History of atheism
Encyclopedia
Although the term atheism
originated in the 16th century—based on Ancient Greek
ἄθεος "godless, denying the gods, ungodly"—and open admission to positive atheism in modern times was not made earlier than in the late 18th century, atheistic ideas and beliefs, as well as their political influence, have a more expansive history.
The spontaneous proposition that there may be no gods after all is logically as old as theism
itself (and the proposition that there may be no God as old as the beginnings of monotheism
or henotheism
). Philosophical atheist thought appears in Europe and Asia from the 6th or 5th century BCE.
Will Durant explains that certain Pygmy tribes found in Africa were observed to have no identifiable cults or rites. There were no totems, no gods, no spirits. Their dead were buried without special ceremonies or accompanying items and received no further attention. They even appeared to lack simple superstitions, according to travelers' reports. The Vedahs of Ceylon, only admitted the possibility that gods might exist, but went no further. Neither prayers nor sacrifices were suggested in any way.
, Buddhism
, and certain sects
of Hinduism
in India, and of Taoism
in China.
Although these religions claim to offer a philosophic and salvific path not centering on deity worship, popular tradition in some sects of these religions has long embraced deity worship, the propitiation of spirits, and other elements of folk tradition. Furthermore, the Pali Tripiṭaka
, the oldest complete composition of scriptures, seems to accept as real the concepts of divine beings, the Vedic
(and other) gods, rebirth, and heaven and hell. While deities are not seen as necessary to the salvific goal of the early Buddhist tradition, their reality is not questioned.
, the Samkhya
and the early Mimamsa
school did not accept a creator-God in their respective systems.
The principal text of the Samkhya
school, the Samkhya Karika, was written by Ishvara Krishna
in the 4th 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
("spirit") 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 10th century, although commentaries were still being written as late as the 16th century.
The foundational text for the Mimamsa school is the Purva Mimamsa Sutras
of Jaimini (c. 3rd to 1st 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 ritual
ism (orthopraxy), anti-asceticism and anti-mysticism. 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.
Indo-Aryan culture. Organized Jainism
can be dated back to Parshva
who lived in the 9th century BCE, and, more reliably, to Mahavira
, a teacher of the 6th 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 god 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.
school that originated in India
with the Bārhaspatya-sūtras (final centuries BCE) is probably the most explicitly atheist school of philosophy in the region. The school grew out of the generic skepticism in the Mauryan period. Already in the 6th 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."
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. The Tattvopaplavasimha of Jayarashi Bhatta (c. 8th century) is sometimes cited as a surviving Carvaka text. The school appears to have died out sometime around the 15th century.
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".
Buddhists accept the existence of beings in higher realms (see Buddhist cosmology
), known as devas
, but they, like humans, are said to be suffering in samsara
, and not particularly wiser than us. In fact the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the gods, and superior to them.
In western Classical Antiquity
, theism was the fundamental belief that supported the divine right of the State (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
. For political reasons, Socrates
in Athens
(399 BCE) was accused of being 'atheos' ("refusing to acknowledge the gods recognized by the state"). Despite the charges, he claimed inspiration from a divine voice (Daimon
). Christians in Rome were also considered subversive to the state religion and persecuted as atheists. Thus, charges of atheism, meaning the subversion of religion, were often used similarly to charges of heresy
and impiety
– as a political tool to eliminate enemies.
began in the Greek world in the 6th century BCE. The first 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," and earthquake
s occurred when "the earth is considerably altered by heating and cooling." The early philosophers often criticised 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." 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
.
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 atom
s moving in infinite space.
Euripides
(480–406 BCE), in his play Bellerophon
, had the eponymous main character say:
“Doth some one say that there be gods above?
There are not; no, there are not. Let no fool,
Led by the old false fable, thus deceive you.”
Aristophanes
(ca. 448–380 BCE), known for his satirical style, said in his The Knights
play:
"Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?"
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."
Diagoras of Melos
(5th century BCE) is known as the "first atheist". He blasphemed by making public the Eleusinian Mysteries
and discouraging people from being initiated. Somewhat later (c. 300 BCE), the Cyrenaic philosopher Theodorus of Cyrene
is supposed to have denied that gods exist, and wrote a book On the Gods expounding his views.
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. Although Euhemerus was later criticized for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods", his worldview was not atheist in a strict and theoretical sense, because he differentiated that the primordial gods were "eternal and imperishable". Some historians have argued that he merely aimed at reinventing the old religions in the light of the beginning deification of political rulers such as Alexander the Great. Euhemerus' work was translated into Latin by Ennius
, possibly to mythographically
pave the way for the planned divinization
of Scipio Africanus
in Rome.
(c. 300 BCE). Drawing on the ideas of Democritus
and the Atomists
, he espoused a materialistic philosophy where the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention. Although he stated that the gods existed, he believed that they were uninterested in human existence. The aim of the Epicureans was to attain peace of mind by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational. One of the most eloquent expression of Epicurean thought is Lucretius
' On the Nature of Things
(1st century BCE). Lucretius declared "There is no God". The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife. Epicureans were not persecuted, but their teachings were controversial, and were harshly attacked by the mainstream schools of Stoicism
and Neoplatonism
. The movement remained marginal, and gradually died out at the end of the Roman Empire
.
(ca. 106–43 BCE) declared:
"In this subject of the nature of the gods the first question is: do the gods exist or do they not? It is difficult, you will say, to deny that they exist. I would agree, if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly, but in a private discussion of this kind it is perfectly easy to do so."
and viewed negatively by the authors of the Biblical texts. Psalm 14:1–3 reads "The fool says in his heart 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.".
, scholars recognized the idea of atheism, and frequently attacked unbelievers
, although they were unable to name any actual atheists. When individuals were accused of atheism, they were usually viewed as heretics rather than proponents of atheism.
