"to work any vestige of belief out of every government system."
MORON!
Epicurus, Greek philosopher (341-270 BCE).
As a Materialist, Epicurus accepted the idea that the soul consists of atomic material which disintegrates at death, at which time all sensation ceases. Consequently, he said, death need not be a matter of anxious concern, inasmuch as it is merely the state in which all sensation ceases. [History of Philosophy] [Visit The Philosophy Garden]
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher (106-43 BCE).
Lucretius, Roman philosopher and poet (96?-55 BCE).
Chief proponent of atomism. In On the Nature of Things he wrote "human life lay foul before men's eyes, crushed to the dust beneath religion's weight." Leah Kronenberg tells me that Lucretius was a dedicated Epicurean, and thus gods do exist, but have no interest in human affairs. His writings are full of invective against religion. [Visit The Philosophy Garden]
Lucius Annaeus Seneca "the Younger," Roman stoic philosopher, writer, and politician (4-65).
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful."
Gallus Petronius, Roman courtier and wit (1st cent.).
"It is fear that first brought Gods into the world."
John of Lackland, English King (1199-1216) (1167?-1216).
John may not have been a bonafide atheist, but he moved farther in that direction than was common in medieval times. From the biography, Eleanor of Aquitaine (John's mother) by Alison Weir, p. 234: "John's bad press in the monastic chronicles may be attributed to his failures as a king *and his cynical contempt for religion*; he quarrelled with the Church during his reign and was excommunicated. 'He led such a dissipated life that he ceased to believe in the resurrection of the dead and other articles of the Christian faith...'(Medieval chroniclers Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris; quoted in Weir). Once, upon seeing a buck slaughtered, at the end of a hunt, remarked 'You happy beast, never forced to patter prayers nor dragged to Holy Mass.'" (Paris, in Weir).
Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher (1548?-1600).
Not an atheist, but a "heretic" who was in conflict with the church over his cosmological theories.
You can find more information about Giordano Bruno at www.punkerslut.com.
Christopher Marlowe, English dramatist and poet (1564-1593).
"I count religion but a childish toy and hold there is no sin but innocence." - the character Machiavel, in The Jew of Malta, "Prologue." The lines are often modernized: "I count religion but a childish toy and hold there is no sin but ignorance."
Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (1588-1679).
Not an atheist, but an early advocate for the subordination of the church to the state. Here are some internet resources on Thomas Hobbes.
Aphra Behn, playwright (1640-1689).
Francois La Rouchefoucauld, French writer (1650?-?).
An important source for Nietzsche's ideas.
Thomas Otway, English classical poet (1652-1685).
"These are rogues that pretend to be of a religion now! Well, all I say is, honest atheism for my money."
Thomas Woolston, English writer (1669-1731) or? (1670-1733).
Was put under house arrest for the remainder of his life when he voiced doubt about the resurrection and other Bible miracles. [Holy Horrors]
Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire", French author and playwright (1694-1778).
Perhaps never really an atheist, nonetheless, Voltaire changed late in life into a fearless crusader against religious cruelty and injustice.
"Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror."
"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world."
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities."
"Superstition, born of paganism and adopted by Judaism, invested the Christian Church from earliest times. All the fathers of the Church, without exception, believed in the power of magic. The Church always condemned magic, but she always believed in it: she did not excommunicate sorcerers as madmen who were mistaken, but as men who were really in communication with the devil." [Philosophical Dictionary, 1764]
"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense." [Philosophical Dictionary, 1764]
"When he that speaks, and he to whom he speaks, neither of them understand what is meant, that is metaphysics."
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
Jean Meslier, French erstwhile priest (1678-1733).
A country priest who led an exemplary life, he died an atheist. He left behind a memoir which was circulated by Voltaire. This expressed his disgust with humanity and his inability to believe in God. Newton's infinite space, Meslier believed, was the only eternal reality: nothing but matter existed. Religion was a device used by the rich to oppress the poor and render them powerless. Christianity was distinguished by its particularly ludicrous doctrines, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. [A History of God]
Benjamin Franklin, American statesman, scientist, writer, printer (1706-1790).
"Many a long dispute among divines may be thus abridged: It is so; It is not so. It is so; it is not so."
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
David Hume, Scottish philosopher and historian (1711-1776).
"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless . . . its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." [Of Miracles]
"The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one."
