From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Atheism is commonly defined as the position that there are no deities.^[1] It can also mean the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.^[2] A broader definition is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.^[3]

The term atheism originated from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without gods", which was applied with a negative connotation to those thought to reject the gods worshiped by the larger society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves as "atheist" appeared in the 18th century. Today, about 2.3% of the world's population describes itself as atheist, while a further 11.9% is described as nontheist.^[4] Between 64% and 65% of Japanese describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, or non-believers,^[5][6] and to 48% in Russia.^[5] The percentage of such persons in European Union member states ranges as low as single digits in Italy and some other countries, and up to 85% in Sweden.^[5]

Atheists tend to lean towards skepticism regarding supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence. Common rationales for not believing in any deity include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from nonbelief. Other arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the social to the historical. Although some atheists tend toward secular philosophies such as humanism,^[7] rationalism, and naturalism,^[8] there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all atheists adhere.^[9]

In Western culture, atheists are frequently assumed to be exclusively irreligious or unspiritual.^[10] However, religious and spiritual belief systems such as forms of Buddhism that do not advocate belief in gods, have also been described as atheistic.^[11]

Etymology

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

In early Ancient Greek, the adjective atheos (ἄθεος, from the privative ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless". The word began to indicate more-intentional, active godlessness in the 5th century BCE, acquiring definitions of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods" instead of the earlier meaning of ἀσεβής (asebēs) or "impious". Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render atheos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης (atheotēs), "atheism". Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin atheos. The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other.^[13]

In English, the term atheism was derived from the French athéisme in about 1587.^[14] The term atheist (from Fr. athée), in the sense of "one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God",^[15] predates atheism in English, being first attested in about 1571.^[16] Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577.^[17] Related words emerged later: deist in 1621,^[18] theist in 1662;^[19] theism in 1678;^[20] and deism in 1682.^[21] Deism and theism changed meanings slightly around 1700, due to the influence of atheism; deism was originally used as a synonym for today's theism, but came to denote a separate philosophical doctrine.^[22]

Karen Armstrong writes that "During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic ... The term 'atheist' was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist."^[23] Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.^[24] In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of the term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as simply "disbelief in God".^[25]

Definitions and distinctions

A chart showing the relationship between the definitions of weak/strong and implicit/explicit atheism. An implicit atheist has not thought about belief in gods, and would be described as being implicitly without a belief in gods. An explicit atheist has made an assertion regarding belief in gods. An explicit atheist may eschew belief in gods (weak atheism), or further conclude that gods do not exist (strong atheism). (Relative sizes on diagram are not meant to indicate actual sizes in populations.)

Writers disagree how best to define and classify atheism,^[26] contesting what supernatural entities it applies to, whether it is an assertion in its own right or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection. A variety of categories have been proposed to try to distinguish the different forms of atheism.

Range

Some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining atheism arises from difficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like deity and god. The plurality of wildly different conceptions of god and deities leads to differing ideas regarding atheism's applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. In the 20th century, this view has fallen into disfavor as theism has come to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity.^[25]

With respect to the range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual, supernatural, or transcendental concepts, such as those of Hinduism and Buddhism.^[27]

Implicit vs. explicit

Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism has sometimes been defined to include the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God."^[28] Similarly, George H. Smith (1979) suggested that: "The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist."^[29] Smith coined the term implicit atheism to refer to "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism to refer to the more common definition of conscious disbelief.

In Western civilization, the view that children are born atheist is relatively recent. Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so universally accepted in the western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is called theistic innatism—the notion that all people believe in God from birth; within this view was the connotation that atheists are simply in denial.^[30] There is a position claiming that atheists are quick to believe in God in times of crisis, that atheists make deathbed conversions, or that "there are no atheists in foxholes."^[31] Some proponents of this view claim that the anthropological benefit of religion is that religious faith enables humans to endure hardships better (cf.opium of the people Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher February, 1844). Some atheists emphasize the fact that there have been examples to the contrary, among them examples of literal "atheists in foxholes."^[32]

Strong vs. weak

Philosophers such as Antony Flew,^[33] Michael Martin,^[25] and William L. Rowe^[34] have contrasted strong (positive) atheism with weak (negative) atheism. Strong atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Weak atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a weak or a strong atheist.^[35] The terms weak and strong are relatively recent, while the equivalent terms negative and positive atheism are of older origin, having been used (in slightly different ways) in the philosophical literature^[33] and in Catholic apologetics^[36] since at least 1813.^[37][38] Under this demarcation of atheism, most agnostics qualify as weak atheists.

While Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails weak atheism,^[25] most agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism, which they may consider no more justified than theism or requiring an equal conviction.^[39] The supposed unattainability of knowledge for or against the existence of gods is sometimes seen as indication that atheism requires a leap of faith.^[40] Common atheist responses to this argument include that unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions,^[41] and that the unprovability of a god's existence does not imply equal probability of either possibility.^[42] Scottish philosopher J. J. C. Smart even argues that "sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalised philosophical skepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic."^[43] Consequently, some popular atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic and atheist positions by the probability assigned to the statement "God exists".^[44]

Other usage of the term "Positive Atheism"

As mentioned above, the terms negative and positive have been used in philosophical literature in a similar manner to the terms weak and strong. However, the book Positive Atheism by Gora, first published in 1972, introduced an alternative use for the phrase.^[45] Having grown up in a hierarchical system with a religious basis, Gora called for a secular India and suggested guidelines for a positive atheist philosophy, meaning one that promotes positive values.^[46] Positive atheism entails such things as a being morally upright, showing an understanding that religious people have reasons to believe, not proselytising or lecturing others about atheism, and defending oneself with truthfulness instead of aiming to 'win' any confrontations with outspoken critics.

Rationale

"A child of the mob once asked an astronomer who the father was who brought him into this world. The scholar pointed to the sky, and to an old man sitting, and said:
'That one there is your body's father, and that your soul's.'
To which the boy replied:
'What is above of us is of no concern to us, and I'm ashamed to be the child of such an aged man!'
'O what supreme impiety, not to want to recognize your father, and not to think God is your maker!' ^[47] Emblem illustrating practical atheism and its historical association with immorality, titled "Supreme Impiety: Atheist and Charlatan", from Picta poesis, by Barthélemy Aneau, 1552.

The broadest demarcation of atheistic rationale is between practical and theoretical atheism. The different forms of theoretical atheism each derive from a particular rationale or philosophical argument. In contrast, practical atheism requires no specific argument, and can include indifference to and ignorance of the idea of gods.

Practical atheism

In practical, or pragmatic, atheism, also known as apatheism, individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divine. The existence of gods is not denied, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, according to this view.^[48] A form of practical atheism with implications for the scientific community is methodological naturalism—the "tacit adoption or assumption of philosophical naturalism within scientific method with or without fully accepting or believing it."^[49]

Practical atheism can take various forms:

• Absence of religious motivation—belief in gods does not motivate moral action, religious action, or any other form of action;
• Active exclusion of the problem of gods and religion from intellectual pursuit and practical action;
• Indifference—the absence of any interest in the problems of gods and religion; or
• Unawareness of the concept of a deity.^[50]

Theoretical atheism

Theoretical (or theoric) atheism explicitly posits arguments against the existence of gods, responding to common theistic arguments such as the argument from design or Pascal's Wager. The theoretical reasons for rejecting gods assume various forms, above all ontological, gnoseological, and epistemological, but also sometimes psychological and sociological forms.

