Society and Atheism

Sociologyindex, Sociology of Religion, Celebrity Comments on Theism and Atheism, Existentialism, Sociology Books 2008, Syllabus, Bibliographies, Abstracts, Journals, Countries and percentage of nonbelievers in God,

Atheism is as old as religion. As religion and its place in society have evolved throughout history, so have the standing and philosophical justification for non-belief. Epicurus (341-270 BC) was a materialist and probably the first philosopher to develop the argument from evil:

"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 he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

"At every period during the 5,000 years of history when men developed a higher culture Atheism appeared.

We find it in ancient Egypt in spite of the scantiness of the literary remains and the despotic power of the priests. We see it so widespread in civilization 2,500 years ago that it takes a prominent place in history in the form of the Ionian philosophy of Greece and the ethic of Buddha and Confucius in Asia.

Then there is the high cultural development of the Greek-Roman civilization, and from 300 B.C. to 300 A.D. we find the thinly veiled Atheism of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics accepted by the great majority of the better-educated. Atheism perishes again with the crass ignorance and clerical tyranny of the Iron Age, but it spreads widely in the light of the Arab-Persian civilization, wherever the fanatics are checked, and at the Renaissance it reappears in Christendom.

The hardening of the religious attitude after the Reformation again checks it, but in the 18th Century it enters upon a development which has, in spite of murderous clerical tyranny in some countries, proceeded steadily ever since."

- Joseph McCabe, Extract from Chapter I - The odds against the atheist.

Comments on atheism from celebrities:

• Warren Buffett. Living proof that atheists and agnostics live to give, unlike greedy religious theists who look for great rewards here and also in heaven through sycophancy. Warren Buffett "did not subscribe to his family's religion. Even at a young age he was too mathematical, too logical, to make the leap of faith. He adopted his father's ethical underpinnings, but not his belief in an unseen divinity." -- from "Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist" by Roger Lowenstein.

• Linus Torvalds, Uber-Programmer. Torvalds is the original creator of Linux, a free Unix-type operating system. - "completely a-religious -- atheist." "I find that people seem to think religion brings morals and appreciation of nature. I actually think it detracts from both."

• Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman. "In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid." "Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."

• Stephen Hawking, Theoretical Physicist - Although he speaks of "God" in the metaphorical sense of some creative force, he has stated that he is an atheist. "I do not believe in a personal God." "contrary to Einstein's thought that "God does not play dice," he said that "God must be quite a gambler..." (Book: Universe in a Nutshell by Hawking )

• John Conway, Mathematician - Conway is legendary in computer science if for only creating the first artificial life simulation around 1970 that he called the 'Game of Life'. Though it isn't technically a game, it simulates the 'birth' and 'death' of organisms according to a set of simple rules. - "I don't believe in God, but I believe that nature is unbelievably subtle and clever. In physics, for instance, the real answer to a problem is usually so subtle and surprising that it wasn't even considered in the first place. That the speed of light is a constant - impossible! Nobody even thought about it. And quantum mechanics is even worse, but it's so beautiful, and it works!'"

• John McCarthy, AI Researcher. John McCarthy invented Lisp and spear-headed a lot of the seminal work in AI. He is a renowned computer scientist, and currently is a Professor Emeritus at Stanford. He also is an outspoken atheist, and author of one of my favorite quotes on the subject: "An atheist doesn't have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that there can't be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question.

• Steve Wozniak, Cofounder of Apple Computer. Response of Woz to a letter published on his website (woz.org/letters/general/72.html): - "I am also atheist or agnostic (I don't even know the difference). I've never been to church and prefer to think for myself. I do believe that religions stand for good things, and that if you make irrational sacrifices for a religion, then everyone can tell that your religion is important to you and can trust that your most important inner faiths are strong. Steve Jobs may be an informal fan of Eastern religions but it's never obvious in him and I never heard of him regularly attending a church. That's only a guess."

• Ed Fredkin, Computer Scientist. Fredkin was a college dropout who later became a full professor at age 34 at MIT and eventually a self-made millionaire. "I guess what I'm saying is: I don't have any religious belief. I don't believe there is a God. I don't believe in Christianity or Judaism or anything like that, okay? I'm not an atheist...I'm not an agnostic...I'm just in a simple state. I don't know what there is or might be..."

