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A Historical Outline of Modern Religious Criticism in Western Civilization

 By - September 10, 2005

Galileo trying to convince the Pope of his views

The following is a generally chronological highlight of the major movements and thinkers of religious criticism that have influenced modern Western Civilization. This is by no means a complete listing of all of the important religious critics in Western Civilization, and the focus is mainly on the major powers of Europe as well as the United States, which is not to say that there have not been many other important religious critics from around the world.

The Protestant movement ended the Catholic Church's long held monopoly on religious and intellectual thought. The Protestant Reformation was a movement of religious "protest" that started in Germany and spread throughout Western Europe. The word Protestant has its original roots in Latin and means "to bear witness", but the word "protest" in the English language today comes from the Protestant movement, because it was a movement of opposition to authority.

The Reformation was marked by religious wars that raged across Europe, with the execution and torture of many people for heresy. The majority of people killed for heresy actually considered themselves Christians and believed in God - their views on God were just slightly different than accepted dogma or even from other religious protestors. Indeed many Protestants killed other Protestants for holding different beliefs.

During the Protestant reformation the idea that the Bible was the literal and complete word of God became widespread. This was done because the Catholic Church claimed that the clergy were required to interpret the Bible, which tied all belief and salvation to the Church. The Protestants were looking for a way to remove themselves from dependence on the Church, so they claimed that the Bible itself was all that was needed to know and understand God, eliminating the need for priestly intervention between the individual and God. Claiming that the Bible was the literal word of God resulted in much stronger scrutiny of the Bible and set the stage for further criticism of Christianity based on analysis of Biblical texts.

Following the Reformation personal religious interpretations grew and the variety of religious ideas increased.

The Renaissance (1500-~1650s)

During the Renaissance period scientific ideas slowly took root and challenged religious beliefs. This was the period in which Copernicus and Galileo taught that the Earth revolved around the Sun, which contradicted the view espoused by the Catholic Church. This was also a period of great advance in mathematics, philosophy, human anatomy, and the arts, but there was still a significant danger of persecution, imprisonment, and death for heresy.

Advances during the Renaissance were heavily influenced by classical Greek and Roman art and literature.

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)

Andreas Vesalius is considered the father of modern human anatomy and is one of the major contributors to modern science. He published the first complete textbook on human anatomy in 1546, On the Workings of the Human Body. Vesalius was from Belgium, but traveled throughout Western Europe. Vesalius took pains not to make needlessly controversial statements due to his fear of the Inquisition. His religious criticism was a criticism by action, because he knowingly violated Church law by dissecting human corpses. Though he tried as much as he could to avoid controversy while practicing his study of the human body, charges of atheism and heresy were brought against on more than one occasion. He did finally face the Inquisition and was sentenced to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to prove his faith. He died during a shipwreck on his return journey.

Vesalius’ publications on anatomy contradicted the accepted teachings of his day. This is largely because human anatomy in Christian civilization up to that time was not based on the study of the human body, it was based on a combination of animal anatomy and theology. For example, it was believed that there was a special bone within the human body that housed the soul, and this bone was needed for bodily resurrection after the last judgment. This is one reason that convicted heretics were burned and why Christians opposed cremation. It was believed that this bone and the “body” were needed for the body to ascend to heaven after the Final Judgment. Vesalius also documented that men and women have the same number of ribs, which contradicted the Church teaching that men had one less rib because one of Adam’s ribs had been used by God to create Eve.

After his death permission to dissect human cadavers for study slowly began to gain acceptance, though an aversion to the practice has persisted among many Christians to this day. Even still there are many Christians who oppose the donation of human bodies to science.

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)

Giordano Bruno, from Italy, was one of the most radical cosmologists of the Renaissance. Bruno was not a mathematician, like most other astronomers, but he took Copernican astronomical theory farther than any others of his time.

Copernicus’ heliocentric theory stated that the Earth revolved around the Sun, which contradicted the Christian view that the Earth was the center of the universe, around which everything else revolved.

Bruno went further and stated that space and time are both infinite, contradicting Christian beliefs in Creation and Final Judgment. He also stated that the Sun is a star, and that all of the other stars in the universe are the centers of their own solar systems, each having their own planets. This deeply upset religious authorities by contradicting the Christian belief that the Earth and humans are central to the universe and uniquely special.

He was arrested for heresy in 1592 and imprisoned for six years prior to his Inquisition hearing. During his trial Bruno refused to accept Church doctrine regarding the nature of Jesus and he refused to recant his views of the universe. Thus he was sentenced to death.

In 1600 Giordano Bruno was taken to a public square in Rome, with his tongue in a vice, and he was burned to death.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Galileo is perhaps the most famous and important scientific figure of the Renaissance. Galileo is not only famous for his scientific discoveries, but also for his conflict with the Catholic Church and the effect he had on theology. Galileo is most well known for his support of Copernicus' theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

The Copernican heliocentric theory was published in 1543, before Galileo was born. The Copernican theory was strongly opposed and viewed as heresy by the Church. Prior to Galileo there was little supporting evidence for the theory. Copernicus’ work was based heavily on mathematics and general observations. Others, such as Giordano Bruno, expanded the theory philosophically, but it was Galileo that provided the strong supporting evidence needed to confirm the theory with scientific observation. In fact, Galileo’s work to support the Copernican theory really was the beginning of modern science. It was Galileo that pioneered the use of precise measurable observations with a large volume of recorded data that could be independently analyzed as well as records of experiments and observations that could be verified by others.

While Galileo made many contributions to science, mathematics, technology, and philosophy, he was also a critic of religion itself, though only indirectly because he still lived in a time when one could be tortured and burned alive for heresy. Throughout his life Galileo was censured by the Church. In 1616 Galileo was subject to the Inquisition. The judgment of this Inquisition banned Galileo from teaching the Copernican theory.

“The first proposition, that the sun is the centre and does not revolve about the earth, is foolish, absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because expressly contrary to Holy Scripture… [and]… the second proposition, that the earth is not the centre but revolves about the sun, is absurd, false in philosophy, and, from a theological point of view at least, opposed to the true faith.”

- Judgment of the Inquisition of Galileo Galilei, 1616

“[Galileo Galilei is commanded] in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether the opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves, nor henceforth to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing.”

- Cardinal Bellarmin decree to Galileo Galilei, 1616

His most famous work of religious “criticism” is Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632. Galileo was given permission by the Pope to write and publish Dialog based on the premise that he give the position held by the Church equal weight as the Copernican position and that the book draw no concrete conclusion.

Dialog presents both sides of the debate, as Galileo was given permission by the Church to do, but unlike what he promised the Pope, Dialog does present the Copernican theory as correct and the Church’s view as incorrect. To add insult to injury the character in Dialog who argues the position of the Church is portrayed as a simpleton who isn't very logical or knowledgeable.

For this the book was banned and Galileo was subjected again to the Inquisition, during which he finally recanted his views in order to save himself from death. He was ultimately sentenced to house arrest, under which he lived out the rest of his days.

“Father Lecazre declared ‘it casts suspicion on the doctrine of the incarnation.’ Others declared, ‘It upsets the whole basis of theology. If the earth is a planet, and only one among several planets, it can not be that any such great things have been done specially for it as the Christian doctrine teaches. If there are other planets, since God makes nothing in vain, they must be inhabited; but how can their inhabitants be descended from Adam? How can they trace back their origin to Noah's ark? How can they have been redeemed by the Saviour?’ Nor was this argument confined to the theologians of the Roman Church; Melanchthon, Protestant as he was, had already used it in his attacks on Copernicus and his school.”

- A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, Andrew Dickenson White, 1898

“The opinion of the earth's motion is of all heresies the most abominable, the most pernicious, the most scandalous; the immovability of the earth is thrice sacred; argument against the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and the incarnation, should be tolerated sooner than an argument to prove that the earth moves.”

- Declaration of Father Melchior Inchofer, 1631

"We say, pronounce, sentence and declare that you, Galileo, by reason of these things which have been detailed in the trial and which you have confessed already, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspect of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctrine that is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: namely that Sun is the centre of the world and does not move from east to west, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. Consequently, you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated by the sacred Canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents. We are willing to absolve you from them provided that first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in our presence you abjure, curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church in the manner and form we will prescribe to you. Furthermore, so that this grievous and pernicious error and transgression of yours may not go altogether unpunished, and so that you will be more cautious in future, and an example for others to abstain from delinquencies of this sort, we order that the book Dialogue of Galileo Galilei be prohibited by public edict. We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure. As a salutary penance we impose on you to recite the seven penitential psalms once a week for the next three years. And we reserve to ourselves the power of moderating, commuting, or taking off, the whole or part of the said penalties and penances. This we say, pronounce, sentence, declare, order and reserve by this or any other better manner or form that we reasonably can or shall think of. So we the undersigned Cardinals pronounce:

F. Cardinal of Ascoli
B. Cardinal Gessi
G. Cardinal Bentivoglio
F. Cardinal Verospi
Fr. D. Cardinal of Cremona
M. Cardinal Ginetti
Fr. Ant. s Cardinal of. S. Onofrio"

- Condemnation of Galileo Galilei, 1632

Baron Edward Herbert (1582-1648)

Edward Herbert is considered the first British Deist, however all of his theological works were written in Latin and thus didn’t have an enormous impact in England initially. He was well known by scholars who also studied Latin however, and his works were translated into other languages, such as French.

