Famous atheists

Dave!

Hey folks,

I think this website is interesting: http://www.celebatheists.com

It basically is just a list of well-known people believed to be atheists, and quotes from them suggesting as much. Some of them are a bit vague, but others quite explicit.

There are some suprising ones on there and ones I wasn't aware of.

eg.
Lance Armstrong
Interviewer: "For a miracleman, you're not very religious."

Armstrong: "I don't have anything against organized religion per se. We all need something in our lives. I personally just have not accepted that belief. But I'm one of the few."

Noam Chomsky
"As for the various religions, there's no doubt that they are very meaningful to adherents, and allow them to delude themselves into thinking there is some meaning to their lives beyond what we agree is the case. I'd never try to talk them out of the delusions, which are necessary for them to live a life that makes some sense to them. These beliefs can provide a framework for deeds that are noble or savage, and anywhere in between, and there's every reason to focus attention on the deeds and the background for them, to the extent that we can grasp it."

Noel Gallagher
"The hard-living Oasis star Noel Gallagher has revealed to the New Musical Express that he has read Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion and loved it. 'Anything that disproves God, bring it on,' he is quoted as saying."

Sir Ian McKellen
He doesn't know God, but does love a good congregation. ("I was brought up a Christian, low church, and I like the community of churchgoing. That's rather been replaced for me by the community of people I work with. I like a sense of family, of people working together. But I'm an atheist. So God, if She exists, isn't really a part of my life.") -- from a January 19, 1996 profile by Tim Appelo found in Mr. Showbiz.


Interesting indeed...

SubjectSean

Yes very interesting. Noel is one of my all time favourite philosopher poets. Are these celebs saying Einstein was wrong?

Zombrex

SubjectSean wrote: »

Are these celebs saying Einstein was wrong?

Wrong about what? General Relativity?

stereoroid

SubjectSean wrote: »

Are these celebs saying Einstein was wrong?

Depends on what you mean. Einstein had some Deistic beliefs, but got annoyed when Theists took that to mean he was on their side.

When it comes to those Deistic beliefs: yes, Einstein was wrong. I have no trouble saying so, and it doesn't bother me if anyone else says that, either. He might not think the same way were he here today, a century later. Still, he got the important stuff right, and that's what we remember him for: just like Newton, Faraday, and Kelvin.

Fallen Seraph

SubjectSean wrote: »

Are these celebs saying Einstein was wrong?

Einstein was wrong about loads of things.

Quantum mechanics for example. That was kinda a biggie.

SubjectSean

stereoroid wrote: »

Still, he got the important stuff right, and that's what we remember him for: just like Newton, Faraday, and Kelvin.

Indeed. All God botherers

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

wasn't newton an alchemist too?

Zombrex

Mordeth wrote: »

wasn't newton an alchemist too?

Actually Newton was an alchemist, who in his spare time developed a little bit of science. He spent years working on alchemy. Though in fairness to him it was hundreds of years ago before a detailed knowledge of chemistry, so he didn't really have a reason to believe it couldn't be done.

Krieg

My personal favourites -

Richard Dawkins (God among atheists )
Karl popper
Ian Mckellen


Other interesting ones -

Isaac Asimov
Marie Curie
Thomas edison
Michael Shermer
Jodie Foster
Seth green
Angelina jolie
Bruce lee
Julianne Moore
Jack nicholson
Christopher Reeve
Penn & Teller
Gene Rodenberry

Dave!

I heard a rumour that Richard Dawkins is actually a dirty fence-sitting closet agnostic............. Just throwing that idea out there! :eek:

estebancambias

Theists:

Footballers:
Kaka
Cambiasso
Adriano
Kanoute
Messi

Others:
Leonardo Da Vinci
Lorenzo de' Medici.


Pick the right team...pick the winning team. I will give ye Bruce Lee though..good signing.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Theists: yore ma

Dave!

estebancambias wrote: »

Theists:

Footballers:
Kaka
Cambiasso
Adriano
Kanoute
Messi

Others:
Leonardo Da Vinci
Lorenzo de' Medici.


Pick the right team...pick the winning team. I will give ye Bruce Lee though..good signing.

Topic of thread: Famous atheists

Topic of your post: Famous theists

Therefore, your post is: Off topic

Thus, I recommend: You are executed and/or banned

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

good god man, you're an atheist *and* you don't drink? what the hell do you do?

estebancambias

DaveMcG wrote: »

Topic of thread: Famous atheists

Topic of your post: Famous theists

Therefore, your post is: Off topic

Thus, I recommend: You are executed and/or banned

Is that really the Atheist way? I'm suprised by the hatred and anger shown by a poster of this forum.

