Someone asked, "How did you become an atheist?"
I was helped along toward a rational approach to religion by various books. Especially the description of a theologian's studies early in William Gaddis' novel The Recognitions, studies which included Frazer's anthropological work -- or whatever you want to call it, some anthropologists object to it being categorized as anthropology, and I don't care how it's categorized -- The Golden Bough.
As I've written before on this blog, "I myself believe that the most interesting efforts of mankind in the arts and humanities defy categorization." Works like The Recognitions and The Golden Bough don't fit into categories, they're too good for that. They create categories into which later, lesser works fit.
Someone -- sure wish I'd written it down, I saw it once years ago and I've been searching in vain for it since -- someone said, in the 19th or early 20th century I believe, that seminaries produced more atheists than anyone else. Since then, of course, the knowledge which had been kept in the seminaries is much more widely known in the general public, and the percentage of atheists in the general public has risen, while the seminaries have become havens for hard-core hold-out believers. (And also, of course, people who prey on children and bank accounts while pretending to be hard-core believers. Yet another occasion to refer to Kurt Vonnegut's brilliant nugget: "We are what we pretend to be.")
It seems to me that there used to be, 2 or 3 centuries ago, a much higher percentage of open and unapologetic atheists in the Christian clergy than there are now. I'm judging by that remark about seminaries producing all those atheists, and also by positive remarks about Jesuits by atheists like Goethe, not to mention the number of the earliest openly-atheist 18th-century published works in modern Europe which were written by clergymen.
The Christian clergy today does not seem to be the sort of haven for open atheism which it once was.
It's interesting and ironic that The Golden Bough, which surely has helped some others besides me and that pastor in The Recognitions toward secular humanism, got perhaps its single greatest push toward fame and (at least in its 1-volume abridged form) bestsellerdom by the notoriously Christian TS Eliot. And not Christian in a cynical way and mainly by affiliation like the above-mentioned 18th century atheist clergymen, but either sincere or hiding his insincerity from me quite well so far.
I'm not going to explain TS Eliot for all of you at this point. I can't say that I've figured that one out yet.
Showing posts with label 18th century atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 18th century atheism. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Monday, October 6, 2014
17th-Century Atheism: I Don't Know How Widespread It Was, And Neither Does Daniel Garber
Daniel Garber is not only a professor of philosophy, at Princeton, no less, but he actually specializes in philosophers of the 17th century, and he says things like:
"Many important scientists and mathematicians in the period were also believers, including Bacon, Descartes, Boyle, Pascal and Newton. Not that there weren’t atheists in the period"
Professors of philosophy have often been roundly mocked by actual philosophers, and with good reason. Yes, Pascal and Newton believed in God. With Bacon and Descartes, there is a lot to read between the lines, just as there is with Hobbes and Spinoza. I assume that the latter two may be among the people Garber counts as atheists, but they didn't come right out and say they were. Not even David Hume, born decades after both Spinoza and Hobbes had died, did that. It would've been extremely dangerous.
The first open, public avowal of atheism in Europe after the 5th century of which I am aware is contained in the book Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral, written by Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach,
and published in 1770. Published, but under a pseudonym. And it was banned in France, and an executioner publicly burned some copies of it. Was Holbach himself in danger of being burned at the stake? Probably not, but the treatment of his book probably reflected what some of the authorities would've liked to have done to him. Diderot, not an aristocrat like Holbach, spent some time in prison in the mid-18th century in France for atheism expressed between the lines. (The Marquis de Sade spent some time in prison for his writing, and Marquis is a few ranks above baron, but Sade's writings are many shades more shocking than Holcach's. In case you haven't read any of Sade's work, and you have read some Penthouse Letters, imagine writing which might make a Penthouse Letters editor cringe in horror and scream, "That's sick! It's wrong! I want nothing to do with such filth!" and burst into tears like a little girl. I'm telling you, Sade was an uninhibited writer.)