Herbert was highly critical of Christianity and of the idea of revealed truth, which put him in conflict with the religious establishment, though his nobility and military service provided him an adequate degree of protection. He also denied the divinity of Jesus and the validity of miracles. His “rationalist” approach to theology was influential on men such as Thomas Hobbes and Thomas Paine.

Herbert intended to develop a religion based on rational principles. He studied the known religions of the time and came up with five basic principles that he believed all religions had in common. These principles are:

• There is a God
• God ought to be worshipped
• Virtue and Piety are the essential components of any religion
• Vice is expiated through some form of repentance
• There are rewards and punishments after death

Lucilio Vanini (1585-1618)

Lucilio Vanini was an Italian philosopher and critic of Christianity.  Vanini studied theology and became an ordained priest. He went on to travel Europe promoting freedom of thought, rationalism, opposition to dogma, and opposition to the Catholic Church. After traveling Europe he returned to Italy, but was forced to flee for his life to avoid the Inquisition and charges of atheism.

In an attempt to clear his name and satisfy the authorities he published a book of opposition to atheism in 1615 that ostensibly affirmed his belief in God. This was the first book he had ever published. Once his name was cleared by this book, however, he published another book in 1616 that made it clear the first book was a parody of religious belief and was not really reflective of his true views. The book was banned.

The Enlightenment (1650-1790)

The Age of Enlightenment was marked by a period of scientific advance, especially in the areas of physics and mathematics. It was accompanied by deep philosophical advances as well. Sir Isaac Newton’s work in physics and the laws of nature contributed greatly to The Enlightenment, though Newton himself was a deeply religious man. Enlightenment philosophy, both religious and anti-religious, held that the world was observable and knowable. For men like Newton this meant that it was possible to understand the laws of nature created by God; for others it meant that there were explanations for the world without God.

In all cases, however, The Enlightenment was a period of belief in human rationality and the power of education to advance the interests of humanity. Criticism of dogma and the Bible became widespread among educated members of society, even among those that believed in God. Challenges to established institutions such as the Church and the State grew during this period, resulting in the advancement of democracy, free trade and science.

The end of The Enlightenment is generally marked by the French Revolution, the rise of Industrial Capitalism in England, and developments in German art and philosophy, among other trends.

Benedicto  Spinoza (1632-1677)

Spinoza was born in Amsterdam to a family of Portuguese Jews who had fled there to escape the Portuguese Inquisition. He is considered a major Enlightenment philosopher and a major contributor to the ideas of liberalism, democracy, and religious tolerance. Spinoza was excommunicated from his synagogue for challenging orthodoxy. He is considered the father of modern Biblical criticism and a major contributor to Pantheism, which holds a view of God as the physical universe.

Many of Spinoza's views are very familiar today, indeed his social views essentially form the basis of all modern liberal democratic ideology. Both his religious views and his views on government were highly controversial in his day however, and thus he lived a reclusive life and published most of his works anonymously in order avoid persecution. He arranged to have his last work, The Ethics, published after his death.

Spinoza's views on religion and God did change over time. Clearly he professed a more traditional (though still controversial) view of God in his earlier works, but in The Ethics he put forward his most Pantheistic view of God as nature.

Major works of Spinoza:

• On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)
• Principles of Cartesian Philosophy (1663)
• A Theologico-Political Treatise (1670)
• The Ethics (1677)

"(1) If men's minds were as easily controlled as their tongues, every king would sit safely on his throne, and government by compulsion would cease; for every subject would shape his life according to the intentions of his rulers, and would esteem a thing true or false, good or evil, just or unjust, in obedience to their dictates. (2) However, we have shown already (Chapter XVII.) that no man's mind can possibly lie wholly at the disposition of another, for no one can willingly transfer his natural right of free reason and judgment, or be compelled so to do. (3) For this reason government which attempts to control minds is accounted tyrannical, and it is considered an abuse of sovereignty and a usurpation of the rights of subjects, to seek to prescribe what shall be accepted as true, or rejected as false, or what opinions should actuate men in their worship of God. (4) All these questions fall within a man's natural right, which he cannot abdicate even with his own consent.

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However unlimited, therefore, the power of a sovereign may be, however implicitly it is trusted as the exponent of law and religion, it can never prevent men from forming judgments according to their intellect, or being influenced by any given emotion.

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(14) Since, therefore, no one can abdicate his freedom of judgment and feeling; since every man is by indefeasible natural right the master of his own thoughts, it follows that men thinking in diverse and contradictory fashions, cannot, without disastrous results, be compelled to speak only according to the dictates of the supreme power. (15) Not even the most experienced, to say nothing of the multitude, know how to keep silence. (16) Men's common failing is to confide their plans to others, though there be need for secrecy, so that a government would be most harsh which deprived the individual of his freedom of saying and teaching what he thought; and would be moderate if such freedom were granted. (17) Still we cannot deny that authority may be as much injured by words as by actions; hence, although the freedom we are discussing cannot be entirely denied to subjects, its unlimited concession would be most baneful; we must, therefore, now inquire, how far such freedom can and ought to be conceded without danger to the peace of the state, or the power of the rulers; and this, as I said at the beginning of Chapter XVI., is my principal object. (18) It follows, plainly, from the explanation given above, of the foundations of a state, that the ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work - without injury to himself or others. (19) No, the object of government is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but to enable them to develope their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled; neither showing hatred, anger, or deceit, nor watched with the eyes of jealousy and injustice. (20) In fact, the true aim of government is liberty.

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If we hold to the principle that a man's loyalty to the state should be judged, like his loyalty to God, from his actions only - namely, from his charity towards his neighbours; we cannot doubt that the best government will allow freedom of philosophical speculation no less than of belief. (38) I confess that from such freedom inconveniences may sometimes arise, but what question was ever settled so wisely that no abuses could possibly spring therefrom? (39) He who seeks to regulate everything by law, is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. (40) It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. (41) How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness, and the like, yet these are tolerated - vices as they are - because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments. (42) How much more then should free thought be granted, seeing that it is in itself a virtue and that it cannot be crushed! (43) Besides the evil results can easily be checked, as I will show, by the secular authorities, not to mention that such freedom is absolutely necessary for progress in science and the liberal arts: for no man follows such pursuits to advantage unless his judgment be entirely free and unhampered.

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(58) If formal assent is not to be esteemed above conviction, and if governments are to retain a firm hold of authority and not be compelled to yield to agitators, it is imperative that freedom of judgment should be granted, so that men may live together in harmony, however diverse, or even openly contradictory their opinions may be. (59) We cannot doubt that such is the best system of government and open to the fewest objections, since it is the one most in harmony with human nature. (60) In a democracy (the most natural form of government, as we have shown in Chapter XVI.) everyone submits to the control of authority over his actions, but not over his judgment and reason; that is, seeing that all cannot think alike, the voice of the majority has the force of law, subject to repeal if circumstances bring about a change of opinion. (61) In proportion as the power of free judgment is withheld we depart from the natural condition of mankind, and consequently the government becomes more tyrannical.

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(64) The city of Amsterdam reaps the fruit of this freedom in its own great prosperity and in the admiration of all other people. (65) For in this most flourishing state, and most splendid city, men of every nation and religion live together in the greatest harmony, and ask no questions before trusting their goods to a fellow- citizen, save whether he be rich or poor, and whether he generally acts honestly, or the reverse. (66) His religion and sect is considered of no importance: for it has no effect before the judges in gaining or losing a cause, and there is no sect so despised that its followers, provided that they harm no one, pay every man his due, and live uprightly, are deprived of the protection of the magisterial authority.

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(76) Lastly, that not only may such liberty be granted without prejudice to the public peace, to loyalty, and to the rights of rulers, but that it is even necessary for their preservation. (77) For when people try to take it away, and bring to trial, not only the acts which alone are capable of offending, but also the opinions of mankind, they only succeed in surrounding their victims with an appearance of martyrdom, and raise feelings of pity and revenge rather than of terror. (78) Uprightness and good faith are thus corrupted, flatterers and traitors are encouraged, and sectarians triumph, inasmuch as concessions have been made to their animosity, and they have gained the state sanction for the doctrines of which they are the interpreters. (79) Hence they arrogate to themselves the state authority and rights, and do not scruple to assert that they have been directly chosen by God, and that their laws are Divine, whereas the laws of the state are human, and should therefore yield obedience to the laws of God - in other words, to their own laws. (80) Everyone must see that this is not a state of affairs conducive to public welfare."

- A Theologico-Political Treatise: Chapter 20

"VI. By God (Deus) I understand a being absolutely infinite, that is, a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence."

