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Standards (summarizing) (old)

I've copied this from the bottom, so that newcomers see it first.

I vote that we should include only two types of people on this list, as has been stated previously:
1. People who have influenced the history of atheism or advanced/influenced atheist thought in a significant way.
2. People of a certain degree of importance (should have a wikipedia article) who's work has been greatly influenced by their atheism (George Carlin, for example).
We could possibly split these two up into two categories for the list. I also think that it would be important to have a quote or some sort of support for each person on here.--Comics 04:27, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I second those, but I want to add that the "Others" section is quite useless. Somebody said (see below) that "Others" is needed because people are going to add their celebrity atheist of choice to the list anyway, so we should keep "Others" to act as a "lightning rod". IMHO we should actively try to avoid turning any Wikipedia article into a lightning rod for useless content. This can be done by simply introducing the list with a few explanations, i. e. what the list is supposed to be good for, and what kind of entries should definitely not be added to it. That would save editors a lot of problems when deleting unwelcome entries — you can point at the intro and simply say "You were warned". Of course, some entries in the "Others" section could and should be rescued... --Pablo D. Flores 12:04, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree completely, Pablo. However, I think there are some in the Other section which should go in category 2, as I stated above (Ingmar Bergman, for example). Most of the Others section is completely irrelevant for an encyclopedia, though. If we start adding the names of random actors and semi-famous people, where do we draw the line? --Comics 19:20, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Pablo, good stuff with what you've written at the top, but I'm still a little iffy about the "Others" section. What encyclopedic relevance does it have that Katharine Hepburn, Lance Armstrong, Jodie Foster, etc. are atheists? I think we need to make it very clear that this sort of stuff will NOT be a part of the list. Also, is two categories enough? Should it be subdivided by people who openly advance the view of atheism, those whose work has been influenced by their atheist thought (maybe people like B.F. Skinner??, etc.), and then others (but I still have an issue with this category...it's too general). --Comics 21:35, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm beginning to clean up the list. I'll take four people, review their bios, and then see where they belong. What I was thinking -- Bertrand Russell is important and Madalyn M. O'Hare is important, but they're not important in the same way; should we divide the list between philosophers/writers/scholars and activists? Also, should there be a division between contemporary atheists (like Richard Dawkins) and historical atheists (like D'Holbach)? This doesn't need to be adressed, really, until the list is weeded out of irrelevant people, but... --Pablo D. Flores 22:57, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree. First thing is to weed out the useless entries. After that, I think we need to make subdivisions as you suggest. Having only two large categories is far too general. This can be discussed later, however, as we'll find out by weeding through them what common links are between some of these people and which categories would be best suited. --Comics 03:34, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have begun removing the names of people in the Others section. I'd like it if you could look through the changes to see if you approve, Pablo. I don't think that we should get into adding every single celebrity in here that has hinted towards the fact he/she is atheist. We would then get into the problem as to where we would draw the line. Alot of the people I removed are either ambiguous, agnostic, or simply have not contributed to or been significantly influenced in their work by atheism. What do you think? --Comics 04:05, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm flexible regarding the Others sections, so go ahead. Who I'd like to see in the list: notable people (not just celebrities) who we know are atheists and have said something meaningful about that. Isaac Asimov, for example, should definitely stay, but Kurt Cobain should go. Neither was a fighter for the cause of atheism, but Asimov wrote a lot about science and against superstition, made comments against fundamentalism, creationism, etc., and even did an analysis of the whole Bible.
I'm also trying to think carefully about people like George Carlin (very popular, but still just a comedian), or Michael Newdow (he doesn't even have a bio, he is known simply as the guy of the lawsuit). Even the Scopes Trial attorney. Carlin should go to Others, Newdow should be with M. M. O'Hair in other section, and the famous attorney should not be here at all. Maybe there should be a list of important events relating to atheism or the separation of church and state (the Scopes Trial, the Newdow lawsuit, etc.). ---Pablo D. Flores 14:08, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Agreed about Kurt Cobain. Also, anyone who doesn't have a bio shouldn't be included. George Carlin is worth keeping because he's a "popular" atheist, if you will. I think we should eventually split it up into subsections, one of them being "popular" or something, which could have authors, comedians, etc. that type of thing. Just a thought. In a sense, Carlin is as important as Asimov is because then someone could just say "but Asimov is just an author" as easily as "Carlin is just a comedian".  :) I agree that both are imporant, respectively, but in their own ways. --Comics 20:58, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Old posts

Quite a number of these people have written about their beliefs. Douglas Adams, for one, wrote about the rational basis on which he became and continued to be an atheist. Peter Atkins, the physical chemist, and Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer are two others who have actively challenged the orthodoxy that not having a religion is somehow eccentric. Knowing (or just suspecting) that famous person X is an atheist (and by this I mean an avowed atheist) is of interest because it is a challenge to orthodoxy in the same way as knowing that Cary Grant was gay. user:mjmcb1

Who cares about these people being atheists? I find it of little encyclopedic value to have this list around; same for the other lists of noted (religion x)s. These lists would only be useful if they contained people who are actively proclaiming their opinion on this topic, and are known for that. Not just a bunch of actors that happen to share some opinion. We might just as well make a list of noted people that have a hamster as a pet... jheijmans

