Atheism

=== Early modern period ===

Historian [[Geoffrey Blainey]] wrote that the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]] had paved the way for atheists by attacking the authority of the Catholic Church, which in turn "quietly inspired other thinkers to attack the authority of the new Protestant churches".<ref>Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p. 388</ref> [[Deism]] gained influence in France, Prussia, and England. In 1546, French scholar [[Etienne Dolet]] was executed upon accusation of being an atheist.<ref name="Bryson 2016 p. 40">{{cite book | last=Bryson | first=M.E. | title=The Atheist Milton | publisher=Taylor & Francis | year=2016 | isbn=978-1-317-04095-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6MnOCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT40 | access-date=2022-10-19 | page=40 | archive-date=October 19, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221019010744/https://books.google.com/books?id=6MnOCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT40 | url-status=live }}</ref> The philosopher [[Baruch Spinoza]] was "probably the first well known 'semi-atheist' to announce himself in a Christian land in the modern era", according to Blainey. Spinoza believed that natural laws explained the workings of the universe. In 1661, he published his ''Short Treatise on God''.<ref>Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p. 343</ref>

[[Criticism of Christianity]] became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England. Some Protestant thinkers, such as [[Thomas Hobbes]], espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward supernatural occurrences. By the late 17th century, deism came to be openly espoused by intellectuals.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pantheism |title=Online Etymology Dictionary |access-date=November 26, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202223113/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pantheism |archive-date=December 2, 2013 |url-status=live }}</ref> The first known explicit atheist was the German critic of religion [[Matthias Knutzen]] in his three writings of 1674.<ref>Winfried Schröder, in: Matthias Knutzen: Schriften und Materialien (2010), p. 8. See also Rececca Moore, ''The Heritage of Western Humanism, Scepticism and Freethought'' (2011), calling Knutzen "the first open advocate of a modern atheist perspective" [http://reason.sdsu.edu/germany.html online here] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330182416/http://reason.sdsu.edu/germany.html |date=March 30, 2012 }}</ref> He was followed by two other explicit atheist writers, the Polish ex-Jesuit philosopher [[Kazimierz Łyszczyński]] (who most likely authored the world's first treaty on the non-existence of God<ref>{{cite web |last1=Pacholczyk |first1=Natalia |title="Traktatów o istnieniu Boga napisano setki. O nieistnieniu tylko jeden i to w Polsce". Jego autor spłonął na stosie |url=https://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/7,114883,30836931,traktatow-o-istnieniu-boga-napisano-setki-o-nieistnieniu-tylko.html#s=BoxMMtCzol3 |publisher=Gazeta,pl |access-date=28 March 2024 |ref=Gazeta}}</ref>) and in the 1720s by the French priest [[Jean Meslier]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue40/Onfray40.htm |title=Michel Onfray on Jean Meslier |publisher=William Paterson University |access-date=November 4, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112154508/http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue40/Onfray40.htm |archive-date=January 12, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[File:Denis Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Denis Diderot]], atheist and editor of ''[[Encyclopédie]]''.]]
In the course of the 18th century, other openly atheistic thinkers followed, such as [[Baron d'Holbach]], [[Jacques-André Naigeon]], and other [[French materialism|French materialists]].<ref name="Holbach-SoN">{{cite book |last=d'Holbach |first=P.H.T. |author-link=Baron d'Holbach |title=The System of Nature |url=https://www.fulltextarchive.com/page/The-System-of-Nature-Vol-21/ |access-date=April 7, 2011 |year=1770 |volume=2 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190617162007/https://www.fulltextarchive.com/page/The-System-of-Nature-Vol-21/ |archive-date=June 17, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Baron d'Holbach]] was a prominent figure in the [[French Enlightenment]] who is best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being ''[[The System of Nature]]'' (1770) but also ''[[Christianity Unveiled]]''. "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."<ref>Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, ''System of Nature; or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World'' (London, 1797), Vol. 1, p. 25</ref>

Although [[Voltaire]] is widely considered to have strongly contributed to atheistic thinking during the Revolution, he also considered fear of God to have discouraged further disorder, having said "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."<ref>Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; pp.&nbsp;390–391</ref> The philosopher [[David Hume]] developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in [[empiricism]], and [[Immanuel Kant]]'s philosophy has strongly questioned the very possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Both philosophers undermined the metaphysical basis of natural theology and criticized classical [[arguments for the existence of God]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}

One goal of the [[French Revolution]] was a restructuring and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the [[Civil Constitution of the Clergy]]. Attempts to enforce it led to [[anticlericalism|anti-clerical]] violence and the expulsion of many clerics from France, lasting until the [[Thermidorian Reaction]]. The radical [[Jacobin Club|Jacobins]] seized power in 1793, ushering in the [[Reign of Terror]]. The Jacobins were deists and introduced the [[Cult of the Supreme Being]] as a new French state religion. Some atheists surrounding [[Jacques Hébert]] instead sought to establish a [[Cult of Reason]], a form of atheistic pseudo-religion with a goddess personifying reason.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

In the latter half of the 19th century, atheism rose to prominence under the influence of [[rationalism|rationalistic]] and [[Freethought|freethinking]] philosophers. German philosopher [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] considered God to be a human invention and religious activities to be wish-fulfillment. He influenced philosophers such as [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], who denied the existence of deities and were critical of religion.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BKz2FcDrFy0C&pg=PA1 |title=Subjectivity and Irreligion: Atheism and Agnosticism in Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |last=Ray |first=Matthew Alun |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-7546-3456-0 |access-date=April 9, 2011}}</ref>

In 1842, [[George Holyoake]] was the last person imprisoned in Great Britain due to atheist beliefs. [[Stephen Law]] notes that he may have also been the first imprisoned on such a charge. Law states that Holyoake "first coined the term '[[secularism]]'".<ref>{{cite book |title=Humanism. A Very Short Introduction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xa7KOJvM2MMC |last=Law |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Law |year=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-955364-8 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=VlQFTbHRqZsC&dq=%22In+1842,+G.+J.+Holyoake+(1817-1906)+(who+first+coined+the+term+'secularism')+was+the+last+(and+perhaps+also+the+first)+person+in+Britain+to+be+imprisoned+on+a+charge+of+atheism%22&pg=PA23 23]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Holyoake |first=G.J. |author-link=George Holyoake |year=1896 |title=The Origin and Nature of Secularism. Showing that where Freethought Commonly Ends Secularism Begins |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WnxPAAAAYAAJ |location=London |publisher=Watts |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=WnxPAAAAYAAJ&q=secularism 41ff.]}}</ref>