- The Ethics: First Part

"Thus an infant thinks that it freely seeks milk, an angry child thinks that it freely desires vengeance, or a timid child thinks it freely chooses flight. Again, a drunken man thinks that he speaks by the free decision of the mind those things which, were he sober, he would keep to himself. Thus a madman, a talkative woman, a child, and people of such kind, think they speak by the free decision of the mind, when, in truth, they cannot put a stop to the impulse to talk. So experience teaches as clearly as reason that men think themselves free on account of this alone, that they are conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes of them; and moreover that the decisions of the mind are nothing save their appetites, which are various according to various dispositions of the body. For each one manages everything according to his emotion, and thus those who are assailed by conflicting emotions know not what they want: those who are assailed by none are easily driven to one or the other. Now all these things clearly show that the decision of the mind, and the appetite and the determination of the body, are simultaneous in nature, or rather one and the same thing, which when considered under the attribute of thought and explained through the same we call a decision (decretum), and when considered under the attribute of extension and deduced from the laws of motion and rest we call a determination (determinatio), which will appear more clearly from what will be said on the subject."

- The Ethics: Third Part

"We see thus that men have been wont to call things of nature perfect or imperfect from prejudice rather than from a true knowledge, for we showed in the appendix of the first part that nature does not act with an end in view: for that eternal and infinite being we call God or nature acts by the same necessity as that by which it exists, for we showed that it acts from the same necessity of its nature as that by which it exists (see Prop. 16, Part I.).

Therefore the reason or cause why God or nature acts and why it exists is one and the same; therefore, as God exists with no end in view, he does not act with any end in view, but has no principle or purpose either in existing or acting. A cause, then, that is called 'final' is nothing save human appetite itself in so far as it is considered as the principle or primary cause of something."

- The Ethics: Fourth Part

English Empiricism

Empiricism is the view that all knowledge must come from experience, i.e. that there is no such thing as knowledge a priori. It is from British Empiricism that we later get the term “agnostic”. Gnosticism refers to an early Christian sect that believed in “divine knowledge”, or knowledge without experience – that people could “just know facts”.

Empiricism has its original roots among the Greeks, but it was in England that empiricism first made its rebirth in Western Civilization. The Empirical ideology of England formed the basis of the scientific method.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

Thomas Hobbes is one of the early English empirical philosophers. Though Hobbes wrote several works, the bulk of his views are incorporated into his most well known work, Leviathan, or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil, published in 1651. While Hobbes was not an atheist, in fact he very much believed in God, the relatively materialist and anti-supernatural nature of his work made him an enemy of the religious establishment. When Leviathan was published Hobbes became the most controversial figure in England.

In Leviathan Hobbes laid out his view of the world, upon which he based his views on government. Hobbes concluded that individuals are motivated by self-interest to come together to form social groups in order to protect themselves from the risk of violent death by other individuals or nature, and that therefore the main function of government is to protect the people, but not to interfere with people in any way unless protecting them from the harm of others. Hobbes believed that in order for government to perform its duty properly it had to be all powerful and beyond question. Hobbes has been heavily criticized for this because of the implicit problems of ensuring that an all powerful government would remain just.

“The original of them all is that which we call sense, (for there is no conception in a man's mind which hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense). The rest are derived from that original.

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The cause of sense is the external body, or object, which presseth the organ proper to each sense, either immediately, as in the taste and touch; or mediately, as in seeing, hearing, and smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of nerves and other strings and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the brain and heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure, or endeavour of the heart to deliver itself: which endeavour, because outward, seemeth to be some matter without.”

- Leviathan : Of Sense

“But evil men, under pretext that God can do anything, are so bold as to say anything when it serves their turn, though they think it untrue; it is the part of a wise man to believe them no further than right reason makes that which they say appear credible. If this superstitious fear of spirits were taken away, and with it prognostics from dreams, false prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be would be much more fitted than they are for civil obedience.

And this ought to be the work of the schools, but they rather nourish such doctrine.”

- Leviathan : Of Imagination

“Nevertheless, it is not prudence that distinguisheth man from beast. There be beasts that at a year old observe more and pursue that which is for their good more prudently than a child can do at ten.”

- Leviathan : Of the Consequence or Train of Imaginations

“The second cause of absurd assertions, I ascribe to the giving of names of bodies to accidents; or of accidents to bodies; as they do that say, faith is infused, or inspired; when nothing can be poured, or breathed into anything, but body; and that extension is body; that phantasms are spirits, etc.”

- Leviathan : Of Reason and Science

John Locke (1632-1704)

John Locke is considered an important empiricist philosopher in part because of his influence on the founding principles of the United States of America. It was John Locke who made the most successful and well-known refutation of King James’ Divine Right of Kings doctrine.

Like Hobbes, John Locke based his views of government and society on his fundamental understanding of reality and humanity. Unlike Hobbes, however, Locke advocated government by the consent of the governed.

Locke was trained as a physician, but never went into medical practice. He became involved in politics and had to flee to Amsterdam out of fear for his life.

He later returned to England where he published his major writings.

Locke’s major empirical work is An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1689.

In Human Understanding Locke made the argument that people are not born with innate knowledge or ideas, and that everything that people know comes from our experiences. This was an argument against the idea that a human soul possessed knowledge of universal truth.

Locke argued that people are not born with any universal set of ideas at all, but that agreement comes from the common observation of the same material reality.

“2. General assent the great argument. - There is nothing more commonly taken for granted, than that there are certain principles, both speculative and practical (for they speak of both), universally agreed upon by all mankind; which therefore; they argue, must needs be constant impressions which the souls of men receive in their first beings, and which they bring into the world with them, as necessarily and really as they do any of their inherent faculties.

3. Universal consent proves nothing innate. - This argument, drawn from universal consent, has this misfortune in it, that if it were true in matter of fact that there were certain truths wherein all mankind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if there can be any other way shown, how men may come to that universal agreement in the things they do consent in; which I presume may be done.

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5. Not on the mind naturally, imprinted, because not known to children, idiots, etc. - For, first, it is evident, that all children and idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them; and the want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent, which must needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate truths: it seeming to me near a contradiction to say, that there are truths imprinted on the soul which it perceives or understands not; imprinting, if it signify anything, being nothing else but the making certain truths to be perceived.”

- Human Understanding : No Innate Principles in the Mind

“2. All ideas come from sensation or reflection. - Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper (tabula rasa), void of all characters without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, From experience: in that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself.

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3. The object of sensation one source of ideas. - First. Our senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them; and thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities; which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have., depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call, "sensation."

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7. Men are differently furnished with these according to the different objects they converse with. - Men then come to be furnished with fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the objects they converse with afford greater or less variety; and from the operations of their minds within, according as they more or less reflect on them.”

- Human Understanding : Of Ideas in General, and Their Original

David Hume (1711-1776)

Hume is the most atheistic of the early empiricists. Unlike Hobbes and Locke, Hume didn’t make room for God in his views. Because of this, however, Hume had to be very cautious and often wrote under pseudonyms or used veiled references.

Hume argued philosophically against the idea that the universe was designed by an intelligent creator. He also developed an early theory of natural selection to explain the development of the universe and all life before Charles Darwin was even born.

Hume argued that the idea of free will was a logical impossibility because free will would deny the role of cause and effect, making all actions random, but if you account for cause and effect then you are back to determinism. He further argued that if you can’t hold people accountable for their actions because of determinism, then you also can’t hold them accountable via the concept of free will either - that would mean holding people responsible for randomness. Therefore Hume argued in favor of a punishment/reward approach to laws. People are not responsible for their actions either way, under the view of free will or determinism. Hume took the deterministic view, that people’s behaviors are all reactions to external stimuli, so these stimuli should be used to reward behavior that we deem positive or punish that which we deem negative as a way to guide behavior in the way that we want.

Hume argued that people are hard-wired to approve of actions that are beneficial to their social group and oppose those actions that are detrimental to their social group.

Hume viewed people very much the same as all other animals - as governed largely by instinct.

Some of Hume’s most important works are as follows:

• A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects. (1739–40)
• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
• Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (posthumous)

“Our evidence, then, for the truth of the Christian religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses; because, even in the first authors of our religion, it was no greater; and it is evident it must diminish in passing from them to their disciples; nor can any one rest such confidence in their testimony, as in the immediate object of his senses. But a weaker evidence can never destroy a stronger; and therefore, were the doctrine of the real presence ever so clearly revealed in scripture, it were directly contrary to the rules of just reasoning to give our assent to it…

Nothing is so convenient as a decisive argument of this kind, which must at least silence the most arrogant bigotry and superstition, and free us from their impertinent solicitations.