I am tempted to agree. Does anybody want to argue the case for listing everyone who might happen to be an atheist here? --Robert Merkel

These types of lists aren't really useful. Although I wouldn't like to see lists of noted persons in certain professions go away. Religious affiliation seems peripheral in importance to me (but then, so does sexual orientation. See: Famous gay lesbian or bisexual people). --maveric149

I also would tend to agree; a listing of people whose atheistic beliefs are relevant to what they've accomplished in life and how they present themselves would be interesting, but a mish-mash of people who happen to be atheists and also happen to be somewhat famous? Maybe someone might like it, but I don't really care. (On the other hand, I'm not a militant atheist. The kind of people who want to see Christmas Day removed as a national holiday might think otherwise.) --Brion VIBBER

These lists are useful as an expression of support or community for minorities or out-groups. Many adolescents find these especially useful - "Gee, I always thought I was the only 'X'!"

I think these lists are a valuable service in this regard, and we can´t make any case against them that outweighs this value. Again - if you don't like these lists, don't read them! :-)

I've made that exact same argument in the past, but these things are getting less and less useful.
The debate is on whether we should list *all* 'X's, or whether we should restrict the list to people whose X'ism is part of the reason they are encyclopedia-worthy.For instance, Bob Hawke was agnostic, and worthy of an encyclopedia article here, but does he warrant an appearance on a list of noted agnostics? I would argue not. --Robert Merkel

I'd say this is pretty simple: People who like these lists can make them. People who don't like these lists can ignore them - it's not like the lists are hurting anything. I think we need to be very wary of judging what "we" consider to be "encyclopedia worthy". Personally, I'd remove all articles on video and computer games, rap music, US counties, and I'd seriously consider removing everything on professional sports. Fortunately, my opinion on these things isn't important. Live and let live. Work on the subjects you like. :-)

Indeed. I'm certainly not arguing against the existence of the list, just for some judicial trimming to make it an interesting and informative list. Expressions of support for out-groups are lovely and wonderful, but they're advocacy, which isn't really the mission of an encyclopedia. All-inclusive lists of famous people who were/are/might have been atheists for the purpose of making dejected teenages feel better can be found in warmer, fuzzier places that are specifically pro-atheism -- [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] were the first five that came up in a google search for "famous atheists".
Want to include some links to advocacy sites at the bottom of an article about people who are noted for being atheists? Fine by me! What to have "a partial list of persons believed to be atheists"? What's the point? --Brion VIBBER


The point is to have a partial list of persons believed to be atheists, of course! (what Wikipedia article can claim to be "complete"?) (and the same for lists of other types of persons 'X')(Though I'd like a slightly more rigorous standard than "believed to be")

Sturgeon's Law says "90% of everything is crap".

90% of Wikipedia is crap.

'However', one person's crap is another person's fertilizer. We do NOT all agree on *which* 90%! As I said above, I detest a lot of what I see on Wikipedia. However, I understand very well that *somebody* likes it (and "somebody" is generally at least several thousand people, I'd guess). I think when we work on Wikipedia, we should confine ourselves to 1)writing what we believe to be true 2)correcting what we believe to be false 3)making things more NPOV. I *don't* think we should be in the business of judging what others might find useful or interesting.

To say "People who like these lists can make them. People who don't like these lists can ignore them." misses the point. The point is that no encyclopedia or almanac for that matter would simply list noted persons of any faith just because they happen to be a member of that faith (or anti-faith as in this case). This would be the true even if they were like wikipedia and did't have paper contraints; because such lists are inherently non-neutral propoganda designed to make other people with similar views feel good about themselves (and wikipedia is attempting to be a neutral encyclopedia that has some almanac type information -- such as valid lists of noted professionals who are famous because they advanced their profession). Think of the hideous hugeness a Christian list might become (or the inevitable controversy over who is "really" a Christian rubbish). Brion is right, if there is to be such as list it must be short and informative and, as Robert said, the people listed should be famous in relation to, at least, being X faith -- just because they were otherwise famous and a member of X faith doesn't count. The problem with having these lists is that they can never be said to be nearly complete, are oftentimes difficult to verify, many people change their faith several times during their lives and others only pretended to be faithful or are not considered to have belonged to a certain faith by some groups. In addition, having "Listing of X faith" encourages the creation of other such meaningless lists and brings down the average quality of wikipedia. I'm starting to see a strong consensus here that this page in its current form is not informative and should either be fixed or remain in the deletion queue for final review. I don't see any reason why this page shouldn't be copied over to the meta though. Hard drive space is cheap, but wikipedia's strived for reputation for NPOV content is a very important goal -- these faith and related lists are more proselytizing propoganda than anything else -- this also goes for Famous gay lesbian or bisexual people too (I'm both atheist and gay BTW). --maveric149

I agree that these lists should go. If there is any justification to keeping them, it would be only after they are trimmed down to include only people who are famous because of their affiliation. In other words, a list of famous atheists should only include people who contributed to atheism and are famous for doing so (Madeleine Murray O'Hare comes to mind). In that case, the list could be appended to the Atheism article. I feel the same way about the list of famous gay people, Jews, Prussians, Canadians, etc. Oh, and I am very much opposed to the list of "Beautiful Italians," which puts these lists to shame. Danny

Bertrand Russell wrote a book called Why I am an Atheist. In the late 19th century, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll's lectures on atheism made him one of the most popular speakers in the country. The American Humanist Association is an organization of atheists. These are atheists who make a splash. Most of these lists have this problem. How to plow through all the fan favorites to find the ones that would be important to, say, some student working on a paper on atheism, for whom pointers to Ingersoll and Russell and the Humanists would be useful.

