evolution of atheism
TRANSCRIPT
EVOLUTION
OF
ATHEISM
A political perspective
NIMISHA AGARWAL POLITICAL SCIENCE, 1-B
THE POLITICAL NATURE OF NEW ATHEISM This research paper seeks to probe the philosophy of
atheism, revolving around the question, what can a
comparative perspective of Marxist atheism and new
atheism lead us to understand about the nature of
atheism being political?
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE:
Atheism, formally or informally has existed from
the times of Socrates, and in fact ever since ancient
philosophy started taking roots. Socrates actually
denied the existence of national gods in the greek
society, at a time when not believing in deities
proclaimed by the state was a capital crime. There
were many more such dissenters, albeit not openly
expressing themselves in public (or expressing
subtly), but a mass critique of religion happened
only during the period of Enlightenment in Europe
and after. I will not dwell further, since this is
already traced in the historical background to
atheism (in brief), but the reason for choosing this
topic and the particular research question was to
probe the nature and narratives of atheism from a
political perspective. Can atheism be a political
philosophy? Hence my research paper seeks to
show the political side of atheism, especially the
contemporary part, without going much into the
theorizing part. The aim here is not to theorize
atheism as political, but to start a discourse around
atheism being a political phenomena.
INTRODUCTION: Methodology I have reviewed the literature available to me to
trace the roots of atheism from Greek societies to
contemporary atheism defined mainly by Richard
Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris
among others. I have investigated various
philosophies and inspect the atheist element in it
to further strengthen my argument of atheism
being definitely political. I have also used online
lectures at my disposal for topics concerning
ancient atheistic philosophy, and the relevant
footnotes have been provided for the same.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Etymologically, ―atheism‖ is derived from the ancient Greek word
ATHEOS, which is translated into several synonymous meanings-
without gods; godless; secular; denying or disdaining the gods,
especially officially sanctioned gods1. Contemporarily, it means the
negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God
Western philosophy began in the Greek society in 6th century BC,
when philosophers tried to explain the occurrences in the world by
attributing it to natural processes instead of mythological and godly
explanations. And so, lightning was the result of "wind breaking out
and parting the clouds",] and earthquakes occurred when "the earth
is considerably altered by heating and cooling". The early
philosophers often criticized traditional religious
notions. Xenophanes (6th century BCE) famously said that if cows
and horses had hands, "then horses would draw the forms of gods
like horses, and cows like cows". Another
philosopher, Anaxagoras (5th century BCE),said that the Sun was "a
fiery mass, larger than the Peloponnese", Since this went against the
so strongly established religious ethos, he was considered impious
and was forced to flee Athens.2
Diagoras of Melos is believed to be the first publically known
atheist, as in, the first one to come out in the open. Best known for
1 www.wikipedia.org/wiki/history_of_atheism
2 www.coursera.org
satirizing the Eleusinian mysteries, the religious annual rites
performed by the greeks, he openly declared that there is no god at
all. At that time, religious and political excitement was very
prevalent. There have been speculations on what exactly was the
position of Diagoras. It is quite possible that he was against direct
interference of these gods in world matters, but his disbelief in
Athenian gods directed the greeks to think of him as nothing but an
atheist. Now, he ridiculed a public institution for religious purposes
of Athens, the Eleusinian mysteries, but he did not just stop there;
he stopped others from getting into this religious fold too.
In an interesting story regarding conversations of diagoras with
others, a friend pointed out an expensive display of votive gifts and
said, "You think the gods have no care for man? Why, you can see
from all these votive pictures here how many people have escaped
the fury of storms at sea by praying to the gods who have brought
them safe to harbor." Diagoras replied, "Yes, indeed, but where are
the pictures of all those who suffered shipwreck and perished in the
waves?" Though he did not write much about atheism, stories and
anecdotes and all of the resources available suggest his disbelief in
god.
Another important atheist was Epicurus, founder of epicuranism. He
was an ancient greek philosopher, and nothing can summarise his
atheistic ideology than his following words:
Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him god?
In the middle ages, the islam world did recognize atheism, and non-
believers were frequently attacked. Despite that, many outspoken
atheists existed, for example Ibn-Al-Rawandi, who criticized many
aspects of the Mu‘tazilite school of Islamic theology. In his ‗Kitaab-
Al-Zumurrud‘, he criticized the tradition revolving around miracles.
