Antireligion

Antireligion is opposition to religion.

Antireligion is distinct from atheism, although many antireligionists are also atheists. It can be limited to hostility toward organised mainstream religion, or can be extended to include any form of belief in the supernatural or the divine. Antireligion is also distinct from antitheism, which is opposition to belief in deities rather than opposition to religion itself.

Notable antireligious people

* Georges Bataille, Nietzsche-influenced surrealist, journalist and philosopher who held that modern Western civilization was characterized by the myth of "the absence of myth".
* William Blake, poet and painter. Although he remained very spiritual, he viewed organised religion as oppressive.
* Brandon Boyd, Incubus frontman, who although antireligious [ [http://incubus-online-view.com/iframe/meanings.php Brandon on his song meanings] "Favorite things is my personal beliefs about religion and how it oppresses the things I enjoy the most. Unfortunately, the simplest things, such as thinking for myself, creating my own reality and being whatever the hell I want to be each day of my life, are a sin. To be a good Christian basically means to give up the reigns of your life and let some unseen force do it for you."] remains "spiritual" [ [http://www.dcsi.net/~bluesky/incub82.htm Interview with Brandon Boyd of Incubus] "The energy I have experienced has definitely been feminine at its core. At the same time though, I've come to the conclusion that by putting a type of sex on it, one way or the other, you limit the energy. At this point, it, stressing the word "it," is far beyond my capability."] .
* Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist and evolutionary biologist. He wrote "The God Delusion" criticizing belief in god(s) in 2006. [ "Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!" The Guardian, 2001-10-11 " [http://books.guardian.co.uk/writersreflections/story/0,1367,567546,00.html Has the world changed?] ." "The Guardian". Accessed 2006-01-29.]
* John Dewey, an atheistic American pragmatic philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, believed neither religion nor metaphysics could provide legitimate moral or social values, though scientific empiricism could. ["Dewey felt that science alone contributed to 'human good,'which he defined exclusively in naturalistic terms. He rejected religionand metaphysics as valid supports for moral and social values,and felt that success of the scientific method presupposedthe destruction of old knowledge before the new could be created.... (Dewey, 1929, pp. 95, 145) "William Adrian, [http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15363750590925929 TRUTH, FREEDOM AND (DIS)ORDER IN THEAMERICAN UNIVERSITY] , "Christian Higher Education', 4:2, 145-154]
* Harlan Ellison, science fiction writer, called religion "the last vestige of barbarism."
* Catherine Fahringer, campaigner in Texas for a strict 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 a self-described antitheist.
* Sam Harris, author and scientist, who argues that religious moderation provides cover for dangerous fundamentalism ["We desperately need a public discourse that encourages critical thinking and intellectual honesty. Nothing stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith.", S. Harris, "Letter to a Christian Nation", 2006.] .
* Christopher Hitchens, outspoken and uncompromising antitheist, journalist and literary critic, author of the book "".
* Alistair Horne, British historian, believes peace follows when prosperity reduces religious influence. [""Now, I'm reminded of one of my heroes, Talleyrand,... he said, 'Wherever there's trouble, look for a priest.' He was a defrocked priest so he knew what he was talking about. Honestly, if you look at it, in Northern Ireland, trouble was caused largely by priests on one side or the other. And what's happened in Northern Ireland? The solution has nothing to do with religion. We got the priests out of there, thanks to the EU. The best thing it ever did was make Ireland prosperous. And prosperity made up for religion. This is the only hope for the Middle East, to somehow neutralize the mullahs by creating a small economic miracle. To persuade young Muslims that there's a better life than blowing themselves up by running casinos and whorehouses and hotels and what have you." quoted by Gary Kamiya in [http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/05/08/alistair_horne/index.html Bush's favorite historian] , Salon, 8 May 2007.]
* Enver Hoxha, former head-of-state of Albania, the only state to ever officially ban religion. [Established the first instance of official state atheism where possession of religious objects such as a Qur'an or a Bible led to prison sentences.] .
* David Hume, the Scottish agnostic philosopher, known for his skepticism, who wrote that human reason is wholly inadequate to make any assumptions about the divine, whether through a priori reasoning or observation of nature [D. Hume, "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion", 1779.] .
* 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 ["Rather than theology's organizing academic disciplines, as had beenthe case in the Middle Ages, metaphysics was more fitting for themodern university, Hutchins suggested, because it ordered and exploredimportant problems, dicsclosed theoretical principles, and promotedthe pusuit of virtue wihout demanding religious allegiance." p. 68: Mary Ann Dzuback (1990); [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0195-6744%28199011%2999%3A1%3C57%3AHAATUO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8 Hutchins, Adler, and the University of Chicago: A Critical Juncture] ; "American Journal of Education", Vol. 99, No. 1. (Nov., 1990), pp. 57-76.] .
