Antireligion

Antireligion is opposition to some or all religions in some or all contexts. People who are antireligious may see religions as dangerous, destructive, divisive, foolish, or absurd. This opposition may be confined to just organized mainstream religions such as Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism, extend to all organized religions including cults and Satanism, or may more generally include all forms of superstition or belief in the supernatural.

Antireligion is quite distinct from atheism. Antireligion is often based on arguments against the validity, usefulness, or ethicality of religion. Some antireligious people still worship a god or are otherwise spiritual. On the other hand, many atheists are not concerned with the fact that the majority of humanity self-identifies as religious.

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.
• Andrew Carnegie, industrialist, believed people should be instilled with patriotism and good citizenship rather than religion^[4].
• Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule^[5].
• Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist and evolutionary biologist. ^[6]
• John Dewey, an atheistic American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, believed neither religion nor metaphysics could provide valid moral or social values, though science could^[7].
• Harlan Ellison, science fiction writer, called religion "the last vestige of barbarism."
• Catherine Fahringer, campaigner in Texas for the separation of Church and State.
• Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder with her mother of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and, with her husband Dan Barker, the current co-president.
• 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 ^[8].
• Bill Hicks, comedian.
• Christopher Hitchens, political writer.
• Marilyn Manson, singer and artist.
• Alistair Horne, British historian, believes peace follows when prosperity reduces religious influence.^[9]
• Enver Hoxha, former leader of Albania, the only state to ever officially ban religion.^[10].
• 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 ^[11].
• Robert Maynard Hutchins, past president of the University of Chicago. Although religious, thought religion was not adaquate for organizing modern universities and educational institutions, preferring metaphysics^[12].
• Aldous Huxley, philosopher and author. Although anti-religious, he was also spiritual, writing The Perennial Philosophy on similarities between the mystic elements of many religions.
• Thomas Jefferson^[13][14]. Like many American founding fathers, Jefferson thought religion should have no role in government. Although he was not a conventional Christian, Jefferson was a Deist^[15].
• Penn Jillette, illusionist, comic, actor, former-radiohost
• Elton John, singer ^[16].
• Vladimir Lenin - Like most Marxists, he believed all religions to be "the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class"^[17].
• John Lennon, singer. Famously sang "and no religion too" in his song Imagine. Lennon commented that the song was "an anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it's sugar-coated, it's accepted."
• Karl Marx, who called religion the opium of the people, a source of illusory happiness which assists those with power and wealth in maintaining their position by reinforcing their right to a privelaged position.
• Friedrich Nietzsche - "The Antichrist", general anti-Christian statements in many other works.
• Michel Onfray, the French philosopher.
• Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist^[18].
• Bertrand Russell, British philosopher^[19]
• Carl Sagan Astronomer and popular science writer. "The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God,' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity."^[20]
• Socrates expressed belief in various divinities, but was sentenced to death for impiety on the basis that he inspired questioning of the state gods.^[21][22]
• 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.
• Mao Zedong, a Marxist proponent of state atheism in the People's Republic of China and encouraged the destruction of religious traditions and institutions as part of the Cultural Revolution.

Antireligious organizations

• The Rational Response Squad, a group of American atheists who lobby for secularism and rationalism in society and government. They are most famous for their "Blasphemy Challenge" on YouTube.
• The Society of the Godless, a mass volunteer antireligious organization of Soviet workers and others in 1925-1947.

See also

• Anti-Christian
• Anti-clericalism
• Anti-Muslim
• Criticism of religion
• Freethought
• Hemant Mehta, an atheist promoting theist/atheist tolerance
• Religious persecution

References

Irreligion
Atheism	List of atheists · Demographics · Religion · History · State atheism · Criticism · Discrimination · Persecution · Weak and strong · Agnostic atheism · Implicit and explicit · Antitheism · Antireligion · Atheist Alliance International
Agnosticism	List of agnostics · Agnostic theism · Agnostic atheism · Weak agnosticism · Strong agnosticism · Ignosticism · Apatheism
Nontheism	Humanism · Freethought · Secularism · Criticism of religion · Freedom From Religion Foundation · Brights movement · Flying Spaghetti Monster · Invisible Pink Unicorn · Russell's teapot

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