I have added quite a few names to Famous African-Americans and it is still mostly an honest list of genuinely important people, but if I add Jimi Hendrix knowing that he truly advanced the art of music, what's to stop someone else from adding Buddy Miles, who's just a hell of a drummer? None of us would be inclined to take him out. There's one name on the A-A list that drives me nuts, but I haven't deleted it. I would never delete the article on that person, but boy does my finger linger over the name when I see it on the list. I've often thought of currying the lists of jazz and rock performers to move a bunch of people to the "Beloved Performers category" just to clear the deck for the important people. "Important" defined here as "likely to be looked up in this category".

I just did a search in wikipedia on atheist and Bertrand Russell was the only one both on this list and in the search results. The others in the search results were Baruch Spinoza, Harold Kroto, and Aleister Crowley. On the other hand, the article on Thomas Edison does not mention his atheism and judging from my search the others don't either. Ortolan88, Thursday, June 20, 2002

As the person starting this debate, I'm pleased so many reactions :-) My problem with this and many other Wikipedia lists is that they're obscure. If you have, for example, a list of all capital cities in the world, or all Olympic Champions in athletics, this list can be (and usually is) complete, or at least rather complete. The "atheist" list (and many other lists containing "famous" or "noted", or the like) usually contain a short list started by somebody, with some "random" figures added later. My first question then is: why is somebody noted, why is he famous? And what makes that he is on the list, and somebody else is not; the criteria are vague. A list of Famous Scots says me that the people on that list have some connection with Scotland - maybe born there, maybe lived there, maybe both - and they are in some way famous. As a reader, however, I have no idea (except for those about who an article exists) why they are in this list, and why some other Scot I can think of is not. Therefore, to me it seems like a rather arbitrary (maybe even NPOV) list of figures with some vague interconnection. Not really encyclopedia stuff if you ask me. As a reader, it would be more informative to just mention a few Scotsmen - say, Macbeth - in the article about Scotland that really helped to put Scotland on the map. Further, these lists may also be de-orphaning many article that are otherwise unlisted.

To summarise, I think we should carefully review the usefulness of each list (please note, I've contributed to many lists like these myself). If the list is to be an article on its own, its usefulness should be made clear, and entries in the list should be annotated. If the list itself is not useful, than moving the most important items to a non-list article will be a good solution. The latter is what I propose for this: clear the list, put a few major contributors to the atheistic faith (well, euh) in the article on atheism. jheijmans

Let's not go overboard now. Lists are useful if the entries on those lists are in fact relevant to the topic. For example, there is nothing at all wrong about having a list on noted biologists that have substantally contributed to the science of biology at List of biologists. It would be nice to have birth and death dates and a very brief blurb on what they are most notable for, but that isn't likely to happen any time soon. It will, however, eventually happen and in the interim we can live with the skeletal lists -- so long as they are relevant to the topic and are named correctly ("List of X). Not having things that are complete is the very nature of wikipedia. --maveric149, Sunday, June 23, 2002

I'm not saying we should abandon lists, I'm just saying one should be more careful when making one. Unfinished things are fine, but when they're finished (preferably before that), they should at least be useful. jheijmans

So what should we do with the entry in its present form? Delete it? --Robert Merkel

I'll edit it down in conformance with the ideas presented here if no one more interested in atheists wants to.

I really do think lists in the following form can be quite useful and interesting

Here are some famous pieces of silverware:

  • Fork, used to hold food for cutting and convey it to the mouth
  • Knife, historically the first piece of silverware
  • Spoon, used for measuring and scooping
  • Runcible spoon, used for eating quince and mince, see Edward Lear

With all the detail relegated to the linked article. With the one-line tags in place, the list can be useful even if there is no article. Ortolan88

As an atheist and former teenager, I have to agree with the sentiment that such lists are important. I think in this venue, however, there is an additional criteria of relevance. The page should not simply list Atheists who happen to be famous. Rather, I think it would be better thought of as a list of people who's fame had something to do with their Atheism. Dawkins and Russell should therefore be on the list, but Christopher Reeves and Thomas Edison should not. Just my $.02.JFQ

I agree with the sentiment above - this page is silly when you note that Madalyn Murray O'Hair, arguably one of the most important atheists in modern history, and definitely one of the most important American atheists, is absent from this list. It ought to be pared down to the above criteria. Graft

I'm going to add back George Carlin, since a great deal of his comedy comes from his nonbelief.JFQ

Also putting back Marx, Freud, and Sade. I'm going to add blurbs about each person's atheism too, to hopefully build in some deterrence to just including "pet favorite" celebrity atheists.

