of Christianity Viking 2011 p 508 Wuthnow Robert 4 December 2013 The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion 2 volume set Routledge ISBN 978 1 136 28493 9 Majeska George P 1976 Religion and Atheism in the U S S R and Eastern Europe Review The Slavic and East European Journal 20 2 pp 204 206 Representations of Place Albania Derek R Hall The Geographical Journal Vol 165 No 2 The Changing Meaning of Place in Post Socialist Eastern Europe Commodification Perception and Environment Jul 1999 pp 161 172 Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers the perception that religion symbolized foreign Italian Greek and Turkish predation was used to justify the communists stance of state atheism 1967 1991 C Education Science Culture The Albanian Constitution of 1976 Temperman Jeroen 2010 State Religion Relationships and Human Rights Law Towards a Right to Religiously Neutral Governance Brill Academic Martinus Nijhoff Publishers pp 140 141 ISBN 978 90 04 18148 9 Before the end of the Cold War many Communist States did not shy away from being openly hostile to religion In most instances communist ideology translated unperturbedly into state atheism which in turn triggered measures aimed at the eradication of religion As much was acknowledged by some Communist Constitutions The 1976 Constitution of the People s Socialist Republic of Albania for instance was firmly based on a Marxist dismissal of religion as the opiate of the masses It provided The state recognizes no religion of any kind and supports and develops the atheist view so as to ingrain in to the people the scientific and materialistic world view a b China Religion Encyclopedia Britannica Retrieved 28 May 2022 Encyclopaedia Britannica Online China History Cultural Revolution accessed 10 November 2013 China announces civilizing atheism drive in Tibet BBC 12 January 1999 Michael S M 1999 Dalit Visions of a Just Society In S M Michael ed Untouchable Dalits in Modern India Lynne Rienner Publishers pp 31 u201333 ISBN 1 55587 697 8 He who created god was a fool he who spreads his name is a scoundrel and he who worships him is a barbarian Hiorth Finngeir 1996 Atheism in South India Archived 5 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine International Humanist and Ethical Union International Humanist News Retrieved 2007 05 30 Aiello Thomas Spring 2005 Constructing Godless Communism Religion Politics and Popular Culture 1954 1960 Americana 4 1 Retrieved 24 July 2009 Broadway Bill 6 July 2002 How Under God Got in There Washington Post pp B09 Anniversary of McCollum v Board of Education Decision Freedom From Religion Foundation Ffrf org 8 March 1948 Retrieved 14 July 2015 Martin Douglas 26 August 2006 Vashti McCollum 93 Plaintiff in a Landmark Religion Suit The New York Times Jurinski James 2004 Religion on Trial Walnut Creek California AltraMira Press p 48 ISBN 0 7591 0601 0 Retrieved 23 July 2009 About American Atheists American Atheists 2006 Retrieved 27 September 2007 Who was Madalyn Murray O Hair Profile of the legendary atheist Beliefnet com Page 5 Beliefnet com Retrieved 14 July 2015 Erickson Doug 25 February 2010 The atheists calling the Madison based Freedom From Religion Foundation is taking its latest battle to the U S Supreme court It s a milestone for the often vilified but financially strong group which has seen its membership grow to an all time high Wisconsin State Journal Retrieved 30 June 2013 Erickson Doug 25 February 2007 The Atheists Calling Wisconsin State Journal Archived from the original on 12 March 2008 Retrieved 24 July 2009 Harris Dan 9 March 2009 The Rise of Atheism ABC News Retrieved 23 July 2009 Biema David Van 2 October 2007 Christianity s Image Problem TIME Archived from the original on 10 October 2007 Retrieved 23 July 2009 Dawkins Richard 21 June 2003 The future looks bright The Guardian London Retrieved 24 July 2009 The Brights Principles www the brights net 2017 Retrieved 6 November 2017 Egan Tim 19 October 2007 Keeping the faith BBC Retrieved 23 July 2009 Stenger Victor J The New Atheism Colorado University Retrieved 23 July 2009 Richard Dawkins on militant atheism Talk TED Retrieved 27 November 2009 Wolf Gary November 2006 The Church of the Nonbelievers Wired Vol 14 no 11 Retrieved 23 November 2009 Women in Secularism 2012 conference in Washington DC Women in Secularism Archived from the original on 30 July 2013 Retrieved 27 February 2015 Winston Kimberly 19 December 2016 New International Religious Freedom Act a first for atheists Religion News Service Retrieved 2 January 2017 References editAlexander Nathan G 2019 Race in a Godless World Atheism Race and Civilization 1850 1914 New York Manchester New York University Press Manchester University Press ISBN 978 1 5261 4237 5 Armstrong K 1999 A History of God London Vintage ISBN 0 09 927367 5 Berman D 1990 A History of Atheism in Britain from Hobbes to Russell London Routledge ISBN 0 415 04727 7 Buckley M J 1987 At the origins of modern atheism New Haven CT Yale University Press Drachmann A B 1922 Atheism in Pagan Antiquity Chicago Ares Publishers 1977 an unchanged reprint of the 1922 edition ISBN 0 89005 201 8 Flynn Tom ed 25 October 2007 The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief Prometheus Books ISBN 978 1 59102 391 3 OL 8851140M McGrath A 2005 The Twilight of Atheism The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World ISBN 0 385 50062 9 Rowe William L 1998 Atheism In Edward Craig ed Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Taylor amp Francis ISBN 978 0 415 07310 3 Retrieved 9 April 2011 Sedley David 2013 Stephen Bullivant Michael Ruse eds The Oxford Handbook of Atheism OUP Oxford ISBN 978 0 19 964465 0 Stewart Matthew 2007 The Courtier and the Heretic Leibniz Spinoza and the Fate of God in the Modern World W W Norton ISBN 978 0393071047 Thrower James 1971 A Short History of Western Atheism London Pemberton ISBN 1 57392 756 2Further reading editLe Beau Bryan F 2003 The Atheist Madalyn Murray O Hair ISBN 978 0 8147 5285 2 LeDrew Stephen The evolution of atheism The politics of a modern movement Oxford University Press 2015 Ford James C 2023 Atheism at the agora a history of unbelief in ancient Greek polytheism London Routledge ISBN 9781032492995 Meagher Richard J Atheists in American politics Social movement organizing from the nineteenth to the twenty first centuries Lexington Books 2018 Obbink Dirk 1989 The Atheism of Epicurus Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 30 2 187 223 Stroumsa Sarah 1999 Freethinkers of Medieval Islam Ibn Al Rawandi Abu Bakr Al Razi and Their Impact on Islamic Thought Leiden Brill doi 10 1163 9789004452848 ISBN 978 90 04 31547 1 Winiarczyk Marek 2016 Diagoras of Melos A Contribution to the History of Ancient Atheism Beitrage zur Altertumskunde Vol 350 Translated by Zbirohowski Koscia Witold Berlin and Boston De Gruyter doi 10 1515 9783110448047 ISBN 978 3 11 044377 6 External links editDr Gordon Stein The History of Freethought and Atheism at positiveatheism org Dag Herbjornsrud The untold history of India s vital atheist philosophy at the Blog of the American Philosophical Association APA June 2020 Portals nbsp History nbsp Religion Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title History of atheism amp oldid 1183192826, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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