Since at the time of the performance of a miracle, only a small
number of people could be around the prophet to observe his
deeds, the reporting of such a small group cannot be trusted, and
hence muslim traditions are flimsy. The book also criticizes Islamic
prayers, the strictness associated with ritual purity, and the
ceremonies of hajj.
The encyclopaedia of islam says the following:
"The plentiful extracts from the K. al-Zumurraudh provide a fairly
clear indication of the most heterodox doctrine of Ibn al-Rawandi,
that of which posterity has been least willing to forgive him: a biting
criticism of prophecy in general and of the prophecy of Muhammad
in particular; he maintains in addition that religious dogmas are not
acceptable to reason and must, therefore, be rejected; the miracles
attributed to the Prophets, persons who may reasonably be
compared to sorcerers and magicians, are pure invention, and the
greatest of the miracles in the eyes of orthodox Muslims, the Quran,
gets no better treatment: it is neither a revealed book nor even an
inimitable literary masterpiece. In order to cloak his thesis, which
attacks the root of all types of religion, Ibn al-Rawandi used the
fiction that they were uttered by Brahmans. His reputation as
irreligious iconoclast spread in the 4th/10th century beyond the
borders of Muslim literature."3
Thomas Hobbes professed the most surprising beliefs about God,
saying that God is corporeal while drawing attention to the first of
the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England: ―God is without
body and without parts.‖
He contradicted this with appeals to a sentence in a work (The Flesh
of Christ, section XI) by the second-century Christian thinker
Tertullian: ―Nothing is incorporeal, except what is non-existent‖. So
basically, he points out that if according to the church, god is
without body and parts, and if the establisher of church says that
something without body and parts does not exist, then god does
not exist. He does not say that god does not exist, but leaves it to
the reader to determine this, by cropping up two possibilities: either
the church is incorrect even through the standards of Christianity,
or that god does not exist, exposing this contradiction with perhaps
an innate intention to cripple the church.
Hobbes said that we only know that there is a god, but we know
nothing about him; in other words, god is incomprehensible. He
3 On Ibn al-Rawandi, from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1971, Volume 3, E J Brill, Leiden, p 905
said that every imagination comes from senses, partially of fully,
and without sense, the imagination emanating from senseless
observations is redundant. Now a counter perspective was
presented to him: A blind man can sense heat and make out that
fire is causing this heat; or in real terms, whatever is causing heat
can be called fire. Hence, whatever that is happening in the cosmos
can be attributed to god. To which Hobbes retorted; that just like
the blind man cannot know the intrinsic properties of fire, we
cannot know the intrinsic properties of god, except that god caused
the cosmos. Hence, this can be read as we do not know what
pleases god, so prayers and rituals are redundant.
The age of reason and Enlightenment was a break with the past,
especially divine rights of king, theology and religion. Secular
concepts of democracy, freedom of press and speech, separation of
church and state and other such liberal concepts became profound.
Jean Jacques Rousseau challenged the Christian notion that human
beings are sinned since the Garden of Eden, and instead proposed
that humans were originally good, only later to be corrupted by
civilization.
Immanuel Kant said that it is liberation of thought within the
individual, a mature sense of making decisions that are not dictated
by opinions imposed from outside authorities. Enlightenment for
him is to use your own reasoning rather than a received reasoning.
David Hume was an empiricist who was also against religion, He
talked about two concepts: Sense and Reflection, and that when a
person doesn‘t have sense, nothing is acceptable. Sense leads to an
experience, which leads us to act, which requires motion set off by
energy, and that finally leads to reflection. Now when god cannot be
sensed through our bodies, it cannot lead to reason. Hence, the idea
of god is devoid of both sense and reason, and hence god doesn‘t
exist.
Hume himself, under his own name, says in his first Enquiry that
―While we argue from the course of nature, and infer a particular
intelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves order in
the universe, we embrace a principle, which is both uncertain and
useless. It is uncertain; because the subject lies entirely beyond the
reach of human experience. It is useless; because our knowledge of
this cause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can
never, according to the rules of just reasoning, return back from the
cause with any new inference, or making additions to the common
and experienced course of nature, establish any new principles of
conduct and behaviour‖
(First Enquiry, section 11)
The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a letter to the dean of the
college he was studying in entitled ―The Necessity of Atheism‖. He
was eventually rusticated for that. It starts by stating that proofs are
required to know the truth of the existence or non-existence of a
deity. It is necessary first to consider the nature of belief. Belief and
disbelief, which is only another form of belief, are passions of the
mind and not capable of using one‘s own will, and therefore
disbelief cannot by its very nature be an act of will. The senses are
the sources of all knowledge to the mind, and conviction can only
be obtained by three methods - 1. The evidence of the senses; 2.