"When I hear a man is religious, I conclude that he is a rascal, although I have known some instances of very good men being religious."
Visit The Hume Archives for more information on David Hume.
Frederick the Great, Prussian king (1712-1786).
". . . you will certainly grant me that neither antiquity nor whatever nation has devised a more repulsive and blasphemous absurdity than that of eating your God. This is the most disgusting dogma of Christian religion, the greatest insult to the Highest Being, the climax of madness and insanity."
(from a letter to Voltaire, March, 19, 1776)
Here is a web page on Frederick the Great.
Denis Diderot, French philosopher, author, and encyclopedist (1713-1784).
Editor of the first encyclopedia, Diderot was jailed briefly for writing irreligious thoughts. [Holy Horrors]
Thomas Paine, English born American author and revolutionary leader (1737-1809).
Labeled an atheist, but actually a deist, raised by Quakers, who was extremely critical of organized religion. According to Carl Sagan in The Demon Haunted World, "later generations reviled him for his social and religious views. Theodore Roosevelt called him a 'filthy little atheist.' . . . He is probably the most illustrious American Revolutionary uncommemorated by a monument in Washington, D.C."
Paine wrote in The Age of Reason, "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible [by which Paine means the Old Testament] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel." The Age of Reason also attacks Christianity as a system of superstition that "produces fanatics" and "serves the purposes of despotism." When the book reached England, several sellers were convicted of blasphemy and jailed.
"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law."
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit."
You can see all the writings of Thomas Paine at the Internet Infidels web site.
You can find more information about Thomas Paine at www.punkerslut.com.
Marquis de Sade, French libertine (1740-1814).
In his dialogue, Philosophy in the Bedroom, de Sade insults and derides Christianity several times. In his novel 120 Days of Sodom, he is quoted as saying "The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." Also, the "Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man," which can be found online online is clearly the work of someone with contempt for religion.
Jeremy Bentham, English reformer, author, and philosopher (1748-1832).
Read about Bentham at the Utilitarian Resources web page.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German author (1749-1832).
Stoutly anti-Christian, but not atheist.
"This occupation with ideas of immortality is for people of rank, and especially for ladies who have nothing to do. But a man of real worth who has something to do here, and must toil and struggle to produce day by day, leaves the future world to itself, and is active and useful in this."
Pierre Simon de Laplace, French mathematician and astronomer (1749-1827).
His major contribution to science was a detailed study of gravitation in the universe; his conclusions were published in his five-volume Traite de mechanique celeste (Celestial Mechanics)... Laplace presented an early copy of this work to Napoleon, who studied it very carefully. Sending for Laplace, he said, "You have written a large book about the universe without once mentioning the author of the universe." "Sire," Laplace replied, "I have no need of that hypothesis. (Je n'ai pas besoin de cet hypothese.)"
James Madison, American president and political theorist (1751-1836).
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."
"In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." [April 1, 1774]
Mary Wollstonecraft, author (1759-1797).
Wrote Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman.
Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor (1769-1821).
A theist, for sure, but he knocked religion:
"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."
"All religions have been made by men."
"as for myself, I do not believe that such a person as Jesus Christ ever existed; but as the people are inclined to superstition, it is proper not to oppose them." [paraphrased]
Simon Bolivar, Venezuelan soldier and South American liberator (1783-1830).
Atheist. Excommunicated by the Catholic Church.
Lord George Gordon Byron, British poet (1788-1824).
Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1860).
There was, Schopenhauer believed, no Absolute, no Reason, no God, no Spirit at work in the world: nothing but brute instinctive will to live. [A History of God]
Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792-1822).
Thrown out of Oxford University for writing the essay, The Necessity of Atheism in 1810.
"If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced."
"It is easier to suppose that the universe has existed for all eternity than to conceive a being beyond its limits capable of creating it."
You can find more information about Shelley at www.punkerslut.com.
Auguste Comte, French philosopher and mathematician (1798-1857).
Comte is considered the father of sociology. You can find out more about him at the Dead Sociologists Index.
Ernestine Rose, Polish-born American feminist (?-?).
Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach, German philosopher (1804-1872).
