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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, and practically all the philosophes of 18th-century France and England held to some form of Deism. 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. He was followed by other openly atheistic thinkers, such as Baron d'Holbach and Jacques-André Naigeon. The philosopher David Hume developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism, undermining the metaphysical basis of natural theology.

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.

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, 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.

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. 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. This was highlighted in 1956 when he made the Hindu god Rama wear a garland made of slippers and made antitheistic statements.

In 1966, Time magazine asked "Is God Dead?" 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. 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. 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.

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." But Gregory S. Paul and Phil Zuckerman consider this a myth and suggest that the actual situation is much more complex and nuanced.

Demographics

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. In addition, people in some regions of the world refrain from reporting themselves as atheists to avoid social stigma, discrimination, and persecution. A 2005 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica finds that the non-religious make up about 11.9% of the world's population, and atheists about 2.3%. This figure does not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhists. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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.

In the Australian 2006 Census of Population and Housing, in the question which asked What is the person's religion? Of the total 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. 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.

Atheism, religion and morality

Although people who self-identify as atheists are usually assumed to be irreligious, some sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deity. In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated a number of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism and Christian atheists.

As the strictest sense of positive atheism does not entail any specific beliefs outside of disbelief in any deity, 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.

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. 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.

Philosophers Susan Neiman and Julian Baggini (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. 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. 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.