Reason; 3. Testimony (which should not be contrary to reason).
From these three sources of conviction, it is obvious that no proof
of the existence of the Deity is obtainable.
Friedrich Nietzsche questioned the origins of morality, perspectives,
social constructs and the conception of religion.
Upon studying the foundations of how human thinking is grounded
in fallacies, fears and selfishness, Nietzsche propounded an image
of the perfect Overman, and went on to argue how every human can
pursue attainment of best self by living as the Overman for at least
as many moments as possible.
He went ahead to predict that as humans become more aware of the
truth behind the idea of God, they will inevitably destroy the pre-
existing moral notions and thoughts, and suffer uncertainty, lack of
purpose and despair. This will result in systems being overthrown
and the institution of religion receiving the final blow.
However, beyond that, he synthesized that men and women will be
compelled to think beyond what exists, and gradually accept the
nature of all subjective facts, after which their next dimension would
open up - where human beings finally accept the truth that they
ought to define their own morals, the purpose of their lives, just as
their acts shape their fate. This should usher in a new era of
enlightenment and true liberation of thought.
According to nihilism, there is nothing in life because there is no
god. And then he said why you need god to define your purpose.
You can define the purpose of your life yourself. This led to the
birth of existentialism.
God and religion are nihilistic, according to Nietzsche, because by
setting up a fictitious world against this natural world they slander
and devalue it.
THE COMPARISON
Marxist perspective:
Marxists consider religion as a tool in the hand of the capitalist class
to morally and emotionally exploit the working classes. Karl Marx
considered the contributions of religion to be useless to the future
of humanity. He argued that religious belief had been invented as a
reaction against the suffering and injustice of the world. In Marx's
view, the poor and oppressed were the original creators of religion,
and they used it as a way to reassure themselves that they would
have a better life in the future, after death. Thus, it served as a kind
of "opium," or a way to escape the harsh realities of the world. Marx
basically contended that religion disengaged humans from reality
and prevented them from realizing their true potential. Thus he
writes;
―The decomposition of man into Jew and citizen, Protestant and
citizen, religious man and citizen, is neither a deception directed
against citizenhood, nor is it a circumvention of political
emancipation, it is political emancipation itself, the political method
of emancipating oneself from religion. Of course, in periods when
the political state as such is born violently out of civil society, when
political liberation is the form in which men strive to achieve their
liberation, the state can and must go as far as the abolition of
religion, the destruction of religion. But it can do so only in the
same way that it proceeds to the abolition of private property, to the
maximum, to confiscation, to progressive taxation, just as it goes as
far as the abolition of life, the guillotine. At times of special self-
confidence, political life seeks to suppress its prerequisite, civil
society and the elements composing this society, and to constitute
itself as the real species-life of man, devoid of contradictions. But, it
can achieve this only by coming into violent contradiction with its
own conditions of life, only by declaring the revolution to be
permanent, and, therefore, the political drama necessarily ends with
the re-establishment of religion, private property, and all elements
of civil society, just as war ends with peace.‖4
Marx believed that the economic organization of society was the
root cause of religion and hence abolition of this structure would
put an end to religion. Marxists believe that materialism is the
destiny of mankind; that whichever system provides the most
material comfort for the common man will be the system that
inevitably triumphs. It is this materialist view of all of the struggles
of mankind that led Marx to his system. Of course there's one big
hole in that, which is that the poor who have spiritual comfort are
not going to overthrow their capitalist and imperialist overlords. So
he was particularly critical of that function of any religion that
pacifies those he would have become revolutionaries in the Struggle.
Marx talked about the 'the new man': he believed that within the
perfect environment, man's impulses can be controlled. This is the
entire point of propaganda, to constrain the way that people think
so that they will only desire those things that the state can provide
and control. Any faith in things beyond the control of the state is
counter-revolutionary. Karl Marx pointed out that church is an
institution whose main task is to keep the working class quiet and
satisfied with the idea of serving the ruling class.
