CBD Gummies | Best CBD Gummies in 2022 | Hemp Bombs

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Gummies With CBD

At Hemp Bombs, we bring a collection of CBD products to the consumer that they can rely on so they don't have to shop on questionable websites and get low-quality products. Our gummies with CBD are created through a highly detailed process in which we follow our CBD from the seed to the end product. CBD Oil Gummies are highly talked about because they make getting your daily serving of CBD tasty and easy.

Our team of experts works hard to make sure every ingredient listed on our label is high-quality and precisely what is in the product. Our CBD Infused Gummies contain premium CBD from Hemp that is domestically grown. We maintain the utmost interest in supporting local farming operations that help keep us in touch with superior-level Hemp. These farmers yield a Hemp plant perfect for extracting CBD that we can then infuse into our gummies and other products.

CBD has been studied alongside other cannabis constituents for a lot longer than most people know. Some of the first formal studies were conducted and documented about cannabinoids, including CBD, in the 1940s. The use of cannabis as a medicinal plant dates back to ancient times, but the illegalization of the plant in the 20th century brought a lot of potential studies to a halt because the government no longer funded a lot of research for what was marked as a scheduled narcotic.

As more and more people start to become educated on Cannabidiol, new developments in scientific research have shown CBD as a potentially beneficial component of the cannabis plant. Over the last several years, there have been numerous studies carried out by esteemed educational research institutions and professional medical organizations, and there are many more in the works.

TheUS National Library of MedicineNational Institutes of Health has published numerous studies, including areportthat showed CBD may be beneficial in reducing irritation. Animal studies have shown that CBD helps with anxiety, and there have been a fewstudieson humans to show similar responses with a CBD routine.

CBD has also been reported to have energy-boosting capabilities for some people. Research hasstatedthat taking CBD before heading off to bed helps people feel more relaxed which has allowed them to attain a quality night of sleep. Click here to learn more about CBD Gummies effects.

Here are some of the CBD Gummies benefits our customers say they receive:

Positive Feeling - Hemp Bombs traditional CBD Gummies contain 15mg of CBD to put you in the perfect state of relaxation. They put a smile on your face as you will find a much calmer and peaceful sense of mind.

Stress Relief - Our CBD Gummies can be a great way to find relief from day-to-day stress, whether it's caused by personal or professional reasons. Find an enhanced state of calm relaxation with our premium CBD.

Better Sleep- You may also find that you will get a better, more quality night's sleep. If you find yourself up at night, our CBD Gummies for Sleep may be the answer to helping you unwind and catch up on those lost hours of rest. Our sleep gummies contain CBD and 5mg of melatonin (natural sleep aid) to encourage more restful sleep.

Calmness - You will be amazed at the sense of calm that will take over your body after you eat our Botanical Blend CBD Gummies. A relaxing blend of premium CBD and natural botanicals promotes a state of serenity that may combat feelings of stress.

The Endocannabinoid System is a naturally occurring structurewithinyour body and contains multiple types of cannabinoid receptors. These cannabinoid receptors respond to CBD that enters your body and helps support a variety of bodily functions. For example, the endocannabinoid system supports proper hormone levels in the body, such as stress hormones like cortisol. When you take CBD Oil Gummies regularly, you help support your Endocannabinoid System to carry out necessary bodily functions properly.

Choosing the best CBD Gummies as a first-time customer is extremely important. As a newcomer to CBD, it is best if you read over the reviews that we gladly share on our product pages from other customers who have already tried the products. Also, make sure that companies clearly state exactly what is in their products and how they source their Hemp. Once you have looked at the reviews, fact-checked companies' trustworthiness, and found what you like, consider the potency level that will be right for you. For more information, check out our Guide to Buying CBD Gummies.

Are CBD Gummies legal? Yes - it is legal to buy and possess CBD products in all 50 states as long as that product does contains less than 0.3% THC. Because THC is the cannabinoid that produces the high feeling, it is still restricted on a federal level and illegal in states that do not have legal marijuana laws. Our gummies are created with premium CBD and are perfectly legal to buy. Hemp Bombs also constantly stays up to date with new regulations and guidelines regarding CBD (for instance, not selling gummies shaped like CBD Gummy Bears that might appeal to children).

Since there is less than 0.3% THC in Hemp Bombs CBD Oil Gummies, they will not cause any unwarranted psychoactive CBD Gummies side effects. They are also federally legal, so you should have no concerns about our CBD Cannabidiol Gummies that use CBD derived from Industrial Hemp.

Hemp Bombs takes pride in formulating the most reliable, enjoyable, and effective CBD products on the market. When you order from us, you will get Gummies that are flavorful, easy to consume, reliably sourced from superior-quality hemp, and have been thoroughly tested for potency levels. We value customer feedback and are always welcome to your honest reviews of our CBD Oil Gummies to help other consumers like you find what they need.

One of the biggest reasons to order from us is we aim for customer satisfaction with every order. There are so many places out there selling CBD products that it is tough to decipher the best from the rest. We back our products with a promise of quality, a keen interest in making our customer's lives more fulfilling, and third-party lab testing for accuracy. If you have questions about our CBD Oil Gummies or any other product we offer, reach out to us for assistance.

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CBD Gummies | Best CBD Gummies in 2022 | Hemp Bombs

Clinicians’ Guide to Cannabidiol and Hemp Oils – PubMed

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Cannabidiol (CBD) oils are low tetrahydrocannabinol products derived from Cannabis sativa that have become very popular over the past few years. Patients report relief for a variety of conditions, particularly pain, without the intoxicating adverse effects of medical marijuana. In June 2018, the first CBD-based drug, Epidiolex, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treatment of rare, severe epilepsy, further putting the spotlight on CBD and hemp oils. There is a growing body of preclinical and clinical evidence to support use of CBD oils for many conditions, suggesting its potential role as another option for treating challenging chronic pain or opioid addiction. Care must be taken when directing patients toward CBD products because there is little regulation, and studies have found inaccurate labeling of CBD and tetrahydrocannabinol quantities. This article provides an overview of the scientific work on cannabinoids, CBD, and hemp oil and the distinction between marijuana, hemp, and the different components of CBD and hemp oil products. We summarize the current legal status of CBD and hemp oils in the United States and provide a guide to identifying higher-quality products so that clinicians can advise their patients on the safest and most evidence-based formulations. This review is based on a PubMed search using the terms CBD, cannabidiol, hemp oil, and medical marijuana. Articles were screened for relevance, and those with the most up-to-date information were selected for inclusion.

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Clinicians' Guide to Cannabidiol and Hemp Oils - PubMed

Donald Trump is Trailing Another Republican Candidate By More Than 20% …

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Its been almost a month since Donald Trump announced his third run for president. How is it going so far? Its not looking too good. Besides dealing with a lack of Republican Party support (and those crushing midterm losses for his endorsed candidates), new poll numbers show that a large part of his voter base has moved on.

The name at the top of the list should come as no surprise to anyone who follows the national political scenes its Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll. With less than two years until the 2024 presidential vote, 61% of the GOP are already saying that they want someone other than Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee although he still has 31% of the voters supporting him. When the men are stacked against each other, DeSantis comes ahead in a 56% to 33% fight.

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David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, explained to USA Today what is going on with these numbers in a very clear way: Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump. This poll should sound the alarm for the former president, who is already struggling to find support among his GOP colleagues and is reportedly keeping a very petty list of those who have his back and those who arent loyal to him.

Even Michael Cohen, Donald Trumps former lawyer, thinks his run for president is all smoke and mirrors to keep the money train running. His legal issues cant be discounted either since the Jan. 6 investigation is still lurking in the background while the New York attorney general civil suit and his Department of Justice classified documents issues continue to plague him. Donald Trump fatigue took a while to settle into the Republican Party, but it looks like it has finally arrived as they turn their attention to DeSantis.

Story continues

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Before you go, click here to see the biggest presidential scandals in US History.

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Donald Trump is Trailing Another Republican Candidate By More Than 20% ...

Michael Cohen says Donald Trump ‘doesn’t care’ that Ivanka’s family is Jewish and he will not denounce Kanye West’s antisemitism – Business Insider…

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Michael Cohen says Donald Trump 'doesn't care' that Ivanka's family is Jewish and he will not denounce Kanye West's antisemitism  Business Insider Africa

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Michael Cohen says Donald Trump 'doesn't care' that Ivanka's family is Jewish and he will not denounce Kanye West's antisemitism - Business Insider...

Tor Browser – Download

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Tor Browser is free and open-source software that guarantees anonymity online and enhances your security and safety while using the internet. Tor helps you anonymize publishing, web surfing, instant messaging and other functions, using the TCP protocol. The sophisticated browser isolates any website you visit so third-party trackers and ads can't follow you, automatically clearing any cookies when you've finished browsing.

Tor's name comes from its original moniker, The Onion Router, and as the name suggests Tor uses several layers of encryption to protect your data. The software program was developed by the Tor Project, which is run by more than 6,000 volunteers around the world.

All web traffic gets relayed through a huge network of open connections worldwide. Tor directs traffic through its vast volunteer overlay-network, which consists of more than 7,000 relays. With each relay of data, another layer of encryption is added so that by the time your data or traffic reaches its destination, it's virtually impossible to track back to its origin.

It is safe to install Tor Browser after all, it was created to let users surf the internet safely and protect online privacy. However, while installing the software itself is safe, Tor can be used for risky activities, such as accessing the deep or dark webs. Care should be taken when accessing this heavily encrypted collection of websites.

Installing Tor is as simple and easy as downloading popular and common browsers, such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, although neither provides as much privacy protection. Tor functions similarly to regular browsers. The main distinction, though, is that Tor takes a few moments to configure itself every time you launch it. When you launch Tor, you don't need to restart your computer or device each time.

Tor Browser is available for Windows, Mac, and Android operating systems. Alternatives to Tor include Epic Privacy Browser, Tor Browser Bundle, PirateBrowser, and DuckDuckGo. Orbot, meanwhile, provides anonymity for Android users.

Tor Browser hides your location and prevents your web traffic from being tracked, making it virtually impossible to trace your activity on the internet. When youre using Tor with proxy servers, keyloggers, ISPs and various kinds of malware aren't able to easily track your activities. It also lets you get around jammers and sensors.

However, Tor Browser is not 100% secure and can suffer the same attacks that other browsers do. Concerned users may wish to switch off Tor's plugins and scripts as these can be used to expose information such as your IP address.

In addition, Tor's system has a few vulnerabilities. Each server in the browser's network is operated by volunteers so you never truly know who is managing the relays your data travels through. Normally this isn't a problem, as each relay is only able to access the location of the previous and following relays all except the exit node.

The exit node removes your data's final layer of encryption. While it cant access your location or IP address, it can in theory spy on your activity if you visit an unsecured HTTP website.