• John Carmack, id Software Owner. Carmack is the lead programmer behind the successful games Wolfenstein 3d, Doom and Quake. "Having a reasonable grounding in statistics and probability and no belief in luck, fate, karma, or god(s), the only casino game that interests me is blackjack.

• Richard Stallman, Software Guru/Author. Stallman is a very popular figure in the 'free software' movement and founded the Free Software Foundation fsf.org. In a footnote of the O'Reilly Book Open Sources (oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/stallman.html) Stallman says "As an atheist, I don't follow any religious leaders, but I sometimes find I admire something one of them has said."

• Richard Dawkins, Evolutionary Biologist/Author/Lecturer - Dawkins, who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, is known for his books The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene, River out of Eden and Climbing Mount Improbable. In all of his work he successfully explains how complex forms of life evolved from simple forms of life. In a number of lectures and debates, notably the Voltaire Lecture "Viruses of the Mind", he demands that scientists and other rational people stop waffling and accept the lack of evidence for religious claims and draw the obvious conclusions: there is no god, and religion is a pack of lies.

• David Deutsch, Physicist. Deutsch is a scientist at the Oxford University Centre for Quantum Computation (http://www.qubit.org/). His papers on quantum computation laid the foundation for the field (similar to Alan Turing's contribution to non-quantum computation.) He is the author of the widely praised book The Fabric Of Reality. "First of all, I do not believe in the supernatural, so I take it for granted that consciousness has a material explanation. I also do not believe in insoluble problems, therefore I believe that this explanation is accessible in principle to reason, and that one day we will understand consciousness just as we today understand what life is, whereas once this was a deep mystery."

• Steven Weinberg, Theoretical Physicist/Author. Weinberg is a a winner of 1979 Nobel Prize for developing the theory of electo-weak unification along with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow. "The more we refine our understanding of God to make the concept plausible, the more it seems pointless." He also goes on to attack both religious conservatism and religious liberalism. He criticizes the former for standing in the way of scientific inquiry while he criticizes the latter for reducing theology to vacuousness in attempting to reconcile religion with science.

• Ian Wilmut, Embryologist. Dr. Wilmut of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland emerged into the limelight for pioneering the first successful cloning of a large mammal. This clone is now known to all as a healthy and otherwise normal sheep named Dolly. From a published story profiling Wilmut: "...but Ian Wilmut said he 'does not have a belief in God."'

• Lewis Wolpert, UK Researcher. Wolpert is a Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine at University College London. Professor Wolpert is writing a book, The Biology of Belief, in which he argues that religion is a biological trait that emerged as part of evolution. The difference between human beings and animals was that human beings had developed an understanding of cause and effect. 'Once there was a concept of cause, we needed to understand the causes of all the terrible things that happened to us. The most obvious thing to do was to invent God.'
  - - Excerpts from celebatheists.com

• Bhagat Singh, from 'Why I Am An Atheist?': "To stand upon one's own legs amid storms and hurricanes is not a child's play. At such testing moments, vanity-if any-evaporates, and man cannot dare to defy the general beliefs. If he does, then we must conclude that he has got certain other strength than mere vanity. This is exactly the situation now. Judgment is already too well known. Within a week it is to be pronounced. What is the consolation with the exception of the idea that I am going to sacrifice my life for a cause? A God-believing Hindu might be expecting to be reborn as a king, a Muslim or a Christian might dream of the luxuries to be enjoyed in paradise and the reward he is to get for his sufferings and sacrifices. But what am I to expect? I know the moment the rope is fitted round my neck and rafters removed, from under my feet. that will be the final moment-that will be the last moment. I, or to be more precise, my soul, as interpreted in the metaphysical terminology, shall all be finished there. Nothing further. A short life of struggle with no such magnificent end, shall in itself be the reward if I have the courage to take it in that light. That is all. With no selfish motive, or desire to be awarded here or hereafter, quite disinterestedly have I devoted my life to the cause of independence, because I could not do otherwise. The day we find a great number of men and women with this psychology who cannot devote themselves to anything else than the service of mankind and emancipation of the suffering humanity; that day shall inaugurate the era of liberty. Not to become a king, nor to gain any other rewards here, or in the next birth or after death in paradise, shall they be inspired to challenge the oppressors, exploiters, and tyrants, but to cast off the yoke of serfdom from the neck of humanity and to establish liberty and peace shall they tread this-to their individual selves perilous and to their noble selves the only glorious imaginable-path."

Countries and percentage of nonbelievers in God