What about people believed to be atheists who, in fact, were/are not? -- asilvahalo

Thomas Jefferson? Ortolan88

why Richard Branson? His article doesn't even mention atheism, but he's well known for various other things.

Kai Nielsen

Latest addition:

I wonder how many adjunct professors of philosophy at provincial universities are atheists. Perhaps there should be a separate article, [[List of adjunct professors of philosophy who are atheists]]? Ortolan88

Haha...how dumbly patronizing and condescending. None would be as particularly relevant as Nielsen who specializes in the philosophy of religion and is a leader in this field...on the atheist side...his focus on incoherency arguments against God are particularly important. Obviously, Nielsen is not as popular as say, Ayn Rand, but that doesn't mean that he shouldn't be...this list isn't necessarily about celebrity status. Although for some anecdotal evidence on his celebrity status just do a simple google search on atheist and nielsen...see on how many lists of notable atheists he is listed. Your comment and Martin's deletion from the list reflect an unfortunate disjunct between what lay people consider important contributions to the atheism and what professional philosophers who specialize in this area do. (I think a number of professional philosophers would object to labeling some of the folks now on the list such as Rand & Branden as "philosophers"...the "postmodern philosopher" (an oxymoron?) Rorty has been given the benefit of a doubt.) In one respect, who gives a $h1t what Rand, Twain, Carlin or some others have to say on atheism except for the fact of their celebrity status or in the case of O'Hair, also their rabid activism?! (A number of humanist atheists would rather not see O'Hair as a representative of atheists.) Prominent professional philosophers or scientists (like Quine, Putnam, K Popper, Einstein, etc), who also happen to be atheists but don't specialize in that field or make a point of proclaiming it, would probably have something more original or sophisticated to add to atheism than most everyone now on the list! And if Rorty is on this list, why not list Quine, et. al.? At any rate Nielsen SHOULD be on this list. B

Add me to the list of formerly hamster owning former atheists when you get a chance. In the first place, a person prominent within the Atheism-discussing community (allegedly e.g. Nielsen) should be mentioned on the Atheism page (or the unwritten Incoherency arguments page). In the second place a person picking up an Encyclopedia and reading the Atheism section would not be too surprised to find a sidebar listing prominent (i.e. celebrity) Atheists. There is no point in cluttering this list with names that do not have Biographical Entries that mention their Atheism. This list is just as relevant and important as the other figures which should be present such as number of members of the First Church of Atheism (a figure you should find with all other religions). Consequently, Nielsen does not belong in the List of atheists, because he is not known otherwise. He belongs in the Atheism article because he is a world renowned expert on Atheism. In addition, he should have a Biographical Entry which would discuss his role in shaping world opinion. the librarian
How could I consider his contribution to atheism important or unimportant without a biography entry on the man that explains what his contribution to atheism is? I've got nothing against Kai, but I second Librarian's comment that "There is no point in cluttering this list with names that do not have Biographical Entries that mention their Atheism". However, that's just IMO... Martin
Librarian: 1) The Atheism article does refer to Nielsen by linking to this list, OR if you think that is insufficient then instead of whining about Nielsen not being on the Atheism article itself, add him. (Note the supposedly "unwritten incoherency arguments" are listed on the Arguments against the existence of God article.) 2) what's the point of your second observation? that prominent merely means celebrity? because prominent does NOT merely mean celebrity, and further the list of atheists has already been renamed from "celebrity atheists" to "list of atheists" to steer away from the idea that this list is merely supposed to be about atheists with celebrity status. Your seeming construction of what this list is about is wrong and appears to lead you to attack a position that is not being taken. For the sake of argument, I'll assume that this list is important, but not because it lists celebrity atheists, but because it lists prominent atheists...which does not necessarily mean celebrity! I was never arguing against celebrity itself except to imply that it is not the over-riding factor of this list; there are other considerations as to who should be included on this list. 3) As far as not cluttering the lists, who would disagree with the grade school assumption that a person prominent enough to be on the list should probably also have an article written on the person including their atheism?! and as a corollary, AS A WORK IN PROGRESS a person should not be removed from the list because an article hasn't YET been written about the person. If a person doesn't know one way or another about a person, he/she should find out before taking action, eh? Consequently your ill-founded observations don't support your conclusion. However, I can understand Martin deleting the entry because good sense without particular knowledge in Nielsen's case could warrant it...I could've just as easily done something similar on some other article. B
Just throwing my 2 cents in... the deletion of Nielsen and this whole discussion could have been avoided if a good motivating introduction to who Nielsen is had been written in the list, like the fact that he is a leader thinker in the field, instead of its bleak and unmotivating title of adjunct professor somewhere. This way, Ortolan and me and other people who happened not to know Nielsen before reading this would not (have) be(en) tempted to remove this yet-another-anonymous-adjunct-professor-we-don't-know. OTOH, I'm sensitive to the Librarian's arguments according to which Nielsen belong more to atheism than to list of atheists. (Anon)

If this list is going to be kept, of which I have no real opinion on, should it not as least be cross checked with the other lists? A quick glance at the agnostic list shows many duplications. Listing someone as an agnostic and atheist is not very logical.Brian Schlosser42

