Atheism

The espousal of atheistic views was rare in Europe during the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages; metaphysics, religion and theology were the dominant interests. There were, however, movements within this period that forwarded heterodox conceptions of the Christian God, including differing views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. Individuals and groups such as Johannes Scotus Eriugena, David of Dinant, Amalric of Bena, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit maintained Christian viewpoints with pantheistic tendencies. Nicholas of Cusa held to a form of fideism he called docta ignorantia ("learned ignorance"), asserting that God is beyond human categorization, and our knowledge of God is limited to conjecture. William of Ockham inspired anti-metaphysical tendencies with his nominalistic limitation of human knowledge to singular objects, and asserted that the divine essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. Followers of Ockham, such as John of Mirecourt and Nicholas of Autrecourt furthered this view. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later theologians such as John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and Martin Luther.

The Renaissance did much to expand the scope of freethought and skeptical inquiry. Individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci sought experimentation as a means of explanation, and opposed arguments from religious authority. Other critics of religion and the Church during this time included Niccolò Machiavelli, Bonaventure des Périers, and François Rabelais.

Early Modern Period

The Renaissance and Reformation era witnessed a resurgence in religious fervor, as evidenced by the proliferation of new religious orders, confraternities, and popular devotions in the Catholic world, and the appearance of increasingly austere Protestant sects such as the Calvinists. This era of interconfessional rivalry permitted an even wider scope of theological and philosophical speculation, much of which would later be used to advance a religiously skeptical worldview.

Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England, where there appears to have been a religious malaise, according to contemporary sources. Some Protestant thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes, espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward supernatural occurences. In the late 17th century, Deism came to be openly espoused by English intellectuals such as John Toland, and practically all of the philosophes of eighteenth century France or England held some form of deism. Despite their ridicule of Christianity, many deists held atheism in scorn. The first openly atheistic thinkers, such as Baron d'Holbach, appeared in the late 18th century, when expressing disbelief in God became a less dangerous position.

Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity would greatly influence philosophers such as Engels, Marx, David Strauss, and Nietzsche. He considered God to be a human invention and religious activities to be wish-fulfillment.

[[the Albanian government under Enver Hoxha announced the closure of all religious institutions in the country, declaring Albania the world's first atheist state. These regimes enhanced the negative associations of atheism, especially where anti-communist sentiment was strong in the USA, despite the fact that many prominent atheists, such as Ayn Rand, were anti-communist. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of actively antireligious * 11.9% Nonreligious: Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, uninterested, or dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion but not militantly so.

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According to a study by Paul Bell, published in the UK Mensa Magazine in 2002, there is an inverse correlation between religiosity and intelligence. Analyzing 43 studies carried out since 1927, Bell found that all but four reported such a connection, and he concluded that "the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold 'beliefs' of any kind." A letter published in Nature in 1998 reported a survey suggesting that belief in a personal God or afterlife was at an all time low among the members of the National Academy of Science, only 7.0% of which believed in a personal God as compared to more than 85% of the US general population.

A November–December 2006 poll published in the Financial Times gives rates for the USA and five European countries; this poll shows that Americans are more likely than Europeans to believe in any form of God or Supreme Being (73%). Of the European adults surveyed, Italians are the most likely to express this belief (62%) and, in contrast, the French are the least likely (27%). In France, 32% declared themselves to be atheists, with an additional 32% declaring themselves agnostic.

Atheism, religion and morality

Main articles: Atheism and religion and Secular ethics

Because of its lack of a personal God, Buddhism is commonly described as atheistic.

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

As the strictest sense of positive atheism does not entail any specific beliefs outside of disbelief in God, atheists can hold any number of spiritual beliefs. For the same reason, atheists can hold a wide variety of ethical beliefs, ranging from the moral universalism of humanism, which holds that a moral code should be applied consistently to all humans, to moral nihilism, which holds that morality is meaningless.

However, throughout its history, atheism has commonly been equated with immorality, based on the belief that morality is directly derived from God, and thus cannot be attained without appealing to God. Moral precepts such as "murder is wrong" are seen as divine laws, requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, many atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a false analogy, and that morality does not depend upon a lawmaker in the same way that laws do, based on the Euthyphro dilemma, which either renders God unnecessary or morality arbitrary.

Philosopher Julian Baggini asserts that behaving ethically only because of divine mandate is not true ethical behavior, merely blind obedience. He argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics than theism, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necessary in order to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselves—to be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs it—and therefore atheists have the advantage of being more inclined to make such evaluations.

Atheists such as Sam Harris have argued that Western religions' reliance on divine authority lends itself to authoritarianism and dogmatism. Indeed, extrinsic religion and religious fundamentalism have been correlated with authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice. This argument, combined with historical events that are argued to demonstrate the dangers of religion, such as the Crusades, inquisitions, and witch trials, are often used by antireligious atheists to justify their views; however, theists have made very similar arguments against atheists based on the state atheism of communist states.<ref>McGrath, Alister (2005). The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04727-7. {{cite book}}: Check |url= value (help)

• Buckley, M. J. (1990). At the origins of modern atheism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300048971.
• Dawkins, R. (1996). Arguing for atheism: An introduction to the philosophy of religion. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09338-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
• Mackie, J. L. (1982). The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God. Oxford: Oxford UP. ISBN 019824682X
• Maritain, Jacques (1953). The Range of Reason. London: Geoffrey Bles. ISBN B0007DKP00. Retrieved 2006-10-27.
• The Moral Case Against Religious Belief, London: SCM Press, 1997, ISBN 0-334-02680-6 {{citation}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
• Stenger, Victor J. (2007). God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. Amherst, NY: Prometheus. ISBN 1591024811
• Thrower, James (1971). A Short History of Western Atheism. London: Pemberton. ISBN 0-301-71101-1.