Feuerbach was a prominent materialist philosopher of the nineteenth century. His book, The Essence of Christianity, quickly became a classic of freethought literature. In that book he argued that religion is the projection of human wishes and is a form of alienation. He began his philosophical career as a Hegelian idealist but soon moved in the direction of materialism thus encouraging the Young Hegelians with whom he was associated to similiarly move. The Essence of Christianity electrified the Young Hegelians, particularly influencing the youthful Karl Marx who adopted and extended its theory of alienation.
Other thinkers were also influenced by Feuerbach including Nietzsche and Freud. Interestingly enough despite the fact that he was (or perhaps because he was) a leading atheist a number of twentieth century theologians have taken an interest in his thought including Karl Barth, Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, and Karl Rahner amongst others. [James Farmelant]
"Man first unconsciously and involuntarily creates God in his own image, and after this God (Religion) consciously and voluntarily creates man in his own image." [The Essence Of Christianity]
Elizur Wright, American (1804-1885).
Elizur Wright was a life long social reformer. He was reared in an evangelical Congregationalist family in Connecticut and Ohio. As a young man he attended Yale with the intention of preparing for a career in the ministry. While at Yale he became interested in the anti-slavery cause. He graduated from Yale with growing doubts about entering the ministry but he did spend some time working for the American Tract Society and worked as a school teacher. Later he took a position as a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Western Reserve College. There he became further involved in the abolitionist movement moving from support for gradual emancipation and colonization of ex-slaves in Africa to support for the more radical position of immediatism. After he became a more committed Abolitionist he eventually resigned his position at Western Reserve to work as secretary for the American Anti-Slavery Society.
It was while working for the Abolitionist movement that Wright gradually became disillusioned with the Christian churches and their perceived tolerance for slavery and their general hypocrisy over this issue. His disillusionment with the churches on moral grounds gradually led down the road towards freethought and atheism while still retaining the moral fervor of his evangelical background. In 1847 he wrote "Christianity is itself a total failure... so far as it is a plan of saving souls for a future life without saving souls and bodies for this." In 1860 he wrote to his friend Beriah Green--"I don't believe in the God of books...I don't believe in anything but facts appreciated by some degree of evidence." Wright in his old age worked actively on behalf for freethought causes. He worked for the National Liberal League in association with such prominent freethinkers as Robert Ingersoll. Towards the end of his life Wright openly described himself as an "infidel," an "atheist," and a "pagan." He called himself a "materialist" in the tradition of Spinoza, Paine, Darwin, and Huxley. He was quite partial to the Positivism of August Comte.
Abolitionism and freethought were by no means the only causes that Wright devoted himself to. He used his mathematical training to establish himself as an insurance actuary and this led him to one of other favorite causes--that of life insurance reform. His efforts in that field eventually led to his being appointed commissioner of life insurance in Massachusetts. As commissioner he sought to place the industry on sound scientific actuarial principles. Another cause that he devoted himself to was that of conservation. He successfully fought for the establishment of the Middlesex Fells Reservation (the Fells are a wooded plateau in and around Medford, Massachusetts) to preserve the forested lands there from encroaching real estate pressures. Wright's Pond and Wright's Boulder are named for him. [Abolitionist, Actuary, Atheist: Elizur Wright and the Reform Impulse Lawrence Goodheart (The Kent State University Press, 1990).
John Stuart Mill, English philosopher and economist (1806-1873).
Freethinker, if not strictly atheist.
Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian general and nationalist leader (1807-1882).
Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist (1809-1882).
From the age of forty he was, to use his own words, a complete disbeliever in Christianity. He professed himself an Agnostic, regarding the problem of the universe as beyond our solution, "For myself," he wrote, "I do not believe in any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities."
"It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science." [Quoted in How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science by Michael Shermer.
Abraham Lincoln, American president (1809-1865).
In 2000 Years of Disbelief by James A. Haught, Lincoln is mentioned on pages 125 through 127. From the material presented it would seem that Lincoln as a young man was an avid anti-christian and most likely an atheist. In his later years, he came to believe in God, but still was anti-religious in the sense that he rejected organized religion. Some selections from Haught:
John T. Stuart, Lincoln's first law partner: "He was an avowed and open infidel, and sometimes bordered on Atheism...He went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard."
Joseph Lewis quoting Lincoln in a 1924 speech in New York: "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
Lincoln in a letter to Judge J.S. Wakefield, after the death of Willie Lincoln: "My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."