I just made a number of additions that I'm now having second thoughts about after having read this discussion. First off, I believe (pun, get it?) that this list should indeed exist, not only for those who want to know about others like them, but for the pure academic worth it would provide. Now, I hadn't initially realized that the list is desired to be one of notable atheists and not merely a list of famous people who happen to be atheists. I agree with this thought on the subject and reinforce the idea, but obviously I missed something when I made my edit, and would not have known had I not read this page. So my suggestion is this, move the page to "List of Notable Atheists" and at the top of the list make the statement that it is a list of such people, and not the average celebrity who also is an atheist (I admit to adding some of these). Moreover, the person's contribution to atheism should be noted beside their name. No descriptor, no inclusion. It seems simple to me. This would weed out the actors and singers whose atheism is not a major part of their works. I'd be willing to remove some names I included myself, and others that are on the list.

On another note, I notice that most signatures in this discussion have no dates beside them. Are they just old comments and the date feature was not yet developed for the Wikipedia?

TimothyPilgrim 18:36, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

  • Okay, so I can't read... :p I see that there is in fact a disclaimer at the top of the page. But I will state that it doesn't appear to be followed judging by the names in the list. TimothyPilgrim 18:42, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Removed Stephen Hawking - although many people imagine he must be an atheist, publicly he is deliberately equivocal on the point. When pressed he has said 'I don't believe in a personal God', but he can believe in a God as the embodiment of the laws of physics. Solipsist 16:41, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Should David Hume be here? It is not clear he was an atheist - see for example http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ515.HTM

  • Yes I think so. At the time 'atheist' was a dangerous label which his critics used against him, so Hume tended to be careful. You could say that he was an agnostic or a deist, since he argued for the dificulty of disproving the existence of god. Towards the end of his life he made some pretty strong anti-religious statements. In his Philosophy of Religion 1779, he argues against believing in miracles unless you have direct experience of one, then concludes 'the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.'

I believe Carl Sagan was an agnostic, was he not? Mike Church 08:18, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Removed Russell, Nietzsche, Ingersoll, and Hume.

Russell and Ingersoll claimed explicitly to be agnostics, not atheists. Hume and Nietzsche are obviously more ambiguous, but one shouldn't take their attacks on religion to be evidence of atheism. Richard Simões 03:32, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Update: Deleted Jesse Ventura (a secularist, but a christian secularist nonetheless), and Kai Nielson (there are tens of thousands of "adjunct professors of philosophy," and a sizable portion [if not greater than half] of them are atheists). Richard Simões 05:27, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Update #2: Deleted Carl Sagan. He's already listed on the agnostics page, and that's even questionable (some speculate that he was a pantheist). Also, I just read over the controversy over Nielsen. If any of his fans want to readd him, be my guest (though it seems none of them have this article on their watchpage). Richard Simões 17:33, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)


I agree with your decision regarding Ingersoll and Hume, but not with the other two. Atheism merely means that one does not believe that god or gods exist, not that one believes that god or gods do not exist. It is a subtle but important difference. Given this definition, I have re-added Nietzsche and Russell, as there is no evidence whatsoever that they had any theistic leanings. Russell himself states:
"I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods. None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof. Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line." Source
He himself seems to be conflating the strong/weak atheist issue, as he is hesitant to call himself an atheist merely because he cannot prove that all gods do not exist. What is clear, however, is that he lacks belief in any god or gods, which is the only "requirement" for atheism.
As for Hume and Ingersoll, I would vote for Deist and possibly Agnostic, respectively. If anyone can provide decent evidence to include Nietzsche or Russell in either of those categories as well, I would be very interested. Cheers. User:Davin (usurped) 23:28, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

David Hume

Sorry, I saw that you hadn't replied to my comments above, but I hadn't spotted some of the other comments on Hume dotted around. So to summarise;

  • Should David Hume be here? It is not clear he was an atheist - see for example http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ515.HTM
    • Yes I think so. At the time 'atheist' was a dangerous label.... — Solipsist 16:37, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
      • Hume and Nietzsche are obviously more ambiguous, but one shouldn't take their attacks on religion to be evidence of atheism. Richard Simões 03:32, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
        • I agree with your decision regarding Ingersoll and Hume....As for Hume ... I would vote for Deist -- User:Davin (usurped) 23:28, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Now I shouldn't put too much credit on Dave Armstrong's homepage, http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ515.HTM - he is clearly a Christian apologist. Check the My Books Page link at the bottom of Dave Armstrong's page, and then question whether the research is likely to be well balanced. You can also follow up credentials of some of the quoted scholars compared to the more noted authorities, such as Mossner and A. J. Ayer.

Was Hume a confirmed atheist rather than an agnostic or logical positivist or any other shade of skeptic? You won't get a conclusive answer and many have spent a long time arguing one side or the other. However, it is as well to remember that it was dangerous and illegal for Hume to publish unequivocal denials of god. Indeed Hume's publisher persuaded him not to publish one The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, during his lifetime for fear of prosecution.