One of Tor's key features is its ability to unblock censored websites. For example, if youre browsing the internet in a country where peer-to-peer websites, news, or social media channels are blocked, Tor can help you bypass security modules so you can continue surfing the internet.

The browser lets you choose from several proxy tunnels based on a geographical world map, which displays exactly where each proxy tunnel is located.

In recent years, Tor has become popular for businesses, allowing secure and confidential exchanges of information. It's a useful tool for journalists and human rights defenders who may be targeted online, as well as victims of domestic violence, high-profile whistleblowers, and activists.

Tor is inevitably linked to the dark web. The dark web, which forms part of the deep web, is a collection of websites that are encrypted and cannot be accessed through ordinary software and conventional search engines. Users instead require special browsers, such as Tor, to access them. Websites on the deep web are recognized by .onion domain extensions.

Since these sites can only be accessed from Tor-enabled web browsers, the dark web has become a place for like-minded people interested in maintaining their privacy to communicate. Their reasons for wanting anonymity vary and the dark web has become associated with hacking, gambling, drug trading, and other activities related to malicious intent.

However, venturing into the world of the dark web is a choice and users can simply use Tor for the sole purpose of securing their privacy. As it's a gateway to potentially malicious content, however, it is a good idea to fully understand the risks of using Tor as your primary or secondary browser.

While you don't need to use Tor with a VPN, using the two technologies together does give you an additional layer of anonymity. This is because VPN encryption stops the Tor entry node (the server where you enter the hidden network) from seeing your IP address. This can give you extra protection if the entry node becomes compromised and an attacker tries to use it to break Tor's anonymity.

Tor is an effective and easy-to-use tool for people worried about online anonymity and privacy. Its clean and uncomplicated interface is straightforward to navigate, allowing you to easily toggle between anonymous and non-anonymous browsing. The tool is light on system resources and doesnt affect computer performance.

While connecting to sites can take some time, slower internet speed is a trade-off for extra security. It's important to remember, however, that Tor gives users access to .onion sites on the dark web and all the material available through it. For this reason, if you are using Tor as your primary browser, you should educate yourself and other users on using Tor safely.

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Tor Browser - Download

Tor Browser now optimized for Apple Silicon – 9to5Mac

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Tor Browser is now optimized for Apple Silicon, thanks to a new update rolling out this week. With the newest release of Tor Bowser 12.0, the Mac version of the Firefox-based browser is now a Universal app, meaning it can run natively on Macs with Apple Silicon or Intel chips using the same binary.

The update was announced in a blog post this week. For those unfamiliar, Tor Browser is based on Firefox and offers more privacy and anonymity with advanced encryption. The app also allows users to access .onion domain names, which are only available via the Onion network. Tor Browser, while somewhat niche, is open source and has become a crucial tool for people looking to experience real private browsing without tracking, surveillance, or censorship.

Tor Browser 12.0 adds a number of different enhancements, including multilocale support on desktop, upgrades to the Android app, and more. For Apple users, however, the most notable change is the addition of native Apple Silicon support, a task that the Tor Project team says was no small task.

In the past, the Tor Browser on Macs with Apple Silicon would run using Rosetta translation. This update, however, turns the app into a Universal Binary so the same version of the app can run natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel machines. A universal binary can run natively on both because it contains executable code for Intel and Apple Silicon architectures.

This was no small task, but were happy to say that Tor Browser 12.0 now supports Apple Silicon natively. Like Mozillas approach for Firefox, weve opted for a Universal Binary too meaning both x86-64 (i.e. Intel compatible) and ARM64 (i.e. Apple Silicon compatible) builds are bundled together with the correct version chosen automatically when run.

Tor Browser can be downloaded from the Tor Project website. Its recommended to download directly from here to ensure you download the correct and legitimate version of the Tor Browser.

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Tor Browser now optimized for Apple Silicon - 9to5Mac

Tor Browser now optimized for Apple Silicon with new universal app – 9to5Mac

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  1. Tor Browser now optimized for Apple Silicon with new universal app  9to5Mac
  2. TOR Browser 12 released with support for Albanian, Ukrainian  The Register
  3. Tor Browser 12.0 brings Apple Silicon support, Android enhancements  BleepingComputer
  4. Tor Browser 12 released, adds native Apple Silicon support and improves Android build's privacy and security  BetaNews
  5. Tor Browser 12.0 is out with native Apple Silicon support  Ghacks
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Tor Browser now optimized for Apple Silicon with new universal app - 9to5Mac

Tor Browser review | TechRadar

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If youre interested in internet privacy and which services gather information about you, Tor has likely come up in your research. Tor (opens in new tab) is free, open source software (opens in new tab) and its browser (opens in new tab) is maintained by volunteers and the Tor Project. It offers private browsing without censorship, surveillance, or tracking.

The team behind Tor feels that (opens in new tab) internet users should have private access to an uncensored web.

Tors main features are its privacy offerings, but there are a lot of settings that you can play around with.

In the General section of the Preferences menu, you can opt to make Tor your default browser and always restore the previous session upon starting it up. There are also options for browsing, homepage, and tab behavior, plus settings for language, fonts and colors, zoom, and how you save downloads. You can check for and auto-install updates, too.

There is no dedicated Tor search engine. Instead, youll choose your favorite one from a list. Then, you can decide if and how the search engine shows suggestions. You can also decide which, if any, search engines show up as alternative options as you search.

In the Tor section of Preferences, you can decide how you want Tor to connect to the internet, including when the network is blocked.

In the Extensions and Themes section of Preferences, You can search for add-ons from the Mozilla library. There are also three basic themes to choose from: Default, dark, and light.

Tor is based on onion routing, which is a way to keep browsing private by routing traffic through multiple servers (opens in new tab) (a decentralized network) and encrypting the data at every step.

In the Privacy and Security section of the Preferences page, you can decide how often you want to prioritize onion sites (opens in new tab). Essentially, these are sites that are less censored and more private than non-onion sites.

Theres also a Cookies and Site Data section in this part of Preferences. You can view and clear your data, specify cookie settings per website, and opt-in to deleting cookies and data whenever you close the browser.

Privacy and Security also includes settings for logins and passwords, browsing history, the address bar, permissions for everything from your camera and location to auto-play and pop-ups, blocking dangerous content, and how often you share your personal certificate when its requested by a server. There are three different security level settings to choose from.

When you download and install Tor, the browser automatically starts, and you have to manually connect to Tor. Theres also an option to auto-connect moving forward.

Once you connect, itll take a second to establish a connection.

Unfortunately, we had a hard time using the Tor browser. With the Google search engine, results were blocked, even though the searches were innocuous (what is onion browsing and best movies on Hulu).

When switching to Yahoo, the results came up in the wrong language, even though the browser was set to English.

Searching with DuckDuckGo returned results in English, but it took several seconds to complete the search. The workaround for slow speed is to click the New Tor Circuit for This Site option in the upper-right menu, but that didnt seem to speed anything up when we tried it.

It seems that speed is a common issue with the Tor browser, an unfortunate side effect of it being volunteer-run. And if youre doing more than searching, like streaming content or making a video call, odds are itll be even more laggy. Moreover, Tor cant provide the utmost protection when it comes to media plugins, and theyre disabled by default.

Tor downloads are available for Android, Linux, Mac, and Windows. There are multiple languages (opens in new tab) to choose from, and you also have the option to download and try the alpha version (opens in new tab).

Since Tors main selling point is that its so safe, its biggest competitors are other browsers that boast top-notch safety.

Mozilla Firefox (opens in new tab) is one of Tors major competitors, as its also a browser thats heralded for its safety features. Those include private browsing, tracking protection, ad blockers, cryptominer blocking, and a password keeper, for starters. Plus, Mozilla is much more user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing, which makes it a compelling alternative to the Tor browser.

Also, while its not a browser, the DuckDuckGo (opens in new tab) search engine is already very safe to use. It doesnt track you or store your personal data, and it also has a mobile version, so you can maintain your safety no matter what device you use to go online.

Unfortunately, Tor proved faulty during our first few searches. And even with all of the benefits it offers, a browser should work out of the box in order to be appealing to users. What good is all that protection if you cant find what youre looking for, or at least find it quickly enough?

Tor isnt the browser to use as your go-to, and its not going to be fast enough if you rely on the internet for work or creative pursuits.

What it is good for, though, is if you want the most privacy possible when conducting research on a particular topic. If safetys a concern, you probably wont mind waiting a few extra seconds or dealing with the trial and error of searching with Tor. And since its free, theres no reason not to download it and have it at the ready for when you need to keep your internet usage as secret as possible.

Tor Browser: Price Comparison

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Tor Browser review | TechRadar

13 GOP Senators Demand An End To Military Covid Jab Mandate

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More than a dozen Republican senators are demanding that the partys Senate leadership move for the upper chamber to consider an amendment that would end the militarys Covid shot mandate for U.S. service members.

In a letter sent to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other members of Senate GOP leadership on Wednesday, 13 Republican senators voiced their opposition to invoking cloture on the National Defense Authorization Act unless the Senate votes on an amendment that would prevent the military from discharging service members for choosing not to get the Covid shot, as well as reinstate those who had already been discharged with full back pay.

The Department of Defense COVID-19 vaccine mandate has ruined the livelihoods of men and women who have honorably served our country, the letter reads. The United States simply cannot afford to discharge our brave men and women in uniform and lose the investments we have made into each and every one of them due to an inept bureaucratic policy. We respectfully request that the Senate vote to remedy a policy that adversely affects our service members and our national security.

Among the Republicans signed onto the letter are Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Braun of Indiana, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Steve Daines of Montana, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

Despite the CDCs acknowledgment in May 2021 that the Covid jabs dont prevent individuals from getting or spreading the respiratory virus, the Biden administration proceeded to mandate the shots for all U.S. service members in August of that same year. According to the Republican senators Wednesday letter, as of April 2022, approximately 3,400 troops have been involuntarily separated from service for refusing the jab.

Some service members, however, have since filed lawsuits against the Defense Department over the agencys overwhelming denial of troops religious exemptions from the shot mandate. Earlier this year, several members of the U.S. Coast Guard filed suit against high-ranking military officials such as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, claiming that the departments denial of their religious exemptions is an infringement of their First Amendment rights.

Chaplains attested to the sincerity of Plaintiffs religious objections to being vaccinated, and Defendants did not contest the sincerity of Plaintiffs religious objections to being vaccinated, the suit reads.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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13 GOP Senators Demand An End To Military Covid Jab Mandate

Alaska Republicans Call On Kentucky GOP To Censure McConnell

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Alaska Republicans are calling on the Kentucky GOP to formally censure Sen. Mitch McConnell for the bluegrass senators interference in the Alaskan Senate contest against the party-endorsed candidate.

On Thursday, the Alaskan Republican Partys District 9 central committee passed a resolution to condemn the Senate minority leaders spending on behalf of Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The incumbent senator running for a fourth full term in the upper chamber is locked in a tight contest against Donald Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka, who is also endorsed by the Alaskan Republican Party.