…

I am the better pleased with the method of reasoning here delivered, as I think it may serve to confound those dangerous friends or disguised enemies to the Christian Religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason. Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is, by no means, fitted to endure. To make this more evident, let us examine those miracles, related in scripture; and not to lose ourselves in too wide a field, let us confine ourselves to such as we find in the Pentateuch, which we shall examine, according to the principles of these pretended Christians, not as the word or testimony of God himself, but as the production of a mere human writer and historian. Here then we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its origin. Upon reading this book, we find it full of prodigies and miracles. It gives an account of a state of the world and of human nature entirely different from the present: Of our fall from that state: Of the age of man, extended to near a thousand years: Of the destruction of the world by a deluge: Of the arbitrary choice of one people, as the favourites of heaven; and that people the countrymen of the author: Of their deliverance from bondage by prodigies the most astonishing imaginable: I desire any one to lay his hand upon his heart, and after a serious consideration declare, whether he thinks that the falsehood of such a book, supported by such a testimony, would be more extraordinary and miraculous than all the miracles it relates; which is, however, necessary to make it be received, according to the measures of probability above established.

What we have said of miracles may be applied, without any variation, to prophecies; and indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and as such only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation. If it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell future events, it would be absurd to employ any prophecy as an argument for a divine mission or authority from heaven. So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that 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. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.”

- An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding : Of Miracles.

“But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from observation, there are also many parts of it, which they derive from the original hand of nature; which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions; and in which they improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire as something very extraordinary, and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. But our wonder will, perhaps, cease or diminish, when we consider, that the experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves; and in its chief operations, is not directed by any such relations or comparisons of ideas, as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the instinct be different, yet still it is an instinct, which teaches a man to avoid the fire; as much as that, which teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery.”

-  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding : Of the Reason of Animals

“First, when we analyze our thoughts or ideas however compounded or sublime, we always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment. Even those ideas, which, at first view, seem the most wide of this origin, are found, upon a nearer scrutiny, to be derived from it. The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom. We may prosecute this enquiry to what length we please; where we shall always find, that every idea which we examine is copied from a similar impression.”

-  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding : Of the Origin of Ideas

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, quoted below, Hume laid out arguments for and against the intelligent design of the universe in dialog format. Hume’s argument, some 250 years old, is remarkably relevant today. The characters in his dialog are as follows:

• CLEANTHES: The philosopher
• PHILO: The skeptic
• DEMEA: The orthodox theologian

“[PHILO:] Now, according to this method of reasoning, DEMEA, it follows, (and is, indeed, tacitly allowed by CLEANTHES himself,) that order, arrangement, or the adjustment of final causes, is not of itself any proof of design; but only so far as it has been experienced to proceed from that principle. For aught we can know a priori, matter may contain the source or spring of order originally within itself, as well as mind does; and there is no more difficulty in conceiving, that the several elements, from an internal unknown cause, may fall into the most exquisite arrangement, than to conceive that their ideas, in the great universal mind, from a like internal unknown cause, fall into that arrangement. The equal possibility of both these suppositions is allowed. But, by experience, we find, (according to CLEANTHES), that there is a difference between them. Throw several pieces of steel together, without shape or form; they will never arrange themselves so as to compose a watch. Stone, and mortar, and wood, without an architect, never erect a house. But the ideas in a human mind, we see, by an unknown, inexplicable economy, arrange themselves so as to form the plan of a watch or house. Experience, therefore, proves, that there is an original principle of order in mind, not in matter. From similar effects we infer similar causes. The adjustment of means to ends is alike in the universe, as in a machine of human contrivance. The causes, therefore, must be resembling.

…

[CLEANTHES:] Consider, anatomise the eye; survey its structure and contrivance; and tell me, from your own feeling, if the idea of a contriver does not immediately flow in upon you with a force like that of sensation. The most obvious conclusion, surely, is in favour of design; and it requires time, reflection, and study, to summon up those frivolous, though abstruse objections, which can support Infidelity. Who can behold the male and female of each species, the correspondence of their parts and instincts, their passions, and whole course of life before and after generation, but must be sensible, that the propagation of the species is intended by Nature? Millions and millions of such instances present themselves through every part of the universe; and no language can convey a more intelligible irresistible meaning, than the curious adjustment of final causes. To what degree, therefore, of blind dogmatism must one have attained, to reject such natural and such convincing arguments?

…

[PHILO:] In either case, a chaos ensues; till finite, though innumerable revolutions produce at last some forms, whose parts and organs are so adjusted as to support the forms amidst a continued succession of matter.

Suppose (for we shall endeavour to vary the expression), that matter were thrown into any position, by a blind, unguided force; it is evident that this first position must, in all probability, be the most confused and most disorderly imaginable, without any resemblance to those works of human contrivance, which, along with a symmetry of parts, discover an adjustment of means to ends, and a tendency to self-preservation. If the actuating force cease after this operation, matter must remain for ever in disorder, and continue an immense chaos, without any proportion or activity. But suppose that the actuating force, whatever it be, still continues in matter, this first position will immediately give place to a second, which will likewise in all probability be as disorderly as the first, and so on through many successions of changes and revolutions. No particular order or position ever continues a moment unaltered. The original force, still remaining in activity, gives a perpetual restlessness to matter. Every possible situation is produced, and instantly destroyed. If a glimpse or dawn of order appears for a moment,it is instantly hurried away, and confounded, by that never-ceasing force which actuates every part of matter.

Thus the universe goes on for many ages in a continued succession of chaos and disorder. But is it not possible that it may settle at last, so as not to lose its motion and active force (for that we have supposed inherent in it), yet so as to preserve an uniformity of appearance, amidst the continual motion and fluctuation of its parts? This we find to be the case with the universe at present. Every individual is perpetually changing, and every part of every individual; and yet the whole remains, in appearance, the same. May we not hope for such a position, or rather be assured of it, from the eternal revolutions of unguided matter; and may not this account for all the appearing wisdom and contrivance which is in the universe? Let us contemplate the subject a little, and we shall find, that this adjustment, if attained by matter of a seeming stability in the forms, with a real and perpetual revolution or motion of parts, affords a plausible, if not a true solution of the difficulty.

It is in vain, therefore, to insist upon the uses of the parts in animals or vegetables, and their curious adjustment to each other. I would fain know, how an animal could subsist, unless its parts were so adjusted? Do we not find, that it immediately perishes whenever this adjustment ceases, and that its matter corrupting tries some new form? It happens indeed, that the parts of the world are so well adjusted, that some regular form immediately lays claim to this corrupted matter: and if it were not so, could the world subsist? Must it not dissolve as well as the animal, and pass through new positions and situations, till in great, but finite succession, it falls at last into the present or some such order?

…

[PHILO:] All religious systems, it is confessed, are subject to great and insuperable difficulties. Each disputant triumphs in his turn; while he carries on an offensive war, and exposes the absurdities, barbarities, and pernicious tenets of his antagonist. But all of them, on the whole, prepare a complete triumph for the Sceptic; who tells them, that no system ought ever to be embraced with regard to such subjects: For this plain reason, that no absurdity ought ever to be assented to with regard to any subject. A total suspense of judgement is here our only reasonable resource. And if every attack, as is commonly observed, and no defence, among Theologians, is successful; how complete must be his victory, who remains always, with all mankind, on the offensive, and has himself no fixed station or abiding city, which he is ever, on any occasion, obliged to defend?”

- Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

Adam Smith, while not an atheist or outspoken religious critic, published a work on law and society, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which was not based on established church doctrine. In Moral Sentiments Smith made the argument that individuals' actions towards others are often guided by our ability to sympathies with others and that we engage in seemingly altruistic actions out of self-interest because by helping others we can strengthen the society that we live in, which protects our own best interests. This view was instrumental to Smith's later economic theories.

Smith's most famous book, however, is Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, which took a completely materialist view of the economy.  Smith didn’t attribute any aspect of economic prosperity to God or faith, as had been the tradition up to that time. Instead Smith documented and analyzed the material basis of economic principles. For this reason Adam Smith is considered the father of modern economics, because he approached economics as a science.

"'Does it suit the greatness of God,' says the eloquent and philosophical bishop of Clermont, with that passionate and exaggerating force of imagination, which seems sometimes to exceed the bounds of decorum; 'does it suit the greatness of God, to leave the world which he has created in so universal a disorder? To see the wicked prevail almost always over the just; the innocent dethroned by the usurper; the father become the victim of the ambition of an unnatural son; the husband expiring under the stroke of a barbarous and faithless wife? From the height of his greatness ought God to behold those melancholy events as a fantastical amusement, without taking any share in them? Because he is great, should he be weak, or unjust, or barbarous? Because men are little, ought they to be allowed either to be dissolute without punishment, or virtuous without reward? O God! if this is the character of your Supreme Being; if it is you whom we adore under such dreadful ideas; I can no longer acknowledge you for my father, for my protector, for the comforter of my sorrow, the support of my weakness, the rewarder of my fidelity. You would then be no more than an indolent and fantastical tyrant, who sacrifices mankind to his insolent vanity, and who has brought them out of nothing, only to make them serve for the sport of his leisure and of his caprice.'

