List of atheists

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This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness. Revisions and sourced additions are welcome.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, author of The Necessity of Atheism.

Contents 1 Activists and educators 2 Authors 3 Business 4 Comedians 5 Film, radio and television 6 Music 7 Philosophy 8 Politics and law 9 Science and medicine 10 Visual Arts 11 Footnotes and citations 12 References 13 See also

An atheist is one who disbelieves^[1] in the existence God and other deities. Different definitions identify various levels of disbelief that an atheist may have. An atheist may be one who asserts that there is no God,^[2] one who rejects belief in a deity,^[3] or one who simply does not believe in a deity.^[4][5][6]

This list does not prefer any particular definition of "atheism," but gives precedence to a person's self-identification. With few exceptions, only those who have called themselves "atheists" are listed. Others may be listed if identified as such by informed and impartial sources, or if they fit the narrowest sense of the word "atheist" (they have denied the existence of God and other deities).

Excluded are persons who have merely expressed skepticism about the existence of God, or who have merely criticized religion. Such sentiments are insufficient to identity one as atheist.

[edit] Activists and educators

• Emma Goldman (1869–1940): Lithuanian-born radical, known for her writings and speeches defending anarcho-communism, feminism, and atheism.^[7]
• Ellen Johnson: current president of American Atheists.^[8]
• Michael Newdow (1953—): American physician and attorney, who successfully sued a school district on the grounds that its requirement that children recite the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, containing the words "under God," breached the separation-of-church-and-state provision in the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. ^[9]
• Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1919–1995): founder of American Atheists, campaigner for the separation of church and state; filed the lawsuit that led the US Supreme Court to ban teacher-led prayer and Bible reading in public schools.^[10]
• Margaret Sanger (1883–1966): American birth-control activist, founder of the American Birth Control League, a forerunner to Planned Parenthood. The masthead motto of her newsletter, The Woman Rebel, read: "No Gods, No Masters."^[11]
• Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966): Indian revolutionary freedom fighter, and Hindu nationalist leader.^[12]
• Barbara Smoker (1923—): British humanist activist and freethought advocate. Wrote the book Freethoughts: Atheism, Secularism, Humanism – Selected Egotistically from "The Freethinker".^[13]
• Polly Toynbee (1946—), columnist for The Guardian.^[14]

[edit] Authors

• Douglas Adams (1952–2001): British radio and television writer, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. ^[15]
• Isaac Asimov (1920–1992): Russian-born American author of science fiction and popular science books. ^[16]
• Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?): American writer, author of The Devil's Dictionary.^[17]
• Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917—): British scientist and Science Fiction author.^[18]
• Vardis Fisher (1895–1968): American writer, scholar. Author of atheistic Testament of Man series.^[19]
• Sam Harris (1967—): American author, researcher in neuroscience, author of the international bestseller, The End of Faith.^[20]
• Harry Harrison (1925—): American Science Fiction author, anthologist and artist whose short story "The Streets of Ashkelon" took as its hero an atheist who tries to prevent a Christian missionary from indoctrinating a tribe of irreligious but ingenuous alien beings.^[21]
• Christopher Hitchens (1949—): Author, journalist and essayist.^[22]
• S. T. Joshi (1958—): American editor and literary critic.^[23]
• Ludovic Kennedy (1919—): British journalist, author, and campaigner for voluntary euthanasia.^[24]
• Stanislaw Lem (1921–2006): Polish science fiction novelist and essayist.^[25]
• Primo Levi (1919–1987): Italian novelist and chemist, survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp.^[26]
• Pierre Loti (1850–1923): French novelist and travel writer.^[27]
• Joseph McCabe (1867–1955): English writer, anti-religion campaigner.^[28]
• Camille Paglia (1947—): American post-feminist literary and cultural critic.^[29]
• Philip Pullman (1946—): CBE, British author of His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy for young adults.^[30]
• Ayn Rand (1905–1982): Russian-born American author and founder of Objectivism.^[31]
• Ron Reagan (1958—): American magazine journalist, board member of the politically activistic Creative Coalition, son of former U. S. President Ronald Reagan. ^[32]
• Salman Rushdie (1947—): Indian-born British essayist and author of fiction.^[33]
• Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822): British Romantic poet, contemporary and associate of John Keats and Lord Byron, and author of The Necessity of Atheism.^[34]
• Warren Allen Smith (1921—): Author of Who's Who in Hell.^[35]
• Kurt Vonnegut (1922—): American author, writer of Cat's Cradle, among other books. Vonnegut said "I am an atheist (or at best a Unitarian who winds up in churches quite a lot)."^[11]
• Ibn Warraq (1946—): Best-selling author and secularist scholar of Islam currently living in the United States. He is a Muslim apostate and an outspoken critic of Islam who has written extensively on what he views as the oppressive nature of Islam.^[36]