One notable figure was 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. Other critics of religion in the Islamic world include the physician and philosopher Abu Bakr al-Razi (865–925), and the poet Al-Ma`arri (973–1057).
In the European Middle Ages
, no clear expression of atheism is known. The titular character of the Icelandic saga Hrafnkell, written in the late 13th century, says that 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 that
citing several other examples, including two kings.
In Christian Europe, people were persecuted for heresy, especially in countries where the Inquisition
was active. However, Thomas Aquinas
' five proofs of God's existence
and Anselm
's ontological argument
implicitly acknowledged the validity of the question about god's existence. The charge of atheism was used as way of attacking one's political or religious enemies. Pope Boniface VIII
, because he insisted on the political supremacy of the church, was accused by his enemies after his death of holding (unlikely) atheistic positions such as "neither believing in the immortality nor incorruptibility of the soul, nor in a life to come."
and the Reformation
, criticism of the religious establishment became more frequent in predominantly Christian countries, but did not amount to actual atheism.
The term athéisme was coined in France in the 16th century. The word "atheist" appears in English books at least as early as 1566.
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 16th and 17th centuries, the word 'atheist' was used exclusively as an insult; nobody wanted to be regarded as an atheist. Although one overtly atheistic compendium known as the Theophrastus redivivus
was published by an anonymous author in the 17th century, atheism was an epithet implying a lack of moral restraint
. 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, and Giulio Cesare Vanini who received a similar fate in 1619. In 1689 the Polish nobleman Kazimierz Łyszczyński, who had allegedly denied the existence of God in his philosophical treatise De non existentia Dei, was condemned to death in Warsaw
for atheism and beheaded after his tongue was pulled out with a burning iron and his hands slowly burned. Similarly in 1766, the French nobleman Jean-François de la Barre
, was torture
d, beheaded, and his body burned for alleged vandalism
of a crucifix
, a case that became celebrated because Voltaire
tried unsuccessfully to have the sentence reversed.
Among those accused of atheism was Denis Diderot
(1713–1784), one of the Enlightenment's most prominent philosophes, and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopédie
, which sought to challenge religious, particularly Catholic
, dogma: "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". Diderot was briefly imprisoned for his writing, some of which was banned and burned.
The English materialist 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, although this was not related to the religious issue.
(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
.
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
. Both cults were the outcome of the "de-Christianization" of French society
during the Revolution and part of the Reign of Terror
.
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 ripe 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.
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 Cult of Reason centered upon a young woman designated the Goddess of Reason
.
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.
of 1789 catapulted atheistic thought into political notability in some Western countries, and opened the way for the 19th 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 titled The Necessity of Atheism. This pamphlet is considered by scholars as the first atheistic ideas 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 19th 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. He became the first outspoken atheist to sit in Parliament, where he participated in amending the Oaths Act
.
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..."
Friedrich Nietzsche
, a prominent 19th 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. While Nietzsche was staunchly atheistic, he was also concerned about the negative effects of nihilism on humanity. As such, he called for a re-evaluation of old values and a creation of new ones, hoping that in doing so man would achieve a higher state he labeled the Overman
.
, Objectivism
, secular humanism
, nihilism
, logical positivism
, Marxism
, anarchism
, feminism
, and the general scientific and rationalist movement. Neopositivism and analytical philosophy discarded classical rationalism and metaphysics in favor of strict empiricism and epistemological nominalism
. Proponents such as Bertrand Russell
emphatically rejected belief in God. In his early work, Ludwig Wittgenstein
attempted to separate metaphysical and supernatural language from rational discourse. Mencken debunked both the idea that science and religion are compatible, and the idea that science is a dogmatic belief system just like any religion
A. J. Ayer asserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements, citing his adherence to the empirical sciences. The structuralism
of Lévi-Strauss
sourced religious language to the human subconscious, denying its transcendental meaning. J. N. Findlay
and J. J. C. Smart
argued that the existence of God is not logically necessary. Naturalists
and materialists
such as John Dewey
considered the natural world to be the basis of everything, denying the existence of God or immortality.
The 20th century also saw the political advancement of atheism, spurred on by interpretation of the works of Marx
and Engels
. State support of atheism
and opposition to organized religion was made policy in all communist state
s, including the People's Republic of China and the former Soviet Union
. In theory and in practice these states were secular. The justifications given for the social and political sidelining of religious organizations addressed, on one hand, the "irrationality" of religious belief, and on the other the "parasitical" nature of the relationship between the church and the population. Churches were sometimes tolerated, but subject to strict control – church officials had to be vetted by the state, while attendance of church functions could endanger one's career. Very often, the state's opposition to religion took more violent forms; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
documents widespread persecution, imprisonments and torture of believers, in his seminal work The Gulag Archipelago
. Consequently, religious organizations, such as the Catholic Church, were among the most stringent opponents of communist regimes. In some cases, the initial strict measures of control and opposition to religious activity were gradually relaxed in communist states. On the other hand, Albania
under Enver Hoxha
became, in 1967, the first (and to date only) formally declared atheist state. Hoxha went far beyond what most other countries had attempted and completely prohibited religious observance, systematically repressing and persecuting adherents. The right to religious practice was restored in 1991.
In India, E. V. Ramasami Naicker (Periyar), a prominent atheist leader, fought against Hinduism
and the Brahmins for discriminating and dividing people in the name of caste
and religion. This was highlighted in 1956 when he made the Hindu god Rama
wear a garland made of slippers and made antitheistic
statements.
During the Cold War
, the United States often characterized its opponents as "Godless Communists", which tended to reinforce the view that atheists were unreliable and unpatriotic. Against this background, the words "under God" were inserted into the pledge of allegiance
in 1954, and the national motto was changed from E Pluribus Unum
to In God We Trust
in 1956. Madalyn Murray O'Hair
was perhaps one of the most influential American atheists; she brought forth the 1963 Supreme Court case Murray v. Curlett which banned compulsory prayer in public schools.
