Free to follow every thread. No paywall, no dead ends.
Atheism: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Atheism
In the year 423 BCE, the Athenian public was gripped by a play that would become the first recorded satire of religion, yet the man at its center, Socrates, faced a death sentence for the very crime of not believing in the gods of the state. This was not merely a philosophical disagreement but a capital offense that marked the beginning of a long, often bloody history for those who denied the divine. While modern audiences might view atheism as a simple absence of belief, the ancient Greeks understood it as a dangerous subversion of social order. Diagoras of Melos, a poet who lived a century earlier, was sentenced to death for making fun of the Eleusinian Mysteries, forcing him to flee Athens to escape execution. The charge of atheism was a weapon used to silence dissent, whether from the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaxagoras, who claimed the sun was merely an incandescent stone, or from the early Christians who were reviled as atheists for refusing to worship the Roman pantheon. Even the Roman Empire, which executed Christians for rejecting the Imperial cult, turned the label of atheism against its own citizens when Christianity became the state religion under Theodosius I in 381 CE, making heresy a punishable crime. The history of atheism is not a linear march toward freedom but a recurring struggle where the denial of gods was equated with the denial of the state itself.
The Materialist Revolution
The first known explicit atheist in the modern era was not a famous philosopher but a German critic named Matthias Knutzen, who published three writings in 1674 that openly denied the existence of God. Before Knutzen, the landscape of thought was dominated by deism and the belief that natural laws explained the universe without a personal deity, as seen in the work of Baruch Spinoza, who was labeled a semi-atheist for his views. The true explosion of atheistic thought occurred in the 18th century, when Baron d'Holbach published The System of Nature in 1770, a voluminous attack on religion that argued the universe was governed by material laws rather than divine intervention. This era saw the emergence of the first organized defense of atheism in English, written by William Hammon and Mathew Turner in response to Joseph Priestley, a work that implied speaking up for atheism carried a reasonable expectation of public punishment. The French Enlightenment provided the fertile ground for these ideas, with figures like Jean Meslier, a priest who secretly wrote a treatise denying God, and the radical Jacobins who, during the French Revolution, introduced the Cult of the Supreme Being as a new state religion. The movement was not merely about disbelief but about the assertion that human reason and material reality were sufficient to explain existence, a view that would eventually challenge the very foundations of political and social authority.
Common questions
Who was the first recorded atheist in ancient Greece and what happened to him?
Diagoras of Melos was sentenced to death for making fun of the Eleusinian Mysteries and was forced to flee Athens to escape execution. Socrates also faced a death sentence in 423 BCE for the crime of not believing in the gods of the state.
When did the first known explicit atheist in the modern era publish his writings?
Matthias Knutzen published three writings in 1674 that openly denied the existence of God. This event marked the first known explicit atheist in the modern era before the explosion of atheistic thought in the 18th century.
Which countries have the highest percentages of convinced atheists according to 2010 surveys?
China has the highest percentage of convinced atheists at 47%, followed by Japan at 31% and the Czech Republic at 30%. A 2010 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that atheists made up only 2.0% of the world's population.
What was the result of the 2016 study comparing atheists and theists on cognitive reflection tests?
A 2016 study found that self-identified atheists scored 18.7% higher than theists on the cognitive reflection test. This suggests that disbelief in religion results from the application of higher-level analytical reasoning to the assessment of religious claims.
When did the Roman Empire execute Christians for rejecting the Imperial cult?
The Roman Empire executed Christians for rejecting the Imperial cult when Christianity became the state religion under Theodosius I in 381 CE. This event made heresy a punishable crime and turned the label of atheism against its own citizens.
What year did the first Global Atheist Convention take place and how many delegates attended?
Melbourne hosted the first Global Atheist Convention in 2010, which drew over 2,000 delegates. The event sold out more than five weeks prior to its date and signaled a new era of organized atheistic activism.