[edit] Business

• Sir Richard Branson (1950—): British entrepreneur, founder of the Virgin Group.^[37]
• Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919): Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist, sometimes described as the wealthiest man who ever lived.^[38]
• Larry Flynt (1942—): Founder of Hustler Magazine.^[39]
• George Soros (1930—): Hungarian-born investor, philanthropist and writer.^[40]

[edit] Comedians

• Woody Allen (1935—): American film director, actor and comedian. In a column in The New Yorker entitled "My Philosophy," Allen wrote: "Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends."^[11]
• George Carlin (1937—): American comedian, actor and author. Outspoken atheist, described religion as having "the best bullshit story ever told", that "there's an invisible man living in the sky."^[41]
• David Cross (1964—): American actor and comedian.^[42]
• Kathy Griffin (1963—): American comedian.^[43]
• Julia Sweeney (1961—): American actor and comedian. Alumna of Saturday Night Live, author/performer of a one-woman autobiographical stage show about finding atheism: Letting Go of God.^[44]

[edit] Film, radio and television

• Phillip Adams (1939—): Australian broadcaster, writer, film-maker, left-wing radical thinker, iconoclast, Australian Humanist of the Year 1987.^[45]
• Brannon Braga (1965–): American TV producer & writer, creator of Star Trek: Enterprise. ^[46].
• Luis Buñuel (1900–1983): Spanish-born Mexican film-maker, important activist of the surrealist movement. Famous for his one-liner, "Thank God I'm still an atheist."^[47]
• Ricky Gervais (1961—): British actor, co-writer of the original version of The Office.^[48]
• Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003): Famed American actress, who appeared in 53 films from 1932 to 1994.^[49]
• John Humphrys (1943—): British radio and television presenter who hosted a series of programmes interviewing religious leaders, Humphrys in Search of God. ^[50]
• Penn Jillette (1955—): American magician, co-host of Bullshit!.^[51]
• Skandar Keynes (1991—): English actor (Chronicles of Narnia films).^[52]
• Tom Leykis (1956—): radio talk-show host.^[53]
• Robert Smith (1972—): Former Minnesota Vikings running back and NFL Network football analyst.^[54]
• Teller (1948—): American magician and co-host of Bullshit!.^[51]
• Joss Whedon (1964—): American screenwriter and director, most famous for creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ^[55]

[edit] Music

• Fritz Theodor Albert "Frederick" Delius (1862–1934): English composer^[56]
• Kathleen Hanna (1969—): front woman of the 1990s band Bikini Kill and currently Le Tigre.^[57]
• Lou Harrison (1917–2003): American composer^[58]
• Stephan Jenkins (1964—): Musician, lead singer for the American rock band, Third Eye Blind. ^[59]
• Gary Numan (1958—): British New Wave and industrial musician whose albums Sacrifice (1994), Exile (1997), Pure (2000), and Jagged (2006) mock and condemn religious beliefs.^[60]
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908): Russian Nationalist composer, member of "The Five", best-known for the tone poem Scheherazade.^[61]
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958): British composer^[62]