McConnells super PAC to reclaim the majority, the Senate Leadership Fund, is spending heavily in the race between two Republicans, which the latest polls show is a tied match. According to the Anchorage Daily News, McConnells political operation has poured more than $7 million into the Alaskan contest instead of using that money towards ripe pick-up opportunities in Nevada and Arizona.

We request the Senate Leadership Fund immediately stop the attack ads against Kelly Tshibaka and discontinue all support of Senator Murkowski, District 9 Republicans demanded. Their resolution went on to demand Kentucky GOP leadership censure their senator for meddling in Alaskas party affairs while the minority leader abandons efforts at capturing the majority.

We request the Republican Party of Kentucky leadership act against Senator Mitch McConnell for his inappropriate behavior against Alaska Republicans and Republican endorsed candidate Kelly Tshibaka, the Alaska Republicans wrote.

Alaskas District 9 committee based in Anchorage is the second state party group to admonish the Kentucky lawmakers interference, according to Must Read Alaska columnist Suzanne Downing.

The first was District 6, a Homer-area subdivision of the Alaska GOP, Downing wrote.

In September, McConnells PAC reinjected money into the Alaska Senate contest after initially canceling $1.7 million alongside $8 million stripped from Republican Arizona Senate nominee Blake Masters. McConnell later pulled another $10 million from the Arizona race, leaving the Republican candidate abandoned by the primary super PAC charged with reclaiming the upper chamber.

Both Masters and Tshibaka have pledged not to support McConnell for another term in GOP leadership.

The decision to spend scarce resources on an ally in Alaska instead of a tight race in Arizona to bring down a Democrat incumbent drew criticism from former President Donald Trump on Monday.

Kelly Tshibaka is doing very well in Alaska, probably leading horrendously bad Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican (barely!), Trump wrote.

According to the latest aggregate of surveys from RealClearPolitics, which are often manipulated to fit pre-determined narratives, the Arizona Senate race remains a five-point race.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Alaska Republicans Call On Kentucky GOP To Censure McConnell

House Dems Kill Amendment Protecting Religious Americans

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Democrats in the House of Representatives blocked an amendment that would have protected religious Americans from retaliation based on their opposition to same-sex marriage, in order to jam legislation furthering the LGBT lobbys agenda through Congresss lame-duck session.

House Rules Committee ChairmanRep. James McGovern shot down Republicans last chance of defending religious liberty in the ill-named Respect for Marriage Act on Monday when he refused to even let Rep. Chip Roys amendment solidifying First Amendment protections be brought to the House floor for a vote.

McGoverns reasoning for bypassing procedural debate was rooted in the fact that Roys amendment would give the process of passing the RFMA a shelf life that could last well into the newly-elected Republican House.

Seeing as most of the Republicans in the current House oppose the RFMA on the grounds that it stomps on religious Americans right to act on their convictions about traditional marriage, McGovern and his Democrat allies werent keen on waiting around to see if the legislation would survive the new GOP-led House.

If we were to amend this and it goes back to the Senate, for all intents and purposes, its dead for the year. And many of us believe that we have a court right now that is hell-bent on trying to reverse the rights for the LGBTQ community and we do not trust them to respect marriage equality in this country, McGovern said to the rules committee on Monday. When January comes along, the gentlemans party will be in charge and you can bring one amendment after another to reverse the last 70 years of social progress, if the gentleman prefers. We will oppose you on that.

Theres no evidence of the armageddon that he describes being at the doorstep, Republican Rep. Michael Burgess retorted.

Roy, along with his Republican cosponsors Reps. Byron Donalds and Doug Lamborn, submitted the amendment for review on Thursday in a last-ditch effort to convince conservative legislators to prioritize Americans First Amendment rights. Roys amendment copied the legal protections for religious Americans that Republican Sen. Mike Leetried, but ultimately failed, to addto the Senates version of the legislation two weeks ago.

I think it would be an important amendment just to offer on the floor of the House, Roy replied to McGovern during the committee meeting. You know how it will work. Well get an hour of debate on both sides. The amendment will almost certainly get voted down, but I hope it wouldnt because I believe its important. Id like to have at least the opportunity, in the one hour of debate that I would get in this august body, to be able to make the case for religious liberty with my colleagues.

McGovern, however, refused to listen to Roys concerns. As a result, the unamended RFMA, which expands the Supreme CourtsObergefell v. Hodgesdecision to further open the door for LGBT activists to sue Americans opposed to same-sex marriage, will see a floor vote as soon as next week.

The 47 Republican legislators who voted for a previous version of the bill still have a chance to vote no to the RFMA. Even without GOP support, however, the Democrat voting bloc is expected to send the bill to the White House where President Joe Biden already signaled he plans to sign it into law.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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House Dems Kill Amendment Protecting Religious Americans

Would you have been a Federalist or an Anti-Federalist?

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Over the next few months we will explore through a series of eLessons the debate over ratification of the United States Constitution as discussed in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. We look forward to exploring this important debate with you!

One of the great debates in American history was over the ratification of the Constitution in 1787-1788. Those who supported the Constitution and a stronger national republic were known as Federalists. Those who opposed the ratification of the Constitution in favor of small localized government were known as Anti-Federalists. Both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists were concerned with the preservation of liberty, however, they disagreed over whether or not a strong national government would preserve or eventually destroy the liberty of the American people. Today, it is easy to accept that the prevailing side was right and claim that, had you been alive, you would have certainly supported ratifying the Constitution. However, in order to develop a deeper understanding of the ideological foundations upon which our government is built, it is important to analyze both the Federalist and Ant-Federalist arguments.

The Anti-Federalists were not as organized as the Federalists. They did not share one unified position on the proper form of government. However, they did unite in their objection to the Constitution as it was proposed for ratification in 1787. The Anti-Federalists argued against the expansion of national power. They favored small localized governments with limited national authority as was exercised under the Articles of Confederation. They generally believed a republican government was only possible on the state level and would not work on the national level. Therefore, only a confederacy of the individual states could protect the nations liberty and freedom. Another, and perhaps their most well-known concern, was over the lack of a bill of rights. Most Anti-Federalists feared that without a bill of rights, the Constitution would not be able to sufficiently protect the rights of individuals and the states. Perhaps the strongest voice for this concern was that of George Mason. He believed that state bills of right would be trumped by the new constitution, and not stand as adequate protections for citizens rights. It was this concern that ultimately led to the passing of the bill of rights as a condition for ratification in New York, Virginia, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.

The Federalists, primarily led by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, believed that establishing a large national government was not only possible, but necessary to create a more perfect union by improving the relationship among the states. Until this point, the common belief was that a republic could only function efficiently it was small and localized. The Federalists challenged this belief and claimed that a strong national republic would better preserve the individual liberties of the people. By extending the sphere of the republic, individual and minority rights would be better protected from infringement by a majority. The federalists also wanted to preserve the sovereignty and structure of the states. To do so, they advocated for a federal government with specific, delegated powers. Anything not delegated to the federal government would be reserved to the people and the states. Ultimately, their goal was to preserve the principle of government by consent. By building a government upon a foundation of popular sovereignty, without sacrificing the sovereignty of the states, legitimacy of the new government could be secured.

Today, it appears that the government established by the Constitution is an improvement from that which was established by the Articles of Confederation. At the time however, the Constitution was merely an experiment. Forget what you now know about the success Constitution. Considering its unprecedented nature and the fear that a strong national government would be a threat to personal liberty, would you have been a Federalist or an Anti-Federalist?

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Would you have been a Federalist or an Anti-Federalist?

The Zeitgeist Movement – Wikipedia

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Movement that emerged from the Zeitgeist movie series

The Zeitgeist Movement is an activist movement established in the United States in 2008 by Peter Joseph. The group is critical of market capitalism, describing it as structurally corrupt and wasteful of resources. The group dismisses historic religious concepts as misleading, and embraces sustainable ecology and scientific administration of society.[1][2][3][4] VC Reporter's Shane Cohn summarized the movement's charter as: "Our greatest social problems are the direct results of our economic system".[5]

The Zeitgeist Movement was formed in 2008 by Joseph shortly after the late 2008 release of Zeitgeist: Addendum, the second film in the Zeitgeist film series.[6][7]

Zeitgeist was first linked to the Venus Project. In April 2011, partnership between the two groups ended in an apparent power struggle, with Joseph commenting, "Without [the Zeitgeist Movement], [the Venus Project] doesnt exist it has nothing but ideas and has no viable method to bring it to light."[6]

The first Zeitgeist documentary which predates the organization Zeitgeist movement, borrowed from the works of Eustace Mullins, Lyndon LaRouche, and radio host Alex Jones.[8] Much of its footage was taken directly from Alex Jones documentaries.[8]

The group holds an annual event, Z-Day (or Zeitgeist Day), an "educational forum" held in March. The New York Times reported on the second Z-Day held at Manhattan Community College in New York in 2009 which included lectures by Peter Joseph and Jacque Fresco.[9] This event sold out with 900 people paying $10 each to attend. The event's organizers said that 450 connected events in 70 countries around the globe also took place.[9]

An article in the Journal of Contemporary Religion describes the movement as an example of a "conspirituality", a synthesis of New Age spirituality and conspiracy theory.[10]

Michelle Goldberg of Tablet Magazine called the movement "the world's first Internet-based apocalyptic cult, with members who parrot the party line with cheerful, rote fidelity."[8] In her opinion, the movement is "devoted to a kind of sci-fi planetary communism", and the 2007 documentary that "sparked" the movement was "steeped in far-right, isolationist, and covertly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories."[8]

Alan Feuer of The New York Times said the movement was like "a utopian presentation of a money-free and computer-driven vision of the future, a wholesale reimagination of civilization, as if Karl Marx and Carl Sagan had hired John Lennon from his "Imagine" days to do no less than redesign the underlying structures of planetary life."[9]

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Zeitgeist (film series) – Wikipedia

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American documentary film series

Zeitgeist is a series of three documentary films released between 2007 and 2011 that present a number of conspiracy theories, as well as proposals for broad social and economic changes. The films, Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007), Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008) and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011) are all directed by Peter Joseph.

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Zeitgeist: The Movie is a 2007 film by Peter Joseph presenting a number of conspiracy theories.[1] The film assembles archival footage, animations, and narration.[2] Released online on June 18, 2007, it soon received tens of millions of views on Google Video, YouTube, and Vimeo.[3] According to Peter Joseph, the original Zeitgeist was not presented in a film format, but was a "performance piece consisting of a vaudevillian, multimedia style event using recorded music, live instruments, and video".[3]

The film's introduction features animations, footage of war, explosions, and the September 11 attacks and audio quotes from Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche and George Carlin.