Epistemological and ontological arguments

Epistemological atheism argues that people cannot know God or determine the existence of God. The foundation of epistemological atheism is agnosticism, which takes a variety of forms. In the philosophy of immanence, divinity is inseparable from the world itself, including a person's mind, and each person's consciousness is locked in the subject. According to this form of agnosticism, this limitation in perspective prevents any objective inference from belief in a god to assertions of its existence. The rationalistic agnosticism of Kant and the Enlightenment only accepts knowledge deduced with human rationality; this form of atheism holds that gods are not discernible as a matter of principle, and therefore cannot be known to exist. Skepticism, based on the ideas of Hume, asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know the existence of God. The allocation of agnosticism to atheism is disputed; it can also be regarded as an independent, basic worldview.^[48]

Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological, including logical positivism and ignosticism, assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God is all-powerful." Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. It has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals can be classified into some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. Drange reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as a proposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category.^[51][52]

Metaphysical arguments

Metaphysical atheism is based on metaphysical monism—the view that reality is homogeneous and indivisible. Absolute metaphysical atheists subscribe to some form of physicalism, hence they explicitly deny the existence of non-physical beings. Relative metaphysical atheists maintain an implicit denial of a particular concept of God based on the incongruity between their individual philosophies and attributes commonly applied to God, such as transcendence, a personal aspect, or unity. Examples of relative metaphysical atheism include pantheism, panentheism, and deism.^[53]

Epicurus is credited with first expounding the problem of evil. David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) cited Epicurus in stating the argument as a series of questions:^[54] "Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?"

Psychological, sociological, and economical arguments

Philosophers such as Ludwig Feuerbach^[55] and Sigmund Freud argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs. This is also a view of many Buddhists.^[56] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, influenced by the work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin, "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory and practice." He reversed Voltaire's famous aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."^[57]

Recently, Michel Onfray, who regards himself as part of the tradition of individualist anarchism, has sought to revive this tradition as an argument for atheism, amidst modern schools of philosophy that he feels are cynical and epicurean.^{[citation needed]}

Logical and evidential arguments

Logical atheism holds that the various conceptions of gods, such as the personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities. Such atheists present deductive arguments against the existence of God, which assert the incompatibility between certain traits, such as perfection, creator-status, immutability, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, transcendence, personhood (a personal being), nonphysicality, justice and mercy.^[58]

Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be reconciled with the qualities commonly ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God is not compatible with a world where there is evil and suffering, and where divine love is hidden from many people.^[59] A similar argument is attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.^[60]

Anthropocentric arguments

Axiological, or constructive, atheism rejects the existence of gods in favor of a "higher absolute", such as humanity. This form of atheism favors humanity as the absolute source of ethics and values, and permits individuals to resolve moral problems without resorting to God. Marx, Freud, and Sartre all used this argument to convey messages of liberation, full-development, and unfettered happiness.^[48]

One of the most common criticisms of atheism has been to the contrary—that denying the existence of a god leads to moral relativism, leaving one with no moral or ethical foundation,^[61] or renders life meaningless and miserable.^[62] Blaise Pascal argued this view in 1669.^[63]

History

Although the term atheism originated in 16th-century France,^[14] ideas that would be recognized today as atheistic are documented from classical antiquity and the Vedic period.

Early Indic religion

Atheistic schools are found in Hinduism, which is otherwise a very theistic religion. The thoroughly materialistic and anti-theistic philosophical Cārvāka School that originated in India around 6th century BCE is probably the most explicitly atheistic school of philosophy in India. This branch of Indian philosophy is classified as a heterodox system and is not considered part of the six orthodox schools of Hinduism, but it is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement within Hinduism.^[64] Chatterjee and Datta explain that our understanding of Cārvāka philosophy is fragmentary, based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools, and that it is not a living tradition:

"Though materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organized school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. But almost every work of the other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these."^[65]

Other Indian philosophies generally regarded as atheistic include Classical Samkhya and Purva Mimamsa. The rejection of a personal creator God is also seen in Jainism and Buddhism in India.^[66]

Classical antiquity

In Plato's Apology, Socrates (pictured) was accused by Meletus of not believing in the gods.

Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, but did not emerge as a distinct world-view until the late Enlightenment.^[67] The 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher Diagoras is known as the "first atheist",^[68] and is cited as such by Cicero in his De Natura Deorum.^[69] Critias viewed religion as a human invention used to frighten people into following moral order.^[70] Atomists such as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way, without reference to the spiritual or mystical. Other pre-Socratic philosophers who probably had atheistic views included Prodicus and Protagoras. In the 3rd-century BCE the Greek philosophers Theodorus Cirenaicus^[69][71] and Strato of Lampsacus^[72] also did not believe gods exist.

Socrates (c. 471–399 BCE), was accused of impiety (see Euthyphro dilemma) on the basis that he inspired questioning of the state gods.^[73] Although he disputed the accusation that he was a "complete atheist",^[74] saying that he could not be an atheist as he believed in spirits,^[75] he was ultimately sentenced to death. Socrates also prays to various gods in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus^[76] and says "By Zeus" in the dialogue The Republic.^[77]

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.^[78] Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus was later criticized for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods".^[79]

Atomic materialist Epicurus (c. 341–270 BCE) disputed many religious doctrines, including the existence of an afterlife or a personal deity; he considered the soul purely material and mortal. While Epicureanism did not rule out the existence of gods, he believed that if they did exist, they were unconcerned with humanity.^[80]

The Roman poet Lucretius (c. 99–55 BCE) agreed that, if there were gods, they were unconcerned with humanity and unable to affect the natural world. For this reason, he believed humanity should have no fear of the supernatural. He expounds his Epicurean views of the cosmos, atoms, the soul, mortality, and religion in De rerum natura ("On the nature of things"),^[81] which popularized Epicurus' philosophy in Rome.^[82]

The Roman philosopher Sextus Empiricus held that one should suspend judgment about virtually all beliefs—a form of skepticism known as Pyrrhonism—that nothing was inherently evil, and that ataraxia ("peace of mind") is attainable by withholding one's judgment. His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers.^[83]

The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity. The early Christians were labeled atheists by non-Christians because of their disbelief in pagan gods.^[84] During the Roman Empire, Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general and Emperor-worship in particular. When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Theodosius I in 381, heresy became a punishable offense.^[85]

Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance

The espousal of atheistic views was rare in Europe during the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages (see Medieval Inquisition); metaphysics, religion and theology were the dominant interests.^[86] There were, however, movements within this period that forwarded heterodox conceptions of the Christian God, including differing views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. Individuals and groups such as Johannes Scotus Eriugena, David of Dinant, Amalric of Bena, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit maintained Christian viewpoints with pantheistic tendencies. Nicholas of Cusa held to a form of fideism he called docta ignorantia ("learned ignorance"), asserting that God is beyond human categorization, and our knowledge of God is limited to conjecture. William of Ockham inspired anti-metaphysical tendencies with his nominalistic limitation of human knowledge to singular objects, and asserted that the divine essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. Followers of Ockham, such as John of Mirecourt and Nicholas of Autrecourt furthered this view. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later theologians such as John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and Martin Luther.^[86]

The Renaissance did much to expand the scope of freethought and skeptical inquiry. Individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci sought experimentation as a means of explanation, and opposed arguments from religious authority. Other critics of religion and the Church during this time included Niccolò Machiavelli, Bonaventure des Périers, and François Rabelais.^[83]

Early modern period

The Renaissance and Reformation eras witnessed a resurgence in religious fervor, as evidenced by the proliferation of new religious orders, confraternities, and popular devotions in the Catholic world, and the appearance of increasingly austere Protestant sects such as the Calvinists. This era of interconfessional rivalry permitted an even wider scope of theological and philosophical speculation, much of which would later be used to advance a religiously skeptical world-view.

Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England, where there appears to have been a religious malaise, according to contemporary sources. Some Protestant thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes, espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward supernatural occurrences, while the Jewish-Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza rejected divine providence in favour of a pantheistic naturalism. By the late 17th century, Deism came to be openly espoused by intellectuals such as John Toland. Despite their ridicule of Christianity, many Deists held atheism in scorn. The first known atheist who threw off the mantle of deism, bluntly denying the existence of gods, was Jean Meslier, a French priest who lived in the early 18th century.^[87] He was followed by other openly atheistic thinkers, such as Baron d'Holbach and Jacques-André Naigeon.^[88] The philosopher David Hume developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism, undermining the metaphysical basis of natural theology.

Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1841) would greatly influence philosophers such as Engels, Marx, David Strauss, and Nietzsche. He considered God to be a human invention and religious activities to be wish-fulfillment.

