5 atheist authors who changed history

Writers are often rebels and iconoclasts. Many of the world’s most famous authors have been critical thinkers unafraid to question staple beliefs. Religion is frequently one of those beliefs. In their works, these writers chipped away at the edifice of religion to such an extent that their books changed cultural and political history.

1. Karl Marx

Marx’s most quoted phrase, ‘Religion is an opiate for the masses’, comes from an introduction to a work that was never completed. The text is titled A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.

Germany’s most famous economist remains one of the most influential political thinkers of modern times. He was not a fan of the church. This revolutionary socialist described religion as ‘the sigh of the oppressed people.’

2. Arthur C. Clarke

Clarke was a fiction writer whose works sparked developments in twentieth century science. These included the geostationary satellite. When Clarke was not inventing in his novels, he inspired a new generation of future geeks.

He described himself as a logical positivist and an atheist. The International Academy of Humanism honoured him for his views. He left instructions that his funeral must be religion-free. In 2004 he told Popular Science that religion was the most malevolent and persistent of all mind viruses. He believed we should get rid of it as quickly as possible.

3. Bertrand Russell

Russell was a mathematician, philosopher and social critic. He was a key player in founding analytic philosophy. Aside from his work in Principia Mathematica, he was a significant anti-war campaigner. He went to prison during WWI for his pacifist beliefs.

He was an anti-imperialist who protested the American intervention in the Vietnam war. He opposed nuclear weaponry. In 1950 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature for his humanitarian ideals. These ideals included a disavowal of religious belief. He stated that religion fostered fear and dependency. He believed it was responsible for much war and oppression. His main tenet was that beliefs must be grounded in rationality. He argued that one should base arguments on grounds accepted in science and regard nothing as certain.

4. Primo Levi

Levi’s books detail the horrors of Auschwitz. If This Is A Man is his most notable work. An Italian Jewish chemist and member of the resistance, he was captured by fascists in 1943. He was held in the camp for eleven months. Levi’s work broadcast the truth about the Nazi death camps to the world.

Levi was a Jewish intellectual but not religiously observant. In The Drowned And The Saved, he noted that he entered the camp as a nonbeliever and was liberated as one. Christopher Hitchens later used this quote when discussing New Atheism.