4 Karl Marx, On the Jewish Question, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/
The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach attacked the concepts
of theology and seeked to introduce a new religion- the religion of
―Humanity‖ which would comprise of the fundamental human
concerns of dignity, the meaning of life, morality and purpose of
existence within an ―atheistic‖ religion that did not hold belief in
anything supernatural, but which would serve as an answer to these
concerns. He wrote:
―But the idea of deity coincides with the idea of humanity. All divine
attributes, all the attributes which make God God, are attributes of
the species – attributes which in the individual are limited, but the
limits of which are abolished in the essence of the species, and even
in its existence, in so far as it has its complete existence only in all
men taken together‖5
Friedrich Engels wrote extensively on how the propagation of
religion can be explained as a series of reflections built because of
the needs of humanity conflicting on a continuous basis. He went
further to analyze that as humanity attains economic and social
equality, and as means of production are not alien desires of one
class and properties of another, these reflections will start to
gradually dwindle away because the desperation and need which
drove them do not exist anymore.
Engels also believed that science is instrumental in human
understanding of the world, and hence plays a pivotal role in
answering the multitude of questions a person might face
throughout life. He also proposed that as science advances further,
5 Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, chapter 16 found at: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/essence/index.htm
it becomes crucial to build upon and learn from each of the sciences
not only as philosophical bodies of knowledge but as disciplines
answering the most basic questions. Thus, Engels predicted that as
science progresses and reaches wider audience across the world, a
religious outlook of the world will pave way for a more evidence
based understanding of all facts concerning humans. To aid this, he
authored several works detailing discoveries in natural sciences and
other conceptions surrounding the world. It is worth noting that the
ideology proposed by Engels was later adapted by several
philosophers and scientists besides communist governments, one
example of which is the later Soviet Government‘s control over
education, emphasis on science and vehement rejection of religion.
New Atheism
New atheism is the 21st century framework of atheist and secular
ideas, conception and proposition primarily expanded by Sam
Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens
(also known as the four horsemen) through their books, articles,
press appearances and videos centered on history, politics and
philosophy of religions and moral conceptions. Their general
position is to examine the effect of religion on the world, and
highlight the moral and etymological challenge of blind faith and of
unquestionable authority of statements not backed by evidence.
Consequentially, studying the political implications of the new
atheism movement is of general interest.
Despite being continuation of works of other similar schools of
atheist and secular philosophies established and known for long,
the new atheist thinkers are especially known for few common
qualities including:
1. Confidence in expressing views, with an emphasis on being
correct by the virtue of evidence to reject the religious
hypothesis
2. Taking moral stands and claiming that an objective thought
process irrespective of religion can still yield insights on what
the morally correct and wrong are, and that empirical evidence
is the best way to do this so far.
3. More direct references to flaws in religious ideologies at the
base, and how they perpetuate into the lives of general
populace.
The new atheist writers rose to prominence mostly through their
works including The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of
Reason and Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, The selfish
gene and The God Delusion and the television documentary The
Root of All Evil? by Richard Dawkins, Breaking the Spell: Religion as
a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett, God Is not Great: How
Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens and countless
other works by other authors including Atheist Manifesto: The Case
Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by Michel Onfray, Infidel:
My Life by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, God: The Failed Hypothesis—How
Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by Victor J.
Stenger, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of
America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker, The God Argument by A.
C. Grayling. It is worth noting that majority of these writers have
occupations unrelated to religion or philosophy, and have varying
viewpoints on atheism and the world, though there are
commonalities.
Recurrent themes among a vast majority of the new atheist works
are:
1. Religion beyond science: The idea that religion need not be
exempt from questioning and understanding and in general,
the scope of science has been challenged. Such challenge
ranges from assertion that existence of lack of God is verifiable
through empirical methods to mentioning that several religious
claims trespass upon the territory of what science attempts to
explain.
2. Moral principles unguided by religion: The notion that the role
of science is positive and not normative in nature has been
prevalent for centuries. Among the new atheists, Sam Harris
attempts to deduce the answers to moral questions by
reaching for the best possible future for humankind and
eliminating the lesser favorable alternatives.