PDN

Asbad wrote: »

My personal favourites -

Richard Dawkins (God among atheists )
Karl popper
Ian Mckellen


Other interesting ones -

Isaac Asimov
Marie Curie
Thomas edison
Michael Shermer
Jodie Foster
Seth green
Angelina jolie
Bruce lee
Julianne Moore
Jack nicholson
Christopher Reeve
Penn & Teller
Gene Rodenberry

Edison was probably more of an agnostic, or possibly a deist.
A couple of Edison quotes:
"I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."
(concerning whether there was an afterlife) "It does not matter. No one knows."

Zaph

Now, now esteban, what have you been told about trolling? It's bad, remember? Now repeat after me - trolling is bad.

You've already posted tonight that you're not a troll, and yet according to Wikipedia a troll:

is someone who intentionally posts controversial or contrary messages in an on-line community such as an on-line discussion forum or group with the singular intention of baiting users into an argumentative response.

Now given that this discussion is about famous atheists, your post was intentionally contrary and you quite clearly had the singular intention of baiting the other posters into an argumentative response, ergo, you are a troll. If you want to start a discussion about famous theists may I direct you to the Christianity forum.

stereoroid

SubjectSean wrote: »

Indeed. All God botherers

Indeed - that is why I mentioned Faraday, for example, instead of, say Nikola Tesla, and could have mentioned Maxwell too. They did not let their religion stop them from doing science, partly because in their days religion was "normal". It was what you did, without thinking about it too hard, because what were the alternatives? Defying the Church in Victorian Britain carried very real consequences, including loss of employment or tenure, yet what's that about "by their works ye shall know them"?

SubjectSean

I'd say that their religion in many an instance was what actually pushed them to describe the universe. I do have to confess to finding some wry amusement in the fact that nearly the entirety of scientific progress has been made by men who were fervent lovers of God. Seemingly perhaps It was favouring them over the Athiests I wonder if any Athiests have ever made an important scientific discovery?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

the fact that you read this thread and still asked that question disqualifies you from an answer.

SubjectSean

Mordeth wrote: »

the fact that you read this thread and still asked that question disqualifies you from an answer.

Er..well yes I can see that now.

Marie Curie & Richard Dawkins. Is that really it?

No Atheist giants at all?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

carl sagan
richard feynman would be another

and to be honest, you're kind of hurting your argument. If you're saying that all the greatest scientists and thinkers of the world have been religious, it doesn't say an awful lot for the state of religion that they have been unable to prove the existence of god.

SubjectSean

Mordeth wrote: »

and to be honest, you're kind of hurting your argument. If you're saying that all the greatest scientists and thinkers of the world have been religious, it doesn't say an awful lot for the state of religion that they have been unable to prove the existence of god.

Yes I'm saying that all our greatest scientists and thinkers have been religious and many of them deeply so. Perhaps these ones who were aware of God on a personal level didn't feel the need to 'prove' anything. Perhaps they felt the proof was already all out there and blindingly obvious. What kind of proof would you require?

Compared beside the genius calibre of candidates in the God-accepting group Carl Sagan and the other fellow you mention are strictly B list I feel. I feel bound to mention therefore that so far the Atheist candidates have been somewhat sub-standard. Is it true to say that Athiests have contributed virtually nothing to the greater good?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

.....ok

you can feel all you want, you still don't know what you're talking about.

SubjectSean

Mordeth wrote: »

.....ok

you can feel all you want, you still don't know what you're talking about.

An unsubstantiated claim. I feel

I don't see your objection. You think Feynman is the equal of Pythagoras or Einstein perhaps? Or does it just rankle you that all of our greatest thinkers have had a conception of God?

PDN

It's usually around this point of the discussion that someone pipes up with the Pythonesque line of "If they were alive today then they would probably be atheists". I've seen this used in the last few weeks about both Galileo and Einstein.

The correct response, of course, is "And if my mother was a chimpanzee then I would be your brother."

Scofflaw

PDN wrote: »

It's usually around this point of the discussion that someone pipes up with the Pythonesque line of "If they were alive today then they would probably be atheists". I've seen this used in the last few weeks about both Galileo and Einstein.

The correct response, of course, is "And if my mother was a chimpanzee then I would be your brother."

Great-uncle, possibly.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tar.Aldarion

SubjectSean wrote: »

An unsubstantiated claim. I feel

I don't see your objection. You think Feynman is the equal of Pythagoras or Einstein perhaps? Or does it just rankle you that all of our greatest thinkers have had a conception of God?

Then again, somebody being good at science or being a 'great' thinker does not make them infallible.
Most of them believed stupid things.
They were smart all right, b ut most people put a far greater emphasis on their intelligence than they would.
Why should anybody care about what anybody in the past thought, regarding this?

Pythagoras did make it so that vegetarians were called pythagoreans though, which is a much better name.
All hail God Pythagoras.