Part I claims that the Christian religion is mainly derived from other religions, astronomical assertions, astrological myths, and other traditions. In furtherance of the Jesus myth hypothesis, this part disputes the historicity of Jesus, who, it claims, is a literary and astrological hybrid, nurtured by political forces and opportunists. Part I was influenced by the work of Acharya S.[4]

Part II alleges that the September 11 attacks were either orchestrated or allowed to happen by elements within the United States government in order to generate mass fear, justify the War on Terror, provide a pretext for the curtailment of civil liberties, and produce economic gain. It asserts that the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the attacks, that the military deliberately allowed the planes to reach their targets, and that World Trade Center buildings 1, 2, and 7 underwent a controlled demolition.

Part III states that the Federal Reserve System is controlled by a small cabal of international bankers who conspire to create global calamities to enrich themselves.[2] Three wars involving the United States during the twentieth century are highlighted as part of this alleged agenda, started by specifically engineered events, including the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The film asserts that such wars serve to sustain conflict in general and force the U.S. government to borrow money, thereby increasing the profits of the international bankers. The film also claims that the Federal Income Tax is illegal.

Part III also alleges a secret agreement to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into a North American Union as a step toward the creation of a single world government. The film speculates that under such a government, every human could be implanted with an RFID chip to monitor individual activity and suppress dissent.

The first film received almost universal condemnation from the media, though it also "attracted massive interest" from the public.[3][5]

The newspaper The Arizona Republic described Zeitgeist: The Movie as "a bramble of conspiracy theories involving Sept. 11, the international monetary system, and Christianity" saying also that the movie trailer states that "there are people guiding your life and you don't even know it".[6]

A review in The Irish Times wrote that "these are surreal perversions of genuine issues and debates, and they tarnish all criticism of faith, the Bush administration, and globalizationthere are more than enough factual injustices in this world to be going around without having to invent fictional ones".[5]

Ivor Tossell in The Globe and Mail cited it as an example of how modern conspiracy theories are promulgated, though he praised its effectiveness:

The film is an interesting object lesson on how conspiracy theories get to be so popular ... It's a driven, if uneven, piece of propaganda, a marvel of tight editing and fuzzy thinking. Its on-camera sources are mostly conspiracy theorists, co-mingled with selective eyewitness accounts, drawn from archival footage and often taken out of context. It derides the media as a pawn of the International Bankers, but produces media reports for credibility when convenient. The film ignores expert opinion, except the handful of experts who agree with it. And yet, it's compelling. It shamelessly ploughs forward, connecting dots with an earnest certainty that makes you want to give it an A for effort.[2]

Filipe Feio, reflecting upon the film's Internet popularity in Dirio de Notcias, stated that "[f]iction or not, Zeitgeist: The Movie threatens to become the champion of conspiracy theories of today".[7]

Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society, mentioned Zeitgeist in an article in Scientific American on skepticism in the age of mass media and the postmodern belief in the relativism of truth. He argues that this belief, coupled with a "clicker culture of mass media," results in a multitude of various truth claims packaged in "infotainment units", in the form of films such as Zeitgeist and Loose Change.[8]

Jane Chapman, a film producer and reader in media studies at the University of Lincoln, called Zeitgeist "a fast-paced assemblage of agitprop," an example of "unethical film-making".[9] Chapman accused Peter Joseph of "implicit deception" through the use of standard film-making propaganda techniques. While parts of the film are, she says, "comically" self-defeating, the nature of "twisted evidence" and use of Madrid bomb footage to imply it is of the London bombings amount to "ethical abuse in sourcing". She finishes her analysis with the comment: "Thus, legitimate questions about what happened on 9/11, and about corruption in religious and financial organizations, are all undermined by the film's determined effort to maximize an emotional response at the expense of reasoned argument."

Alex Jones, American radio host, conspiracy theorist and executive producer of Loose Change, stated that film segments of Zeitgeist are taken directly from his documentary Terrorstorm, and that he supports "90 percent" of the film.[10]

Skeptic magazine's Tim Callahan, criticizing the parts of the film on the origins of Christianity, wrote that "some of what it asserts is true. Unfortunately, this material is liberallyand sloppilymixed with material that is only partially true and much that is plainly and simply bogus."[11]

Chris Forbes, Senior lecturer in Ancient History of Macquarie University and member of the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, severely criticized Part I of the film, stating that it has no basis in serious scholarship or ancient sources, and that it relies on amateur sources that recycle frivolous ideas from one another, commenting that "[i]t is extraordinary how many claims it makes which are simply not true".[12] Similar conclusions were reached by Dr. Mark Foreman of Liberty University.[13]

In Tablet magazine, journalist Michelle Goldberg criticized Zeitgeist: The Movie as being "steeped in far-right, isolationist, and covertly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories," writing that the film borrowed from the work of Eustace Mullins, Lyndon LaRouche, and radio host Alex Jones, and that it portrays a cabal of international bankers purportedly ruling the world.[3] In an interview with TheMarker, Joseph said that while the film does mention bankers it does not seek to blame any individual or group of individuals. He argued they are merely a product of a socioeconomic system in need of change.[14]

Chip Berlet wrote that the 9/11 conspiracy theories "are bait used to attract viewers from the 9/11 Truth movement and others who embrace conspiracist thinking to the idiosyncratic antireligion views of the videographer and the world of right-wing antisemitic theories of a global banking conspiracy".[15]

Jay Kinney questioned the accuracy of its claims and the quality of its arguments, describing it as agitprop and propaganda.[16] At times, according to Kinney, "Zeitgeist engages in willful confusion by showing TV screen shots of network or cable news with voice-overs from unidentified people not associated with the news programs. If one weren't paying close attention, the effect would be to confer the status and authority of TV news upon the words being spoken. Even when quotes or sound bites are attributed to a source, there's no way to tell if they are quoted correctly or in context."[16]

In June 2013, Peter Joseph directed the music video for "God Is Dead?" by Black Sabbath, using extensive imagery from Zeitgeist: The Movie and its sequels.[17]

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Zeitgeist: Addendum is a 2008 film produced and directed by Peter Joseph, and is a sequel to the 2007 film, Zeitgeist: The Movie. It premiered at the 5th Annual Artivist Film Festival in Los Angeles, California on October 2, 2008.[citation needed]

The film begins and ends with excerpts from a speech by Jiddu Krishnamurti. The remainder of the film is narrated by Peter Joseph and divided into four parts, which are prefaced by on-screen quotations from Krishnamurti, John Adams, Bernard Lietaer, and Thomas Paine, respectively.

Part I covers the process of fractional-reserve banking as illustrated in Modern Money Mechanics, by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The film suggests that society is manipulated into economic slavery through debt-based monetary policies by requiring individuals to submit for employment in order to pay off their debt.

Part II includes an interview with John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, who says he was involved in the subjugation of Latin American economies by multinational corporations and the United States government, including involvement in the overthrow of Latin American heads of state. Perkins sees the US as a corporatocracy in which maximization of profits is the first priority.

Part III introduces futurist Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project and asserts a need to move away from current socioeconomic paradigms. Fresco states that capitalism perpetuates the conditions it claims to address, as problems are only solved if there is money to be made. The film looks at Fresco's proposal of a resource-based economy, which puts environmental friendliness, sustainability and abundance as fundamental societal goals. He goes on to discuss technology which he sees as the primary driver of human advancement, and he describes politics as being unable to solve any problems.

Part IV suggests that the primary reason for what the film sees as society's social values ("warfare, corruption, oppressive laws, social stratification, irrelevant superstitions, environmental destruction, and a despotic, socially indifferent, profit oriented ruling class") is a collective ignorance of "the emergent and symbiotic aspects of natural law". The film advocates the following actions for achieving social change: boycotting of the most powerful banks in the Federal Reserve System, the major news networks, the military, energy corporations, all political systems; and joining, and supporting The Zeitgeist Movement.

Zeitgeist: Addendum won the 2008 Artivist Film Festival's award for best feature ("Artivist Spirit" category).[18]

Originally, the film was uploaded-released on Google Video. The current video posting on YouTube surpassed 5 million views by late 2013.[19]

Alan Feuer of The New York Times noted that while the first film was famous for alleging that the attacks of September 11 were an inside job, the second, "was all but empty of such conspiratorial notions, directing its rhetoric and high production values toward posing a replacement for the evils of the banking system and a perilous economy of scarcity and debt".[20]

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward is the third installment in Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist film series. The film premiered at the JACC Theater in Los Angeles on January 15, 2011, at the Artivist Film Festival,[21] was released in theaters and online. As of November 2014, the film had over 23 million views on YouTube. The film is arranged in four parts, each containing interviews, narration and animated sequences.[22]

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The film begins with an animated sequence narrated by Jacque Fresco. He describes his adolescent life and his discontinuation of public education at the age of 14 and describes his early life influences.

Part I: Human Nature

Human behavior and the nature vs. nurture debate is discussed, which Robert Sapolsky refers to as a "false dichotomy." Disease, criminal activity, and addictions are also discussed. The overall conclusion of Part I is that social environment and cultural conditioning play a large part in shaping human behavior.

Part II: Social Pathology

John Locke and Adam Smith are discussed in regard to modern economics. The film critically questions the economic need for private property, money, and the inherent inequality between agents in the system. Also seen critically is the need for cyclical consumption in order to maintain market share, resulting in wasted resources and planned obsolescence. According to the movie, the current monetary system will result in default or hyperinflation at some future time.

Part III: Project Earth

As with Zeitgeist: Addendum, the film presents a "resource-based economy" as advocated by Jacque Fresco discussing how human civilization could start from a new beginning in relation to resource types, locations, quantities, to satisfy human demands; track the consumption and depletion of resources to regulate human demands and maintain the condition of the environment.

Part IV: Rise

The current worldwide situation is described as disastrous. A case is presented that pollution, deforestation, climate change, overpopulation, and warfare are all created and perpetuated by the socioeconomic system. Various poverty statistics are shown that suggest a progressive worsening of world culture.

The final scene of the film shows a partial view of earth from space, followed by a sequence of superimposed statements; "This is your world", "This is our world", and "The revolution is now".