The early 21st century has continued to see secularism
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. This has been assisted by non-profit organizations such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation
in the United States which promotes the separation of church and state
, and the Brights movement
which aims to promote public understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic
worldview. In addition, a large number of accessible antitheist and secularist books, many of which became bestseller
s, were published by authors such as Michel Onfray
, Sam Harris
, Daniel Dennett
, Richard Dawkins
, and Christopher Hitchens
. This gave rise to the New Atheism
movement, a label that has been applied, sometimes pejoratively, to outspoken critics of theism. Richard Dawkins also propounds a more visible form of atheist activism which he light-heartedly describes as 'militant atheism'.
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
originated in the 16th century—based on Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
ἄθεος "godless, denying the gods, ungodly"—and open admission to positive atheism in modern times was not made earlier than in the late 18th century, atheistic ideas and beliefs, as well as their political influence, have a more expansive history.
The spontaneous proposition that there may be no gods after all is logically as old as theism
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
itself (and the proposition that there may be no God as old as the beginnings of monotheism
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
or henotheism
Henotheism
Henotheism is the belief and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities...
). Philosophical atheist thought appears in Europe and Asia from the 6th or 5th century BCE.
Will Durant explains that certain Pygmy tribes found in Africa were observed to have no identifiable cults or rites. There were no totems, no gods, no spirits. Their dead were buried without special ceremonies or accompanying items and received no further attention. They even appeared to lack simple superstitions, according to travelers' reports. The Vedahs of Ceylon, only admitted the possibility that gods might exist, but went no further. Neither prayers nor sacrifices were suggested in any way.
Indian philosophy
In the Far East, a contemplative life not centered on the idea of gods began in the 6th century BCE with the rise of JainismJainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
, Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, and certain sects
Atheism in Hinduism
Atheism or disbelief in God or gods has been a historically propounded viewpoint in many of the orthodox and heterodox streams of Hindu philosophies...
of Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
in India, and of Taoism
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
in China.
Although these religions claim to offer a philosophic and salvific path not centering on deity worship, popular tradition in some sects of these religions has long embraced deity worship, the propitiation of spirits, and other elements of folk tradition. Furthermore, the Pali Tripiṭaka
Tripiṭaka
' is a traditional term used by various Buddhist sects to describe their various canons of scriptures. As the name suggests, a traditionally contains three "baskets" of teachings: a , a and an .-The three categories:Tripitaka is the three main categories of texts that make up the...
, the oldest complete composition of scriptures, seems to accept as real the concepts of divine beings, the Vedic
Rigvedic deities
There are 1028 hymns in the Rigveda, most of them dedicated to specific deities.Indra, a heroic god, slayer of Vrtra and destroyer of the Vala, liberator of the cows and the rivers; Agni the sacrificial fire and messenger of the gods; and Soma the ritual drink dedicated to Indra are the most...
(and other) gods, rebirth, and heaven and hell. While deities are not seen as necessary to the salvific goal of the early Buddhist tradition, their reality is not questioned.
Hinduism
Within the astika ("orthodox") schools of Hindu philosophyHindu philosophy
Hindu philosophy is divided into six schools of thought, or , which accept the Vedas as supreme revealed scriptures. Three other schools do not accept the Vedas as authoritative...
, the Samkhya
Samkhya
Samkhya, also Sankhya, Sāṃkhya, or Sāṅkhya is one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy and classical Indian philosophy. Sage Kapila is traditionally considered as the founder of the Samkhya school, although no historical verification is possible...
and the early Mimamsa
Mimamsa
' , a Sanskrit word meaning "investigation" , is the name of an astika school of Hindu philosophy whose primary enquiry is into the nature of dharma based on close hermeneutics of the Vedas...
school did not accept a creator-God in their respective systems.
The principal text of the Samkhya
Samkhya
Samkhya, also Sankhya, Sāṃkhya, or Sāṅkhya is one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy and classical Indian philosophy. Sage Kapila is traditionally considered as the founder of the Samkhya school, although no historical verification is possible...
school, the Samkhya Karika, was written by Ishvara Krishna
Ishvara Krishna
The Samkhyakarika is the earliest extant text of the Samkhya school of Indian philosophy.Dated to the Gupta era , it is attributed to Ishvarakrishna ....
in the 4th 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
Purusha
In some lineages of Hinduism, Purusha is the "Self" which pervades the universe. The Vedic divinities are interpretations of the many facets of Purusha...
("spirit") and had no place for an Ishvara
Ishvara
Ishvara is a philosophical concept in Hinduism, meaning controller or the Supreme controller in a theistic school of thought or the Supreme Being, or as an Ishta-deva of monistic thought.-Etymology:...
("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 10th century, although commentaries were still being written as late as the 16th century.
The foundational text for the Mimamsa school is the Purva Mimamsa Sutras
Purva Mimamsa Sutras
The Mimamsa Sutra or the Purva Mimamsa Sutras , written by Rishi Jaimini is one of the most important ancient Hindu philosophical texts. It forms the basis of Mimamsa, the earliest of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy...
of Jaimini (c. 3rd to 1st century BCE). The school reached its height c. 700 CE, and for some time in the Early Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...
exerted near-dominant influence on learned Hindu thought. The Mimamsa school saw their primary enquiry was into the nature of dharma
Dharma
Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
based on close interpretation of the Vedas
Vedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
. Its core tenets were ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
ism (orthopraxy), anti-asceticism and anti-mysticism. The early Mimamsakas believed in an adrishta ("unseen") that is the result of performing karmas ("works") and saw no need for an Ishvara
Ishvara
Ishvara is a philosophical concept in Hinduism, meaning controller or the Supreme controller in a theistic school of thought or the Supreme Being, or as an Ishta-deva of monistic thought.-Etymology:...