Krieg

PDN wrote: »

Edison was probably more of an agnostic, or possibly a deist.
A couple of Edison quotes:
"I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."
(concerning whether there was an afterlife) "It does not matter. No one knows."

I happily stand corrected.

Son Goku

You think Feynman is the equal of Pythagoras or Einstein perhaps?

To be fair quotes like this are fairly standard on internet message boards. Both the work of Feynman and Einstein are postgraduate level topics in physics and to rank them against each other if you don't know their work is a bit silly.

First of all Pythagoras and most of the other famous Greek mathematicians are not the true great mathematicians of Ancient Greece. For instance Euclid was a compiler, none of the "Elements" is his own work. Also Crucio, who invented irrational numbers was probably the greatest genius of ancient greek mathematics, yet he is never mentioned. It's actually hard to find a mention of him on the web.

Most of the great innovations in science took place in the twentieth century and most of the great scientists lived during that time. Since it is my area here is the greatest physicists and mathematicians ranked roughly in terms of importance with their religous beliefs. References for my list available. I just thought it might be interesting since this tends to pop up every now and then

Physicists:

Albert Einstein - Spinozian (effectively a believer in Plato's prime mover with no extra philosophical properties like compassion) with Agnostic leanings.
Isaac Newton - Christian, Non-denominational with leanings toward mystery religions.
Paul Andreas Maurice Dirac - Athiest
Galileo Galilei - Christian, Catholic
James Clarke Maxwell - Christian, Personally Non-denominational
John Bardeen - Unknown
Julian Schwinger - Unknown
Richard Feynman - Athiest
Ludwig Boltzmann - Athiest/Christian, hard to know, however probably Christian for the majority of his life.
Erwin Schrodinger - Christian, Catholic
Werner Heisenberg - Athiest
Wolfgang Pauli - Mystic
Abdus Salam - Muslim, Ahmadi (some Muslims argue that Ahmadi are non-muslims, however I'll leave it as he saw it.)
Steven Weinberg - Athiest
Sin-Itiro Tomonaga - Japanese Ancestor worship.


Mathematicans:

Carl Friedrich Gauss - Christian, Lutheran
Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī - Muslim, denomination unclear, possibly Shī'a.
Crucio - Tunisian sun worship.
Leonhard Euler - Christian, Calvanist
Bernhard Riemann - Christian, Lutheran
Georg Cantor - Kabbalah Christian and later mathematical deist
Augustin Louis Cauchy - Christian, Catholic
Gottfried Leibniz - Christian
Siméon Denis Poisson - Athiest
Joseph Louis Lagrange - Athiest
Henri Poincaré - Chrsitian, anti-clerical Catholic
Karl Weierstrass - Christian, Lutheran
Évariste Galois - Athiest
Alexander Grothendieck - Unknown, possibly now a Christian, but he has disappeared.
Kurt Godel - Athiest
Gerolamo Cardano - Christian, Catholic


Perhaps somebody with more knowledge in the relevant areas might list some biologists and chemists.

estebancambias

Che Guevara was an Atheist.

MrJoeSoap

estebancambias wrote: »

Che Guevara was an Atheist.

Now you're getting the gist of it!

stereoroid

SubjectSean wrote: »

I wonder if any Athiests have ever made an important scientific discovery?

Well, you got that website, with names like Watson & Crick on it. People are a product of their times, so it's possible to read too much in to what beliefs scientists publicly professed, or not, throughout history. Atheism was always possible, but before Darwin is wasn't very respectable.

Oh, and learn to spell "atheist", will you? If you're trying to make some kind of point with that misspelling, it's not getting through. :rolleyes:

estebancambias wrote: »

Che Guevara was an Atheist.

Che Guevara was a dilettante playboy with revolutionary fervour, who got lucky in Cuba, and unlucky in Bolivia.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

pythagoras worshipped whole numbers and was terrified of irrational numbers. tbqfh. he can go sod himself.

SubjectSean

Son Goku wrote: »

Gottfried Leibniz - Athiest

I know for a fact that Leibniz wasn't an Atheist, far from it, so I'm doubting your list.

SubjectSean

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Why should anybody care about what anybody in the past thought, regarding this?

It's OK you don't have to.

SubjectSean

stereoroid wrote: »

Oh, and learn to spell "atheist", will you? If you're trying to make some kind of point with that misspelling, it's not getting through. :rolleyes:

But you're obviously communicating with me about the point I was making:rolleyes:

Tar.Aldarion

SubjectSean wrote: »

It's OK you don't have to.

That's not answering anything.

pH

PDN wrote: »

Edison was probably more of an agnostic, or possibly a deist.
A couple of Edison quotes:
"I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."
(concerning whether there was an afterlife) "It does not matter. No one knows."