Jean Meslier, 1664-1729, was a French priest, and after his death a strongly-worded essay in favor of atheism was found among his papers. So that may be an actual written smoking-gun, no-doubt proof of 17th century atheism -- or maybe not, maybe Meslier didn't lose his faith until after 1700. In any case, he, like many other clergypeople in the 18th and 19th centuries, when atheism gradually emerged and asserted its right to be, demonstrates that one could be publicly religious and privately atheist. Descartes, whom Garber counts among the religious believers of the 17th century, was often thought by his contemporaries to have been an atheist, as was his follower Spinoza, and whether they were atheists or not, they certainly paved the way for later generations to say openly that they didn't believe in God, without fearing punishment for it. As did Francis Bacon and Hobbes and Hume and Holbach and Diderot and Sade and Voltaire and Franklin, because they all pushed the boundaries of what was permissible to say. They all stuck their necks way out for the sake of the freedom of expression of the likes of you, me, and Garber.
It's soooooo absurd to make sweeping generalizations about the religious beliefs of people who were subject to punishments up to and including torture and being burned alive for religious dissent. Both Garber and I are, of necessity, reading between the lines when it comes to the religious beliefs or lack thereof of 17th century philosophers. But only one of us acts as if he is and admits how much guesswork the subject involves.
"Many important scientists and mathematicians in the period were also believers, including Bacon, Descartes, Boyle, Pascal and Newton. Not that there weren’t atheists in the period"
Professors of philosophy have often been roundly mocked by actual philosophers, and with good reason. Yes, Pascal and Newton believed in God. With Bacon and Descartes, there is a lot to read between the lines, just as there is with Hobbes and Spinoza. I assume that the latter two may be among the people Garber counts as atheists, but they didn't come right out and say they were. Not even David Hume, born decades after both Spinoza and Hobbes had died, did that. It would've been extremely dangerous.
The first open, public avowal of atheism in Europe after the 5th century of which I am aware is contained in the book Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral, written by Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach,
and published in 1770. Published, but under a pseudonym. And it was banned in France, and an executioner publicly burned some copies of it. Was Holbach himself in danger of being burned at the stake? Probably not, but the treatment of his book probably reflected what some of the authorities would've liked to have done to him. Diderot, not an aristocrat like Holbach, spent some time in prison in the mid-18th century in France for atheism expressed between the lines. (The Marquis de Sade spent some time in prison for his writing, and Marquis is a few ranks above baron, but Sade's writings are many shades more shocking than Holcach's. In case you haven't read any of Sade's work, and you have read some Penthouse Letters, imagine writing which might make a Penthouse Letters editor cringe in horror and scream, "That's sick! It's wrong! I want nothing to do with such filth!" and burst into tears like a little girl. I'm telling you, Sade was an uninhibited writer.)
Jean Meslier, 1664-1729, was a French priest, and after his death a strongly-worded essay in favor of atheism was found among his papers. So that may be an actual written smoking-gun, no-doubt proof of 17th century atheism -- or maybe not, maybe Meslier didn't lose his faith until after 1700. In any case, he, like many other clergypeople in the 18th and 19th centuries, when atheism gradually emerged and asserted its right to be, demonstrates that one could be publicly religious and privately atheist. Descartes, whom Garber counts among the religious believers of the 17th century, was often thought by his contemporaries to have been an atheist, as was his follower Spinoza, and whether they were atheists or not, they certainly paved the way for later generations to say openly that they didn't believe in God, without fearing punishment for it. As did Francis Bacon and Hobbes and Hume and Holbach and Diderot and Sade and Voltaire and Franklin, because they all pushed the boundaries of what was permissible to say. They all stuck their necks way out for the sake of the freedom of expression of the likes of you, me, and Garber.
It's soooooo absurd to make sweeping generalizations about the religious beliefs of people who were subject to punishments up to and including torture and being burned alive for religious dissent. Both Garber and I are, of necessity, reading between the lines when it comes to the religious beliefs or lack thereof of 17th century philosophers. But only one of us acts as if he is and admits how much guesswork the subject involves.
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