List of Interviewees

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward received "Best Political Documentary" in 2011 from the Action on Film International Film Festival.[23]

A The Socialist Standard review said the film's use of animation and humour gave it a "well rounded feel", though it criticized the "shaky economic analysis" in the second part of the film, saying "Karl Marx had already undertaken a more scientific analysis", adding, "the analysis is at least on the right track". Regarding transition to the new system proposed in the film, the reviewer noted "there is no mention of how to get from here to there".[24]

In an article, in Tablet magazine, Michelle Goldberg described the film as "silly enough that at times [she] suspected it was [a] sly satire about new-age techno-utopianism instead of an example of it".[3] She describes the 3 Zeitgeist movies as "a series of 3 apocalyptic cult documentaries.[3]

Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007) started the chain of events leading to the formation of the Zeitgeist movement.[3] The group advocates transition from the global money-based economic system to a post-scarcity economy or resource-based economy. VC Reporter's Shane Cohn summarized the movement's charter as: "Our greatest social problems are the direct results of our economic system".[25] Joseph created a political movement that, according to The Daily Telegraph, dismisses historic religious concepts as misleading and embraces a version of sustainable ecological concepts and scientific administration of society.[26] The group describes the current socioeconomic system as structurally corrupt and inefficient in the use of resources.[20][27] Michelle Goldberg described the Zeitgeist movement as "the first Internet-based apocalyptic cult".[3]

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Atheism – Wikipedia

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Absence of belief in the existence of deities; the opposite of theism

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2][3][4] Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist.[5][6] In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[1][2][7][8] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[9][10] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[10][11][12]

The first individuals to identify themselves as atheists lived in the 18th century during the Age of Enlightenment.[14] The French Revolution, noted for its "unprecedented atheism", witnessed the first significant political movement in history to advocate for the supremacy of human reason.[15] In 1967, Albania declared itself the first official atheist country according to its policy of state Marxism.[16]

Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social and historical approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include the lack of evidence,[17][18] the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified, and the argument from nonbelief.[17][19] Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a more parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in deities;[1] therefore, they argue that the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to disprove the existence of gods but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism.[20] Although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies (e.g. secular humanism),[21][22] there is no ideology or code of conduct to which all atheists adhere.[23]

Since conceptions of atheism vary, accurate estimations of current numbers of atheists are difficult. Scholars have indicated that global atheism may be in decline due to irreligious countries having the lowest birth rates in the world and religious countries having higher birth rates in general.[24][25][26]

Writers disagree on how best to define and classify atheism,[27] contesting what supernatural entities are considered gods, whether atheism is a philosophical position in its own right or merely the absence of one, and whether it requires a conscious, explicit rejection. However the norm is to define atheism in terms of an explicit stance against theism.[28][29][30]

Atheism has been regarded as compatible with agnosticism,[31][32][33][34] but has also been contrasted with it.[35][36][37]

Some of the ambiguity and controversy involved in defining atheism arises from difficulty in reaching a consensus for the definitions of words like deity and god. The variety of wildly different conceptions of God and deities lead to differing ideas regarding atheism's applicability. The ancient Romans accused Christians of being atheists for not worshiping the pagan deities. Gradually, this view fell into disfavor as theism came to be understood as encompassing belief in any divinity.

With respect to the range of phenomena being rejected, atheism may counter anything from the existence of a deity, to the existence of any spiritual, supernatural, or transcendental concepts, such as those of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Taoism.[39]

Definitions of atheism also vary in the degree of consideration a person must put to the idea of gods to be considered an atheist. Atheism is commonly defined as the simple absence of belief that any deities exist. This broad definition would include newborns and other people who have not been exposed to theistic ideas. As far back as 1772, Baron d'Holbach said that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God."[40]Similarly, George H. Smith suggested that: "The man who is unacquainted with theism is an atheist because he does not believe in a god. This category would also include the child with the conceptual capacity to grasp the issues involved, but who is still unaware of those issues. The fact that this child does not believe in god qualifies him as an atheist."[41] Implicit atheism is "the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it" and explicit atheism is the conscious rejection of belief.For the purposes of his paper on "philosophical atheism", Ernest Nagel contested including the mere absence of theistic belief as a type of atheism.[42] Graham Oppy classifies as innocents those who never considered the question because they lack any understanding of what a god is. According to Oppy, these could be one-month-old babies, humans with severe traumatic brain injuries, or patients with advanced dementia.

Philosophers such as Antony Flew[44] and Michael Martin have contrasted positive (strong/hard) atheism with negative (weak/soft) atheism. Positive atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Negative atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. According to this categorization, anyone who is not a theist is either a negative or a positive atheist.The terms weak and strong are relatively recent, while the terms negative and positive atheism are of older origin, having been used (in slightly different ways) in the philosophical literature[44] and in Catholic apologetics.[45]

While Martin, for example, asserts that agnosticism entails negative atheism,[33] many agnostics see their view as distinct from atheism,[46][47] which they may consider no more justified than theism or requiring an equal conviction.[46]The assertion of unattainability of knowledge for or against the existence of gods is sometimes seen as an indication that atheism requires a leap of faith.[48][49]Common atheist responses to this argument include that unproven religious propositions deserve as much disbelief as all other unproven propositions,[50]and that the unprovability of a god's existence does not imply an equal probability of either possibility.[51]Australian philosopher J.J.C. Smart even argues that "sometimes a person who is really an atheist may describe herself, even passionately, as an agnostic because of unreasonable generalized philosophical skepticism which would preclude us from saying that we know anything whatever, except perhaps the truths of mathematics and formal logic."[52]Consequently, some atheist authors, such as Richard Dawkins, prefer distinguishing theist, agnostic, and atheist positions along a spectrum of theistic probabilitythe likelihood that each assigns to the statement "God exists".

Before the 18th century, the existence of God was so accepted in the Western world that even the possibility of true atheism was questioned. This is called theistic innatismthe notion that all people believe in God from birth; within this view was the connotation that atheists are in denial.[54] There is also a position claiming that atheists are quick to believe in God in times of crisis, that atheists make deathbed conversions, or that "there are no atheists in foxholes".[55] There have, however, been examples to the contrary, among them examples of literal "atheists in foxholes".[56] Some atheists have challenged the need for the term "atheism". In his book Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris wrote:

In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist". We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.

In early ancient Greek, the adjective theos (, from the privative - + "god") meant "godless". It was first used as a term of censure roughly meaning "ungodly" or "impious". In the 5th century BCE, the word began to indicate more deliberate and active godlessness in the sense of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods". The term (asebs) then came to be applied against those who impiously denied or disrespected the local gods, even if they believed in other gods. Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render theos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also (atheots), "atheism". Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin theos. The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other.[60]

The term atheist (from the French athe), in the sense of "one who... denies the existence of God or gods",[61] predates atheism in English, being first found as early as 1566,[62] and again in 1571.[63] Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577.[64]

The term atheism was derived from the French athisme,[65] and appears in English about 1587.[66] An earlier work, from about 1534, used the term atheonism.[67][68]

Related words emerged later: deist in 1621,[69] theist in 1662,[70] deism in 1675,[71] and theism in 1678.[72]

Deism and theism changed meanings slightly around 1700 due to the influence of atheism; deism was originally used as a synonym for today's theism but came to denote a separate philosophical doctrine.[73]

Karen Armstrong writes that "During the 16th and 17th centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic... The term 'atheist' was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist."

Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.[b]

In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of the term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as "disbelief in God".

Skepticism, based on the ideas of David Hume, asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know for sure whether or not a god exists. Hume, however, held that such unobservable metaphysical concepts should be rejected as "sophistry and illusion".[75] The allocation of agnosticism to atheism is disputed; it can also be regarded as an independent, basic worldview.[76]

There are three main conditions of epistemology: truth, belief and justification. Michael Martin argues that atheism is a justified and rational true belief, but offers no extended epistemological justification because current theories are in a state of controversy. Martin instead argues for "mid-level principles of justification that are in accord with our ordinary and scientific rational practice."[77]

Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological, including ignosticism, assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God is all-powerful." Theological noncognitivism holds that the statement "God exists" does not express a proposition, but is nonsensical or cognitively meaningless. It has been argued both ways as to whether such individuals can be classified into some form of atheism or agnosticism. Philosophers A. J. Ayer and Theodore M. Drange reject both categories, stating that both camps accept "God exists" as a proposition; they instead place noncognitivism in its own category.[78][79]

Philosopher, Zofia Zdybicka writes:

Metaphysical atheism... includes all doctrines that hold to metaphysical monism (the homogeneity of reality). Metaphysical atheism may be either: a) absolute an explicit denial of God's existence associated with materialistic monism (all materialistic trends, both in ancient and modern times); b) relative the implicit denial of God in all philosophies that, while they accept the existence of an absolute, conceive of the absolute as not possessing any of the attributes proper to God: transcendence, a personal character or unity. Relative atheism is associated with idealistic monism (pantheism, panentheism, deism).[80]

Most atheists lean toward metaphysical monism: the belief that there is only one kind of ultimate substance. Historically, metaphysical monism took the form of philosophical materialism, the view that matter formed the basis of all reality; this naturally omitted the possibility of a non-material divine being.[82] Describing the world as "basically matter" in the twenty-first century would be contrary to modern physics, so it is generally seen as an older term that is sometimes mistakenly used interchangeably with physicalism. Physicalism can incorporate the non-matter based physical phenomena, such as light and energy, into its view that only physical entities with physical powers exist, and that science defines and explains what those are.[82] Physicalism is a monistic ontology: one ultimate substance exists, and it exists as a physical reality.[83]

Physicalism opposes dualism (the view that there's physical substance and separate mental activities): there is no such thing as a soul, or any other abstract object (such as a mind or a self) that exists independently of physicality. It also opposes neutral monism, which holds to one kind of substance for the universe but makes no claim about its nature, holding to the view that the physical and the mental are both just differing kinds of the same fundamental substance that is in itself neither mental nor physical.[84][80] Physicalism also opposes idealism (the view that everything known is based on human mental perception).[85]

Naturalism is also used by atheists to describe the metaphysical view that everything that exists is fundamentally natural, and that there are no supernatural phenomena.[82] Naturalism focuses on how science can explain the world fully with physical laws and through natural phenomena. It's about the idea that the universe is a closed system. Naturalism can be interpreted to allow for a dualist ontology of the mental and physical.[86] Philosopher Graham Oppy references a PhilPapers survey that says 56.5% of philosophers in academics lean toward physicalism; 49.8% lean toward naturalism.[87]

According to Graham Oppy, direct arguments for atheism aim at showing theism fails on its own terms, while indirect arguments are those inferred from direct arguments in favor of something else that is inconsistent with theism. For example, Oppy says arguing for naturalism is an argument for atheism since naturalism and theism "cannot both be true".[88]:53 Fiona Ellis says that while Oppy's view is common, it is dependent on a narrow view of naturalism. She describes the "expansive naturalism" of John McDowell, James Griffin and David Wiggins as giving "due respect to scientific findings" while also asserting there are things in human experience which cannot be explained in such terms, such as the concept of value, leaving room for theism.[89] Christopher C. Knight asserts a theistic naturalism that relies on what he terms an "incarnational naturalism" (the doctrine of immanence) and does not require any special mode of divine action that would put it outside nature.[90] Nevertheless, Oppy argues that a strong naturalism favors atheism, though he finds the best direct arguments against theism to be the evidential problem of evil, and arguments concerning the contradictory nature of God were He to exist.[88]:5560

Some atheists hold the view that the various conceptions of gods, such as the personal god of Christianity, are ascribed logically inconsistent qualities. Such atheists present deductive arguments against the existence of God, which assert the incompatibility between certain traits, such as perfection, creator-status, immutability, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, transcendence, personhood (a personal being), non-physicality, justice, and mercy.[17]