The French Revolution took atheism outside the salons and into the public sphere. Attempts to enforce the Civil Constitution of the Clergy led to anti-clerical violence and the expulsion of many clergy from France. The chaotic political events in revolutionary Paris eventually enabled the more radical Jacobins to seize power in 1793, ushering in the Reign of Terror. At its climax, the more militant atheists attempted to forcibly de-Christianize France, replacing religion with a Cult of Reason. These persecutions ended with the Thermidorian Reaction, but some of the secularizing measures of this period remained a permanent legacy of French politics.

The Napoleonic era institutionalized the secularization of French society, and exported the revolution to northern Italy, in the hopes of creating pliable republics. In the 19th century, many atheists and other anti-religious thinkers devoted their efforts to political and social revolution, facilitating the upheavals of 1848, the Risorgimento in Italy, and the growth of an international socialist movement.

In the latter half of the 19th century, atheism rose to prominence under the influence of rationalistic and freethinking philosophers. Many prominent German philosophers of this era denied the existence of deities and were critical of religion, including Ludwig Feuerbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche.^[89]

Late modern period

Atheism in the 20th century, particularly in the form of practical atheism, advanced in many societies. Atheistic thought found recognition in a wide variety of other, broader philosophies, such as existentialism, objectivism, secular humanism, nihilism, logical positivism, Marxism, feminism,^[90] and the general scientific and rationalist movement.

Logical positivism and scientism paved the way for neopositivism, analytical philosophy, structuralism, and naturalism. 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. A. J. Ayer asserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements, citing his adherence to the empirical sciences. Relatedly the applied structuralism of Lévi-Strauss sourced religious language to the human subconscious in denying its transcendental meaning. J. N. Findlay and J. J. C. Smart argued that the existence of God is not logically necessary. Naturalists and materialistic monists such as John Dewey considered the natural world to be the basis of everything, denying the existence of God or immortality.^[43][91]

The 20th century also saw the political advancement of atheism, spurred on by interpretation of the works of Marx and Engels. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, increased religious freedom for minority religions lasted for a few years, before the policies of Stalinism turned towards repression of religion. The Soviet Union and other communist states promoted state atheism and opposed religion, often by violent means.^[92]

Other leaders like E. V. Ramasami Naicker (Periyar), a prominent atheist leader of India, fought against Hinduism and Brahmins for discriminating and dividing people in the name of caste and religion.^[93] This was highlighted in 1956 when he made the Hindu god Rama wear a garland made of slippers and made antitheistic statements.^[94]

In 1966, Time magazine asked "Is God Dead?"^[95] in response to the Death of God theological movement, citing the estimation that nearly half of all people in the world lived under an anti-religious power, and millions more in Africa, Asia, and South America seemed to lack knowledge of the Christian God.^[96] The following year, the Albanian government under Enver Hoxha announced the closure of all religious institutions in the country, declaring Albania the world's first officially atheist state.^[97] These regimes enhanced the negative associations of atheism, especially where anti-communist sentiment was strong in the United States, despite the fact that prominent atheists were anti-communist.^[98]

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of actively anti-religious regimes has reduced considerably. In 2006, Timothy Shah of the Pew Forum noted "a worldwide trend across all major religious groups, in which God-based and faith-based movements in general are experiencing increasing confidence and influence vis-à-vis secular movements and ideologies."^[99] But Gregory S. Paul and Phil Zuckerman consider this a myth and suggest that the actual situation is much more complex and nuanced.^[100]

Demographics

Percentage of people in various European countries who said: "I don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force." (2005)^[101]

It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in the world. Respondents to religious-belief polls may define "atheism" differently or draw different distinctions between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs.^[102] A 2005 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that the non-religious made up about 11.9% of the world's population, and atheists about 2.3%. This figure did not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhists.^[4] A November–December 2006 poll published in the Financial Times gives rates for the United States and five European countries. It found that Americans are more likely than Europeans to report belief in any form of god or supreme being (73%). Of the European adults surveyed, Italians are the most likely to express this belief (62%) and the French the least likely (27%). In France, 32% declared themselves atheists, and an additional 32% declared themselves agnostic.^[103] An official European Union survey provides corresponding figures: 18% of the EU population do not believe in a god; 27% affirm the existence of some "spirit or life force", while 52% affirm belief in a specific god. The proportion of believers rises to 65% among those who had left school by age 15; survey respondents who considered themselves to be from a strict family background were more likely to believe in god than those who felt their upbringing lacked firm rules.^[104]

A letter published in Nature in 1998 reported a survey suggesting that belief in a personal god or afterlife was at an all-time low among the members of the U.S. National Academy of Science, only 7.0% of whom believed in a personal god as compared with more than 85% of the general U.S. population.^[105] In the same year, Frank Sulloway of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Shermer of California State University conducted a study which found in their polling sample of "credentialed" U.S. adults (12% had Ph.Ds and 62% were college graduates) 64% believed in God, and there was a correlation indicating that religious conviction diminished with education level.^[106] An inverse correlation between religiosity and intelligence has been found by 39 studies carried out between 1927 and 2002, according to an article in Mensa Magazine.^[107] These findings broadly agree with a 1958 statistical meta-analysis by Professor Michael Argyle of the University of Oxford. He analyzed seven research studies that had investigated correlation between attitude to religion and measured intelligence among school and college students from the U.S. Although a clear negative correlation was found, the analysis did not identify causality but noted that factors such as authoritarian family background and social class may also have played a part.^[108]

In the Australian 2006 Census of Population and Housing, in the question which asked What is your religion? Of the total survey population, 18.7% ticked the box marked no religion or wrote in a response which was classified as non religious (e.g. humanism, agnostic, atheist). This question was optional and 11.2% did not answer the question.^[109] In 2006, the New Zealand census asked, What is your religion?. Of those answering, 34.7% indicated no religion. 12.2% did not respond or objected to answering the question.^[110]

Atheism, religion, and morality

Because of its absence of a creator god, Buddhism is commonly described as nontheistic.

People who self-identify as atheists are often assumed to be irreligious, however, some sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deity.^[111] In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated a number of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism^[112][113] and Christian atheists.^{[114][115][116]}

The strictest sense of positive atheism does not entail any specific beliefs outside of disbelief in any deity; as such, atheists can hold any number of spiritual beliefs. For the same reason, atheists can hold a wide variety of ethical beliefs, ranging from the moral universalism of humanism, which holds that a moral code should be applied consistently to all humans, to moral nihilism, which holds that morality is meaningless.^[117]

Although it is a philosophical truism, encapsulated in Plato's Euthyphro dilemma that the role of the gods in determining right from wrong is either unnecessary or arbitrary, the argument that morality must be derived from God and cannot exist without a wise creator has been a persistent feature of political if not so much philosophical debate.^{[118][119][120]} Moral precepts such as "murder is wrong" are seen as divine laws, requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, many atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a false analogy, and that morality does not depend on a lawmaker in the same way that laws do.^[121]

Philosophers Susan Neiman^[122] and Julian Baggini^[123] (among others) assert that behaving ethically only because of divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience. Baggini argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necessary to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselves - to be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs it - and that atheists, therefore, have the advantage of being more inclined to make such evaluations.^[124] The contemporary British political philosopher Martin Cohen has offered the more historically telling example of Biblical injunctions in favour of torture and slavery as evidence of how religious injunctions follow political and social customs, rather than vice versa, but also noted that the same tendency seems to be true of supposedly dispassionate and objective philosophers.^[125] Cohen extends this argument in more detail in Political Philosophy from Plato to Mao in the case of the Koran which he sees as having had a generally unfortunate role in preserving medieval social codes through changes in secular society.^[126]

Nonetheless, atheists such as Sam Harris have argued that Western religions' reliance on divine authority lends itself to authoritarianism and dogmatism.^[127] Indeed, religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religion (when religion is held because it serves other, more ultimate interests^[128]) have been correlated with authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice.^[129] This argument, combined with historical events that are argued to demonstrate the dangers of religion, such as the Crusades, inquisitions, and witch trials, are used by some antireligious atheists to justify their views.^[130]

See also

Atheism portal

Notes

References

• Baggini, Julian (2003). Atheism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280424-3. 
• Martin, Michael, ed (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-60367-6. 
• Smith, George H. (1979). Atheism: The Case Against God. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus. ISBN 0-87975-124-X. 
• Zdybicka, Zofia J. (2005). "Atheism". in Maryniarczyk, Andrzej. Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 1. Polish Thomas Aquinas Association. http://www.ptta.pl/pef/angielski/hasla/a/atheism.pdf. Retrieved 2007-08-25. 