Karl Marx, the 19th-century German political theorist, famously declared that religion was the sigh of the oppressed creature and the opium of the people, arguing that the abolition of religion was the demand for the real happiness of the working class. This perspective transformed atheism from a philosophical stance into a political tool, influencing thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche who denied the existence of deities and Ludwig Feuerbach who considered God to be a human invention created to fulfill psychological needs. The movement gained momentum in the 20th century when state atheism emerged in the Soviet Union under Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, and in Communist China under Mao Zedong, where religious instruction was outlawed and the League of Militant Atheists was formed to enforce anti-religious policies. These regimes did not merely tolerate atheism; they actively promoted it as a state ideology, using it to consolidate power and suppress dissent. The Soviet Union, for instance, enacted numerous legislative acts to ban religious instruction in schools and persecuted believers, yet even Stalin softened his opposition to the Orthodox Church during World War II to improve public acceptance of his regime. The history of atheism in the 20th century is thus a complex tapestry of intellectual liberation and state-enforced dogma, where the denial of God was sometimes used to justify the most brutal forms of human oppression.
The New Atheist Offensive
The early 21st century witnessed the rise of the New Atheism movement, a group of writers who argued that religion should not be tolerated but countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises. This movement, associated with figures like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, was fueled by the religiously motivated terrorist events of the 11th of September 2001, and the attempts to change the American science curriculum to include creationist ideas. The movement sought to shift the public discourse from a passive acceptance of religion to an active campaign against what they viewed as harmful doctrines. In 2010, Melbourne hosted the first Global Atheist Convention, an event that drew over 2,000 delegates and sold out more than five weeks prior to its date, signaling a new era of organized atheistic activism. The movement also saw the rise of prominent organizations like the Freedom From Religion Foundation, co-founded by Anne Nicol Gaylor and her daughter Annie Laurie Gaylor in 1976, which promotes the separation of church and state. These figures and organizations have worked to bring atheism out of the shadows, challenging the notion that disbelief is a private matter and asserting that it is a public stance that requires defense and advocacy.
The Demographic Paradox
Despite the global rise of secularism, the number of atheists is not growing at the same rate as the world population, creating a demographic paradox where religious countries generally have higher birth rates than irreligious ones. A 2010 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that atheists made up only 2.0% of the world's population, while the non-religious made up about 9.6%, and scholars have indicated that global atheism may be in decline as a percentage of the global population. The top countries with the highest percentages of convinced atheists include China at 47%, Japan at 31%, and the Czech Republic at 30%, yet these nations often have lower birth rates than religious countries. The relationship between atheism and demographics is complex, with studies showing that atheists are more likely to be found in wealthy, educated societies with extensive social safety nets, while underdeveloped countries have far fewer atheists. This suggests that the rise of atheism is not merely a result of intellectual enlightenment but is also tied to economic security and the quality of life, as people in more secure environments feel less need for the comfort that religion often provides.
The Moral Question
The claim that atheism leads to moral bankruptcy has been a persistent feature of political debate, with critics arguing that without a divine lawmaker, there is no foundation for right and wrong. This argument, famously articulated in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, suggests that if there is no God, all things are permitted, leaving humanity without a moral compass. However, sociologist Phil Zuckerman's research has shown that societal well-being is positively correlated with irreligion, and that in the United States, states with the highest percentages of atheists have lower murder rates than those with the highest percentages of religious people. Philosophers like Julian Baggini argue that behaving ethically only because of a divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience, and that atheists have the advantage of being more inclined to evaluate the morality of imperatives themselves. The debate continues, with some studies suggesting that atheists and agnostics score higher on cognitive reflection tests and are more reflective than religious believers, yet the perception of atheists as morally suspect remains a significant barrier to their acceptance in many societies.
The Cognitive Divide
A growing body of research suggests that there is a negative correlation between religiosity and analytical thinking, with atheists scoring higher on cognitive reflection tests than theists. A 2016 study found that self-identified atheists scored 18.7% higher than theists on the cognitive reflection test, and that the association between analytical thinking and religious disbelief is not caused by a simple order effect. This has led to the hypothesis that disbelief in religion results from the application of higher-level analytical reasoning to the assessment of religious claims, and that more intelligent people are less likely to conform to religious beliefs. However, the relationship is not uniform across all cultures, and some studies do not detect this correlation in all countries, suggesting that the link between analytic thinking and atheism may depend on cultural factors. The debate continues, with some arguing that the association may be a result of religiosity typically being measured after analytic thinking, while others maintain that the evidence shows that atheists and agnostics are more reflective than religious believers.