As a young man Lincoln apparently wrote a manuscript that he planned to publish, which vehemently argued against the divine origin of the Bible and the Christian scheme of salvation. Samuel Hill, a friend and mentor, convinced him to drop it, considering the disastrous consequences it would have on his political career.
William H Herndon, a former law partner, wrote a biography on Lincoln titled: The True Story of a Great Life. In it Herndon discusses Lincoln's religious views extensively.
Gordon Leidner has collected some quotations from Lincoln's later years in which he invokes God, and he makes the argument that Lincoln became a sincere believer. It seems to me he did come to believe in God but never accepted organized Christianity.
Edgar Allan Poe, American writer (1809-1849).
"No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter ... than you and I; and all religion ... is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry."
"The idea of God, infinity, or spirit stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception."
Mikhail Bakunin, Russian anarchist leader and writer (1814-1876).
For Bakunin religion represented an impoverishment of humanity. Religion according to Bakunin was a weapon of the state that must be abolished to make human self-determination possible.
"A jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."
From God and the State (New York: Dover Publications, 1970) p. 28.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American suffragist (1815-1902).
Stanton was described at her funeral as "a fearless, serene agnostic." She was tireless in her criticism of religion and the Bible, decrying their denigration of women.
She wrote of the Bible, "I found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch. Surely the writers had a very low idea of the nature of their god. They made him not only anthropomorphic, but of the very lowest type, jealous and revengeful, loving violence rather than mercy. I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of women." [Women Without Superstition]
And, "The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation."
Her own religious beliefs evolved over the course of her life. As a young woman, she was briefly under the spell of fundamentalist religion. Her family led her out of that by taking her on a trip and giving her sensible things to read. She said, "That disabused my mind of hell and the devil and of a cruel, avenging God, and I have never believed in them since." [Interview, Chicago Record, June 29, 1897, quoted in Women Without Superstition ]
Her early political addresses were sprinkled generously with references to God, but as she found her own voice, increasing in confidence and battle-scarred by denunciations against her sacrilege in the popular press, invocations lessened. When such references occurred, "Nature" and "God" became interchangeable. [Women Without Superstition ]
Elizabeth's daughter, Margaret Stanton Lawrence, recalled, "We children have only pleasant memories of a happy home, of a sunny, cheerful, indulgent mother, whose great effort was to save us from all the fears that shadow the lives of most children. God was to us sunshine, flowers, affection, all that is grand and beautiful in nature. The devil had no place at our fireside, nor the Inferno in our dreams of the future."
Late in her life, Elizabeth wrote, "I can say that the happiest period of my life has been since I emerged from the shadows of superstitions of the old theologies, relieved from all gloomy apprehensions of the future, satisfied that as my labors and capacities were limited to this sphere of action, I was responsible for nothing beyond my horizon, as I could neither understand nor change the condition of the unknown world. Giving ourselves, then, no trouble about the future, let us make the most of the present, and fill up our lives with earnest work here." ["The Pleasures of Age," in The Boston Investigator, Feb. 2, 1901, quoted in Women Without Superstition ]
In her book on the Bible, the Woman's Bible, Stanton hailed the changes since the Bible had been written, when "rationalism took the place of religion and reason triumphed over superstition."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton lived her life without deference to a higher power and advocated such living for others. Her criticism of religion was not limited to "organized religion," which is popularly disparaged today. She decries "superstition," which probably indicates all religious belief, and trumpets rationalism and reason. Her identification of God with nature is a way of celebrating the purely secular without directly denouncing the religious beliefs of others. She is in the camp of other freethinkers of her time, such as Robert Green Ingersoll.
Karl Marx, German political philosopher and economist (1818-1883).
Marx saw religion as "the sigh of the oppressed creature . . . the opium of the people, which made this suffering bearable." [Quoted in A History of God]
You can find out more about Marx at The Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels Internet Archive.
Marion Evans "George Eliot", English novelist (1819-1880).
"The old religion said 'Heaven help us!' Our new one, from its very lack of that faith in a heaven, will teach us all the more to help one another"
A George Eliot web site.
Walt Whitman, American poet (1819-1892).
Walt reportedly said, "God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards.$quot; Does this mean he believed this mean-spirited bully didn't really exist? I'm not sure.
Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist (1820-1906).
Called herself an agnostic.<bi> |