Theodicean atheists believe that the world as they experience it cannot be reconciled with the qualities commonly ascribed to God and gods by theologians. They argue that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God is not compatible with a world where there is evil and suffering, and where divine love is hidden from many people.[19]

A similar argument is attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.[91] The medieval Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu (4/5th century) who outlined numerous Buddhist arguments against God, wrote in his Sheath of Abhidharma (Abhidharmakosha):

Besides, do you say that God finds joy in seeing the creatures which he has created in the prey of all the distress of existence, including the tortures of the hells? Homage to this kind of God! The profane stanza expresses it well: "One calls him Rudra because he burns, because he is sharp, fierce, redoubtable, an eater of flesh, blood and marrow.[92]

Philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach[93]and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud have argued that God and other religious beliefs are human inventions, created to fulfill various psychological and emotional wants or needs, or a projection mechanism from the 'Id' omnipotence; for Vladimir Lenin, in 'Materialism and Empirio-criticism', against the Russian Machism, the followers of Ernst Mach, Feuerbach was the final argument against belief in a god. This is also a view of many Buddhists.[94] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, influenced by the work of Feuerbach, argued that belief in God and religion are social functions, used by those in power to oppress the working class. According to Mikhail Bakunin, "the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, in theory, and practice." He reversed Voltaire's aphorism that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, writing instead that "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."[95]

Atheism is not mutually exclusive with respect to some religious and spiritual belief systems, including Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Syntheism, Ralism,[96] and Neopagan movements[97]such as Wicca.[98]stika schools in Hinduism hold atheism to be a valid path to moksha, but extremely difficult, for the atheist cannot expect any help from the divine on their journey.[99]Jainism believes the universe is eternal and has no need for a creator deity, however Tirthankaras are revered beings who can transcend space and time[100] and have more power than the god Indra.[101]Secular Buddhism does not advocate belief in gods. Early Buddhism was atheistic as Gautama Buddha's path involved no mention of gods. Later conceptions of Buddhism consider Buddha himself a god, suggest adherents can attain godhood, and revere Bodhisattvas.[102]

Apophatic theology is often assessed as being a version of atheism or agnosticism, since it cannot say truly that God exists.[103] "The comparison is crude, however, for conventional atheism treats the existence of God as a predicate that can be denied ("God is nonexistent"), whereas negative theology denies that God has predicates".[104] "God or the Divine is" without being able to attribute qualities about "what He is" would be the prerequisite of positive theology in negative theology that distinguishes theism from atheism. "Negative theology is a complement to, not the enemy of, positive theology".[105]

Axiological, or constructive, atheism rejects the existence of gods in favor of a "higher absolute", such as humanity. This form of atheism favors humanity as the absolute source of ethics and values, and permits individuals to resolve moral problems without resorting to God. Marx and Freud used this argument to convey messages of liberation, full-development, and unfettered happiness.[76] One of the most common criticisms of atheism has been to the contrary: that denying the existence of a god either leads to moral relativism and leaves one with no moral or ethical foundation,[106] or renders life meaningless and miserable.[107] Blaise Pascal argued this view in his Penses.[108]

French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre identified himself as a representative of an "atheist existentialism"concerned less with denying the existence of God than with establishing that "man needs... to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God."Sartre said a corollary of his atheism was that "if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept, and... this being is man."Sartre described the practical consequence of this atheism as meaning that there are no a priori rules or absolute values that can be invoked to govern human conduct, and that humans are "condemned" to invent these for themselves, making "man" absolutely "responsible for everything he does".

Joseph Baker and Buster Smith assert that one of the common themes of atheism is that most atheists "typically construe atheism as more moral than religion".[112]

Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous social science research on secularity and non-belief and concluded that societal well-being is positively correlated with irreligion. He found that there are much lower concentrations of atheism and secularity in poorer, less developed nations (particularly in Africa and South America) than in the richer industrialized democracies.[113][114]His findings relating specifically to atheism in the US were that compared to religious people in the US, "atheists and secular people" are less nationalistic, prejudiced, antisemitic, racist, dogmatic, ethnocentric, closed-minded, and authoritarian, and in US states with the highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most religious states, the murder rate is higher than average.[115][116]

People who self-identify as atheists are often assumed to be irreligious, but some sects within major religions reject the existence of a personal, creator deity.[119]In recent years, certain religious denominations have accumulated a number of openly atheistic followers, such as atheistic or humanistic Judaism[120][121]and Christian atheists.[122][123][124] The strictest sense of positive atheism does not entail any specific beliefs outside of disbelief in any deity; as such, atheists can hold any number of spiritual beliefs. For the same reason, atheists can hold a wide variety of ethical beliefs, ranging from the moral universalism of humanism, which holds that a moral code should be applied consistently to all humans, to moral nihilism, which holds that morality is meaningless.[125] Atheism is accepted as a valid philosophical position within some varieties of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.[126] Philosophers such as Alain de Botton[127] and Alexander Bard and Jan Sderqvist,[128] have argued that atheists should reclaim useful components of religion in secular society.[129]

According to Plato's Euthyphro dilemma, the role of the gods in determining right from wrong is either unnecessary or arbitrary. The argument that morality must be derived from God, and cannot exist without a wise creator, has been a persistent feature of political if not so much philosophical debate.[130][131][132]Moral precepts such as "murder is wrong" are seen as divine laws, requiring a divine lawmaker and judge. However, many atheists argue that treating morality legalistically involves a false analogy, and that morality does not depend on a lawmaker in the same way that laws do.[133]Friedrich Nietzsche believed in a morality independent of theistic belief, and stated that morality based upon God "has truth only if God is truthit stands or falls with faith in God".[134][135][136]

There exist normative ethical systems that do not require principles and rules to be given by a deity. Some include virtue ethics, social contract, Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, and Objectivism. Sam Harris has proposed that moral prescription (ethical rule making) is not just an issue to be explored by philosophy, but that we can meaningfully practice a science of morality. Any such scientific system must, nevertheless, respond to the criticism embodied in the naturalistic fallacy.[137]

Philosophers Susan Neiman[138]and Julian Baggini[139](among others) assert that behaving ethically only because of a divine mandate is not true ethical behavior but merely blind obedience. Baggini argues that atheism is a superior basis for ethics, claiming that a moral basis external to religious imperatives is necessary to evaluate the morality of the imperatives themselvesto be able to discern, for example, that "thou shalt steal" is immoral even if one's religion instructs itand that atheists, therefore, have the advantage of being more inclined to make such evaluations.[140]The contemporary British political philosopher Martin Cohen has offered the more historically telling example of Biblical injunctions in favor of torture and slavery as evidence of how religious injunctions follow political and social customs, rather than vice versa, but also noted that the same tendency seems to be true of supposedly dispassionate and objective philosophers.[141] Cohen extends this argument in more detail in Political Philosophy from Plato to Mao, where he argues that the Qur'an played a role in perpetuating social codes from the early 7th century despite changes in secular society.[142]

Some prominent atheistsmost recently Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, and following such thinkers as Bertrand Russell, Robert G. Ingersoll, Voltaire, and novelist Jos Saramagohave criticized religions, citing harmful aspects of religious practices and doctrines.[143]

The 19th-century German political theorist and sociologist Karl Marx called religion "the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people". He goes on to say, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."[144] Lenin said that "every religious idea and every idea of God is unutterable vileness... of the most dangerous kind, 'contagion' of the most abominable kind. Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence and physical contagions... are far less dangerous than the subtle, spiritual idea of God decked out in the smartest ideological costumes".[145]

Sam Harris criticizes Western religion's reliance on divine authority as lending itself to authoritarianism and dogmatism.There is a correlation between religious fundamentalism and extrinsic religion (when religion is held because it serves ulterior interests)[147] and authoritarianism, dogmatism, and prejudice.[148]These argumentscombined with historical events that are argued to demonstrate the dangers of religion, such as the Crusades, inquisitions, witch trials, and terrorist attackshave been used in response to claims of beneficial effects of belief in religion.[149]Believers counter-argue that some regimes that espouse atheism, such as the Soviet Union, have also been guilty of mass murder.[150][151] In response to those claims, atheists such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have stated that Stalin's atrocities were influenced not by atheism but by dogmatic Marxism, and that while Stalin and Mao happened to be atheists, they did not do their deeds in the name of atheism.[153]

While the earliest-found usage of the term atheism is in 16th-century France,[65][66] ideas that would be recognized today as atheistic are documented from the Vedic period[154] and the classical antiquity.[155]

Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Atheistic schools are found in early Indian thought and have existed from the times of the historical Vedic religion.[154]Among the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, Samkhya, the oldest philosophical school of thought, does not accept God, and the early Mimamsa also rejected the notion of God.[159]The thoroughly materialistic and anti-theistic philosophical Crvka (or Lokyata) school that originated in India around the 6th century BCE is probably the most explicitly atheistic school of philosophy in India, similar to the Greek Cyrenaic school. This branch of Indian philosophy is classified as heterodox due to its rejection of the authority of Vedas and hence is not considered part of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy. It is noteworthy as evidence of a materialistic movement in ancient India.[160][161]

Chatterjee and Datta explain that our understanding of Crvka philosophy is fragmentary, based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools, and that it is not a living tradition:[162]

Though materialism in some form or other has always been present in India, and occasional references are found in the Vedas, the Buddhistic literature, the Epics, as well as in the later philosophical works we do not find any systematic work on materialism, nor any organized school of followers as the other philosophical schools possess. But almost every work of the other schools states, for refutation, the materialistic views. Our knowledge of Indian materialism is chiefly based on these.

Other Indian philosophies generally regarded as atheistic include Classical Samkhya and Purva Mimamsa. The rejection of a personal creator "God" is also seen in Jainism and Buddhism in India.[163]

Does then anyone say there are gods in heaven? There are not, there are not, if a man is willing not to give foolish credence to the ancient story. Consider for yourselves, don't form an opinion on the basis of my words!

Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy,[165][155] but atheism in the modern sense was extremely rare in ancient Greece.[166][155] Pre-Socratic Atomists such as Democritus attempted to explain the world in a purely materialistic way and interpreted religion as a human reaction to natural phenomena,[167] but did not explicitly deny the gods' existence, and some scholarship has recognised a rational theology in his thought.[167][168] Anaxagoras, whom Irenaeus calls "the atheist",[169] was accused of impiety and condemned for stating that "the sun is a type of incandescent stone", an affirmation with which he tried to deny the divinity of the celestial bodies.[170] In the late fifth century BCE, the Greek lyric poet Diagoras of Melos was sentenced to death in Athens under the charge of being a "godless person" () after he made fun of the Eleusinian Mysteries, but he fled the city to escape punishment.[166][167] In post-classical antiquity, philosophers such as Cicero and Sextus Empiricus described Diagoras as an "atheist" who categorically denied the existence of the gods,[171][172] but in modern scholarship Marek Winiarczyk has defended the view that Diagoras was not an atheist in the modern sense, in a view that has proved influential.[166] On the other hand, the verdict has been challenged by Tim Whitmarsh, who argues that Diagoras rejected the gods on the basis of the problem of evil, and this argument was in turn alluded to in Euripides' fragmentary play Bellerophon.[173]

A fragment from a lost Attic drama that featured Sisyphus, which has been attributed to both Critias and Euripides, claims that a clever man invented "the fear of the gods" in order to frighten people into behaving morally.[174][175][166]Sceptical statements about popular religion have also been attributed to the philosopher Prodicus: Philodemus reports that Prodicus believed that "the gods of popular belief do not exist nor does he know them, but primitive man, [out of admiration, deified] the fruits of the earth and virtually everything that contributed to his existence". More recent scholarship has reappraised the evidence in Philodemus and concluded that Prodicus defended his own philosophical theology against popular religious belief, rather than radical atheism.[176][177] Protagoras has sometimes been taken to be an atheist, but rather espoused agnostic views, commenting that "Concerning the gods I am unable to discover whether they exist or not, or what they are like in form; for there are many hindrances to knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life."[178][179] The Athenian public associated Socrates (c.470399 BCE) with the trends in pre-Socratic philosophy towards naturalistic inquiry and the rejection of divine explanations for phenomena.[167][180] Aristophanes' comic play The Clouds (performed 423 BCE) portrays Socrates as teaching his students that the traditional Greek deities do not exist.[167][180] Socrates was later tried and executed under the charge of not believing in the gods of the state and instead worshipping foreign gods.[167][180] Socrates himself vehemently denied the charges of atheism at his trial[167][180][181] and all the surviving sources about him indicate that he was a very devout man, who prayed to the rising sun and believed that the oracle at Delphi spoke the word of Apollo.[167] From a survey of these 5th-century BCE philosophers, David Sedley has concluded that none of them openly defended radical atheism, but since Classical sources clearly attest to radical atheist ideas Athens probably had an "atheist underground".[182]

Religious scepticism continued into the Hellenistic period, and from this period the most important Greek thinker in the development of atheism was the philosopher Epicurus (c. 300 BCE).[155] Drawing on the ideas of Democritus and the Atomists, he espoused a materialistic philosophy according to which the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention (see scientific determinism).[183] Although Epicurus still maintained that the gods existed,[184][155][183] he believed that they were uninterested in human affairs.[183] The aim of the Epicureans was to attain ataraxia ("peace of mind") and one important way of doing this was by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational. The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and the need to fear divine punishment after death.[183] A slightly later contemporary to Epicurus, Euhemerus (c. 300 BCE) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers, conquerors and founders of the past, and that their cults and religions were in essence the continuation of vanished kingdoms and earlier political structures.[185] Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus was later criticized for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods".[186] In the 3rd-century BCE, the Hellenistic philosophers Theodorus Cyrenaicus[171][187] and Strato of Lampsacus[188] were also reputed to deny the existence of the gods.

Sceptical ideas concerning the gods continued into the Second Sophistic. The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus (approx. 160-210 CE)[189] compiled a large number of ancient arguments against the existence of gods, recommending that one should suspend judgment regarding the matter.[190] His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers.[191]

The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity.[166] Early Christians were widely reviled as "atheists" because they did not believe in the existence of the Graeco-Roman deities.[192][166][193][194] During the Roman Empire, Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general and the Imperial cult of ancient Rome in particular.[194][195] There was, however, a heavy struggle between Christians and pagans, in which each group accused the other of atheism, for not practicing the religion which they considered correct.[196] When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under Theodosius I in 381, heresy became a punishable offense.[195]

During the Early Middle Ages, the Islamic world experienced a Golden Age. Along with advances in science and philosophy, Arab and Persian lands produced rationalists and freethinkers who were skeptical about prophecy and revealed religion, such as Muhammad al Warraq (fl. 9th century), Ibn al-Rawandi (827911), and Abu Bakr al-Razi (c.865925),[197] as well as outspoken atheists such as al-Maarri (9731058). Al-Ma'arri wrote and taught that religion itself was a "fable invented by the ancients"[198] and that humans were "of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains".[199] Despite the fact that these authors were relatively prolific writers, little of their work survives, mainly being preserved through quotations and excerpts in later works by Muslim apologists attempting to refute them.[200]

In Europe, the espousal of atheistic views was rare during the Early Middle Ages and Middle Ages (see Medieval Inquisition); metaphysics and theology were the dominant interests pertaining to religion.[201] There were, however, movements within this period that furthered heterodox conceptions of the Christian god, including differing views of the nature, transcendence, and knowability of God. Individuals and groups such as Johannes Scotus Eriugena, David of Dinant, Amalric of Bena, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit maintained Christian viewpoints with pantheistic tendencies. Nicholas of Cusa held to a form of fideism he called docta ignorantia ("learned ignorance"), asserting that God is beyond human categorization, and thus our knowledge of him is limited to conjecture. William of Ockham inspired anti-metaphysical tendencies with his nominalistic limitation of human knowledge to singular objects, and asserted that the divine essence could not be intuitively or rationally apprehended by human intellect. Followers of Ockham, such as John of Mirecourt and Nicholas of Autrecourt furthered this view. The resulting division between faith and reason influenced later radical and reformist theologians such as John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and Martin Luther.[201]

The Renaissance did much to expand the scope of free thought and skeptical inquiry. Individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci sought experimentation as a means of explanation, and opposed arguments from religious authority. Other critics of religion and the Church during this time included Niccol Machiavelli, Bonaventure des Priers, Michel de Montaigne, and Franois Rabelais.[191]

Historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that the Reformation had paved the way for atheists by attacking the authority of the Catholic Church, which in turn "quietly inspired other thinkers to attack the authority of the new Protestant churches".[202] Deism gained influence in France, Prussia, and England. In 1546, French scholar Etienne Dolet was executed upon accusation of being an atheist.[203] The philosopher Baruch Spinoza was "probably the first well known 'semi-atheist' to announce himself in a Christian land in the modern era", according to Blainey. Spinoza believed that natural laws explained the workings of the universe. In 1661, he published his Short Treatise on God.[204]

Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England, where there appears to have been a religious malaise, according to contemporary sources. Some Protestant thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes, espoused a materialist philosophy and skepticism toward supernatural occurrences, while Spinoza rejected divine providence in favor of a panentheistic naturalism. By the late 17th century, deism came to be openly espoused by intellectuals such as John Toland who coined the term "pantheist".[205]

The first known explicit atheist was the German critic of religion Matthias Knutzen in his three writings of 1674.[206] He was followed by two other explicit atheist writers, the Polish ex-Jesuit philosopher Kazimierz yszczyski and in the 1720s by the French priest Jean Meslier.[207] In the course of the 18th century, other openly atheistic thinkers followed, such as Baron d'Holbach, Jacques-Andr Naigeon, and other French materialists.[208] John Locke in contrast, though an advocate of tolerance, urged authorities not to tolerate atheism, believing that the denial of God's existence would undermine the social order and lead to chaos.[209]

The philosopher David Hume developed a skeptical epistemology grounded in empiricism, and Immanuel Kant's philosophy has strongly questioned the very possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Both philosophers undermined the metaphysical basis of natural theology and criticized classical arguments for the existence of God.[citation needed]

Blainey notes that, although Voltaire is widely considered to have strongly contributed to atheistic thinking during the Revolution, he also considered fear of God to have discouraged further disorder, having said "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."[210] In Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), the philosopher Edmund Burke denounced atheism, writing of a "literary cabal" who had "some years ago formed something like a regular plan for the destruction of the Christian religion. This object they pursued with a degree of zeal which hitherto had been discovered only in the propagators of some system of piety... These atheistical fathers have a bigotry of their own". But, Burke asserted, "man is by his constitution a religious animal" and "atheism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts; and... it cannot prevail long".[211]

Baron d'Holbach was a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment who is best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being The System of Nature (1770) but also Christianity Unveiled. One goal of the French Revolution was a restructuring and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Attempts to enforce it led to anti-clerical violence and the expulsion of many clerics from France, lasting until the Thermidorian Reaction. The radical Jacobins seized power in 1793, ushering in the Reign of Terror. The Jacobins were deists and introduced the Cult of the Supreme Being as a new French state religion. Some atheists surrounding Jacques Hbert instead sought to establish a Cult of Reason, a form of atheistic pseudo-religion with a goddess personifying reason. The Napoleonic era further institutionalized the secularization of French society.[citation needed]

In the latter half of the 19th century, atheism rose to prominence under the influence of rationalistic and freethinking philosophers. Many prominent German philosophers of this era denied the existence of deities and were critical of religion, including Ludwig Feuerbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, Max Stirner, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche.[212]

In 1842, George Holyoake was the last person imprisoned in Great Britain due to atheist beliefs. Stephen Law notes that he may have also been the first imprisoned on such a charge. Law states that Holyoake "first coined the term 'secularism'".[213][214]

Atheism, particularly in the form of practical atheism, advanced in many societies in the 20th century. Atheistic thought found recognition in a wide variety of other, broader philosophies, such as existentialism, Objectivism, secular humanism, nihilism, anarchism, logical positivism, Marxism, feminism,[215] and the general scientific[216] and rationalist movement.[citation needed]

In addition, state atheism emerged in Eastern Europe and Asia during that period, particularly in the Soviet Union under Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin,[217] and in Communist China under Mao Zedong. Atheist and anti-religious policies in the Soviet Union included numerous legislative acts, the outlawing of religious instruction in the schools, and the emergence of the League of Militant Atheists.[218][219] After Mao, the Chinese Communist Party remains an atheist organization, and regulates, but does not forbid, the practice of religion in mainland China.[220][221][222]

While Geoffrey Blainey has written that "the most ruthless leaders in the Second World War were atheists and secularists who were intensely hostile to both Judaism and Christianity",[223] Richard Madsen has pointed out that Hitler and Stalin each opened and closed churches as a matter of political expedience, and Stalin softened his opposition to Christianity in order to improve public acceptance of his regime during the war.[224] Blackford and Schklenk have written that "the Soviet Union was undeniably an atheist state, and the same applies to Maoist China and Pol Pot's fanatical Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s. That does not, however, show that the atrocities committed by these totalitarian dictatorships were the result of atheist beliefs, carried out in the name of atheism, or caused primarily by the atheistic aspects of the relevant forms of communism."[225]

