Antireligion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Antireligion is opposition to some or all religions. People who are antireligious may see religions as dangerous, destructive, divisive, foolish, or absurd. This opposition may be confined to just organized religions such as Christianity, Islam, or Scientology, or may be more general to include all forms of belief and superstition. For this reason people who are antireligious may not always be lacking in, or have absence of, spirituality.
Antireligion is often based on arguments against the validity, usefulness, or ethicality of religion.
An example of an antireligious organization is the Society of the Godless.
[edit] Notable antireligious people
- Douglas Adams, science fiction writer[1].
- Brandon Boyd, Incubus frontman, who although anti-religious [2] remains spiritual[3].
- George Carlin, comedian and author.
- Bill Hicks, comedian.
- Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist and evolutionary biologist. [4]
- Daniel Dennett, the philosopher of mind[5].
- Penn Jillette, illusionist, comic, actor, former-radiohost
- Harlan Ellison, science fiction writer, called religion "the last vestige of barbarism."
- Johann Hari, British atheist journalist and describes himself as "anti-theist".
- Sam Harris, author and scientist, who argues that religious moderation provides cover for dangerous fundamentalism, and is also theologically unsound [6].
- Christopher Hitchens, political writer.
- Enver Hoxha, leader of Albania[7].
- David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, who wrote that human reason is wholly inadequate to make any assumptions about the divine, whether through a priori reasoning or observation of nature [8].
- Elton John, singer [9].
- Vladimir Lenin - Shut down religious institutions in general in the early Soviet Union[10].
- Karl Marx, Called religion the opium of the people. To free man from illusory happiness is to get rid of religion.
- Friedrich Nietzsche - "The Antichrist", general anti-Christian statements in many other works.
- Michel Onfray, the French philosopher.
- Bertrand Russell, agnostic British philosopher[11]
- Joseph Stalin (partially) - Continued general persecution of religious institutions in the Soviet Union after Lenin died; however, revived fortunes of the Eastern Orthodox Church during World War II as a patriotic organization.
- Mark Twain, American humorist, satirist, writer, and lecturer.
- Voltaire, opposed religious dogma fiercely, particularly that of Christianity. He claimed that the Gospels were fabricated and Jesus did not exist - saying they were produced by those who wanted to create God in their own image and were full of discrepancies. However, he was a deist who believed in God based on reason and not on any of the religious books of any revealed religions.
[edit] References
- ^ David Silverman's interview with Douglas Adams which first appeared in the American Atheists' Winter 1998-1999 newsletter.
- ^ Brandon on his song meanings Favorite things is my personal beliefs about religion and how it oppresses the things I enjoy the most. Unfortunately, the simplest things, such as thinking for myself, creating my own reality and being whatever the hell I want to be each day of my life, are a sin. To be a good Christian basically means to give up the reigns of your life and let some unseen force do it for you.
- ^ Interview with Brandon Boyd of Incubus "The energy I have experienced has definitely been feminine at its core. At the same time though, I've come to the conclusion that by putting a type of sex on it, one way or the other, you limit the energy. At this point, it, stressing the word "it," is far beyond my capability."
- ^ Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful! The Guardian, 2001-10-11 "Has the world changed?." The Guardian. Accessed 2006-01-29.
- ^ D. Dennett, Breaking the Spell, Penguin, 2006.
- ^ "We desperately need a public discourse that encourages critical thinking and intellectual honesty. Nothing stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith.", S. Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, 2006.
- ^ Established the first instance of official state atheism where possession of religious objects such as a Qur'an or a Bible led to prison sentences.
- ^ D. Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, 1779.
- ^ Said he "would ban religion completely" because it "promotes the hatred and spite against gays" and "doesn't work."
- ^ "Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about the religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class."Lenin, V. I.. About the attitude of the working party toward the religion.. Collected works, v. 17, p.41. Retrieved on 2006-09-09.
- ^ "I think all the great religions of the world - Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Communism - both untrue and harmful. It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they disagree, not more than one of them can be true. ... I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue." Bertrand Russell, 1957, from My Religious Reminiscences reprinted in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell[1]
