Atheism is not a new phenomenon.
Historical examples of atheists include:
5th century BCE, Greece - Diagoras of Melos, a staunch opposer of religion at that time, is accused of blasphemy and has to flee Athens to escape a death sentence.
480â406 BCE Greece - Euripides writes the play Bellerophon, wherein the main character explicitly states that gods don't exist.
400s BCE Greece - Either Euripides or Critias write the satyr play Sisyphus, which features the claim that a clever man invented "the fear of the gods" in order to frighten people into behaving morally.
Unknown date, Ancient Roman Empire -- An atheist gravestone is written, telling travellers that they should cease believing in afterlives and gods*.
823-911 Iran - Ibn al-Rawandi deconverts from Islam and writes against religion. None of his works survive but we know about his opinions because of the surviving works that sought to counter them.
1100s Iran -- Mathematician Omar Khayyam writes a poem deriding the Koran**.
Circa 1200s Iceland - The Old Norse poem SĂŽlar lioĂ° is written, which mentions men who turned away from Norse Paganism and "in themselves they trusted".
Late 1200s Iceland - The Hrafnkell Saga is written, which features an atheist protagonist who is described as being goĂ°lauss ("godless") and who explicitly says that "...it is folly to have faith in gods."
1500s Italy - Menocchio, a well-liked miller is his small village, publicly declares that it was impossible for Jesus to have been born of a virgin mother, that Jesus was not divine, that much of the Gospel stories were fabrications, that immortality was impossible, and that God may be no more than a figment of human imagination. He is tried for heresy, convicted as an atheist, and burned at the stake.
1546, France - Ătienne Dolet is found guilty of atheism and is subsequently strangled and burned for the crime of unbelief.
1500s Italy & France - Giulio Casare Vanini denies the immortality of the soul, says he believes that humans evolved from apes, and insists that religious teachings are false. He flees Italy but is caught in France, where he has his tongue cut out, is strangled, and then burned to death.
1600s Poland - Kazimierz ĆyszczyĆski harshly criticizes priests, argues that the Bible is false, and writes a treatise called The Nonexistence of God. Christians have his tongue and mouth burned with hot irons, his hands burned over a slow fire, and finally his whole body is torched.
1600s Edinburgh, Scotland - 20-year old Thomas Aikenhead (who had no criminal record), is hanged because he âmaintainedâŠthat theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsenseâŠthat the Holy Scriptures were stuffed with such madness, nonsense, and contradictionsâ and that Christ was an âimposter,â etc.
1817 England - Percy Shelley, husband of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, is denied custody of his children from his first marriage on the basis that he is an atheist (he was also expelled from university for that same reason, btw).
* "Do not pass my epitaph, traveller
But having stopped, listen and learn, then go your own way
There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon
No caretaker Aiakos, no dog Cerberus
All we who are dead below
Have become bone and ashes but nothing else
I have spoken to you honestly, go on traveller
Least even while dead I seem talkative to you"
** The Koran! well, come put me to the test
Lovely old book in hideous error drest
Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
The unbeliever knows his Koran best.
And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
God gave the Secret, and denied it me?
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.
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