Further reading

• Berman, David (1990). A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04727-7. 
• Buckley, M. J. (1990). At the Origins of Modern Atheism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300048971. 
• Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Bantam Press. ISBN 0593055489. 
• Flew, Antony (2005). God and Philosophy. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1591023300. 
• Flynn, Tom, ed. (2007). The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1591023912.
• Gaskin, J.C.A., ed (1989). Varieties of Unbelief: From Epicurus to Sartre. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-340681-X. 
• Germani, Alan (2008-09-15). "The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists". The Objective Standard (Glen Allen Press) 3 (3). http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-fall/mystical-ethics-new-atheists.asp. Retrieved 2008-09-15. 
• Harbour, Daniel (2003). An Intelligent Person's Guide to Atheism. London: Duckworth. ISBN 0-7156-3229-9. 
• Harris, Sam (2006). Letter to a Christian Nation. Knopf. ISBN 978-0307265777. 
• Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Twelve. ISBN 978-0446579803. 
• Jacoby, Susan (2004). Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. Metropolitan Books. ISBN 978-0805074420. 
• Krueger, D. E. (1998). What is Atheism?: A Short Introduction. New York: Prometheus. ISBN 1-57392-214-5. 
• Le Poidevin, R. (1996). Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09338-4. 
• Mackie, J. L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God. Oxford: Oxford UP. ISBN 019824682X
• Maritain, Jacques (1953). The Range of Reason. London: Geoffrey Bles. ISBN B0007DKP00. http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/range.htm. Retrieved 2006-10-27. 
• Martin, Michael (1990). Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. ISBN 0-87722-943-0. 
• Martin, Michael, ed. (2007). The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521603676
• Martin, Michael & Monnier, R., eds. (2003). The Impossibility of God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. ISBN 1591021200
• Martin, Michael & Monnier, R., eds. (2006). The Improbability of God. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. ISBN 1591023815
• McTaggart, John & McTaggart, Ellis (1930). Some Dogmas of Religion. London: Edward Arnold & Co., new edition. [First published 1906] ISBN 0548149550
• Nielsen, Kai (1985). Philosophy and Atheism. New York: Prometheus. ISBN 0-87975-289-0. 
• Nielsen, Kai (2001). Naturalism and Religion. New York: Prometheus. ISBN 1573928534. 
• Oppy, Graham (2006). Arguing about Gods. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521863864. 
• Robinson, Richard (1964). An Atheist's Values. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198241917. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/athval0.htm. 
• Russell, Paul, (2005). Hume on Religion (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
• Sharpe, R.A. (1997). The Moral Case Against Religious Belief. London: SCM Press. ISBN 0-334-02680-6. 
• Smith, George Atheism: The Case Against God, (1974). ISBN 087975124X
• Stenger, Victor J. (2007). God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. ISBN 1591024811
• Thrower, James (1971). A Short History of Western Atheism. London: Pemberton. ISBN 0-301-71101-1. 

External links

• Atheism in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• "Atheism and Agnosticism" article by J. J. C. Smart in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Atheism at the Open Directory Project - Includes links to organizations and websites.
• Positive atheism: Great Historical Writings Historical writing sorted by authors.
• Religion & Ethics—Atheism at bbc.co.uk.
• Secular Web library - Library of both historical and modern writings, a comprehensive online resource for freely available material on atheism.
• The Demand for Religion - A study on the demographics of Atheism by Wolfgang Jagodzinski (University of Cologne) and Andrew Greeley (University of Chicago and University of Arizona).
• The Necessity of Atheism - Complete work by Dr. D.M. Brooks.
• The Problem with Atheism by Sam Harris – On Faith at washingtonpost.com.
• Atheism at enotes.com

From Wikiquote

Atheism is the state of being without theistic beliefs.

Sourced

• What Jupiter? Do not trifle. There is no Jupiter.
  • Socrates character in Aristophanes' The Clouds (5th c. BCE, tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, Perseus)

• People will then often say, 'But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?' This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.)
  • Douglas Adams, interview with The American Atheist (in The Salmon of Doubt)

• The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts:
  Those with brains, but no religion,
  And those with religion, but no brains.
  • Abu'l-`Ala' al-Ma`arri (Arabic: أبو العلاء المعري), poet of Ma`arra, quoted in Maalouf, Amin (1989). Crusades Through Arab Eyes.  

• I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.
  • Atatürk, quoted in Mango, Andrew. Ataturk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey. ISBN 158567334X.  

• I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
  • Isaac Asimov, in Free Inquiry, Vol. 2, Spring 1982, p.9.

• A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philsophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
  • Sir Francis Bacon, Essays, 16, "Of Atheism"

• The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he rather saith it by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it; for none deny there is a God, but those for whom it maketh that there were no God. It appeareth in nothing more that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man by this, that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others; nay more, you shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects; and, which is most of all, you shall have of them that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas, if they did truly think that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves?
  • Francis Bacon, Of Atheism

• Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy, in the minds of men.
  • Sir Francis Bacon, Essays, 16, "Of Superstition"

• ATHEISM: A godless religion that retains all the dogmatic posturing of the faiths it so confidently denies, with few of the consolations.
  • Rick Bayan, The Cynic's Dictionary, unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• I have heard an atheist defined as a man who had no invisible means of support.
  • John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, speaking to the Law Society of Upper Canada, (21 February 1936); published in Canadian Occasions (1940), p. 201.
  • Buchan's source remains unknown. The witticism was repeated by Harry Emerson Fosdick in his On Being a Real Person (1943), ch. 1, with acknowledgement to Buchan, and was again used by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in Look magazine (December 14, 1955). Credit for this line is therefore often wrongly given to Fosdick or to Sheen. Credit has also been given to the conductor Walter Damrosch (1862-1950).

• I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
  • former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, August 27 1987; quoted in Free Inquiry magazine, Fall 1988, Volume 8, Number 4, page 16

• I think people attack me because they are fearful that I will then say that you're not equally as patriotic if you're not a religious person. . . . I've never said that. I've never acted like that. I think that's just the way it is.

— President George W. Bush, Washington Times, 12 January 2005

• I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another.
  • Lord Byron letter to Francis Hodgson, 3 September 1811

• And so to those of you who may be vitalists I would make this prophecy: what everyone believed yesterday, and you believe today, only cranks will believe tomorrow.
  • Francis Crick (1967). Quoted in Of Molecules and Men, Great Minds Series (Prometheus Books, 2004)[1].

• There are no atheists in foxholes.
  • Father William Thomas Cummings, Field Sermon on Bataan (1942), quoted in I Saw the Fall of the Philippines by Carlos P. Romulo; also attributed to Lieut. Col. Warren J. Clear, "Bataan Defenders' Suffering Related," The Los Angeles Times, 13 April 1942, Pg. 3.

• Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
  • Dawkins, Richard (1986). The Blind Watchmaker. ISBN 0393315703.  