When the general rules which determine the merit and demerit of actions, come thus to be regarded as the laws of an All-powerful Being, who watches over our conduct, and who, in a life to come, will reward the observance, and punish the breach of them; they necessarily acquire a new sacredness from this consideration. That our regard to the will of the Deity ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct, can be doubted of by nobody who believes his existence. The very thought of disobedience appears to involve in it the most shocking impropriety. How vain, how absurd would it be for man, either to oppose or to neglect the commands that were laid upon him by Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Power! How unnatural, how impiously ungrateful not to reverence the precepts that were prescribed to him by the infinite goodness of his Creator, even though no punishment was to follow their violation. The sense of propriety too is here well supported by the strongest motives of self-interest. The idea that, however we may escape the observation of man, or be placed above the reach of human punishment, yet we are always acting under the eye, and exposed to the punishment of God, the great avenger of injustice, is a motive capable of restraining the most headstrong passions, with those at least who, by constant reflection, have rendered it familiar to them.

It is in this manner that religion enforces the natural sense of duty: and hence it is, that mankind are generally disposed to place great confidence in the probity of those who seem deeply impressed with religious sentiments. Such persons, they imagine, act under an additional tie, besides those which regulate the conduct of other men.

...

In treating of the principles of morals there are two questions to be considered. First, wherein does virtue consist? Or what is the tone of temper, and tenour of conduct, which constitutes the excellent and praise-worthy character, the character which is the natural object of esteem, honour, and approbation? And, secondly, by what power or faculty in the mind is it, that this character, whatever it be, is recommended to us? Or in other words, how and by what means does it come to pass, that the mind prefers one tenour of conduct to another, denominates the one right and the other wrong; considers the one as the object of approbation, honour, and reward, and the other of blame, censure, and punishment?

We examine the first question when we consider whether virtue consists in benevolence, as Dr. Hutcheson imagines; or in acting suitably to the different relations we stand in, as Dr. Clarke supposes; or in the wise and prudent pursuit of our own real and solid happiness, as has been the opinion of others.

We examine the second question, when we consider, whether the virtuous character, whatever it consists in, be recommended to us by self-love, which makes us perceive that this character, both in ourselves and others, tends most to promote our own private interest; or by reason, which points out to us the difference between one character and another, in the same manner as it does that between truth and falsehood; or by a peculiar power of perception, called a moral sense, which this virtuous character gratifies and pleases, as the contrary disgusts and displeases it; or last of all, by some other principle in human nature, such as a modification of sympathy, or the like."

- The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Matthew Turner (?-1788)

Known as the “first British atheist”, Turner was the first Englishman to openly declare his own atheism in a published work in England. He was definitely not the first self-described British atheist however, because in his letter he presented a reply from an atheist friend of his whom he said had convinced him of the atheist view. There are also records of the expression of atheism in England prior to this as well, just not in published works, and no doubt many people held the view and never expressed it in writing.

It was in Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever that Turner declared his own atheism. The letter was first publicly published in England in 1782.

“…you meant your Letters to be perused by thinking men in general, Believers and Unbelievers, to confirm the former in their creed, and to convert the latter from their error. You shall speedily know the effect they have had in both ways. For myself I must inform you that I was brought up a Believer from my infancy… when I began freely to think I proceeded boldly to doubt; your Letters gave me the cause for thinking, and my scepticism was exchanged for conviction; not entirely by the perusal of your Letters; for I do not think they would quite have made me an Atheist, but by attention to that answer from my friend, which I have his permission to subjoin.

…

With me and with my friend the comparison holds by way of contrast, for we are so proud in our singularity of being atheists that we will hardly open our lips in company, when the question is started for fear of making converts, and so lessening our own enjoyment by a numerous division of our privilege with others.

…

But as to the question whether there is such an existent Being as an atheist, to put that out of all manner of doubt, I do declare upon my honour that I am one.

…

When my friend returned me your Letters, addressing me with a grave face he said, "I hope, if you have any doubts, these Letters will have as good effect upon you as they have had upon me."

My countenance brightened up and I replied, "You are then, my friend, convinced ?" "Yes, he said, I am convinced; that is, I am most thoroughly convinced there is no such thing as a God." Behold then, if we are to be believed, two atheists instead of one.”

The rest of the letter went on to give Matthew’s friend’s refutation of the existence of God. The postscript of the letter reads:

“Had you thought it impossible for man to hold different sentiments respecting Natural religion and the proof of the existence of a God than you do, the Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever would not have appeared, much less would you have invited an answer by promising a reply to every objection. Differing from you in sentiment I am the man who enter with you in the lists; but I find myself upon consultation with my friends under more difficulties than you were, and more to stand in need of courage in taking up the glove, than you needed to have in throwing it down. For this dispute is not like others in philosophy, where the vanquished can only dread ridicule, contempt and disappointment; here, whether victor or vanquished, your opponent has to dread, beside ecclesiastical censure, the scourges, chains and pillories of the courts of Law.”

French Materialism was highly influenced by Sir Isaac Newton’s work on mathematics and the laws of nature. France, at the time, had the leading schools of mathematics and engineering, and this was reflected in French philosophy as well. French Materialism was led mainly by liberal French aristocrats who opposed the Catholic Church.

Encyclopedia, or Reasoned Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts – 1751 to 1772

Encyclopedia contained the works of many prominent French Enlightenment thinkers.  The work, an effort to combat superstition and religious dogma with scientific facts and principles, was officially banned when it was published. Many of the contributors were atheists, though not all were.

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

La Mettrie was the first major Materialist writer of the Enlightenment. Virtually all of his writings were banned and he had to constantly move around Europe to avoid persecution. He eventually ended up as a physician in the court of Frederick the Great. La Mettrie's major philosophical breakthrough came while he was very ill and he concluded that thought was affected by the physical organs and physical effects on the brain. This was extremely controversial so his books were banned and he had to leave Paris to seek refuge. La Mettrie believed that atheism was the only way to ensure happiness in the world, and that the problems of the world were created by theology and the deceptions and wars that accompany it. Le Mettrie's concept of the soul can basically be seen as consciousness, for he discusses the soul as if he were discussing what we call consciousness and he believed that the soul ended when life ended.

La Mettrie viewed humans and animals as fundamentally the same and believed that man and animals had the same common origin. Being far ahead of his time, La Mettrie believed that it would be possible, as we now know, to teach apes to speak using sign-language.

His most famous and controversial book is Man a Machine, published in 1748. This book was so controversial that even other atheists and materialists advocated that the book be banned.

"It is not enough for a wise man to study nature and truth; he should dare state truth for the benefit of the few who are willing and able to think. As for the rest, who are voluntarily slaves of prejudice, they can no more attain truth, than frogs can fly.

...

Man is so complicated a machine that it is impossible to get a clear idea of the machine beforehand, and hence impossible to define it. For this reason, all the investigations have been vain, which the greatest philosophers have made à priori, that is to to say, in so far as they use, as it were, the wings of the spirit. Thus it is only à posteriori or by trying to disentangle the soul from the organs of the body, so to speak, that one can reach the highest probability concerning man's own nature, even though one can not discover with certainty what his nature is.

...

But the better to show this dependence, in its completeness and its causes, let us here make use of comparative anatomy; let us lay bare the organs of man and of animals. How can human nature be known, if we may not derive any light from an exact comparison of the structure of man and of animals?

In general, the form and the structure of the brains of quadrupeds are almost the same as those of the brain of man; the same shape, the same arrangement everywhere, with this essential difference, that of all the animals man is the one whose brain is largest, and, in proportion to its mass, more convoluted than the brain of any other animal; then come the monkey, the beaver, the elephant, the dog, the fox, the cat. These animals are most like man, for among them, too, one notes the same progressive analogy in relation to the corpus callosum in which Lancisi - anticipating the late M. de la Peyronie - established the seat of the soul. The latter, however, illustrated the theory by innumerable experiments. Next after all the quadrupeds, birds have the largest brains. Fish have large heads, but these are void of sense, like the heads of many men. Fish have no corpus callosum, and very little brain, while insects entirely lack brain.

...

Among animals, some learn to speak and sing; they remember tunes, and strike the notes as exactly as a musician. Others, for instance the ape, show more intelligence, and yet cannot learn music. What is the reason for this, except some defect in the organs of speech? But is this defect so essential to the structure that it could never be remedied? In a word, would it be absolutely impossible to teach the ape a language? I do not think so.

I should choose a large ape in preference to any other, until by some good fortune another kind should be discovered, more like us, for nothing prevents there being such a one in regions unknown to us. The ape resembles us so strongly that naturalists have called it 'wild man' or 'man of the woods.' I should take it in the condition of the pupils of Amman, that is to say, I should not want it to be too young or too old; for apes that are brought to Europe are usually too old. I would choose the one with the most intelligent face, and the one which, in a thousand little ways, best lived up to its look of intelligence. Finally not considering myself worthy to be his master, I should put him in the school of that excellent teacher whom I have just named, or with another teacher equally skillful, if there is one.

You know by Amman's work, and by all those who have interpreted his method, all the wonders he has been able to accomplish for those born deaf. In their eyes he discovered ears, as he himself explained, and in how short a time! In short he taught them to hear, speak, read, and write. I grant that a deaf person's eyes see more clearly and are keener than if he were not deaf, for the loss of one member or sense can increase the strength or acuteness of another, but apes see and hear, they understand what they hear and see, and grasp so perfectly the signs that are made to them, that I doubt not that they would surpass the pupils of Amman in any other game or exercise.