[edit] Philosophy

• Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876): Russian philosopher, writer and anarchist.^[63]
• Albert Camus (1913–1960): French philosopher and novelist, a luminary of existentialism.^[11]
• Benedetto Croce (1886–1952): Italian philosopher and public figure.^[64]
• Daniel Dennett (1942—): American philosopher, author of Breaking the Spell^[65]
• Denis Diderot (1713–84): editor-in-chief of the Encyclopédie, who succeeded in bringing about "a revolution in men's minds."^[66]
• Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–1872): German philosopher whose major work, The Essence of Christianity (1841), maintains that religion and divinity are projections of human nature.^[67]
• Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–71): French philosopher whose ethical and social views helped shape the school of utilitarianism later made famous by Jeremy Bentham.^[66]
• Baron d'Holbach (1723–89): French philosopher and encyclopedist, most famous as being one of the first outspoken atheists in Europe.^[68]
• Karl Marx (1818–83): German-Jewish author of Das Kapital, known for his assertion that "Religion is... the opium of the people."^[69]
• Jean Meslier (1678–1733): French village Catholic priest who was found, on his death, to have written a book-length philosophical essay, entitled Common Sense but commonly referred to as Meslier's Testament, promoting atheism.^[70][71]
• Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–51): French physician and philosopher, earliest materialist writer of the Enlightenment, claimed as a founder of cognitive science.^[72]
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): German Existentialist philosopher who wrote Beyond Good and Evil, which attempted to refute traditional notions of morality. Nietzsche is forever associated with the phrase, "God is dead" (first seen in his book, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft).^[73]
• Piergiorgio Odifreddi (1950—): Italian mathematician, philosopher and science writer.^[74]
• Bertrand Russell, (1872–1970): English philosopher and mathematician. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950. Though he considered himself an agnostic in a purely philosophical context, he said that the label atheist conveyed a more accurate understanding of his views in a popular context.^[75]
• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980): French existentialist philosopher, dramatist and novelist who declared that he had been an atheist from age twelve. Although he regarded God as a self-contradictory concept, he still thought of it as an ideal toward which people strive.^[76] He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964. According to Sartre, his most-repeated summary of his existentialist philosophy, "Existence precedes essence," implies that humans must abandon traditional notions of having been designed by a divine creator.^[77]

[edit] Politics and law

• Robin Cook (1946–2005): Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs of the UK 1997–2001, whose funeral service was held in the High Kirk of Scotland, where he was described as a "Presbyterian atheist."^[78]
• Aleksander Kwaśniewski (1954—): Former President of Poland (1995-2005), has said, "I am an atheist and everybody knows it..."^[79]
• Alexander Lukashenko (1954—): President of Belarus, self-described "Russian Orthodox atheist."^[80]
• Joseph Stalin (1879–1953): Soviet dictator.^[81]

[edit] Science and medicine

• Francis Crick (1916–2004): Nobel-laureate co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, who described himself as a skeptic and an agnostic with "a strong inclination towards atheism."^[82]
• Richard Dawkins (1941—): British zoologist, biologist, creator of the concepts of the selfish gene and the meme; outspoken atheist and popularizer of science, author of The God Delusion and founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.^[83]
• Richard Feynman (1918–1988): American Nobel-laureate theoretical physicist. ^[84]
• Christer Fuglesang (1957—), Swedish astronaut and physisist, is identified as an atheist in a Dagens Nyheter interview.^[85]
• Harold Kroto (1939—): Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 1996.^[86]
• Richard Leakey (1944—): Kenyan paleontologist, archaeologist and conservationist.^[87]
• Jonathan Miller (1934—): British physician, actor, theatre and opera director, and (latterly) television presenter. Wrote and presented the 2004 television series, Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, exploring the roots of his own atheism and investigating the history of atheism in the world.^[88]
• Peter D. Mitchell (1920–1992): Nobel-laureate British biochemist. Atheist mother, and himself atheist from age 15.^[89]
• Linus Pauling (1901–1994): Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (1954) and Peace (1962). Near-discoverer of the structure of DNA.^[90]
• Steven Pinker (1954—): American psychologist.^[91]
• Amartya Kumar Sen (1933—): Nobel Laureate in Economics (1998).^{[92][93][94][95]}
• Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867–1934): Nobel Laureate in Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911. First woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize, first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific disciplines. Her family religion was Roman Catholic, but she became an anticlerical atheist on the death of her mother and older sister. ^[96]
• James D. Watson (1928—), Nobel-laureate co-discover of the structure of DNA, identified as an atheist in a Newsweek commentary by his acquaintance, Rabbi Marc Gellman.^[97]
• Steven Weinberg (1933—): Nobel Laureate in physics.^[98]

[edit] Visual Arts

• Alexander McQueen (1969—): English fashion designer^[99]
• "Normal" Bob Smith (1969—): American graphic artist, who prompted controversy with his website http://www.jesusdressup.com/^[100]

[edit] Footnotes and citations

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• List of people by belief
• List of agnostics
• List of brights
• List of humanists