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

See also

Notes

1. Michel Onfray on Jean Meslier on William Paterson University accessed at January 19, 2008
2. d'Holbach, P. H. T. (1770). The system of nature. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
3. Ray, Matthew Alun (2003). "Subjectivity and Irreligion: Atheism and Agnosticism in Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche". Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
4. Overall, Christine. "Feminism and Atheism", in Martin 2007, pp. 233–246.
5. Zdybicka 2005, p. 16.
6. Cite error: The named reference stanford was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
7. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. (2002). The Gulag Archipelago. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. ISBN 0-06-000776-1.
8. Michael, S. M. (1999). "Dalit Visions of a Just Society". In S. M. Michael (ed.) (ed.). Untouchable: Dalits in Modern India. Lynne Rienner Publishers. pp. pp. 31–33. ISBN 1555876978. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help)
9. "He who created god was a fool, he who spreads his name is a scoundrel, and he who worships him is a barbarian." Hiorth, Finngeir (1996). "Atheism in South India". International Humanist and Ethical Union, International Humanist News. Retrieved on 2007-05-30.
10. TIME Magazine cover online. 8 Apr 1966. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
11. "Toward a Hidden God". Time Magazine online. 8 Apr 1966. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
12. Majeska, George P. (1976). "Religion and Atheism in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, Review." The Slavic and East European Journal. 20(2). pp. 204–206.
13. Rafford, R.L. (1987). "Atheophobia—an introduction". Religious Humanism. 21 (1): 32–37. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |quotes= (help)
14. "Timothy Samuel Shah Explains 'Why God is Winning'." 2006-07-18. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Retrieved 2007-04-18.
15. Paul, Gregory (2007). "Why the Gods Are Not Winning". Edge. 209. Retrieved 2007-05-16. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
16. "Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents, Section on accuracy of non-Religious Demographic Data". Retrieved 2008-03-28.
17. "Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas, Mid-2005". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2005. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
    • 2.3% Atheists: Persons professing atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including the militantly antireligious (opposed to all religion).
    • 11.9% Nonreligious: Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, uninterested, or dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion but not militantly so.
18. "Religious Views and Beliefs Vary Greatly by Country, According to the Latest Financial Times/Harris Poll". Financial Times/Harris Interactive. 2006-12-20. Retrieved 2007-01-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
19. Social values, Science and Technology (PDF). Directorate General Research, European Union. 2005. pp. pp 7–11. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
20. Larson, Edward J. (1998). "Correspondence: Leading scientists still reject God". Nature. 394 (6691): 313. doi:10.1038/28478. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Available at StephenJayGould.org, Stephen Jay Gould archive. Retrieved on 2006-12-17
21. Shermer, Michael (1999). How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God. New York: William H Freeman. pp. pp76–79. ISBN 071673561X. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
22. According to Dawkins (2006), p. 103. Dawkins cites Bell, Paul. "Would you believe it?" Mensa Magazine, UK Edition, Feb. 2002, pp. 12–13. Analyzing 43 studies carried out since 1927, Bell found that all but four reported such a connection, and he concluded that "the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold 'beliefs' of any kind."
23. Argyle, Michael (1958). Religious Behaviour. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. pp 93–96. ISBN 0-415-17589-5. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
24. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census of Population and Housing, 2006, Census Table 20680-Religious Affiliation (broad groups) by Sex - Australia
25. Statistics New Zealand, QuickStats About Culture and Identity, Religious affiliation
26. Winston, Robert (Ed.) (2004). Human. New York: DK Publishing, Inc. pp. p. 299. ISBN 0-7566-1901-7. Nonbelief has existed for centuries. For example, Buddhism and Jainism have been called atheistic religions because they do not advocate belief in gods. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
27. "Humanistic Judaism". BBC. 2006-07-20. Retrieved 2006-10-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
28. Levin, S. (1995). "Jewish Atheism". New Humanist. 110 (2): 13–15. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
29. "Christian Atheism". BBC. 2006-05-17. Retrieved 2006-10-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
30. Altizer, Thomas J. J. (1967). The Gospel of Christian Atheism. London: Collins. pp. 102–103. Retrieved 2006-10-27.
31. Lyas, Colin (1970). "On the Coherence of Christian Atheism". Philosophy: the Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. 45 (171): 1–19. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
32. Smith 1979, pp. 21–22.
33. Smith 1979, p. 275. "Among the many myths associated with religion, none is more widespread -or more disastrous in its effects -than the myth that moral values cannot be divorced from the belief in a god."
34. In Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (Book Eleven: Brother Ivan Fyodorovich, Chapter 4) there is the famous argument that If there is no God, all things are permitted.: "'But what will become of men then?' I asked him, 'without God and immortal life? All things are lawful then, they can do what they like?'"
35. For Kant, the presupposition of God, soul, and freedom was a practical concern, for "Morality, by itself, constitutes a system, but happiness does not, unless it is distributed in exact proportion to morality. This, however, is possible in an intelligible world only under a wise author and ruler. Reason compels us to admit such a ruler, together with life in such a world, which we must consider as future life, or else all moral laws are to be considered as idle dreams..." (Critique of Pure Reason, A811).
36. Baggini 2003, p. 38.
37. Susan Neiman (November 6, 2006). Beyond Belief Session 6 (Conference). Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA: The Science Network.
38. Baggini 2003, p. 40
39. Baggini 2003, p. 43.
40. 101 Ethical Dilemmas, 2nd edition, by Cohen, M., Routledge 2007, pp184-5. (Cohen notes particularly that Plato and Aristotle produced arguments in favour of slavery.)
41. Political Philosophy from Plato to Mao, by Cohen, M, Second edition 2008
42. Harris, Sam (2006a). "The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos". Free Inquiry. Retrieved 2006-10-29.
43. Moreira-almeida, A. (2006). "Religiousness and mental health: a review". Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria. 28: 242–250. Retrieved 2007-07-12. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
44. See for example: Kahoe, R.D. (June 1977). "Intrinsic Religion and Authoritarianism: A Differentiated Relationship". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 16(2). pp. 179-182. Also see: Altemeyer, Bob and Bruce Hunsberger (1992). "Authoritarianism, Religious Fundamentalism, Quest, and Prejudice". International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. 2(2). pp. 113-133.
45. Harris, Sam (2005). "An Atheist Manifesto". Truthdig. Retrieved 2006-10-29. In a world riven by ignorance, only the atheist refuses to deny the obvious: Religious faith promotes human violence to an astonishing degree.

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" (PDF), in Maryniarczyk, Andrzej (ed.), Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 1, Polish Thomas Aquinas Association, 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" (HTML). The Objective Standard. 3 (3). Glen Allen Press. Retrieved 2008-09-15. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• 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. 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. ISBN 0548149550
• Nielsen, Kai (1985). Philosophy and Atheism. New York: Prometheus. ISBN 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.
• 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

• J. J. C. Smart. "Atheism and Agnosticism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Template:Dmoz - Includes links to organizations and websites.
• Freedom From Religion Foundation Foundation dedicated to protecting the separation of church and state.
• 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 (author)–On Faith at washingtonpost.com.
• Necessity and LIberty The theoretical atheism of Carlo Tamagnone

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• Atheism
• Criticism of religion
• Disengagement from religion
• Philosophy of religion
• Secularism