...

The transition from animals to man is not violent, as true philosophers will admit. What was man before the invention of words and the knowledge of language? An animal of his own species with much less instinct than the others. In those days, he did not consider himself king over the other animals, nor was he distinguished from the ape, and from the rest, except as the ape itself differs from the other animals, i.e., by a more intelligent face. Reduced to the bare intuitive knowledge of the Leibnizians he saw only shapes and colors, without being able to distinguish between them: the same, old as young, child at all ages, he lisped out his sensations and his needs, as a dog that is hungry or tired of sleeping, asks for something to eat, or for a walk.

Words, languages, laws, sciences, and the fine arts have come, and by them finally the rough diamond of our mind has been polished. Man has been trained in the same way as animals. He has become an author, as they have become beasts of burden. A geometrician has learned to perform the most difficult demonstrations and calculations, as a monkey has learned to take his little hat off and on, and to mount his tame dog. All has been accomplished through signs, every species has learned what it could understand, and in this way men have acquired symbolic knowledge, still so called by our German philosophers.

Nothing, as any one can see, is so simple as the mechanism of our education. Everything may be reduced to sounds or words that pass from the mouth of one through the ears of another into his brain. At the same moment, he perceives through his eyes the shape of the bodies of which these words are the arbitrary signs.

But who was the first to speak? Who was the first teacher of the human race? Who invented the means of utilizing the plasticity of our organism? I cannot answer: the names of these first splendid geniuses have been lost in the night of time. But art is the child of nature, so nature must have long preceded it.

...

To be a machine, to feel, to think, to know how to distinguish good from bad, as well as blue from yellow, in a word, to be born with an intelligence and a sure moral instinct, and to be but an animal, are therefore characters which are no more contradictory, than to be an ape or a parrot and to be able to give oneself pleasure. ... I believe that thought is so little incompatible with organized matter, that it seems to be one of its properties on a par with electricity, the faculty of motion, impenetrability, extension, etc."

- Man a Machine

Claude Helvétius (1715-1771)

Helvetius was a philosopher and poet, whose books were mostly banned and frequently burned. The publicity generated by opposition to his works resulted in widespread attention to them however, and they were published in many languages throughout Europe, where they were also banned and burned.

Helvetius believed, like John Locke, that people are born with "blank minds", and that the major differences between people were the result of education and environment. For this reason he was a strong promoter of education and culture.

His two most famous works are Essays on the Mind (1758) and A Treatise on Man; his Intellectual Faculties and his Education (1772)

His basic views consisted of the ideas that:

• All faculties may be reduced to physical sensation, even memory, comparison, and judgment.
• Our only difference from the lower animals lies in our external organization.
• Self-interest, founded on the love of pleasure and the fear of pain, is the sole spring of judgment, action, and affection.
• We have no liberty of choice between good and evil.
• There is no such thing as absolute right. Ideas of justice and injustice change according to conditions

Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783)

D’Alembert was a scientist, mathematician and philosopher who contributed to wave theory and several other areas of physics and mathematics. As a known atheist he was buried in an unmarked grave. D’Alembert didn’t directly address theology, but he contributed significantly to materialist philosophy and science, choosing to focus on science and to mostly ignore issues of religion altogether. Religion may simply have been unimportant to him, or he may have avoided publishing religious criticisms so as not to interfere with his career.

He was a well known and highly regarded professional. He was admitted to the French Academy of Science, published many works, and was praised by Frederick the Great. D'Alembert also wrote the introduction to the Encyclopedia and contributed mathematical articles.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

Diderot was a major French Enlightenment author who wrote many popular fiction and non-fiction works, including dramas. Diderot was also the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia. Diderot was the largest contributor to the Encyclopedia, contributing over 1,000 articles to it during his lifetime.

Diderot also contributed to the most strongly atheistic book published up to that time, The System of Nature.

Diderot was a major and vocal proponent of freedom of speech and democracy, as well as an opponent of slavery and Christianity. He faced serious challenges because of his outspoken opposition to the political authorities, but he was well received in Russia by Catherine the Great, who met with him personally and bought his library from him, but allowed him to keep it throughout his lifetime. His library was transferred to Russia after his death.

"The good of the people must be the great purpose of government. By the laws of nature and of reason, the governors are invested with power to that end. And the greatest good of the people is liberty. It is to the state what health is to the individual."

- Encyclopédie article on Government

 "Reason is to the philosopher what grace is to the Christian... Other men walk in darkness; the philosopher, who has the same passions, acts only after reflection; he walks through the night, but it is preceded by a torch. The philosopher forms his principles on an infinity of particular observations. He does not confuse truth with plausibility; he takes for truth what is true, for forgery what is false, for doubtful what is doubtful, and probable what is probable. The philosophical spirit is thus a spirit of observation and accuracy."

- Encyclopédie article on Philosophy

 "If exclusive privileges were not granted, and if the financial system would not tend to concentrate wealth, there would be few great fortunes and no quick wealth. When the means of growing rich is divided between a greater number of citizens, wealth will also be more evenly distributed; extreme poverty and extreme wealth would be also rare."

- Encyclopédie article on Wealth

Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789)

Baron d’Holbach may be considered the first true modern atheist, meaning that he personally declared that God does not exist and advocated that position. D’Holbach wrote several influential and extremely high quality works that are just as relevant today as the day they were written. D’Holbach’s books were generally banned and often burned. They had to be published outside of France, most often in Amsterdam, where many Enlightenment works were first published. D’Holbach held nothing back; he criticized French Imperialism and abuse of power among all nations. He also strongly attacked the Catholic Church and religion in general, but not with mere criticism, he went further and explained the entirety of the universe from a material basis and proposed a system of atheistic morality.

Fundamentally his views are still consistent with our present-day scientific understanding of reality.

Two of his major works are Christianity Unveiled (1761) and The System of Nature (1770).

Christianity Unveiled discusses the history of the Christian religion and the many flaws in Christian beliefs and doctrines. The work declared that Christianity and all religions were antithetical to humanity and impeded the advancement of mankind.

The System of Nature was the first book to openly proclaim atheism in Western Civilization since the time of the ancient Greeks. The System of Nature has stood the test of time remarkably. The work is based on philosophical materialism, declaring that there is no soul and that the mind is a product of the physical brain only. Most impressively, d’Holbach described the process of biological evolution years before the theory was formally proposed by Charles Darwin.

“To expose superstition, the ignorance and credulity on which it is based, and to ameliorate the condition of the human race, is the ardent desire of every philanthropic mind.

Mankind are unhappy, in proportion as they are deluded by imaginary systems of theology. Taught to attach much importance to belief in religious doctrines, and to mere forms and ceremonies of religious worship, the slightest disagreement among theological dogmatists is oftentimes sufficient to inflame their minds, already excited by bigotry, and to lead them to anathematize and destroy each other without pity, mercy, or remorse.

The various theological systems in which mankind have been misled to have faith, are but fables and falsehoods imposed by visionaries and fanatics on the ignorant, the weak, and the credulous, as historical truths; and for unbelief of which, millions have perished at the stake, or pined in gloomy dungeons: and such will ever be the case, until the mists of superstition, and the influence of priestcraft, are exposed by the light of knowledge and the power of truth.”

- From 1868 Advertisement for the first English Translation

“The source of man’s unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence, the consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error. He resembles a child destitute of experience, full of idle notions: a dangerous leaven mixes itself with all his knowledge: it is of necessity obscure, it is vacillating and false: — He takes the tone of his ideas on the authority of others, who are themselves in error, or else have an interest in deceiving him.”

- The System of Nature : Preface

"Men will always deceive themselves by abandoning experience to follow imaginary systems. Man is the work of Nature: he exists in Nature: he is submitted to her laws: he cannot deliver himself from them; nor can he step beyond them even in thought. It is in vain his mind would spring forward beyond the visible world, an imperious necessity always compels his return. For a being formed by Nature, and circumscribed by her laws, there exists nothing beyond the great whole of which he forms a part, of which he experiences the influence. The beings which he pictures to himself as above nature, or distinguished from her, are always chimeras formed after that which he has already seen, but of which it is impossible he should ever form any correct idea, either as to the place they occupy, or of their manner of acting."

- The System of Nature : Chapter 1: Of Nature

“Let us now apply the general laws we have scrutinized, to those beings of nature who interest us the most. Let us see in what man differs from the other beings by which he is surrounded. Let us examine if he has not certain points in conformity with them, that oblige him, not withstanding the different properties they respectively possess, to act in certain respects according to the universal laws to which every thing is submitted. Finally, let us inquire if the ideas he has formed of himself in meditating on his own peculiar mode of existence, be chimerical, or founded in reason.

…

Has man always been what he now is, or has he, before he arrived at the state in which we see him, been obliged to pass under an infinity of successive developments? … Matter is eternal, and necessary, but its forms are evanescent and contingent. It may be asked of man, is he any thing more than matter combined, of which the form varies every instant?