• It is often said, mainly by the 'no-contests', that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?
  • Richard Dawkins, "EDITORIAL: A scientist's case against God", The Independent (London), April 20, 1992, p.17

• The trouble is that God in this sophisticated, physicist's sense bears no resemblance to the God of the Bible or any other religion. If a physicist says God is another name for Planck's constant, or God is a superstring, we should take it as a picturesque metaphorical way of saying that the nature of superstrings or the value of Planck's constant is a profound mystery. It has obviously not the smallest connection with a being capable of forgiving sins, a being who might listen to prayers, who cares about whether or not the Sabbath begins at 5pm or 6pm, whether you wear a veil or have a bit of arm showing; and no connection whatever with a being capable of imposing a death penalty on His son to expiate the sins of the world before and after he was born.
  • Richard Dawkins, from a lecture, extracted from The Nullifidian (Dec 94)

• I would, like any other scientist, willingly change my mind if the evidence led me to do so. So I care about what's true, I care about evidence, I care about evidence as the reason for knowing what is true. It is true that I come across rather passionate sometimes—and that's because I am passionate about the truth. … I do get very impatient with humbug, with cant, with fakery, with charlatans.
  • Richard Dawkins, BBC interview, April 2004

• We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
  • Richard Dawkins (2006) The Root of All Evil television programme

• If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests. If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.
  • Baron D'Holbach, cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.

• It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of Religion, that we shall discover Truth, Reason and Morality.
  • Baron D'Holbach, cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.

• The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
  • Albert Einstein, Gutkind Letter (3 January 1954), "Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear", The Guardian, 13 May 2008.

• Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
  • Einstein, Albert. "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930, pp. 1–4.

• It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. ... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
  • Einstein, Albert. "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930, pp. 1–4.

• In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views.
  • Albert Einstein, quoted in Prince Hubertus Zu (1968). Towards the Further Shore. pp. 156.  

• It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
  • Albert Einstein, quoted in Dukas, Helen (ed.) and Banesh Hoffman (ed.) (1981). Albert Einstein: The Human Side. Princeton University Press.  

• God was always invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time — life and death — stuff like that. God is always associated with those things that you do not understand. Therefore I don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they have been figured out.
  • Richard Feynman, quoted in Davies, P. C. W.; J. Brown (1988). Superstrings: A Theory of Everything?. pp. pp. 208-209. ISBN 0-521-35741-1.  

• Whatever an atheist, who denies the God and the prophet is, one who murders a human is equivalent to that.
  • Fethullah Gülen, Interview with Nuriye Akman, Zaman, March 23, 2004 [2].

• I think it better to keep a profound silence with regard to the Christian fables, which are canonized by their antiquity and the credulity of absurd and insipid people.
  • Frederick the Great, Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 37 from Frederick to Voltaire, June 1738.

• [N]either antiquity nor any other nation has imagined a more atrocious and blasphemous absurdity than that of eating God. This is how Christians treat the autocrat of the universe.
  • Frederick the Great, Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 215 from Frederick to Voltaire, 19 March 1776.

• The question of the origin of the matter in the universe is no longer thought to be beyond the range of science -- everything can be created from nothing…it is fair to say that the universe is the ultimate free lunch.
  • Guth, Alan (March 1998). The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins. Perseus Books Group. ISBN 0201328402.  

• Now let it be written in history and on Mr. Lincoln's tombstone: `He died an unbeliever.'
  • William H. Herndon, Abraham Lincoln's law partner in Springfield since 1844, Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, 1896. Quoted in Freethinkers by Susan Jacoby, 2004.

• The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100 (1953), postscript

• What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
  • Christopher Hitchens, "Less than Miraculous," Free Inquiry magazine, February-March 2004, Volume 24.

• Only a humorless tyrant could want a perpetual chanting of praises that, one has no choice but to assume, would be the innate virtues and splendors furnished him by his creator, infinite regression, drowned in praise!
  • Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)

• Time spent arguing with the faithful is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.
  • Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)

• Along with Islam and Christianity, Judaism does insist that some turgid and contradictory and sometimes evil and mad texts, obviously written by fairly unexceptional humans, are in fact the word of god. I think that the indispensable condition of any intellectual liberty is the realisation that there is no such thing.
  • Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)

• "I am not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion, I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case."
  • Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)

• Don't you see that the appalling history of sectarianism, persecution, heresy hunting, shows you that this way of thinking about the world is intrinsically unsound?
  • Thomas Hobbes, cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.

• The universe, the whole mass of all things that are, is corporeal, that is to say body, and hath dimensions of magnitude, length breadth and depth. Every part of the universe is body and that which is not body is no part of the universe. And because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing. Consequently, nowhere.
  • Thomas Hobbes, cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.

• There is in every village a torch: The schoolteacher. And an extinguisher: The priest.
  • Victor Hugo, cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.

• God's power is infinite, Whatever he wills is executed; But neither man nor any other animal is happy; therefore he does not will their happiness. Epicurus' old questions are yet unanswered. Is he both able and willing to prevent evil? Then whence cometh evil?
  • David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779), cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.

• For my own part, I do not know what the sweat and blood of this life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which we may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight - as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfullnesses, are needed to redeem: and first of all to redeem our own hearts from atheism and fears. For such a half-wild, half-saved universe our nature is adapted.
  • William James, The Will to Believe, p. 61

• The legitimate powers of government extend to only such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg.
  • Thomas Jefferson, Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 254

• The Koran! well, come put me to the test—
  Lovely old book in hideous error drest—
   Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
  The unbeliever knows his Koran best.
  
  And do you think that unto such as you,
  A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
   God gave the secret, and denied it me?—
  Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.
  
  • Omar Khayyám, Rubaiyat (1048–1123), translation by Richard Le Gallienne.

• If there is one indisputable fact about the human condition it is that no community can survive if it is persuaded—or even if it suspects—that its members are leading meaningless lives in a meaningless universe.
  • Irving Kristol, quoted in Doherty, Brian. "Origin of the Specious: Why do neoconservatives doubt Darwin?", Reason, July 1997.

• There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work.
  • Irving Kristol, quoted in Doherty, Brian. "Origin of the Specious: Why do neoconservatives doubt Darwin?", Reason, July 1997.

• There is no need for that hypothesis.
  • Laplace, in response to Napoleon's objection that Laplace had omitted God from Celestial Mechanics (Boyer 1968, p. 538)

• It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to Infidelity.
  • Abraham Lincoln, in an unidentified, undated interview in Manfred's Magazine
  • Quoted in Morgan, Robin (2006). Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating The Religious Right. Nation Books. pp. p. 34. ISBN 1560259485.  
  • Quoted in Steiner, Franklin. The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents (unidentified edition ed.). unidentified ISBN.  

• Where is my faith? Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness … If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul … How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, … What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.
  • Mother Teresa, Letters. Teresa, Mother; Kolodiejchuk, Brian (2007). Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0385520379.  

• Atheism is so senseless & odious to mankind that it never had many professors. Can it be by accident that all birds beasts & men have their right side & left side alike shaped (except in their bowells) & just two eyes & no more on either side the face & just two ears on either side the head & a nose with two holes & no more between the eyes & one mouth under the nose & either two fore leggs or two wings or two arms on the sholders & two leggs on the hipps one on either side & no more? Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward shapes but from the counsel & contrivance of an Author? Whence is it that the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom & the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside an hard transparent skin, & within transparent juyces with a crystalline Lens in the middle & a pupil before the Lens all of them so truly shaped & fitted for vision, that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light & what was its refraction & fit the eys of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These & such like considerations always have & ever will prevail with man kind to believe that there is a being who made all things & has all things in his power & who is therfore to be feared.
  • Sir Isaac Newton in "A short Schem of the true Religion".

• I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
  • Stephen F Roberts http://freelink.wildlink.com/quote_history.php

• Atheism is an old idea, probably as old as humanity, and it has always justified its case by its superior understanding of nature. Unfortunately, as scientific knowledge has become more sophisticated over the past three centuries, all the scientific ideas which support atheism have evaporated into murky puddles of water, when they have not actually dried up entirely. It is now clear that the Universe has not always been here, it has a beginning. Everything is not made of indestructible atoms. Life is not caused by sunlight on dungheaps, and so on.
  • Bill Saunders, in 'Sunlight on dungheaps' in Independent On Sunday (10 June 2001)

• You don't have to believe in atheism, because atheism is based on REASON.
  • Manfred F. Schieder (1937 - ) From: "Rebirth of Reason" (Quotes: http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Quotes/Author_537.shtml - Also mentioned several times on blogs and webpages)

• Atheists in foxholes, some say they are myths,
  Creations of the mind who just don't exist.
  Yet, they answered the call to defend, with great pride.
  With reason their watchword, they bled and they died.
  • Alice Shiver, "Atheists-in-Foxholes" monument, dedicated on July 4, 1999

• Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position. Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity, the humanity (in the Harvard sense) of saying that the universe just happened to happen and that when we're dead we're dead?
  • John Updike, Self-Consciousness: Memoirs (1989), ch. 4

• [Christianity] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. … My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the finest and most respectable which the human mind can point out.
  • Voltaire, Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), transl. Richard Aldington, letter 156 from Voltaire to Frederick, 5 January 1767.

• Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!
  • Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Mother Night

• The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front."
  • Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Hocus Pocus, 1997 reprint, page 180.

• If we don't play God, who will?
  • James D. Watson (1996), in The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities, [3] New York;Simon and Schuster

• Premature as the question may be, it is hardly possible not to wonder whether we will find any answer to our deepest questions, any signs of the workings of an interested God, in a final theory. I think that we will not.
  • Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory, pp. 257-258. See also positiveatheism.org's Weinberg quotations.

• Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
  • Steven Weinberg, unidentified article/page, Freethought Today, April 2000

• [T]he aim of this conference is to have a constructive dialogue between science and religion. I am all in favor of a dialogue between science and religion, but not a constructive dialogue. One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.
  • Steven Weinberg, Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries (2001), p. 242.

• All your Western theologies, the whole mythologies of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent…
  • Tennesee Williams The Night of the Iguana Act II

• By night an atheist half believes in God.
  • Edward Young, Night Thoughts, "Night Two", p. 292

• Civilization will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.
  • Émile Zola,cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• The thing formed says that nothing formed it; and that which is made is, while that which made it is not! The folly is infinite.
  • Jeremy Taylor, p. 18.

• That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.
  • Jonathan Swift, p. 18.

• Atheism is rather in the life than in the heart of man.
  • Francis Bacon, p. 18.

• Atheism can benefit no class of people; neither the unfortunate, whom it bereaves of hope, nor the prosperous, whose joys it renders insipid, nor the soldier, of whom it makes a coward, nor the woman whose beauty and sensibility it mars, nor the mother, who has a son to lose, nor the rulers of men, who have no surer pledge of the fidelity of their subjects than religion.
  • François-René de Chateaubriand, p. 19.

• Ingersoll's atheism can never become an institution; it can never be more than a destitution.
  • Robert Collyer, p. 19.

• They that deny a God destroy man's nobility, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.
  • Francis Bacon, p. 19.

• No one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God. With an orphaned heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers, he stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse of nature, no longer moved and sustained by the Spirit of the universe.
  • Jean Paul Richter, p. 19.

• Religion assures us that our afflictions shall have an end; she comforts us, she dries our tears, she promises us another life. On the contrary, in the abominable worship of atheism, human woes are the incense, death is the priest, a coffin the altar, and annihilation the Deity.
  • François-René de Chateaubriand, p. 19.

• Nothing enlarges the gulf of atheism more than the wide passage that lies between the faith and lives of men pretending to teach Christianity.
  • Edward Stillingfleet, p. 19.

• I want you to have courage to declare yourself to be an atheist, or to serve your god with all your might and power in perfect consecration, whatever or whoever that god may be — whether it be the crocodile of the Nile or our Jehovah, "God over all blessed for evermore."
  • Charles F. Deems, p. 20.

Inadequately sourced

• Certainly you don't believe in the gods? What's your argument? Where's your proof?
  • Aristophanes
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
  • Aristotle
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• I do not believe in God, but as I sat there in the damaged [balloon] capsule, hopelessly vulnerable to the slightest shift in weather or mechanical fault, I could not believe my eyes.
  • Richard Branson, Losing My Virginity, unidentified ISBN/edition, p. 239

• I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion.
  • James Buchanan
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• By simple common sense I don't believe in God.
  • Charlie Chaplin
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• 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.
  • Cicero
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence, from Jerusalem, of a lunatic asylum.
  • Havelock Ellis
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers (1959), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent — it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion — i.e., none to speak of.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
  The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man.
  But it's lovely work if you can stomach it.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (1973), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and "dying for your sins". Somebody should tell all of Yahweh's followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• Religion is a solace to many and it is even conceivable that some religion, somewhere, is Ultimate Truth. But being religious is often a form of conceit. The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was 'saved,' they were 'damned' — we were in a state of grace and the rest were 'heathens.' By 'heathen' they meant such as our brother Mahmoud. Ignorant louts who seldom bathed and planted corn by the Moon claimed to know the final answers of the Universe. That entitled them to look down on outsiders. Our hymns was loaded with arrogance — self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, and what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day. (FE)
  • Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• All thinking men are atheists.
  • Ernest Hemingway
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people.
  • Katharine Hepburn, unidentified article/page, Ladies' Home Journal, October 1991

• I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel.
  • Thomas Henry Huxley, Essays on Controversial Questions, unidentified essay, unidentified edition

• The clergy believe that any power confided in me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes, and they believe rightly.
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• My earlier views on the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation have become clearer and stronger with advancing years.
  • Abraham Lincoln
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• I can well imagine an atheist’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!” — and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, “Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,” and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.
  • Yann Martel, Life of Pi, unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified page

• Some people say God died during the Partition in 1947. He may have died in 1971 during the war. Or he may have died yesterday here in Pondicherry in an orphanage. That’s what some people say, Pi. When I was your age, I lived in bed, racked with polio. I asked myself every day, ‘Where is God? Where is God? Where is God?’ God never came. It wasn’t God who saved me—it was medicine. Reason is my prophet and it tells me that as a watch stops, so we die. It’s the end. If the watch doesn’t work properly, it must be fixed here and now by us. One day we will take hold of the means of production and there will be justice on earth.
  • Yann Martel, Life of Pi, unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified page

• In the unlikely event of losing Pascal's Wager, I intend to saunter in to Judgement Day with a bookshelf full of grievances, a flaming sword of my own devising, and a serious attitude problem.
  • Rick Moen, unidentified Usenet post to rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan, unidentified 1997 date

• The moths & atheists are doubly divine.
  • Jim Morrison, An American Prayer, unidentified ISBN/edition, unidentified chapter/page

• We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
  • Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980, unidentified page

• The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
  • George Bernard Shaw
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
  • Stephen Henry Roberts, quoted by Sam Harris in Sam Harris. "10 myths–and 10 Truths–About Atheism", Los Angeles Times, 24 December 2006. URL accessed on 2008-01-03.

• I never believed. I thought all the services at school were ludicrous. Loved the hymns, but the content of the hymns were so absurd. Dense theology, weird stuff.
  • Polly Toynbee
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• "If you don't worship me you will burn forever." I always thought that was ugly.
  • Gore Vidal
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• Crush the infamy! (Écrasez l'infâme!)
  • Common signature of Voltaire in his letters and pamphlets

• Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people.
  • Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, unidentified edition, unidentified page

• They felt that science would be corrosive to religious belief and they were worried about it. Damn it, I think they were right. It is corrosive to religious belief and it's a good thing.
  • Steven Weinberg
  • Quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, unidentified episode, unidentified 2005 date

• This is one of the great social functions of science—to free people from superstition.
  • Steven Weinberg, unidentified article/page, Freethought Today, April 2000

• Science should be taught not in order to support religion and not in order to destroy religion. Science should be taught simply ignoring religion.
  • Steven Weinberg, unidentified article/page, Freethought Today, April 2000

Disputed

• Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
  • Attributed to Seneca, as quoted in What Great Men Think About Religion (1945) by Ira D. Cardiff, p. 342; No original source for this has been found in the works of Seneca, or published translations (see: Talk:Seneca the Younger).

• Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
  Then he is not omnipotent.
  Is he able, but not willing?
  Then he is malevolent.
  Is God both able and willing?
  Then whence cometh evil?
  Is he neither able nor willing?
  Then why call him God?
  • Attributed to Epicurus, as quoted in BBC Four, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief. No original source for this has been found for this quote (see: Talk:Epicurus).