Logical positivism and scientism paved the way for neopositivism, analytical philosophy, structuralism, and naturalism. Neopositivism and analytical philosophy discarded classical rationalism and metaphysics in favor of strict empiricism and epistemological nominalism. Proponents such as Bertrand Russell emphatically rejected belief in God. In his early work, Ludwig Wittgenstein attempted to separate metaphysical and supernatural language from rational discourse. A.J. Ayer asserted the unverifiability and meaninglessness of religious statements, citing his adherence to the empirical sciences. Relatedly the applied structuralism of Lvi-Strauss sourced religious language to the human subconscious in denying its transcendental meaning. J.N. Findlay and J.J.C. Smart argued that the existence of God is not logically necessary. Naturalists and materialistic monists such as John Dewey considered the natural world to be the basis of everything, denying the existence of God or immortality.[52][226]

Other leaders like Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, a prominent atheist leader of India, fought against Hinduism and Brahmins for discriminating and dividing people in the name of caste and religion.[227] This was highlighted in 1956 when he arranged for the erection of a statue depicting a Hindu god in a humble representation and made antitheistic statements.[228]

Atheist Vashti McCollum was the plaintiff in a landmark 1948 Supreme Court case that struck down religious education in US public schools.[229] Madalyn Murray O'Hair was one of the most influential American atheists; she brought forth the 1963 Supreme Court case Murray v. Curlett which banned compulsory prayer in public schools.[230] In 1966, Time magazine asked "Is God Dead?"[231] in response to the Death of God theological movement, citing the estimation that nearly half of all people in the world lived under an anti-religious power, and millions more in Africa, Asia, and South America seemed to lack knowledge of the Christian view of theology.[232] The Freedom From Religion Foundation was co-founded by Anne Nicol Gaylor and her daughter, Annie Laurie Gaylor, in 1976 in the United States, and incorporated nationally in 1978. It promotes the separation of church and state.[233][234]

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of actively anti-religious regimes has declined considerably. In 2006, Timothy Shah of the Pew Forum noted "a worldwide trend across all major religious groups, in which God-based and faith-based movements in general are experiencing increasing confidence and influence vis--vis secular movements and ideologies."[235]However, Gregory S. Paul and Phil Zuckerman consider this a myth and suggest that the actual situation is much more complex and nuanced.[236]

A 2010 survey found that those identifying themselves as atheists or agnostics are on average more knowledgeable about religion than followers of major faiths. Nonbelievers scored better on questions about tenets central to Protestant and Catholic faiths. Only Mormon and Jewish faithful scored as well as atheists and agnostics.[237]

In 2012, the first "Women in Secularism" conference was held in Arlington, Virginia.[238] Secular Woman was organized in 2012 as a national organization focused on nonreligious women.[239] The atheist feminist movement has also become increasingly focused on fighting sexism and sexual harassment within the atheist movement itself.[240]In August 2012, Jennifer McCreight (the organizer of Boobquake) founded a movement within atheism known as Atheism Plus, or A+, that "applies skepticism to everything, including social issues like sexism, racism, politics, poverty, and crime".[241][242][243]

In 2013 the first atheist monument on American government property was unveiled at the Bradford County Courthouse in Florida: a 1,500-pound granite bench and plinth inscribed with quotes by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Madalyn Murray O'Hair.[244][245][246]

"New Atheism" is a movement among some early-21st-century atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises."[247]The movement is commonly associated with Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Victor J. Stenger, Christopher Hitchens, and to some extent Ayaan Hirsi Ali.[248] Several best-selling books by these authors, published between 2004 and 2007, form the basis for much of the discussion of "New" Atheism. In best-selling books, the religiously-motivated terrorist events of 9/11 and the partially successful attempts of the Discovery Institute to change the American science curriculum to include creationist ideas, together with support for those ideas from George W. Bush in 2005, have been cited by authors such as Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, Stenger, and Hitchens as evidence of a need to move toward a more secular society.[250]

It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in the world. Respondents to religious-belief polls may define "atheism" differently or draw different distinctions between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs.[252] A Hindu atheist would declare oneself as a Hindu, although also being an atheist at the same time. Most of the time this happens because atheism and irreligion are not officially recognised in India. Apostasy is allowed under the right to freedom of religion in the Constitution (but blasphemy is prohibited), there are no specific laws catering to atheists and they are considered as belonging to the religion of their birth for administrative purposes.[253][254] A 2010 survey published in Encyclopdia Britannica found that the non-religious made up about 9.6% of the world's population, and atheists about 2.0%, with a very large majority based in Asia. This figure did not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhists.[255] The average annual change for atheism from 2000 to 2010 was 0.17%.[255] Broad estimates of those who have an absence of belief in a god range from 500 million to 1.1 billion people worldwide.[256][257] Scholars have indicated that global atheism may be in decline as a percentage of the global population due to irreligious countries having the lowest birth rates in the world and religious countries generally having higher birth rates.[25][26][24]

According to global Win-Gallup International studies, 13% of respondents were "convinced atheists" in 2012,[258] 11% were "convinced atheists" in 2015,[259] and in 2017, 9% were "convinced atheists".[260] As of 2012[update], the top 10 surveyed countries with people who viewed themselves as "convinced atheists" were China (47%), Japan (31%), the Czech Republic (30%), France (29%), South Korea (15%), Germany (15%), Netherlands (14%), Austria (10%), Iceland (10%), Australia (10%), and the Republic of Ireland (10%).[261] A 2012 study by the NORC found that East Germany had the highest percentage of atheists while Czech Republic had the second highest amount.[262]

The number of atheists per country is strongly correlated with the level of security for both the individual and society, with some exceptions.[263]

According to the 2010 Eurobarometer Poll, the percentage of those polled who agreed with the statement "you don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force" varied from a high percentage in France (40%), Czech Republic (37%), Sweden (34%), Netherlands (30%), and Estonia (29%); medium-high percentage in Germany (27%), Belgium (27%), UK (25%); to very low in Poland (5%), Greece (4%), Cyprus (3%), Malta (2%), and Romania (1%), with the European Union as a whole at 20%.[265] In a 2012 Eurobarometer poll on discrimination in the European Union, 16% of those polled considered themselves non-believers/agnostics, and 7% considered themselves atheists.[266]

According to a Pew Research Center survey in 2012, about 18% of Europeans are religiously unaffiliated, including agnostics and atheists.[267] According to the same survey, the religiously unaffiliated are the majority of the population only in two European countries: Czech Republic (75%) and Estonia (60%).[267]

There are another three countries, and one special administrative region of China or regions where the unaffiliated make up a majority of the population: North Korea (71%), Japan (57%), Hong Kong (56%), and China (52%).[267]

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 30% of Australians have "no religion", a category that includes atheists.[268]

In a 2013 census, 42% of New Zealanders reported having no religion, up from 30% in 1991.[269]

According to the World Values Survey, 4.4% of Americans self-identified as atheists in 2014.[270] However, the same survey showed that 11.1% of all respondents stated "no" when asked if they believed in God.[270] In 1984, these same figures were 1.1% and 2.2%, respectively. According to a 2014 report by the Pew Research Center, 3.1% of the US adult population identify as atheist, up from 1.6% in 2007; and within the religiously unaffiliated (or "no religion") demographic, atheists made up 13.6%.[271] According to the 2015 General Sociological Survey the number of atheists and agnostics in the US has remained relatively flat in the past 23 years since in 1991 only 2% identified as atheist and 4% identified as agnostic and in 2014 only 3% identified as atheists and 5% identified as agnostics.[272]

According to the American Family Survey, 34% were found to be religiously unaffiliated in 2017 (23% 'nothing in particular', 6% agnostic, 5% atheist).[273][274] According to the Pew Research Center, in 2014, 22.8% of the American population does not identify with a religion, including atheists (3.1%) and agnostics (4%).[275] According to a PRRI survey, 24% of the population is unaffiliated. Atheists and agnostics combined make up about a quarter of this unaffiliated demographic.[276]

In recent years, the profile of atheism has risen substantially in the Arab world.[277] In major cities across the region, such as Cairo, atheists have been organizing in cafs and social media, despite regular crackdowns from authoritarian governments.[277] A 2012 poll by Gallup International revealed that 5% of Saudis considered themselves to be "convinced atheists".[277] However, very few young people in the Arab world have atheists in their circle of friends or acquaintances. According to one study, less than 1% did in Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Jordan; only 3% to 7% in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Palestine.[278] When asked whether they have "seen or heard traces of atheism in [their] locality, community, and society" only about 3% to 8% responded yes in all the countries surveyed. The only exception was the UAE, with a percentage of 51%.[278]

Various studies have reported positive correlations between levels of education, wealth and IQ with atheism.[279][280][281][115] In a 2008 study, researchers found intelligence to be negatively related to religious belief in Europe and the United States. In a sample of 137 countries, the correlation between national IQ and disbelief in God was found to be 0.60.[281] According to evolutionary psychologist Nigel Barber, atheism blossoms in places where most people feel economically secure, particularly in the social democracies of Europe, as there is less uncertainty about the future with extensive social safety nets and better health care resulting in a greater quality of life and higher life expectancy. By contrast, in underdeveloped countries, there are far fewer atheists.[282]

The relationship between atheism and IQ, while statistically significant, is not a large one, and the reason for the relationship is not well understood.[279] One hypothesis is that the negative relationship between IQ and religiosity is mediated by individual differences in nonconformity; in many countries, religious belief is a conformist choice, and there is evidence that more intelligent people are less likely to conform.[283] Another theory is that people of higher IQ are more likely to engage in analytical reasoning, and that disbelief in religion results from the application of higher-level analytical reasoning to the assessment of religious claims.[279]

In a 2017 study, it was shown that compared to religious individuals, atheists have higher reasoning capacities and this difference seemed to be unrelated to sociodemographic factors such as age, education and country of origin.[284] In a 2015 study, researchers found that atheists score higher on cognitive reflection tests than theists, the authors wrote that "The fact that atheists score higher agrees with the literature showing that belief is an automatic manifestation of the mind and its default mode. Disbelieving seems to require deliberative cognitive ability."[285] A 2016 study, in which 4 new studies were reported and a meta-analysis of all previous research on the topic was performed, found that self-identified atheists scored 18.7% higher than theists on the cognitive reflection test and there is a negative correlation between religiosity and analytical thinking. The authors note that recently "it has been argued that analytic thinkers are not actually less religious; rather, the putative association may be a result of religiosity typically being measured after analytic thinking (an order effect)," however, they state "Our results indicate that the association between analytical thinking and religious disbelief is not caused by a simple order effect. There is good evidence that atheists and agnostics are more reflective than religious believers."[286] This "analytic atheist" effect has also been found among academic philosophers, even when controlling for about a dozen potential confounds such as education.[287]

However, some studies do not detect this correlation between atheism and analytic thinking in all of the countries that they study,[288] suggesting that the relationship between analytic thinking and atheism may depend on culture.[289] There is also evidence that gender may be involved in the so-called analytic atheist effect: because men have been found more likely to endorse atheism,[290] and men often perform slightly better on tests of analytic thinking[291] when not controlling for variables such as math anxiety,[292] the correlation between atheism and analytic reasoning may be partly explained by whatever explains observed gender differences in analytic thinking.

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