…

[S]ome reflections seem to favour the supposition, and to render more probable the hypothesis that man is a production formed in the course of time; who is peculiar to the globe he inhabits, and the result of the peculiar laws by which it is directed; who, consequently, can only date his formation as coeval with that of his planet.”

- The System of Nature : Chapter 6: Of Man — Of his Distinction into Moral and Physical - Of his Origin.

“All children are atheists - they have no idea of God.”

- Good Sense, 1772

Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794)

Condorcet was a highly influential political figure, and can be considered one of the fathers of classic liberalism. Condocet was a scientist and mathematician who was elected to the French Royal Academy of Sciences in 1769. He became a world-renowned scientist and worked with men such as Benjamin Franklin. He later became known for his strong advocacy of human rights.

Condorcet promoted a liberal free-market economy, free and equal public education, constitutional justice, and equal rights for women and people of all races. He was especially known for his promotion of women’s rights and racial equality.

He was also influential to the foundation of the United States of America and was highly supportive of the effort. He was known personally by several of the Founders. Thomas Jefferson mentioned him among other French atheists when discussing the virtue of atheists:

“If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than love of God.”
- Thomas Jefferson: in letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

Condorcet went on to play important roles in the French Revolution and post-Revolution administration. Marquis de Condorcet is now among the officially honored heroes of France.

American Revolutionaries

Deism and religious liberalism were common among American Founders and prominent revolutionaries.

Many Founders who did consider themselves Christians, or who spoke favorably of Christianity, took a highly philosophical view of Christianity and maintained a scientific outlook. They also didn’t fail to criticize many Christian practices and the mentality of devout Christians.

George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison are arguably good examples such men.

None of these men, except Benjamin Franklin, explicitly declared themselves Deists, and all spoke favorably of Christian philosophy, however these men did not put religion or Christianity beyond question, and their views were founded much more strongly in naturalism. They have often been considered Deists based on their views. They also rarely attended church services, and did not belong to any denomination. Some of the founders never attended church past childhood, with the exception of special occasions such as funerals, etc.

One thing that is important to note is that when any of these Founders mentioned God in public or in their writings, they did so in terms that were commonly known to be Deistic at the time, such as "Creator", "Almighty Judge", "God of Nature", "Nature's God", "Author of Every Good", etc. These are all terms that were widely recognized as Deistic during the 1700s and early 1800s. In contrast, when Christians mentioned God or their faith they typically used terms such as "the Lord", "God", "Jesus Christ", "our Savior", or any combination of these, such as "the Lord God Jesus Christ".

Thomas Jefferson, while still calling himself a Christian, was highly critical of the Bible and declared that he did not believe in any of the supernatural claims about Jesus or any other religion. Jefferson wrote that he believed that Jesus himself was a deistic philosopher, not the literal son of God.

Of the founders, Jefferson and Adams held strongly materialist worldviews and denounced all forms of supernaturalism. The God of Jefferson and Adams, as well as other Founders, was a God that created the laws of nature but did not actively intervene in the world. Jefferson was more critical of Christianity than Adams, but both were critical, yet both also saw value in the philosophy of the religion as well.

“Well aware that:

I. the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds;

II. that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint;

…

VI. that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right;”

- Thomas Jefferson – A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1777

"Nature has constituted utility to man the standard and test of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same act, therefore, may be useful and consequently virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced."

-Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 1814

“[W]here get we the ten commandments?  The book indeed gives them to us verbatim, but where did it get them?  For itself tells us they were written by the finger of God on tables of stone, which were destroyed by Moses; it specifies those on the second set of tables in different form and substance, but still without saying how the others were recovered.  But the whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful, that it seems vain to attempt minute inquiry into it; and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right from that cause to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine.”

- Thomas Jefferson – Letter to John Adams, 1814

"The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, etc. [were all] invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him."

- Thomas Jefferson – Letter to William Short, 1819

“It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it.”

- Thomas Jefferson – Letter to William Short, 1820

“The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors.”

- Thomas Jefferson – Letter to John Adams, 1824

“One other of these laws deserves particular notice. In private, every family were free to worship the gods in their own way; and in public, though certain forms were required, yet there was not any penalty annexed to the omission of them, as the punishment of offences in this matter was left to the offended god. This, probably, was the source of that wise and humane toleration which does so much honour to the Romans, and reflects disgrace on almost every Christian nation.”

- John Adams: A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-88)

“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

…

Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. The experiment is made, and has completely succeeded: it can no longer be called in question, whether authority in magistrates, and obedience of citizens, can be grounded on reason, morality, and the Christian religion, without the monkery of priests, or the knavery of politicians.”

- John Adams: A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-88)

The quote above in an excellent example of Adams’ relationship with religion. He regarded Christian values as good, yet he was not a religious man. He did not believe in the priesthood, in miracles, in the supernatural, nor in the perfection of the Bible. Like Jefferson, he viewed the Bible as a highly flawed text that had been tampered with and manipulated by priests over the centuries so as to add all manner of supernatural events to it.

The most well known American revolutionaries who actually did declare themselves Deists, and wrote on the topic of religious criticism, were Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allan and Thomas Paine.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Benjamin Franklin was the oldest of the primary Founders. He is also the only Founder to have signed all three of America's founding documents: The Declaration of Independence, The Treaty of Paris, and The Constitution.

Franklin's formal education lasted through age ten, after which he became a printing apprentice under his older brother. He engaged in a variety of businesses and trades during his lifetime including printer, journalist, publisher, author, statesman, scientist, librarian, diplomat, inventor and United States Postmaster General.

In 1727 Franklin founded a small intellectual club called Junto where members discussed current events, science and philosophy. Junto later gave rise to the American Philosophical Society, which was founded in 1743. The American Philosophical Society, founded by members of Junto, was the first scientific society in the American colonies. Franklin served as first secretary of the organization and later served as its president.

Franklin went on to become the most well known scientist of the American colonies. His most significant scientific contributions were in the fields of electricity and meteorology, both of which he pioneered. Franklin proposed the first experiment to prove that lightening is electricity. The experiment was first conducted by a Frenchman based on Franklin's publication, but Franklin conducted the second experiment days later (unaware that someone else had already conducted it).

In 1751 Franklin co-founded the first hospital in the American colonies, Pennsylvania Hospital.

Franklin had numerous political achievements and played a critical role in the American Revolution. He was key in enlisting the help of the French in the American Revolution. He was also considered one of the most important members of the Constitutional Convention. The only individual more widely associated with the American Revolution than Franklin was George Washington.

Throughout his life, since his teenage years, Franklin was a Deist. Franklin's views on religion were more conventional than those of his friend Thomas Paine, but he was nevertheless critical of the institution. Despite this he did propose the use of a daily prayer during the Constitutional Convention, which did not go over well with the assembly - most men thinking that a prayer was inappropriate. Only three of the men at the convention supported the measure.

"...I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion;"

"...I was rather inclin'd to leave Boston when I reflected that I had already made myself a little obnoxious to the governing party, and, from the arbitrary proceedings of the Assembly in my brother's case, it was likely I might, if I stay'd, soon bring myself into scrapes; and farther, that my indiscrete disputations about religion began to make me pointed at with horror by good people as an infidel or atheist."

"I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and tho' some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as the eternal decrees of God, election, reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter."

"My parents had early given me religious impressions, and brought me through my childhood piously in the Dissenting [Protestant] way. But I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns of several points, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."

- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

"Here is my creed. I believe in one God, creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals, and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble."

- Benjamin Franklin in letter to Ezra Stiles; March 9,1790

Ethan Allen (1738-1789)

Allan was a rough and rowdy colonist who became a fervent supporter of the revolutionary war and leader of the Green Mountain Boys. He was taken prisoner early in the Revolutionary War, but returned to political life in Vermont after being released from capture.

Perhaps more important than his participation in the Revolution, however, was his writing of one of the most significant early documents of American freethought, Reason: The Only Oracle of Man, in 1784, shortly before he died.

Allan believed that the universe was created by God, but beyond that there was little that could be known about the nature of God except what could be learned through the study of the natural world through science.

“In the circle of my acquaintance, (which has not been small,) I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism make me one;”

“The desire of knowledge has engaged the attention of the wise and curious among mankind in all ages which has been productive of extending the arts and sciences far and wide in the several quarters of the globe, and excited the contemplative to explore nature's laws in a gradual series of improvement, until philosophy, astronomy, geography, and history, with many other branches of science, have arrived to a great degree of perfection.”

“An unjust composition never fails to contain error and falsehood. Therefore an unjust connection of ideas is not derived from nature, but from the imperfect composition of man. Misconnection of ideas is the same as misjudging, and has no positive existence, being merely a creature of the imagination; but nature and truth are real and uniform; and the rational mind by reasoning, discerns the uniformity, and is thereby enabled to make a just composition of ideas, which will stand the test of truth. But the fantastical illuminations of the credulous and superstitious part of mankind, proceed from weakness, and as far as they take place in the world subvert the religion of REASON, NATURE and TRUTH.”