* Penn Jillette, illusionist, comic, actor, former-radiohost
* Elton John, British musician and gay activist, who claims he "would ban organized religion (except for the Roman Catholic Church and Metropolitan Community Church)" because it "promotes hatred and spite against gays" and "doesn't work." [Said he "would ban organized religion (except for the Roman Catholic Church and Metropolitan Community Church" because it "promotes the hatred and spite against gays" and "doesn't work."] .
*Kerry King - Guitarist of American thrash metal band Slayer. Much of King's lyrics are satanic and anti-religious.
* 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" ["Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about the religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class."cite web
url=http://www.psylib.ukrweb.net/books/maenl01/txt17
last = Lenin
first = V. I.
title = About the attitude of the working party toward the religion.
accessdate=2006-09-09
work = Collected works, v. 17, p.41] .
* 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, political philosopher 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 privileged position.
* H.L. Mencken, American journalist and satirist who famously ridiculed the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial.
* Harvey Milk, gay rights activist and Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He believed that religion was dangerous [ [http://www.savecalifornia.com/getpluggedin/news_details.php?newsid=9914 California Legislature Approves Gay Day in Public Schools] ] and said it was a perversion. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=VkBKzCyqY5QC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=%22%E2%80%9CMore+people+have+been+slaughtered+in+the+name+of+religion+than+for+any+other+single+reason.+That,+my+friends,+that+is+true+perversion.%E2%80%9D%22&source=web&ots=yuWhAmM750&sig=fvZk4-K42M_0_jgs8IK4Ce8tgt8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result What's the Matter with California?] ]
* PZ Myers, American biology professor and author of the blog Pharyngula.
* Friedrich Nietzsche - "Der Antichrist", general anti-Christian statements in many other works. Nietzsche believed Christianity, and specifically Christian morality, to be the product of a transvaluation of values amongst the Jewish lower classes who bucked at Roman rule, and ascribed its other-worldly nature as the product of ressentiment, or the desire to devalue the things of this world out of spite. Famous for popularizing the phrase, "God is dead."
* Madalyn Murray O'Hair, founder of American Atheists, plaintiff of "Murray v. Curlett", and self proclamed sexual liberitarian. Allegedly once said that she wanted to be buried in an anonymous grave because she "didn't want any christers comin' around and prayin' over [her] dead body".
* Michel Onfray, French anarchist philosopher
* Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist [" [T] he Bible, contrary to what a majority of Americans apparently believe, is far from a source of higher moral values. Religions have given us stonings, witch-burnings, crusades, inquisitions, jihads, fatwas, suicide bombers, gay-bashers, abortion-clinic gunmen, and mothers who drown their sons so they can happily be united in heaven." [http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2004_10_29_religion.htm The Evolutionary Psychology of Religion] , presentation by Steven Pinker to the annual meeting of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Madison, Wisconsin, October 29, 2004, on receipt of “The Emperor’s New Clothes Award.”] .
* Ayn Rand, novelist and philosopher, founder of the objectivist school of metaphysics, famous for writing "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Virtue of Selfishness".
* Bertrand Russell, British logician, analytic philosopher and atheist ["I think all the great religions of the world - Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Communism - both untrue and harmful. It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they disagree, not more than one of them can be true. ... I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue." Bertrand Russell, 1957, from "My Religious Reminiscences" reprinted in "The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell" [http://russell.cool.ne.jp/beginner/DBR-K1E.HTM] ]
*Victor Stenger, astrophysicist and author of "", who claims that the existence of a supreme Being has been disproven by the scientific establishment.
*Max Stirner, anarcho-egoist and proto-existentialist who penned "The Ego And Its Own".
*Wiley Miller, author of the award-winning cartoon "Non Sequitur", who has portrayed religion as either in the way of progress, idiotic, or hypocritical in just about every strip that mentions religion.

Antireligious organizations

* The Rational Response Squad, a group of American antitheists who lobby for atheism. They are most famous for their controversial "Blasphemy Challenge" on YouTube.
* The Society of the Godless, a mass volunteer antireligious organization of Soviet workers and others in 1925-1947.

ee also

*Anti-Christian
*Anti-Judaism
*Anti-Catholicism
*Anti-Christian sentiment
*Anti-clericalism
*Anti-Mormonism
*Anti-Muslim
*Anti-Protestantism
*Antitheism
*Civil rights
*Conflict thesis
*Conversational intolerance
*Discrimination against atheists
*Faith and rationality
*Freethought
*Objectivism (Ayn Rand)
*Persecution of Christians
*Relationship between religion and science
*Religious persecution
*Religious segregation
*Religious intolerance

References