("God") in their system. Mimamsa persists in some subschools of Hinduism today.
Jainism
Jains see their tradition as eternal, Jainism has prehistoric origins dating before 3000 BCE, and before the beginning ofIndo-Aryan culture. Organized Jainism
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
can be dated back to Parshva
Parshva
Pārśva or Paras was the twenty-third Tirthankara "Ford-Maker" in Jainism . He is the earliest Jain leader generally accepted as a historical figure. Pārśva was a nobleman belonging to the Kshatriya varna....
who lived in the 9th century BCE, and, more reliably, to Mahavira
Mahavira
Mahāvīra is the name most commonly used to refer to the Indian sage Vardhamāna who established what are today considered to be the central tenets of Jainism. According to Jain tradition, he was the 24th and the last Tirthankara. In Tamil, he is referred to as Arukaṉ or Arukadevan...
, a teacher of the 6th century BCE, and a contemporary of the Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
. Jainism is a dualistic religion with the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
made up of matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
and souls. The universe, and the matter and souls within it, is eternal and uncreated, and there is no omnipotent creator god 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.
Cārvāka
The thoroughly materialistic and anti-religious philosophical CārvākaCarvaka
' , also known as ', is a system of Indian philosophy that assumes various forms of philosophical skepticism and religious indifference. It seems named after , the probable author of the and probably a follower of Brihaspati, who founded the ' philosophy.In overviews of Indian philosophy, Cārvāka...
school that originated in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
with the Bārhaspatya-sūtras (final centuries BCE) is probably the most explicitly atheist school of philosophy in the region. The school grew out of the generic skepticism in the Mauryan period. Already in the 6th 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."
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. The Tattvopaplavasimha of Jayarashi Bhatta (c. 8th century) is sometimes cited as a surviving Carvaka text. The school appears to have died out sometime around the 15th century.
Buddhism
The refutation of the notion of a supreme GodGod
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
or a prime mover
Primum movens
Primum movens , usually referred to as the Prime mover or first cause in English, is a term used in the philosophy of Aristotle, in the theological cosmological argument for the existence of God, and in cosmogony, the source of the cosmos or "all-being".-Aristotle's ontology:In book 12 of his...
is seen by many as a key distinction between Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
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".
Buddhists accept the existence of beings in higher realms (see Buddhist cosmology
Buddhist cosmology
Buddhist cosmology is the description of the shape and evolution of the Universe according to the canonical Buddhist scriptures and commentaries.-Introduction:...
), known as devas
Deva (Buddhism)
A deva in Buddhism is one of many different types of non-human beings who share the characteristics of being more powerful, longer-lived, and, in general, living more contentedly than the average human being....
, but they, like humans, are said to be suffering in samsara
Samsara (Buddhism)
or sangsara is a Sanskrit and Pāli term, which translates as "continuous movement" or "continuous flowing" and, in Buddhism, refers to the concept of a cycle of birth , and consequent decay and death , in which all beings in the universe participate, and which can only be escaped through...
, and not particularly wiser than us. In fact the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the gods, and superior to them.
Classical Greece and Rome
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, theism was the fundamental belief that supported the divine right of the State (Polis
Polis
Polis , plural poleis , literally means city in Greek. It could also mean citizenship and body of citizens. In modern historiography "polis" is normally used to indicate the ancient Greek city-states, like Classical Athens and its contemporaries, so polis is often translated as "city-state."The...
, later the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
). Historically, any person who did not believe in any deity supported by the State was fair game to accusations of atheism, a capital crime
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
. For political reasons, Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
(399 BCE) was accused of being 'atheos' ("refusing to acknowledge the gods recognized by the state"). Despite the charges, he claimed inspiration from a divine voice (Daimon
Daemon (mythology)
The words dæmon and daimôn are Latinized spellings of the Greek "δαίμων", a reference to the daemons of Ancient Greek religion and mythology, as well as later Hellenistic religion and philosophy...
). Christians in Rome were also considered subversive to the state religion and persecuted as atheists. Thus, charges of atheism, meaning the subversion of religion, were often used similarly to charges of heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
and impiety
Impiety
Impiety is classically a lack of proper concern for the obligations owed to public religious observation or cult. Impiety was a main Pagan objection to Christianity, for unlike other initiates into mystery religions, early Christians refused to cast a pinch of incense before the images of the gods,...
– as a political tool to eliminate enemies.
Presocratic philosophy
Western philosophyWestern philosophy
Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
began in the Greek world in the 6th century BCE. The first 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
Lightning
Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
was the result of "wind breaking out and parting the clouds," and earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s occurred when "the earth is considerably altered by heating and cooling." The early philosophers often criticised traditional religious notions. Xenophanes
Xenophanes
of Colophon was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and social and religious critic. Xenophanes life was one of travel, having left Ionia at the age of 25 he continued to travel throughout the Greek world for another 67 years. Some scholars say he lived in exile in Siciliy...
(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." Another philosopher, Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae in Asia Minor, Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to bring philosophy from Ionia to Athens. He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows, and the sun, which he described as a fiery mass larger than...
(5th century BCE), claimed that the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
was "a fiery mass, larger than the Peloponnese
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese, Peloponnesos or Peloponnesus , is a large peninsula , located in a region of southern Greece, forming the part of the country south of the Gulf of Corinth...
;" a charge of impiety was brought against him, and he was forced to flee Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
.
The first fully materialistic philosophy was produced by the Atomists
Atomism
Atomism is a natural philosophy that developed in several ancient traditions. The atomists theorized that the natural world consists of two fundamental parts: indivisible atoms and empty void.According to Aristotle, atoms are indestructible and immutable and there are an infinite variety of shapes...
