Curated playlist
Critics of religions
- Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre asked to be dropped as a Nobel nominee, then won anyway. His 1964 letter went unread.
- Mao ZedongMao Zedong once worked as a library assistant in Peking. He later founded the People's Republic of China.
- Sigmund FreudBefore Sigmund Freud studied dreams, he dissected hundreds of eels. He was searching for their male reproductive organs.
- Xi JinpingXi Jinping's father was imprisoned by the party he helped build. Xi later became China's most powerful leader since Mao.
- SocratesSocrates wrote nothing, so everything known about him comes from other people.
- Kim Il SungKim Il Sung stepped off a ship in 1945 as a 33-year-old Soviet captain. He ruled North Korea for more than 45 years.
- Mikhail BakuninKarl Marx had the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin expelled from the First International in 1872.
- RajneeshRajneesh, born Chandra Mohan Jain, has an epitaph that says he was never born and never died. It adds that he only visited this planet Earth, between 1931 and 1990. The man behind those words was an Indian philosopher, mystic and teacher,…
- Bertrand RussellAt 89, philosopher Bertrand Russell went to jail for an anti-nuclear protest. Asked to behave, he said, "No, I won't."
- Mustafa Kemal AtatürkMustafa Kemal Atatürk left behind a sentence that many Turks came to treat as his will: "My mortal body will turn into dust, but the Republic of Turkey will last forever." He was a field marshal and statesperson who founded that republic…