Here are some examples in support of him being an atheist:

  • http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/humelife.htm - Although his manuscript book was destroyed, several pages of Hume's study notes survive from his early twenties. These show a preoccupation with the subjects of proof of God's existence and atheism, particularly as he read on these topics in classical Greek and Latin texts and in Pierre Bayle's skeptical Historical and Critical Dictionary. During these years of private study, some of which was in France, Hume composed his three-volume Treatise of Human Nature, which was published anonymously in two installments before he was thirty (1739, 1740).
  • http://www.secularhumanism.org/hall-of-fame/hume/ - Hume was a skeptic and his skepticism applied to all things, including religion. He argued against the "argument for design" of the universe, he argued that not all societies created religions and that morality is and should only be based on human nature and not divine reward/punishment. In fact, most sources comment that Hume argued strongly against "argument for design", but Armstrong ends up saying the opposite.
  • http://www.humesociety.org/bog-story.html Story of the bog. Possibly apocryphal but clearly shows that Hume was widely considered to be an atheist during his lifetime, and that he was pragmatic enough that he would profess a belief in god if his life depended on it.

So yes Hume is better placed on this list than many -- Solipsist 22:36, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman actually labels himself agnostic rather than atheist (I would characterise his POV as atheist, but he doesn't). Bonalaw 18:15, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I find more evidence for Pullman being a Weak atheist than an agnostic. That is he doesn't believe in god but accepts the possibility that he doesn't know everything and a god is possible. See for example
So I'm caught between the words 'atheistic' and 'agnostic'. I've got no evidence whatever for believing in a God. But I know that all the things I do know are very small compared with the things that I don't know. [6] and
I no longer believe in the God I used to believe in when I was a boy... So although I call myself an atheist,... [7]
Google pulls up more articles calling him an atheist, but also quite a few using 'agnostic'. You can persuade me if you can find some more positively agnostic views. -- Solipsist 13:15, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Ah. I read an interview in which he said he was agnostic; it seems he describes himself as both at different times. (Maybe if he isn't sure himself then he really should go on the list of agnostics? :-) ) Bonalaw 11:27, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Bill Gate's Double Act?

Bill Gates is listed here as an atheist and also as an agnostic.

in the interest of consistency, if Mussolini is identified as a dictator, shouldn't Fidel Castro also be called a dictator? --Voltagedrop 05:53, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

See agnostic atheism and atheism. Adraeus 06:27, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

VfD?

this, and similar lists are of very little value. how does its scope extend beyond Category:Atheists? If it doesn't, we should get rid of it. dab (ᛏ) 14:25, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A list is different from a category in a sense that it can contains names of people who do not (yet) have articles written about them. A category can only encompass the already written articles. Also, if you looked at the Category:Atheists, you'd see it does not match the contents of this article at all (which I do not say is a good thing). I'd suggest synchronizing the list's and category's contents first, and then see if there are any other issues to be addressed.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:04, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)
well, there are no people on the list that don't have an article. See Talk:Atheism to see why I'm asking. dab (ᛏ) 17:08, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I realize that there are no such people listed now. Considering the size of the article, however, it is quite obvious that many more people are simply not yet listed, some of whom might not have an article written about them yet after all. The beauty of the list is that such a person can be added to the list; it would be impossible with a category.
I am, of course, quite biased towards having lists in Wikipedia, but I hope my reasoning was clear. To me, just because a list seems subjective and is difficult to maintain (as per some comments on Talk:Atheism) is not a reason enough to have it deleted.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:23, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

Standards applied to this list

A few editors think this list is, and I quote, "crap", "junk", "brain-damage" or "difficult to fix not because it is inherently hard to fix but just because of stupidity". Keep in mind that this says nothing about the actual contributors to this list. :-)

It has gone so far that people are unwilling to link to it from Atheism, claiming it irrelevant. This is not acceptable — if nothing linked to this list, it would be practically inaccessible. Simply ignoring bad articles is, IMO, about the poorest option imaginable. Given that this list is highly unlikely to be deleted by a VfD (I'll let you determine your own reasons for that), it stands to reason that we should hold it to a higher standard instead.

Opinions, first of all? Summarizing the talk on Atheism, it seems this list should be restricted to notable atheists (i.e. atheists whose actions have "defined" atheism in some way, or who are considered particularly prominent examples of atheists). It could possibly expanded to notable people who merely expressed their atheism, but arguably should not include notable people who "happened to be" atheists. For one thing, how do we know they happened to be atheists? It's on a website somewhere?

Random example. I see in this list that Kurt Cobain was an atheist. I look up Kurt Cobain, and there is not one mention of Cobain's atheism in the article. So basically, Wikipedia now includes a blatant, clear, and unverifiable fact. An interested reader is required to use other sources to ferret out whether Cobain was really an atheist or not. Is this worthy of an encyclopedia?

We have Category:Atheists. But that category is another ballgame: category entries cannot be annotated, so they can only include articles that proclaim at the bottom that X is/was an atheist, and obviously cannot do so without the article stating why this is so, per the criteria mentioned in the category:

This category contains Atheists,
  • that have expressed being an atheist,
  • and of whom is known how they defined their atheism.

This list should not be held to the same standards. More leeway is allowed in lists, because list entries can be annotated. We can list people of whom it is not known how they defined their atheism, for example, but who have merely stated that they are atheists — provided we add this caveat to the list definition, of course.