, Leucippus
Leucippus
Leucippus or Leukippos was one of the earliest Greeks to develop the theory of atomism — the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms — which was elaborated in greater detail by his pupil and successor, Democritus...
and Democritus
Democritus
Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos....
(5th century BCE), who attempted to explain the formation and development of the world in terms of the chance movements of atom
Atom
The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...
s moving in infinite space.
Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
(480–406 BCE), in his play Bellerophon
Bellerophon (play)
Bellerophon is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Bellerophon. Most of the play was lost by the end of the Antiquity, and only 90 verses, grouped into 29 fragments, currently survive....
, had the eponymous main character say:
“Doth some one say that there be gods above?
There are not; no, there are not. Let no fool,
Led by the old false fable, thus deceive you.”
Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
(ca. 448–380 BCE), known for his satirical style, said in his The Knights
The Knights
The Knights was the fourth play written by Aristophanes, the master of an ancient form of drama known as Old Comedy. The play is a satire on the social and political life of classical Athens during the Peloponnesian War and in this respect it is typical of all the dramatist's early plays...
play:
"Shrines! Shrines! Surely you don't believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?"
The Sophists
In the 5th 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," and ProtagorasProtagoras
Protagoras was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with having invented the role of the professional sophist or teacher of virtue...
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."
Diagoras of Melos
Diagoras of Melos
Diagoras "the Atheist" of Melos was a Greek poet and sophist of the 5th century BCE. Throughout antiquity he was regarded as an atheist. With the exception of this one point, there is little information concerning his life and beliefs. He spoke out against the Greek religion, and criticized the...
(5th century BCE) is known as the "first atheist". He blasphemed by making public the Eleusinian Mysteries
Eleusinian Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance...
and discouraging people from being initiated. Somewhat later (c. 300 BCE), the Cyrenaic philosopher Theodorus of Cyrene
Theodorus the Atheist
Theodorus the Atheist, of Cyrene, was a philosopher of the Cyrenaic school. He lived in both Greece and Alexandria, before ending his days in his native city of Cyrene. As a Cyrenaic philosopher, he taught that the goal of life was to obtain joy and avoid grief, and that the former resulted from...
is supposed to have denied that gods exist, and wrote a book On the Gods expounding his views.
Euhemerus
Euhemerus
Euhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea.-Life:...
(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. Although Euhemerus was later criticized for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods", his worldview was not atheist in a strict and theoretical sense, because he differentiated that the primordial gods were "eternal and imperishable". Some historians have argued that he merely aimed at reinventing the old religions in the light of the beginning deification of political rulers such as Alexander the Great. Euhemerus' work was translated into Latin by Ennius
Ennius
Quintus Ennius was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was of Calabrian descent...
, possibly to mythographically
Mythography
A mythographer, or a mythologist is a compiler of myths. The word derives from the Greek "μυθογραφία" , "writing of fables", from "μῦθος" , "speech, word, fact, story, narrative" + "γράφω" , "to write, to inscribe". Mythography is then the rendering of myths in the arts...
pave the way for the planned divinization
Apotheosis
Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature...
of Scipio Africanus
Scipio Africanus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus , also known as Scipio Africanus and Scipio the Elder, was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic...
in Rome.
Epicureanism
Also important in the history of atheism was EpicurusEpicurus
Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works...
(c. 300 BCE). Drawing on the ideas of Democritus
Democritus
Democritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos....
and the Atomists
Atomism
Atomism is a natural philosophy that developed in several ancient traditions. The atomists theorized that the natural world consists of two fundamental parts: indivisible atoms and empty void.According to Aristotle, atoms are indestructible and immutable and there are an infinite variety of shapes...
, he espoused a materialistic philosophy where the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention. Although he stated that the gods existed, he believed that they were uninterested in human existence. The aim of the Epicureans was to attain peace of mind by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational. One of the most eloquent expression of Epicurean thought is Lucretius
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is an epic philosophical poem laying out the beliefs of Epicureanism, De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe".Virtually no details have come down concerning...
' On the Nature of Things
On the Nature of Things
De rerum natura is a 1st century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in some 7,400 dactylic hexameters, is divided into six untitled books, and explores Epicurean physics through richly...
(1st century BCE). Lucretius declared "There is no God". The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife. Epicureans were not persecuted, but their teachings were controversial, and were harshly attacked by the mainstream schools of Stoicism
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early . The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.Stoics were concerned...
and Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
. The movement remained marginal, and gradually died out at the end of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
.
Others
CiceroCicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
(ca. 106–43 BCE) declared:
"In this subject of the nature of the gods the first question is: do the gods exist or do they not? It is difficult, you will say, to deny that they exist. I would agree, if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly, but in a private discussion of this kind it is perfectly easy to do so."
Ancient Levant
The concept of atheism was apparently known to the ancient JewsJews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and viewed negatively by the authors of the Biblical texts. Psalm 14:1–3 reads "The fool says in his heart 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.".
The Middle Ages
In medieval IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, scholars recognized the idea of atheism, and frequently attacked unbelievers
Kafir
Kafir is an Arabic term used in a Islamic doctrinal sense, usually translated as "unbeliever" or "disbeliever"...
, although they were unable to name any actual atheists. When individuals were accused of atheism, they were usually viewed as heretics rather than proponents of atheism.
One notable figure was the 9th century scholar Ibn al-Rawandi
Ibn al-Rawandi
Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi , commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi , was an early skeptic of Islam and a critic of religion in general. In his early days he was a Mutazilite scholar, but after rejecting the Mutazilite doctrine he adhered to Shia Islam for a brief period of time...
who criticized the notion of religious prophecy
Prophecy
Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...
including that of Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, and maintained that religious dogmas were not acceptable to reason and must be rejected. Other critics of religion in the Islamic world include the physician and philosopher Abu Bakr al-Razi (865–925), and the poet Al-Ma`arri (973–1057).
