When and where did atheism first start ?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Rahn127]

It would depend on when rational thought and gullibility first kicked around in the human or pre-human brain.

It would be my guess that gullibility predates rational thought, but it's only a guess.

If that's the case, then at some point in our evolution, our brains developed the capacity for rational thought and was able to shrug off the gullible notions of irrationality.

As a species, it would seem that we still have a lot of gullibility running around, kinda like a useless appendage that hasn't fallen off yet.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We are descended from earlier apes. Modern apes don't have gods, they don't have the conceptual capacity to make them up.

[Angrboda]

Atheism predates religion. Humans learned believe in the nonsense that is religion.

As an interesting aside, this brings up the question if disbelief can predate the proposal that said thing exists. If it can, that would mean that you categorize nonbelief as a kind of "default." But doing this creates all kinds of problems.

It would mean that you "disbelieve" every future scientific theory that will be proposed. Who would assess their attitude concerning future scientific theories and come to this conclusion? Not me. I think that some future scientific theories will be correct, others will be incorrect. I'd have to hear/read about the theory first before I determine a potential belief status. Taking this way of thinking about it into mind, the "first" atheist would be the first caveman who disbelieved a "God story" after having heard it.

Perhaps, but I certainly lack belief in those future theories. In the sense that many if not most atheists apply it, atheism predates any claims or beliefs in religion by definition.

[Anomalocaris]

This question is, sadly, found in google autofill... well... "who started atheism"... a much worse, much more ignorant version of the question. I'm hoping it's mostly children who return from Sunday school with this sort of question. But I bet the sad truth is, it's asked by adults for the most part... adults with really skewed visions of the world.

Atheism predates religion. Humans learned believe in the nonsense that is religion.

As an interesting aside, this brings up the question if disbelief can predate the proposal that said thing exists. If it can, that would mean that you categorize nonbelief as a kind of "default." But doing this creates all kinds of problems.

It would mean that you "disbelieve" every future scientific theory that will be proposed. Who would assess their attitude concerning future scientific theories and come to this conclusion? Not me. I think that some future scientific theories will be correct, others will be incorrect. I'd have to hear/read about the theory first before I determine a potential belief status. Taking this way of thinking about it into mind, the "first" atheist would be the first caveman who disbelieved a "God story" after having heard it.

The difference is people who will propose future scientific theories which currently doesn't exist for me to consider alternative to disbelieve will likely make a much more honest and creditable effort to overcome my disbelief.


As far as I can tell, god as propounded by those who attempts to overcome my disbelief isn't even theoretically capable of  supporting any honest and creditable effort to overcome any disbelief.

[Simon Moon]

Hello Friends,

Can anyone tell me from where did atheism start and when did it start ?

Thanks

As others have said, pretty much as soon as someone claimed that a god exists (and failed to meet their burden of proof), there was most likely someone else who was not convinced of their claim.

Just to clarify a bit, atheism not a claim in itself, it is a response to a claim. At its most basic level, atheism is NOT being convinced that gods exist. Atheism would not be a thing, unless and until, someone made a god claim.

[chimp3]

Atheism begins again every time a human is born.

[The Valkyrie]

Atheism begins again every time a human is born.

This.

If religion was a natural thing for humans to know, we wouldn’t have to be taught it generation after generation.

[Belacqua]

If religion was a natural thing for humans to know, we wouldn’t have to be taught it generation after generation.

Like language. Or math. Or how to behave in a group.

[Fake Messiah]

Like language. Or math. Or how to behave in a group.

No it's not like language or math because atheism is free thinking and imposing religion on a child is transforming that child from a natural question-poser to a socialized question-rejecter. It is attack on human mind and its capacity to ask and know altogether.

---

Finding evidence of religious unbelief in the ancient world isn't  easy, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Truth is almost all writings by ancient atheists were destroyed by religious people, but they obviously were very powerful that even the Bible couldn't ignore them, like in Psalm 14:1: The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' The psalmist doesn't sugar-coat his opinion of these unbelievers: They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

For instance in Islam there was Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi who was a former Islamic theologian himself. He anticipated every argument of the theologians with a devastating counterargument. He was known as someone who called Muhammad a liar, and he also said the miracles of Moses and Jesus were nothing more than "fraudulent tricks." That Allah acts like "a wrathful, murderous enemy," and that he probably couldn’t even add two and four. The Quran itself he described as "the speech of an unwise being" that contains "contradictions, errors and absurdities."
It's no surprise then that al-Rawandi’s written works — including his most famous, The Book of the Emerald — have vanished, except for a few fragments quoted by his critics. And his impact was long-lasting; more than 200 years after his death, Muslim theologian al-Shirazi was still spilling gallons of ink arguing against al-Rawandi’s suggestion that truth can be discovered through human reason without the need for prophecy or revelation.

Or take 3rd century author Porphyrios and his tract Against the Christians. I mean this tract so totally refuted Christian mythology that the Christian censors destroyed even the pathetic attempts of forty Christian apologists to rebut it.


Or in China there was Xun Zi, among others, who wrote thinks like Pray all you want — heaven can’t hear you. It’s not going to stop the winter because you are cold, and it’s not going to make the Earth smaller because you don’t want to walk so far. You pray for rain and it rains, but your prayer has nothing to do with it. Sometimes you don’t pray for rain and it rains anyway. What do you say then? If you act wisely, good things tend to happen. Act like a fool and bad things tend to happen. Don’t thank or curse heaven — it’s just the natural result of your own actions. If you want to have a better life, educate yourself and think carefully about the consequences of your actions.