So he sounds like a Deist:
=> he's not a theist
=> atheist

Is this what this thread comes down to? who claims the deists and agnostics as their own?

Now's probably a good time to have an argument over the terms theist, atheist, deist and agnostic again!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Mother Theresa

5uspect

PDN wrote: »

It's usually around this point of the discussion that someone pipes up with the Pythonesque line of "If they were alive today then they would probably be atheists".

Also if they were alive today they mightn't be great scientists either since many of the great discoveries of the past become the elementary basics of todays science.

SubjectSean

PDN you are uncannily prescient.

Despite the bit of python the fact remains that these were all men of logic and reason. They reasoned that a God existed and given that even to this day men of reason are doing the same thing, then there is no valid reason to posthumously alter peoples beliefs.

The few great humans by which the species has advanced itself would have most likely been great thinkers in any era I feel but all speculation along the lines of "if they were alive today...." is somewhat futile.

The fact remains that apparently all the greatest minds in the history of humanty have been blessed by the God they placed their faith in

pH

A pity then your holy books are quiet on the subject of Scientific discovery, if only we saw this in Matthew or Luke:

"And Jesus entered the library and said unto them, cease this senseless study of old texts and in its stead look to the natural world, throw away your superstitions and use logic and experimentation, repeatability and peer review, for with them you will cure and alleviate more of the world's ills you can imagine."

God has been strangely silent on scientific knowledge, you'd think that as well as bringing back a couple of people from the dead Jesus would have at least give humankind the germ theory of disease.

In fact God's scientific knowledge and understanding of the universe he created seems to be eerily the exact same (or less) as the society that produced his message.

When our knowledge of the world is improved through prayer, or through the study of your religious books then come here and crow, until then all that can be done is marvel how these brilliant men produced so much labouring under their God Delusion and wonder how much more they could have achieved if they'd been free of it.

Son Goku

SubjectSean wrote: »

I know for a fact that Leibniz wasn't an Atheist, far from it, so I'm doubting your list.

Sorry, I was pasting in the double athiest for Lagrange and Poisson and hit on Leibniz by mistake. I did put a bit of effort into it so please don't dismiss it because of a slip of the finger. I read the list again and believe it is free from error. Is there anybody else you think I might be mistaken on?

SubjectSean wrote: »

The fact remains that apparently all the greatest minds in the history of humanty have been blessed by the God they placed their faith in

Paul Dirac was an athiest and his discoveries lead to most of the technology we use today, same with Alan Turing.

SubjectSean

pH wrote: »

A pity then your holy books are quiet on the subject of Scientific discovery, if only we saw this in Matthew or Luke:

"And Jesus entered the library and said unto them, cease this senseless study of old texts and in its stead look to the natural world, throw away your superstitions and use logic and experimentation, repeatability and peer review, for with them you will cure and alleviate more of the world's ills you can imagine."

Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed"

OK so it's from the Gospel of Thomas but I believe there are paralells in the synoptics.

pH wrote: »

When our knowledge of the world is improved through prayer, or through the study of your religious books then come here and crow, until then all that can be done is marvel how these brilliant men produced so much labouring under their God Delusion and wonder how much more they could have achieved if they'd been free of it.

On the contrary many of them claimed divine inspiration in their work and so lacking the belief in God may have done nothing.

SubjectSean

Son Goku wrote: »

Sorry, I was pasting in the double athiest for Lagrange and Poisson and hit on Leibniz by mistake. I did put a bit of effort into it so please don't dismiss it because of a slip of the finger. I read the list again and believe it is free from error. Is there anybody else you think I might be mistaken on?

I don't know about some of the names but I trust your explanation and so won't go checking. I just find Leibniz interesting bacause of his metaphysical arguments and I knew that he strongly believed in God

MoominPapa

Mostly scienticians mentioned so far. So to open it up a little

From the arts: Frank "Reality is what it is. Not what you want it to be" Zappa

From business: Alan "I'm not atoning for anything" Sugar

From politics: Peter "Balls of steel" Stark

Scofflaw

SubjectSean wrote: »

Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed"

OK so it's from the Gospel of Thomas but I believe there are paralells in the synoptics.

On the contrary many of them claimed divine inspiration in their work and so lacking the belief in God may have done nothing.

Not sure about that. Christians tend to claim divine inspiration for exactly the same things that atheists don't.

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch

Terry Pratchett released a statement earlier this evening saying that he'd been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Here's the BBC news report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7141458.stm

Terry Pratchett wrote:

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. [...] I know it's a very human thing to say 'is there anything I can do', but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i think I'm going to convert to christianity just so I can be angry at god for this

pH

Nick Clegg (new UK Lib Dem leader)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7151346.stm