In the European Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, no clear expression of atheism is known. The titular character of the Icelandic saga Hrafnkell, written in the late 13th century, says that 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
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
, a position described in the sagas as goðlauss "godless". Jacob Grimm
Jacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...
in his Teutonic Mythology observes that
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",
citing several other examples, including two kings.
In Christian Europe, people were persecuted for heresy, especially in countries where the Inquisition
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
was active. However, Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
' five proofs of God's existence
Quinquae viae
The Quinque viæ, Five Ways, or Five Proofs are five arguments regarding the existence of God summarized by the 13th century Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in his book, Summa Theologica...
and Anselm
Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury , also called of Aosta for his birthplace, and of Bec for his home monastery, was a Benedictine monk, a philosopher, and a prelate of the church who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109...
's ontological argument
Ontological argument
The ontological argument for the existence of God is an a priori argument for the existence of God. The ontological argument was first proposed by the eleventh-century monk Anselm of Canterbury, who defined God as the greatest possible being we can conceive...
implicitly acknowledged the validity of the question about god's existence. The charge of atheism was used as way of attacking one's political or religious enemies. Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII , born Benedetto Gaetani, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Today, Boniface VIII is probably best remembered for his feuds with Dante, who placed him in the Eighth circle of Hell in his Divina Commedia, among the Simonists.- Biography :Gaetani was born in 1235 in...
, because he insisted on the political supremacy of the church, was accused by his enemies after his death of holding (unlikely) atheistic positions such as "neither believing in the immortality nor incorruptibility of the soul, nor in a life to come."
Renaissance and Reformation
During the time of the RenaissanceRenaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
and the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, criticism of the religious establishment became more frequent in predominantly Christian countries, but did not amount to actual atheism.
The term athéisme was coined in France in the 16th century. The word "atheist" appears in English books at least as early as 1566.
The concept of atheism re-emerged initially as a reaction to the intellectual and religious turmoil of the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
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 16th and 17th centuries, the word 'atheist' was used exclusively as an insult; nobody wanted to be regarded as an atheist. Although one overtly atheistic compendium known as the Theophrastus redivivus
Theophrastus redivivus
Theophrastus redivivus is an anonymous book published in 1659. The book has been described as "a compendium of old arguments against religion and belief in God" and "an anthology of free thought." It comprises materialist and skeptical treatises from classical sources as Pietro Pomponazzi, Lucilio...
was published by an anonymous author in the 17th century, atheism was an epithet implying a lack of moral restraint
Libertine
A libertine is one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behavior sanctified by the larger society. Libertines, also known as rakes, placed value on physical pleasures, meaning those...
. How dangerous it was to be accused of being an atheist at this time is illustrated by the examples of Étienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet was a French scholar, translator and printer.-Early life:He was born in Orléans. A doubtful tradition makes him the illegitimate son of Francis I; but it is evident that he was at least connected with some family of rank and wealth.From Orléans he was taken to Paris about 1521, and...
who was strangled
Strangling
Strangling is compression of the neck that may lead to unconsciousness or death by causing an increasingly hypoxic state in the brain. Fatal strangling typically occurs in cases of violence, accidents, and as the auxiliary lethal mechanism in hangings in the event the neck does not break...
and burned in 1546, and Giulio Cesare Vanini who received a similar fate in 1619. In 1689 the Polish nobleman Kazimierz Łyszczyński, who had allegedly denied the existence of God in his philosophical treatise De non existentia Dei, was condemned to death in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
for atheism and beheaded after his tongue was pulled out with a burning iron and his hands slowly burned. Similarly in 1766, the French nobleman Jean-François de la Barre
Jean-François de la Barre
Jean-François Lefevre de la Barre was a French nobleman, famous for having been tortured and beheaded before his body was burnt on a pyre along with Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary". He is often said to have been executed for not saluting a procession, but the elements of the case were far...
, was torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d, beheaded, and his body burned for alleged vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
of a crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
, a case that became celebrated because Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
tried unsuccessfully to have the sentence reversed.
Among those accused of atheism was Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie....
(1713–1784), one of the Enlightenment's most prominent philosophes, and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopédie
Encyclopédie
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert...
, which sought to challenge religious, particularly Catholic
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
, dogma: "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". Diderot was briefly imprisoned for his writing, some of which was banned and burned.
The English materialist philosopher Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...
(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
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...
(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, although this was not related to the religious issue.
The Age of Enlightenment
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 Paul Baron d'HolbachBaron d'Holbach
Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a salon...
(1723–1789) in his 1770 work, The System of Nature
The System of Nature
The System of Nature or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World is a work of philosophy by Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach . It was originally published under the name of Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud, a deceased member of the French Academy of Science...
. D'Holbach was a Parisian social figure who conducted a famous salon widely attended by many intellectual notables of the day, including Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie....
, Jean Jacques Rousseau, David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, Adam Smith
Adam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
, and Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
. Nevertheless, his book was published under a pseudonym, and was banned and publicly burned by the Executioner
Executioner
A judicial executioner is a person who carries out a death sentence ordered by the state or other legal authority, which was known in feudal terminology as high justice.-Scope and job:...
.
The Cult of Reason
Cult of Reason
The Cult of Reason was an atheistic belief system established in France and intended as a replacement for Christianity during the French Revolution.-Origins:...
was a creed based on atheism devised during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
by Jacques Hébert
Jacques Hébert
Jacques René Hébert was a French journalist, and the founder and editor of the extreme radical newspaper Le Père Duchesne during the French Revolution...
, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette
Pierre Gaspard Chaumette
Pierre Gaspard Chaumette was a French politician of the Revolutionaryperiod.-Early activities:Born in Nevers France, 24 May 1763, his main interest was botany and science. Chaumette studied medicine at the University of Paris in 1790, but gave up his career in medicine at the start of the Revolution...
and their supporters. It was stopped by Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre is one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. He largely dominated the Committee of Public Safety and was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror, which ended with his...
, a Deist, who instituted the Cult of the Supreme Being
Cult of the Supreme Being
The Cult of the Supreme Being was a form of deism established in France by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. It was intended to become the state religion of the new French Republic.- Origins :...
. Both cults were the outcome of the "de-Christianization" of French society
Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution
The dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution is a conventional description of the results of a number of separate policies, conducted by various governments of France between the start of the French Revolution in 1789 and the Concordat of 1801, forming the basis of the later and...
during the Revolution and part of the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
.
September Massacres
The September Massacres were a wave of mob violence which overtook Paris in late summer 1792, during the French Revolution. By the time it had subsided, half the prison population of Paris had been executed: some 1,200 trapped prisoners, including many women and young boys...
, when Revolutionary France was ripe 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
Le Marais
Le Marais is a historic district in Paris, France. Long the aristocratic district of Paris, it hosts many outstanding buildings of historic and architectural importance...
. The churches were closed in May 1793 and more securely, 24 November 1793, when the Catholic Mass was forbidden.
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
atmosphere of parades, ransacking of churches, ceremonious iconoclasm
Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
, 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
Hébertists
The Hébertists were an ultra-revolutionary political faction associated with the populist journalist Jacques Hébert. They came to power during the Reign of Terror and played a significant role in the French Revolution....
in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, but took a further radical turn with the Fête de la Liberté ("Festival of Liberty") at Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
, 10 November (20 Brumaire) 1793, in ceremonies devised and organised by Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette. The Cult of Reason centered upon a young woman designated the Goddess of Reason
Goddess of Reason
During the French Revolution, on 10 November 1793, a Goddess of Reason was proclaimed by the French Convention at the suggestion of Chaumette. As personification for the goddess, Sophie Momoro, wife of the printer Antoine-François Momoro, was chosen...
.
The pamphlet Answer to Dr Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
'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
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner , a Liverpool physician, is considered to be the author or co-author of the 1782 pamphlet, Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, the first published work of avowed atheism in Britain. Turner was also a pioneer in the use of ether for medical purposes, and...
(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.
19th century
The French RevolutionFrench Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
of 1789 catapulted atheistic thought into political notability in some Western countries, and opened the way for the 19th century movements of Rationalism
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
, Freethought
Freethought
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...
, and Liberalism. Born in 1792, Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
, a child of the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, was expelled from England's Oxford University in 1811 for submitting to the Dean an anonymous pamphlet that he wrote titled The Necessity of Atheism. This pamphlet is considered by scholars as the first atheistic ideas 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 19th century atheistic thinkers like Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
, Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
(1788–1860) and Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
(1844–1900).
The freethinker Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh was a political activist and one of the most famous English atheists of the 19th century. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866.-Early life:...
(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. He became the first outspoken atheist to sit in Parliament, where he participated in amending the Oaths Act
Oaths Act 1888
The Oaths Act 1888 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which set out provisions whereby the oath of allegiance taken to the Sovereign may be solemnly affirmed rather than sworn to God. The Act was the culmination of a campaign by the noted atheist and secularist MP Charles...
.
Opium of the People
"Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of Karl Marx. It was translated from the German original, "Die Religion .....
." 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
Social control
Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control...
and exploitation in this world while they hope for relief and justice in life after death
Life After Death
Life After Death is the second and final studio album by American rapper The Notorious B.I.G., released March 25, 1997 on Bad Boy Records. A double album, it was released posthumously following his death on March 9, 1997 and serves as his final studio album...
. In the same essay, Marx states, "...[m]an creates religion, religion does not create man..."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, a prominent 19th century philosopher, is well-known for coining the aphorism "God is dead
God is dead
"God is dead" is a widely-quoted statement by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It first appears in The Gay Science , in sections 108 , 125 , and for a third time in section 343...
" (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
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
or the lack of values. While Nietzsche was staunchly atheistic, he was also concerned about the negative effects of nihilism on humanity. As such, he called for a re-evaluation of old values and a creation of new ones, hoping that in doing so man would achieve a higher state he labeled the Overman
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
.
20th century
Atheism in the 20th century found recognition in a wide variety of other, broader philosophies in the Western tradition, such as existentialismExistentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
, Objectivism
Objectivism (Ayn Rand)
Objectivism is a philosophy created by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand . Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception...
, secular humanism
Secular humanism
Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...
, nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
, logical positivism
Logical positivism
Logical positivism is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology.It may be considered as a type of analytic...
, Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, and the general scientific and rationalist movement. Neopositivism and analytical philosophy discarded classical rationalism and metaphysics in favor of strict empiricism and epistemological nominalism
Nominalism
Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
. Proponents such as Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
emphatically rejected belief in God. In his early work, Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
attempted to separate metaphysical and supernatural language from rational discourse. Mencken debunked both the idea that science and religion are compatible, and the idea that science is a dogmatic belief system just like any religion
A. J. Ayer asserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements, citing his adherence to the empirical sciences. The structuralism
Structuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
of Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
sourced religious language to the human subconscious, denying its transcendental meaning. J. N. Findlay
John Niemeyer Findlay
John Niemeyer Findlay, known as J. N. Findlay, was a South African philosopher.-Education and Career:...
and J. J. C. Smart
J. J. C. Smart
John Jamieson Carswell "Jack" Smart AC is an Australian philosopher and academic who is currently Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Monash University, Australia...
argued that the existence of God is not logically necessary. Naturalists
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
and materialists
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
such as John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
considered the natural world to be the basis of everything, denying the existence of God or immortality.