3. Call for awareness: Despite being similar to the older atheist
writers, the new atheists emphasize on pragmatic approaches
towards unifying the world population based on scientific
awareness, reason and rational thinking.
Among other arguments, the most critical concepts pushed forward
by the four horsemen include:
Faith and reason:
The call for reason has been as old as Greek philosophers. Religion
often resorts to a last attempt at non-interference by quoting that
faith justifies the existence of religious beliefs, despite what
evidence suggests. New atheism aims to dispel blind faith as a
protective layer to unobservable claims. Richard Dawkins often uses
examples of observable world including fossils, geographic
formations, etc to communicate to the audience that reasoning does
not necessarily require advanced scientific theories to explain
what]is, and how it is. ). Dawkins argues that the ―God
Hypothesis‖ the claim that there exists a superhuman, supernatural
intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe, is
―founded on local traditions of private revelation rather than
evidence‖ 6. Hitchens often criticized the practical tragedies
resulting from the unquestionable authority of religious autonomy
resulting from blind faith, and how the world has historically
evidenced atrocities of small and large scale that can directly be
attributed to religion.
Moral standards attributed to religion:
Against the landscape of political change and unified world, religion
is often cross examined in the acid test of humanity, empathy and
moral guiding principles of interest to the world. The new atheists
claim that by moral standards, religion fails its own tests and spirals
down in hypocrisy. They also continue to propound that objective
secular morals are not impossible, and can very well be deduced by
human observation and understanding rather than archaic
principles. Sam Harris quotes the example of visualizing the best
welfare to humankind being peaks in a virtualized space and the
worst agony being the deepest valleys. By simply attaining the path
providing the most peaks, the correct moral direction can be
decided. This analogy is akin to an artist‘s abstraction drawn on the
sketch of a scientist.
6 From The god Delusion, 2006, p. 31-32
Arguments against God‘s existence:
As arguments against God‘s existence, the new atheist do not
propose a new ground breaking philosophical or scientific theory.
Instead, they assimilate the existing physical, evolutionary,
epistemological and logical arguments around the conception of
God and through various dimensions, attempt to explain that the
existence of God was already disproven for the aware reader.
Famously, Dennet describes that the proposition of God is so
ambiguous and heterogeneous that no support can be brought forth
in its support.
Political interference by religion:
As a step forward by the global community of disbelievers, the new
atheists actively speak about reduction of religious influence in
governance, policy making and education.
The stance of the new atheists is usually contrastingly directed
explicitly towards the organized religion, especially the Abrahamic
lineage of religions. There are sometimes references to the sacred
texts of these religions in which contradictions could easily be
spotted, or towards instances of acts by the clergymen resulting in
historical tragedies. For their bold stance, and for their inclusion of
political ideas within the gamut of atheism, the new atheists and
related activists have received severe criticism not only by the
organized religious institutions, but also from the religious
apologists and the liberal religious people who believe that a
moderate involvement of religion in the lives of billions of people is
mandated. For example, Dawkins said that ―The God of the Old
Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of
fiction‖ 7. Though he says that ―Jesus is a huge improvement over
the cruel ogre of the Old Testament‖ 8, he argues that the doctrine
of atonement, ―which lies at the heart of New Testament theology, is
almost as morally obnoxious as the story of Abraham setting out to
barbecue Isaac‖ 9.
7 Dawkins 2006, p. 31
8 Dawkins 2006, p.25
9 Dawkins 2006, p.251
A comparative perspective
After analyzing the key principles and the narratives on atheism
provided by these two perspectives on atheism, the following
conclusions can be drawn as a way of comparison:
Context:
While Marxist atheism embodies ideas in the medieval to early
modern era, New Atheism chiefly draws upon the canvas of
contemporary issues. Given the differences in the settings of their
timings, the intensity of scrutiny and the confidence of expression
of these schools of thought are quite different.
Evidence:
While Marxist atheism examines ideological scenario of religion in
relation to class struggle, the new atheists directly investigate into
religious phenomena in observation through the lens of science and
reason.
Scope, target and reach:
While the audience of the new atheism is global and while it is
intended to apply to all kinds of religions, Marxist atheism was
concerned with atheist conceptions concerned around communism –
especially class struggle, church vs state, the desperation of the
poor and dialectical materialism.
