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Well, just to add a bit of perspective, how aboutRoger Stanyard wrote:I also seriously question the fundamentalists repeated claims that nobody in the West was an atheist before Darwin.
References from http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/staff/posth ... son_ns.htm'Unbelief and Atheism in Italy, 1500-1700' in Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (ed. M. Hunter and D. Wootton), (Oxford, 1992) and 'Christopher Marlowe and Atheism' in Christopher Marlowe and English Renaissance (ed. D. Grantley and P. Roberts), (Aldershot, 1996) pp. 129-147
My understanding is that well before Origin of Species, the hoi polloi didn't give a stuff about church and were endlessly admonished by their "betters".Even a hundred years ago in the UK only about 30% of the population were at church on a Sunday; IIRC Church attendance in London in 1851 was the exception rather than the universal practice.
and p53:...sermons were totally meaningless to the poor and uneducated, many of whom, particularly in the expanding cities, never set foot in a church.
Also p287 (1745)pauper children...became thieves, disturbers of the peace, destroyers of property, gin-swilling and blaspheming beggars. They were without religion and without discipline. Only schooling could provide both.
But even by then...'good scriptural stories' where 'wicked people were carried away by the devil' were as unfashionable as belief in the devil himself
psiloiordinary wrote:I think I am quoting Dawkins correctly;
"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." which does imply atheism before then.
I know this doesn't really help but it is a nice quote.
tubataxidriver wrote:Remember that it is only in more recent times that it has become more socially acceptable to be a declared atheist. Many historic atheists were probably too scared of losing their job / status unless they maintained a lie.
I was once told by an ex-president of the Methodist church in
Ireland, that most people are probably agnistics....even within the church !
psiloiordinary wrote:atheist." which does imply atheism before then.I think I am quoting Dawkins correctly;
"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilledI know this doesn't really help but it is a nice quote.
Can I remind people of Epicurus. Also anyone who saw Jonathon
Miller's excellent "A Brief History of Disbelief" will know that
ateism has a long history.
I just don't know about that.
PMJH
tubataxidriver wrote:Remember that it is only in more recent times that it has become more socially acceptable to be a declared atheist. Many historic atheists were probably too scared of losing their job / status unless they maintained a lie.
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