Basically, I think we should have the following invariants:

  1. Everyone in Category:Atheists is in List of atheists.
  2. All entries in List of atheists provide verifiable sources.
  3. If List of atheists is to have unsourced or dubious entries at all, these should be clearly marked as such (i.e. no pretending that because someone person added it, it's probably true).

More opinions on this, please. I've put up this article on PnA. JRM 23:36, 2004 Dec 27 (UTC)

I would put forward the following criteria for a person to be included on this list.

  1. There should be a Wikipedia article about the named person; that is, the person should be sufficiently notable that he or she has a biographical article in the Wikipedia. It should be a stub, at least, not a substub.
  2. The person must be on record as having denied, doubted, or been skeptical about the existence of God or gods, or there should be other uncontroversial indicators of it in his or her writings.
  3. The biographical article in the Wikipedia should state that the person was an atheist, providing sources. If this statement is removed by editors, for any reason, or is controversial (based on the Talk page discussion) then that is grounds for removing the link from the List of atheists. This means people are removed from the list if the article on them fails to mention it, even if the editors of the biographical article remove it because it is not deemed a relevant or important fact about the person, rather than because it is untrue. That is, the editors of the main biographical article rule, and this list is not an obscure back-channel for slipping the fact that the person was an atheist, unsourced, into the Wikipedia.
  4. The biographical article in the Wikipedia should be in Category:Atheists. Thus, the list in this article should simply mirror what a Category listing of that category would show, albeit with more summary information and qualification than Categories listings allow, and perhaps a different sort or grouping.

--BM 01:32, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Only those who are famous because of their atheism belong in this article per Wikipedia guidelines. Everyone else is cannon fodder. See Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not, What Wikipedia articles are not #10. Adraeus 06:25, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

good call. I would categorize:
  • people relevant to the history of atheism, i.e. atheist thinkers, and people persecuted for their (avowed) atheism
  • authors (writers, poets): they may not directly be connected with the history of atheism, but their thinking will be more or less evident from their works, making their atheism relevant for their own notability (their works), even if not for the history of atheism
  • others. such as adult starlets. they should not be on this list, their belief, or absence of belief, being irrelevant to their notability.
  • also, I think the list whould be chronological (with indication of people's lifespans), not alphabetic. You can always go to the Category for an alphabetical listing

I am glad the dispute seems to have now found a productive outlet :o) dab (ᛏ) 10:32, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My, I hadn't noticed what fun you've been having at Talk:Atheism during December. You folks have been going at it hammer and tongues! I would understand it if there was a theistic troll causing trouble, but everyone seems to be arguing from the same side - just from slightly different positions. Anyhow, the atheism article seems to be benefiting as a result.
Leaving aside the slightly inflammatory introduction by User:JRM above, I whole heartedly approve of User:BM's initial reorganisation of this list.
I feel obliged to point out that none of the terms I repeated verbatim were mine, and my personal opinion of the list wasn't half as pronounced. I did try to reflect the inflammatory verbiage hurled at this page from the far side of Talk:Atheism. No point in mincing words. JRM 21:52, 2004 Dec 29 (UTC)
The iffy part of this list is probably the 'Others' section. I think you still have to have it - people are going to want to add people to this list whatever you do, so it is necessary as a lightning rod if nothing else.
On the 'Notable Atheists' section, I can agree with most of BM's proposals, but it can't apply to the whole list. Categories are a difficult way to go, because its too black and white - you can't easily support them with references. In fact, I thought Category:Atheists had been deleted once already.
For Notable Atheists, it really ought to be the case that their atheism, or contribution to atheism, is mentioned on their biography page. On the Others section it is not necessary. You are in a situation of asymmetric relevance. It is straightforwardly not the case, that the 'proof' that someone was an atheist can only be verified if it is sourced and referenced on the associated biography page. A person's beliefs may not be that relevant to their whole life story, whilst still being of interest on lists such as this. The sensible position, should be that everyone appearing on this list should have made a verified statement of their atheism or disbelief, and where that isn't referenced on their biography page, it should be backed up with references here (possibly on this talk page).
Where things get messy is that a person's statements of the beliefs often change over time. There is a spectrum of disbelief from agnostic, through weak atheism to strong atheism and a bunch of other flavours besides. If you read Bertrand Russell's essay Why I am an not a Christian, despite his being about as a died in the wool an atheist as you are likely to find, he makes several strongly agnostic statements, partly because he has to acknowledge that he has no cast iron proof in the non-existence of gods, but also because he wants to reach out to a wider audience. Similarly, when I checked the quotes to verify whether Philip Pullman was an atheist (see above), I got the impression that he made stronger atheist statements earlier in life. Once he started winning awards and getting widely published, his comments are more often qualified with agnostic statements - quite possibly because he doesn't want to alienate a wider reading public (read 'sales'). Incidently, the Pullman article doesn't state that he is an atheist - why should it - nevertheless he has made strong verifiable statements to that he is, and this is expressed in his writing.
Because of an individual's vacillations over time and problems in categorically classifying a person as one or the other, there is a strong case to merge this list with List of agnostics, placing the agnostics in their own section. It is already a pain to check that someone hasn't already been added to one list or the other. Be bold... but who is bold enough to attempt that merge. -- Solipsist 21:20, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I was planning to (1) add information to all the "Notable Atheists" articles concerning their atheism, assuming it was not already present; (2) remove anybody in the "Others" section if the article did NOT mention it. I don't think this list should list anybody if the editors responsible for the base article do not choose to mention the fact. --BM 22:24, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Regarding the problem of what to do about agnostics, one solution would be to merge the two lists into one. In fact, most agnostics are what some call "atheistic agnostics" and, while perhaps not applying the label to themselves, meet the definition of so-called weak atheism. --BM 22:26, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I vote that we should include only two types of people on this list, as has been stated previously:

1. People who have influenced the history of atheism or advanced/influenced atheist thought in a significant way.
2. People of a certain degree of importance (should have a wikipedia article) who's work has been greatly influenced by their atheism (George Carlin, for example).

We could possibly split these two up into two categories for the list. I also think that it would be important to have a quote or some sort of support for each person on here.--Comics 04:27, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Other people who were atheists

Is this heading correct? Surely some of them still are atheists? Jacquerie27 17:45, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Moved from "Talk:Celebrity atheists"

I have moved this from the old Talk page of "Celebrity atheists", since the original page now redirects to the List of atheists, but this seemed relevant. --Pablo D. Flores 18:52, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Larry - You're dividing people into "philosophers", whose opinions matter, and "nonphilosophers", who are mere "celebrities"? A distinction that could only seem relevent to a philosopher, I think.

And then Darwin, Dawkins, and Rand are lumped in with the celebrities?

- Tim

Yes, in an article about atheists, it's much more important to mention the names of Russell (and Darwin, yes) than, say, Noam Chomsky or Carl Sagan. No, their opinions don't matter. That's correct.  :-) --LMS

Absolutely. The fact that Linus Torvalds is an atheist is largely irrelevant to his claim to fame (being a programmer who started something kinda neat), whereas the fact that, say Alan Turing is (I guess, he might have been agnostic) an atheist is very important because his work touches on the limits of knowledge and the possibilities of artificial intelligence, both areas of considerable interest to religion.

Are we quite sure that all of these people are properly called atheists (and not agnostics or something else)? --LMS

I doubt it. I pulled out Darwin because anyone who has read his letters would know that he was an agnostic. Work is needed here, methinks. John Lynch

I disagree with the Einstein entry and would like to see a reference to his calling himself an atheist. I know that he once described his concept of God as that of Spinoza: the whole universe and all its laws are holy and identical with God. He also interpreted Buddhism in a similar way and preferred it over the other religions. --AxelBoldt

Einstein did say, "God does not play dice with the universe" in reference to quantum mechanics. (To which, I understand, Neils Bohr replied "Albert, stop telling God what to do.")

Suggested rule: every entry here needs a quote beside it, where that person clealy labels themselves an atheist or states directly that there is no God. As it stands, this is ridiculous.

Mark Twain published an essay called "the eternal stranger" or something to that effect in which he said (paraphrasing here; I read it 10 years ago) that God had no right to expect humans to worship Him simply because He had created them, because no one had asked him to. That, to me, does not sound like an atheist; rather, it sounds like an embittered believer. He may well have become an atheist later. I would like to see a quotation proving him an atheist, if one is available. --Koyaanis Qatsi

I'm afraid I don't see the point of this page. Are we going to set up Celebrity Christians, Celebrity Buddhists, Celebrity agnostics...

Also, I think it would be rather harmful to pigeonhole certain people into this catagory. The line between atheist and agnostic is often very blurry, and many people hover between theism and atheism for significant periods of their lives. I guess what I'm asking is, what value is there in including this list in Wikipedia? I just don't see the pros, but I do see numerous cons. -- Stephen Gilbert

Ditto. Furthermore, celebrity atheists smacks of the desperation of an atheist applying Logical fallacy/Appeal to authority, Logical fallacy/Appeal to popularity, and Logical fallacy/Bandwagon. This community doesn't put with this from Christians, so why kowtow to atheists? <>< tbc

I see no reason to exclude such lists. The World War II page has a list of names associated with that topic; the Nazi page has a list of names associated with that topic; a list of well-known socialists hasn't been made yet but it would certainly add something to the socialism page; a list of noted Hawaiians on the Hawaii page, a list of noted atheists on the atheism page, and so forth, would just mean more information than before. - Tim

Also - I started a list of noted and reputed atheists; if some were note consistent atheists, well, they are still reputed atheists (Darwin, for instance). Someone else (named Larry) changed the list to a "celebrity atheist" list, but we can change it back to "noted and reputed", to get around the objection being raised about pigeonholing people. - Tim

I have to agree with the dubious usefulness of this list at all--and the only reason I moved it to its own page was that I didn't want to engage the (fairly trivial) question whether we should have such a list. The point is that it seems to be a bogus appeal to authority (as tbc pointed out)--what other reason is there for the list. On the other hand, you know, it really is useful information (as long the description of the people on the list is suitably qualified per above comments). We ought also to have a disclaimer...heck, I'll just do this myself.  :-) --LMS

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