See also

• God
• Religion
• Life
• Death
• Agnosticism
• Irreligious
• Skepticism

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

Atheism

Look up atheism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From LoveToKnow 1911

From BibleWiki

A term derived from the Greek, meaning literally the "disbelief in a God." As originally used in the writings of the people that coined it, it carried the implication of non-recognition of the God or the gods acknowledged as supreme, and therefore entitled to worship by the state. It was in this sense that Socrates was accused and convicted of Atheism. The same note is dominant in the oft-quoted dictum attributed to Polybius, that reverence for the gods is the foundation of all public order and security.

Impossible in Ancient Israel.

The Hebrew dictionary has no word of exactly similar import. The reasons for this are not difficult to establish. Atheism, in the restricted sense of the Greek usage, could not find expression among the Hebrews before they had come into contact and conflict with other nations. As long as their tribal consciousness was strong and supreme among them, recognition on the part of all members of the clan or tribe of the god to whom the family clan or tribe and people owed allegiance was spontaneous. Recent researches in this field have established beyond the possibility of doubt that this sense of family or tribal or national affinity is focal to all primitive religion. Sacrifice and all other features of private or public cult center in this all-regulating sentiment. The deity is entertained by the members of the family at the sacrificial meal. Even some institutions of the Israelitish cult, such as the Pesaḥ meal, reflect the mental mood of this original conviction. Denial of the family or tribal or national deity would have amounted to relinquishment of one's family or people; and such abandonment is a thought of which man is incompetent before a long stretch of historical experience has changed his whole mental attitude.

In the development of the Jewish God-idea, as traced by modern Biblical criticism, the conflict between the Prophets and their antagonists pivots not so much around the controversy whether God be or be not, but around the recognition of Yhwh as the only and legitimate God of Israel. Even they who opposed the Prophets were not atheists in the modern acceptation of the word. They may be so styled, if the implications of the term be restricted to the original Greek usage. According to prophetic preachment, Israel owed allegiance to Yhwh alone. This is the emphasis of their oft-repeated statement that it was Yhwh who led the people of Israel out of Egypt. The first statement of the Decalogue is not a protest against Atheism in the modern sense. It posits positively the prophetic thesis that no other God but Yhwh brought about Israel's redemption from Egyptian bondage. The force of this prophetic contention is well illustrated by the counter or corresponding claim advanced in behalf of the deities nationalized by Jeroboam at Dan and Beth-el (I Kings xii. 28). With all the strenuousness of their insistence upon the sole supremacy and legitimacy of Yhwh as Israel's God, the Prophets never went the length to call their opponents atheists. That the gods whom the followers of the false prophets worshiped were not gods is a conviction that appears only in later prophets, and then not in a very violent emphasis. Jeremiah resorts to mild sarcasm (Jer. ii.27, 28). The second Isaiah is more pronounced in his ridicule heaped upon the worshipers of idols. Yet the quarrel is not because some or many deny God. Their censure is evoked by the fact that some or many worship gods that have no claim upon the recognition of Israel, the people of Yhwh.

Atheism the Result of Skepticism.

Again, Atheism always is the result of criticism and skepticism. Both in the individual and in the race it is, as it were, an afterthought. No people starts out with Atheism. The original religiousness of man is always spontaneously theistic in one form or another. And as long as the religious consciousness of man is in its prime vigor, there is no provocation for critical analysis of its contents. Periods of decline in religiousness produce skepticism, which, in turn, breeds Atheism. Up to the Exile the conditions for Atheism—in this sense—were lacking in Israel. Even the Exile, though fatal to the religious fervor of a great number—as is apparent by a study of the "'Ebed Yhwh" hymns, portraying as they do the indignities and ridicule to which a pious minority were exposed at the hands of their compatriots—brought to bear upon the minds of the Jews influences much more potent in the opposite direction. Contact with the Babylonian-Assyrian, and shortly after with the Persian, civilization had a pronounced tendency to develop an abiding predisposition toward mysticism, which is always fatal to sober Atheism. In this connection it is well to remember that Jewish angelology and demonology took their rise in the Captivity; and certainly an age susceptible to suggestions of the order vocalized in the belief in angels and their counterparts is not very propitious for the cultivation of atheistic proclivities. The literature assigned to the Exile evidences the prevalence of the very opposite inclination. It is safe to hold that anterior to the Greek period there was but little cause among the Jews to pay attention to atheistic enunciations. This fact accounts for the absence of a term to denote both the professor and the system of Atheism.

Psalm liii., preserved in a double version (in Ps. xiv.), mentions the speech of one who maintains that there is no God. The professor of this belief is styled "nabal," and in the context is contrasted with the "maskil" (verse 3); wherefore the word was understood to be "fool," or, as Ibn Ezra has it in his commentary, the contrary of "ḥakam" (wise). This meaning the Targum to Psalm xiv. also accepts, rendering it by "shaṭya." Other commentators hold that the psalm does not register a general proposition, but records the utterances of some definite person—Titus or Nebuchadnezzar. From the character of these men it may be inferred that the interpreters who refer the expression in the Psalm to them, took the word "nabal" in the secondary sense of "knave," implying that foolishness which always characterizes a corrupt or pervert mind. "Nabal" would thus be a synonym of "rasha'" or "zed."

Talmudic Designations.

The nearest approach to a phrase which might be considered the equivalent of our modern "atheist" is the rabbinical "kofer be'iḳḳar," one who denies a fundamental tenet of the Jewish religion; namely, the existence and then the unity of God. Of all the other designations applied in rabbinical writings to heretics, none other seems so directly to suggest or to stand for avowed and open negation of the Deity's existence and supremacy (B. B. 15b; Pesiḳ. p. 163). Atheism is included among the heresies charged against the "minim" (Shab. 116b; and Maimonides, Yad ha-Ḥazaḳah, Teshubah, iii., where he enumerates among the heretics "minim," "those that declare that there is no God and that the world has neither governor nor leader").

But as in the case of the Biblical "nabal," so in the descriptions of the atheist by the Rabbis it would appear that Atheism was much more a matter of perverse and immoral conduct than of formulated philosophical or metaphysical assertion and conviction. At least it is from the conduct of man that his Atheism is inferred. Observance of the Sabbath was regarded as evidence of belief in the Creator; while neglect to keep the day of rest holy gave point to the presumption of atheistic leanings. The passage in Sifra, Beḥuḳḳotai, iii. 2, shows that the observance or the rejection of the "laws and ordinances" was the decisive factor in the attribution of Atheism, according to rabbinical understanding. Adam is said to have been an atheist; for in hiding himself to escape, he gave proof of his belief that God was not omnipresent (Sanh. 38b).

How far the term "Epicurean," (image) (see Apiḳoros), served to denote an atheist, is not very clear. It is patent that by this name were designated men who denied the doctrine of resurrection and revelation. As both of these may be said to be involved in the (rabbinical) doctrine concerning the Godhead, the appellation "Epicurean" may in a loose way have been synonymous with the latter-day atheist. Connecting this Greek word with the Aramaic root "paḳar" (to free oneself), the rabbinical sources—even Maimonides—assumed as the characteristic trait of an Epicurean's conduct disregard of all that made for reverence and decency. "Scoffer" might, therefore, be suggested as the best rendering in English. As one that would scoff at the words of the learned and wise, of the God-fearing and pious (Ned. 23a; Sanh. 99b), the Epicurean naturally created the impression by his conduct that he shared the views of the "nabal" and was under suspicion that in his insolence he would go so far as to deny the existence of God and to stand in no awe of His providential guidance of life and the world. Hence the advice always to be ready to refute the arguments of the Epicurean (Abot ii. 14).

Jews Accused of Atheism.