The 20th century also saw the political advancement of atheism, spurred on by interpretation of the works of Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
. State support of atheism
State atheism
State atheism is the official "promotion of atheism" by a government, sometimes combined with active suppression of religious freedom and practice...
and opposition to organized religion was made policy in all communist state
Communist state
A communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
s, including the People's Republic of China and the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In theory and in practice these states were secular. The justifications given for the social and political sidelining of religious organizations addressed, on one hand, the "irrationality" of religious belief, and on the other the "parasitical" nature of the relationship between the church and the population. Churches were sometimes tolerated, but subject to strict control – church officials had to be vetted by the state, while attendance of church functions could endanger one's career. Very often, the state's opposition to religion took more violent forms; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
documents widespread persecution, imprisonments and torture of believers, in his seminal work The Gulag Archipelago
The Gulag Archipelago
The Gulag Archipelago is a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn based on the Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system. The three-volume book is a narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, as well as the author's own experiences as a prisoner in a gulag labor camp...
. Consequently, religious organizations, such as the Catholic Church, were among the most stringent opponents of communist regimes. In some cases, the initial strict measures of control and opposition to religious activity were gradually relaxed in communist states. On the other hand, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
under Enver Hoxha
Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary andthe leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...
became, in 1967, the first (and to date only) formally declared atheist state. Hoxha went far beyond what most other countries had attempted and completely prohibited religious observance, systematically repressing and persecuting adherents. The right to religious practice was restored in 1991.
In India, E. V. Ramasami Naicker (Periyar), a prominent atheist leader, fought against Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and the Brahmins for discriminating and dividing people in the name of caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
and religion. This was highlighted in 1956 when he made the Hindu god Rama
Rama
Rama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...
wear a garland made of slippers and made antitheistic
Antitheism
Antitheism is active opposition to theism. The etymological roots of the word are the Greek 'anti-' and 'theismos'...
statements.
During the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, the United States often characterized its opponents as "Godless Communists", which tended to reinforce the view that atheists were unreliable and unpatriotic. Against this background, the words "under God" were inserted into the pledge of allegiance
Pledge of Allegiance
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is an expression of loyalty to the federal flag and the republic of the United States of America, originally composed by Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy in 1892 and formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942...
in 1954, and the national motto was changed from E Pluribus Unum
E pluribus unum
E pluribus unum , Latin for "Out of many, one", is a phrase on the Seal of the United States, along with Annuit cœptis and Novus ordo seclorum, and adopted by an Act of Congress in 1782...
to In God We Trust
In God We Trust
"In God We Trust" was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956. It is also the motto of the U.S. state of Florida. The Legality of this motto has been questioned because of the United States Constitution forbidding the government to make any law respecting the establishment of a...
in 1956. Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Madalyn Murray O'Hair was an American atheist activist and founder of the organization American Atheists and its president from 1963 to 1986. One of her sons, Jon Garth Murray, was the president of the organization from 1986 to 1995, while she remained de facto president during these nine years....
was perhaps one of the most influential American atheists; she brought forth the 1963 Supreme Court case Murray v. Curlett which banned compulsory prayer in public schools.
21st century
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
and atheism promoted in the Western world
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
, with the general consensus being that the number of people not affiliated with any particular religion has increased. This has been assisted by non-profit organizations such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Freedom From Religion Foundation
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is an American freethought organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the separation of church and state and to educate the public on matters relating to atheism, agnosticism and nontheism. The FFRF publishes...
in the United States which promotes the separation of church and state
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
, and the Brights movement
Brights movement
The Brights movement is a social movement that aims to promote public understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic worldview, including equal civil rights and acceptance for people who hold a naturalistic worldview. It was co-founded by Paul Geisert and Mynga Futrell in 2003...
which aims to promote public understanding and acknowledgment of the naturalistic
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
worldview. In addition, a large number of accessible antitheist and secularist books, many of which became bestseller
Bestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
s, were published by authors such as Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray is a contemporary French philosopher who adheres to hedonism, atheism and anarchism...
, Sam Harris
Sam Harris (author)
Sam Harris is an American author, and neuroscientist, as well as the co-founder and current CEO of Project Reason. He received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Stanford University, before receiving a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA...
, Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
, Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, and Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
. This gave rise to the New Atheism
New Atheism
New Atheism is the name given to a movement among some early-21st-century atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." New atheists argue that recent...
movement, a label that has been applied, sometimes pejoratively, to outspoken critics of theism. Richard Dawkins also propounds a more visible form of atheist activism which he light-heartedly describes as 'militant atheism'.
See also
- AntitheismAntitheismAntitheism is active opposition to theism. The etymological roots of the word are the Greek 'anti-' and 'theismos'...
- Continuity thesisContinuity thesisIn the history of ideas, the continuity thesis is the hypothesis that there was no radical discontinuity between the intellectual development of the Middle Ages and the developments in the Renaissance and early modern period. Thus the idea of an intellectual or scientific revolution following the...
- FreethoughtFreethoughtFreethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...
- Lists of atheists
- Psychology of religionPsychology of religionPsychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to religious traditions, as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The science attempts to accurately describe the details, origins, and uses of religious beliefs and behaviours...
- Rationalist movement
- Sociology of religionSociology of religionThe sociology of religion concerns the role of religion in society: practices, historical backgrounds, developments and universal themes. There is particular emphasis on the recurring role of religion in all societies and throughout recorded history...
- Theory of religious economyTheory of religious economyThe economics of religion or, especially in sociology, religious economy applies socio-economic theory and methods to explain the religious behavioral patterns of individuals, groups or cultures and the social consequences of such behavior...
External links
- The History of Freethought and Atheism – by Dr. Gordon Stein PhD at positiveatheism.org.