Though these differences exist, it cannot be denied that both the
perspectives do give emphasis and importance to scientific concepts
to encourage atheism.
Personal Analysis:
Is atheism political?
This comparative perspective, influenced and shaped by the gradual
evolution of atheism over centuries has led me to conclude YES.
Now God can be thought of a power, which controls the structures
and the mind of the society. Before the concept of secularism came
into being, religion and god held legitimate power, governing the
matters of state. After the separation of church and state, religion
was relegated to the private sphere mostly, and assumed
illegitimate power. But what was common is the fixation of power in
the hands of god and religion. Since ‗political‘ is essentially power,
and religion holds a power over people which has been accepted,
refuted, opposed, embraced or even faced rejection, atheism is
definitely political.
Consider both Marxist atheism and New atheism. Both want to
change the existing power relations which favour religion and god.
New atheism of Dawkins and the like is often taken to be scientific,
based on theories of natural sciences, but a close analysis will yield
the conclusion that even this is entirely political. Who said that
political does not include scientific principles? Many concepts
deemed political have an element of science in it. And the nature of
the new atheism movement led by them is conveniently political.
Recently, Hindus and Muslims came together to stage a violent
protest against an atheist conglomeration in Mathura.10 Many
10 http://scroll.in/latest/819082/hindu-muslim-groups-come-together-in-violent-protest-
against-meeting-of-atheists-in-mathura
atheists are being persecuted by the state or by ‗delusioned‘ people
across the world, especially in middle-east, where being a non-
believer is still a crime. Atheists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to flee their
country. Ali in particular, got a gory death threat with the threat
pinned on the chest of the dead body of her friend. Various feminist
movements are focusing on feminism, advocating an outright
rejection of religion which founded patriarchy. All of these situations
clearly point to the fluctuations in the religious framework of power,
and the challenge of the religious status quo. Hence, the political
side of atheism (which is very integral) cannot be ignored.
Limitations:
The topic I chose is very vast, and the time given to me was not
enough to go into much deeper analysis than what is presented.
Because of the paucity of time to access the resources available at
my disposal, I could not analyze feminist and anarchist perspectives
on atheism. I also could not find much literature available for atheist
feminism. In the beginning of this research I also wished to probe
whether liberalism is an atheistic philosophy, but time constraints
did not allow me to do so. Also, there were some famous atheists
like Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant in detail whose
perspectives I couldn‘t understand properly, and hence I could not
include them in my analysis. I did include an overview of Kant‘s
basic idea, but I would have loved to probe it further. There was also
a lot of history that I had to skip because it was just so vast that it
required reading much more of literature than what I read given the
time limits.
I also could not include J.S. Mill‘s autobiography, which has some
sound arguments against religion which I could not incorporate in
my research.
Also, it was very tough to decide the limits of depth. I could have
presented some more research on both Marxist atheism and New
Atheism, but could not do so due to time constraints.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. History of Atheism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_atheism
2. The Date and Atheism of Diagoras of Melos, Leonard Woodbury, Phoenix, Vol.
19, No. 3 (Autumn, 1965), pp. 178-211
3. The God of Thomas Hobbes, Alan Cromartie, The Historical Journal, Vol. 51, No.
4 (Dec., 2008), pp. 857-879
4. Hume's Tacit Atheism, Charles Echelbarger, Religious Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1
(Mar., 1975), pp. 19-35
5. The Role of Atheism in Marxian Philosophy, Russel P. Moroziuk, Studies in Soviet
Thought, Vol. 14, No. 3/4 (Sep. - Dec., 1974), pp. 191-212
6. Nietzsche's Three Phases of Atheism, David Berman, History of Philosophy
Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Jul., 1988), pp. 273-286
7. New Atheists, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/
8. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu
9. Faithless: The politics of new atheism, Steven Kettel, University of Warwick, pp.
61-78, 2013
10. www.wikipedia.com (for basic outlines of all topics)
11. http://marxists.org
12. The god Delusion, Richard Dawkins, Bantam Books, 2006
13. God is not Great, Christopher Hitchens, 2007
14. The blinding Emerald, Sarah Stroumsa, Journal of the American Oriental
Society 114, no. 2 (1994): 163-85
15. Necessity of Atheism, Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1813, retrieved from
http://infidels.org/library/historical/percy_shelley/necessity_of_atheism.html