Strange to say, the Jews often had to defend themselves against the charge of being atheists, though, in the conception of the Prophets, Israel's history was the convincing proof of God's providence. Israel was chosen to be His witness. The prime solicitude of Moses (Ex. xxxii. 12, 13) lest the "Egyptians" should put a wrong construction on the events of Israel's career and become confirmed in their false conceptions of Israel's God, is also, as it were, the "leitmotif" of the theology of later Biblical writers. The appeal of the Seventy-ninth Psalm is for God to manifest Himself in His avenging splendor, lest, from the weakness of Israel, the"nations" might infer that He had abdicated in favor of their idols. Psalm cxv. 2 seq.—undoubtedly of the Maccabean period—expresses the same anxiety but on a higher and more spiritual plane. It reflects the arguments and conceits of even the enlightened among the Greeks. The invisible God of the Jews was beyond the range of the ancient world's intelligence. A visible God alone was entitled to recognition.

Greek thought may not have gone so far as Pharaoh did—according to the Midrash (Ex. R. v.), reflecting certainly the anti-Jewish attitude of the Greco-Roman period—in refusing to recognize Yhwh for the reason that his name was not included in the official list of deities, yet it did erect an altar to "the unknown God" (Acts xvii. 23), as, in fact, the hospitality of the Pantheon was elastic enough to admit every new deity. Still, two considerations dominated the judgment of the Greek world on the religion, or, according to them, irreligion, of the Jews. The Jews believed in an invisible God; therefore, according to the Greek mode of thinking, in no God. Secondly, the Jews refused to join them in their worship, though the Greeks were prepared to pay honor to the gods of other nations. These two complaints are at the bottom of the accusation of Atheism against the Jews which is very frequent and violent in the writings of Alexandrian detractors and Roman historians. The philosophers among the Greeks, indeed, furnished many an argument in defense of the excellence of Jewish monotheism; but the vast multitude was still addicted to the grosser notions. If the Jews were citizens of the towns where they resided, as they claimed to be, why did they not join in worshiping the communal gods? This was the burden of the popular prejudice against them; and Apion (Josephus, "Contra Ap." ii. § 6), Posidonius, and Apollonius Molo made themselves the willing mouthpieces of popular distrust. Here was proof that the Jews were really atheists. In the Roman empire they refused to pay religious honors to the statues of the emperors. This fact sufficed, in the eyes of Tacitus and Pliny, to accuse them of despising the gods and to describe them as atheists, as a people void of all virtue (Tacitus, "Historiæ," v. 5; see Schürer, "Gesch." 3d ed., iii. 417).

The same feeling that led the Greek and Roman enemies of the Jews to accuse them of irreligion is potent in the modern charge brought against them of unbelief. Atheism is indeed a relative term. The Mohammedan regards both the Christian and the Jew as infidels; and the Christian is not slow to return the compliment to the follower of the Prophet. Refusing to accept the construction of his history that Christian theology puts on it, and declining to subscribe to many of the Christological interpretations of his Bible, the Jew is under the suspicion of irreligion and Atheism. The "amixia," the stubborn defense of his historical identity, and his right to maintain his religious distinctness, which puzzled and angered the Greeks (compare Haman's argument in Esther iii. 8, the precipitate of the Maccabean era), is still a pretext for denying to the Jew genuine religious feeling, and a provocation to class him among the wanton deniers of God.

Attitude of Mohammed and Philo.

The attitude toward the Jews in the Koran illustrates the same fact. Mohammed, incensed at the refusal of the Jews to acclaim him as the expected final prophet, pours out over them the vials of his wrath and abuse. Though "the people of the book," they have falsified it. They claim to believe, and still are unbelievers. They disavow him, simply because he believes in God and they do not (Koran, suras ii. 70-73, 116; v. 48, 49, 64-69; ix. 30).

That there were atheists among the Jews stands to reason, and is made evident among other things by the tenor of the Book of Ecclesiastes, which, without the later addition of the saving concluding verses, is really an exposition of the skepticism that had impregnated the minds of the higher classes during the Greek fever preceding the Maccabean rebellion. In Alexandria, too, Jews must have been openly or tacitly inclined to accept the philosophy of negation. Philo takes occasion to discuss Atheism. He quotes the arguments advanced in its defense by those who maintain that nothing exists but the perceptible and visible universe, which had never come into being and which would never perish, but which, though unbegotten and incorruptible, was without pilot, guardian, or protector ("De Somnis," ii. 43). He does not state that they who advance these theories are Jews; but as he mentions others who embrace a pantheistic interpretation, and describes them as Chaldeans ("De Migratione Abrahami," p. 32), it is not improbable that "the others" may have been of his people. To Atheism he opposes the doctrine of Moses, "the beholder of the invisible nature, and seer of God" ("De Mutatione Nominum," § 2), according to which the Divine exists, and is neither the cosmos nor the soul of the cosmos, but is the supreme God.

The religious philosophy of the Middle Ages has no occasion to deal directly with formulated Atheism. Its preoccupation is largely apologetic, not so much against the attacks of formal and formidable Atheism as against certain theistic or semitheistic schools or other controverts: first Karaite, then Arabic, and, still later, Christian theologians. But in their discussions of the fundamentals of faith the problem of theism versus Atheism in one way or another is involved. The contentions of the Dahri, Mohammedan atheists, believing in the eternity of matter, and the duration of the world from eternity, and denying resurrection and final judgment, as well as the theories of the Motazilites, the Mohammedan freethinkers, rejecting all eternal attributes of God, furnish the text for a large portion of the speculation of the Jewish philosophers. The one objective point of all medieval Jewish philosophy is the clarification of the concept of the Godhead by the removal of every form of anthropomorphism and anthropopathism, and to vindicate to human reason concordance with the true intents of the revealed word of God. The question which Mohammedan Atheism raised regarding the eternity of matter is in the very center of polemic debate. But in the later speculation, the system of Crescas, for instance, the eternity of matter, is admitted without reservation.

This throws light at once on the problem whether Spinoza should be classed among the atheoi. Fromthe Jewish point of view this must be denied. Under close analysis, Spinoza does not go beyond the positions maintained on some points by Maimonides, on more by Crescas. He carries to its furthest consequences the Jewish solicitude to divest the idea of the Godhead of anthropomorphic associations (on this point see Joel, "Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinoza's," Breslau, 1871).

In modern Judaism, as is evinced by printed sermons and other publications, Atheism of every kind has found voice and adherents. The influence of the natural sciences, and the unwarranted conclusions now recognized as such by none more readily than by the thinkers devoted to the exploration of nature's domain, have also left their mark on Jewry. Both the idle Atheism of conceit and the more serious Atheism of reaction against the dogmatism of anterior days have had exponents in the circles grouped around the synagogues. As elsewhere, evolution was invoked to dethrone God, and therefore, departing from the methods of scholasticism, the arguments based on evolution were not ignored by the defenders of theism in the pulpit. In the discussion two lines were more especially followed. Atheism was tested as to its rationality, and was found of all irrational theories of the world and life the most irrational. Mind presupposes mind. The gap between thought and matter has not been bridged by natural selection or by evolution. Du Bois-Reymond's agnosticism left the domain of faith to religious cultivation. Whatever difficulties from a materialistic point of view the doctrine of God as the Creator and guide of world and of man, as the Author of life, and as the Ultimate Reality underlying the All may present and must present—for to know God as He is man would have to be God—the divine element in man, his conscience and self-consciousness, his moral power and experiences, are inexplicable and unreadable riddles to the materialist. Materialism has no key for their solution. History, especially the history of the Jews, witnesses to a will which is not ours, but may be made ours; to the potency of purposes which are not ours, but may be followed by us; to laws in harmony with which alone man can attain unto happiness and preserve his dignity. To these facts and factors the Jewish theist has pointed in defense of his theistic interpretation of life and its phenomena, while always ready to modify the symbolism into which he would cast the supreme thought. The old demonstrations of God's existence indeed, after Kant, can not be said to be cogent. But the moral proof of theism in refutation of Atheism has taken on new strength in the very searching by Kant's master criticism. The theism of Israel's religion has been verified by the facts and forces of Israel's history, as the "witness to Yhwh."

Bibliography: S. Hirsch, Die Humanität als Religion, lecture ii, Trier 1858; I. M. Wise, The Cosmic God, Cincinnati, 1876.