- Reason: The Only Oracle of Man

Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

Thomas Paine is America’s most well known Deist. He came to America in 1774 at the invitation of Benjamin Franklin, where he quickly made a name for himself as a writer. Throughout his life, however, he refused to take profits from the sale of his books. He could easily have become one of the wealthiest men in America by the profits from his books alone, but instead he remained poor by his own choice, and gave what money he did get to charity or put it towards his various causes.

When Paine published Common Sense in January 1776 it quickly became a best seller and ignited the desire for revolution among the colonists. Paine was indeed the first person to use the term “United States of America”.  Thomas Paine quickly became the most well known author in the Western world, with a reputation that stretched back to Europe, where he was largely hated in his home country of England, of course because Common Sense was anti-British.

Paine continued to write important inspirational pieces throughout the Revolutionary War that were widely read by American patriots.

After the war Paine became Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Soon after, however, he developed the idea for a single-span iron bridge, the first of its kind. He then traveled to France, to the Institute of Math and Science, in order to have his invention analyzed and to acquire a patent. While in France the French Revolution erupted and Paine was then stuck. He became involved in the Revolution and then was thrown in jail, where he began writing his most important theological work, The Age of Reason, in 1794. Ironically, it was Thomas Paine’s opposition to the atheist movement in the French Revolution that landed him in jail. He sent his manuscript back to America to be published, for he feared that he would be executed, and indeed he was scheduled to be executed but escaped death by a stroke of luck and was eventually saved by James Madison, after which he returned to America.

In The Age of Reason Thomas Pain delivered a thorough criticism of Christianity and the Bible. Paine denounced the Bible as a negative influence on mankind that perpetuated irrationality and barbarism. Paine discussed many contradictions in the Bible and explained the mystical elements of the story of Jesus as pagan mythology reheated.

Paine did state that he believed in God, but said that it is impossible to claim any knowledge of God other than what can be determined by the laws of nature, and that he viewed God merely as whatever created the universe.

The major works of Paine:

• Common Sense (1776)
• The American Crisis (1774-1779)
• The Rights of Man (1779-1792)
• The Age of Reason (1794-1796)

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

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.”

“It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing at that time to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story.

It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand. The statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus. The deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints. The Mythologists had gods for everything; the Christian mythologists had saints for everything. The church became as crowded with the one, as the pantheon had been with the other; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.”

“The opinions I have advanced… are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues—and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter.”

- The Age of Reason

“Germany” (Greater Deutschland, including all Germanic speaking peoples) is a place of great importance to the history of atheism and religious criticism. The invention of the Guttenberg printing press in “Germany” made Germany a leader in early social movements of opposition to the Church based on philosophical and factual principles because of the ability to mass produce and spread literature.

This is perhaps why the Protestant Reformation began in Germany. From that time on criticism of religion and Christianity has been deeply rooted in German culture.

German philosophy of the 19th century marked the end of the Enlightenment and a move towards the modern era.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Schopenhauer is the first prominent German atheist philosopher. Schopenhauer was a man ahead of his time and, partially due to his personal disposition, he wasn’t highly recognized during his lifetime. Schopenhauer published and lectured during the time of one of Germany’s most famous philosophers: Hegel. Hegel’s philosophy was not atheistic and was much more popular, which confounded Schopenhauer.

Over time, however, Schopenhauer has been regarded with great esteem. He was a prolific author and believed in truth beyond anything else. He stuck to his principles and wrote books even if they didn’t sell. He was also independently wealthy due to an inheritance so he didn’t need to worry about making money, which obviously helped.

Schopenhauer is important to the roots of Existentialism and Nihilism. He viewed all life as ultimately meaningless. He stated that the will to live is the only driving force of life, and that this will to live itself is meaningless - its only point being to perpetuate itself. He did, however, believe in the ability to develop a moral compass without religion, which he related back to the will. What is most remarkable about Schopenhauer is that his views existed before Darwin's theory of evolution, though his views clearly foreshadowed evolutionary theory .

His most famous work is a series of books titled The World as Will and Representation. The first volume was published in 1818.

Schopenhauer wasn’t aggressively opposed to religion; he was sympathetic to it because he saw it as an illusion that helped people through a meaningless life. Schopenhauer in some ways lamented the "death of religion", but believed that it was important to develop a system of morality without a belief in God.

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

- Arthur Schopenhauer

“The chief objection I have to Pantheism is that it says nothing. To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word world.”

- A Few Words On Pantheism

“In the Christian system the devil is a personage of the greatest importance. God is described as absolutely good, wise and powerful; and unless he were counterbalanced by the devil, it would be impossible to see where the innumerable and measureless evils, which predominate in the world, come from, if there were no devil to account for them. And since the Rationalists [Rationalist Christians who claim that God created the laws of nature and deny ongoing supernatural interaction from heaven and hell] have done away with the devil, the damage inflicted on the other side has gone on growing, and is becoming more and more palpable; as might have been foreseen, and was foreseen, by the orthodox. The fact is, you cannot take away one pillar from a building without endangering the rest of it. And this confirms the view, which has been established on other grounds, that Jehovah is a transformation of Ormuzd, and Satan of the Ahriman who must be taken in connection with him.

…

Christianity has this peculiar disadvantage, that, unlike other religions, it is not a pure system of doctrine: its chief and essential feature is that it is a history, a series of events, a collection of facts, a statement of the actions and sufferings of individuals: it is this history which constitutes dogma, and belief in it is salvation… The historical constitution of Christianity makes the Chinese laugh at missionaries as story-tellers.

I may mention here another fundamental error of Christianity, an error which cannot be explained away, and the mischievous consequences of which are obvious every day: I mean the unnatural distinction Christianity makes between man and the animal world to which he really belongs. It sets up man as all-important, and looks upon animals as merely things. Brahmanism and Buddhism, on the other hand, true to the facts, recognize in a positive way that man is related generally to the whole of nature, and specially and principally to animal nature; and in their systems man is always represented by the theory of metempsychosis and otherwise, as closely connected with the animal world. The important part played by animals all through Buddhism and Brahmanism, compared with the total disregard of them in Judaism and Christianity, puts an end to any question as to which system is nearer perfection, however much we in Europe may have become accustomed to the absurdity of the claim. Christianity contains, in fact, a great and essential imperfection in limiting its precepts to man, and in refusing rights to the entire animal world… look at the revolting ruffianism with which our Christian public treats its animals; killing them for no object at all, and laughing over it, or mutilating or torturing them: even its horses, who form its most direct means of livelihood, are strained to the utmost in their old age, and the last strength worked out of their poor bones until they succumb at last under the whip. One might say with truth, Mankind are the devils of the earth, and the animals the souls they torment.”

- Religion : Psychological Observation – The Christian System

Ludwig von Feuerbach (1804–1872)

Feuerbach was mostly an outcast of the intellectual establishment because he was both non-religious and his methods were also not scientific, therefore he was accepted by neither branch of thought. He also did not consider himself an atheist as such, but he didn’t believe in God either. He did have success in writing books however.

His most famous and important book is Essence of Christianity. Perhaps the most important impact of this book was its influence on Karl Marx.

Unlike many of the anti-religious thinkers up to that time, who opposed religion outright and saw little or nothing positive in religion, Feuerbach viewed religion and God as expressions of the hopes of man. Feuerbach also discussed how religious values are the product of the material needs of the people when the values were originally enshrined in dogma. Feuerbach opened to door to seeing religion as a window into the human mind and also into the material past.

Basically, Feuerbach performed a psychological analysis on Western society based on the religious beliefs of Christian society.

“We have shown that the substance and object of religion is altogether human; we have shown that divine wisdom is human wisdom; that the secret of theology is anthropology; that the absolute mind is the so-called finite subjective mind. But religion is not conscious that its elements are human; on the contrary, it places itself in opposition to the human, or at least it does not admit that its elements are human. The necessary turning-point of history is therefore the open confession, that the consciousness of God is nothing else than the consciousness of the species;

…

Man thanks God for those benefits which have been rendered to him even at the cost of sacrifice by his fellow-man. The Gratitude which he expresses to his benefactor is only ostensible: it is paid, not to him, but to God. He is thankful, grateful to God, but unthankful to man.

Thus is the moral sentiment subverted into religion! Thus does man sacrifice man to God!

…

Think, therefore, with every morsel of bread which relieves thee from the pain of hunger, with every draught of wine which cheers thy heart, of the God who confers these beneficent gifts upon thee, — think of man!”

- Essence of Christianity

Bruno Bauer (1809-1882)

Bruno Bauer was a member of the Young Hegelians, and heavily influenced Karl Marx. Bauer was deeply atheistic and highly critical of Christianity. He was perhaps the first major writer to attack the historical validity of Christianity and Jesus.

Bauer used archival material and historical study to trace the roots of Christianity. He was the first major author to publicly write that none of the Gospels were written until well after the time that Jesus was claimed to have lived and that the Gospel of Mark was the original Gospel, upon which all of the other Gospels were based. Bauer concluded that the entirety of the New Testament was fiction based on fiction, with zero basis in fact at all.

Bauer was also a materialist philosopher and he predicted a crisis in Western Civilization brought on by the exhaustion of philosophy as a means of answerin