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RE: Atheists who changed the world
July 20, 2012 at 4:29 am
Aristotle -
Quote:Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form, but with regard to their mode of life.
Bertrand Russell -
Quote:And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.
They are my top favourites. Next to Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.
Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.
You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
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RE: Atheists who changed the world
July 20, 2012 at 5:05 am
At least in terms of the 20th century, I can't come up with two atheists who changed the world more than Stalin and Mao, who radically transformed the world's two largest countries. Hundreds of millions of people were directly affected.
The degree to which their atheism informed their work is less clear. Both regimes were explicitly atheist, but it wouldn't be accurate to say that was the primary motivator for all their actions.
Perhaps we could say that they were totally liberated from the constraints of Christian morality, and this allowed them to take decisive action to move their respective countries in to the modern era in a rapid manner.
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RE: Atheists who changed the world
July 20, 2012 at 7:22 am
Einstein was a Pantheist.
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RE: Atheists who changed the world
July 20, 2012 at 1:04 pm
My 2 cents.
Jawaharlal Nehru - First Prime Minister of India and self-professed atheist.
Ayn Rand - Novelist and founder of Objectivism.
Also, if Denny Crane on the list refers to William Shatner's role Boston Legal, I think it should be removed because a) there are many episodes where he refers to god and life after death and b) he's a fictional character.
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RE: Atheists who changed the world
July 20, 2012 at 2:10 pm
(July 20, 2012 at 3:41 am)twocompulsive Wrote: Was not Socrates an atheist?
Despite the common opinion of 400BC Athens, no, he was ridiculously religious and was one of the most godly men in Greece, despite his skepticism. He questioned the existence of the gods but always worshiped them.
Religion is an attempt to answer the philosophical questions of the unphilosophical man.
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RE: Atheists who changed the world
July 20, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Linus Pauling - A very important scientist, winning 2 Nobel Prizes (Chemistry and Peace).
Che Guevara
Julian Assange
Isaac Asimov
Paul Dirac - Huge contribution to modern physics
Niels Bohr - Developed a lot of the model of the atom.
Richard Feynman
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. - J.R.R Tolkien
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RE: Atheists who changed the world
July 20, 2012 at 6:13 pm
Clement Attlee. British Deputy Prime Minister during WW2, Prime Minister following the war and the NHS was created during his term, which then has been used by other first world nations as a template for socialised medicine.
America may catch on one day. But I doubt that.
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