atheism in centuries past

[abaris]

I read a post on another forum from a person whose parent or grandparent only admitted to being an atheist just before death. Apparently that atheist kept his/her beliefs secret for some reason.

I wonder what it was like to be an atheist back in the 1700s or 1800s or even the early 1900s?

Depends on when and where and most of all on your social status.

In the late 1700s it wouldn't have been that hard in most parts of Europe. It was the Age of Enlightenment after all. The french philosophers weren't exactly famous for their religiosity and the revolution of 1789 attempted to get rid of clerical power once and for all.

The American founding fathers were deists. They were opposed to organised religion for the most part.

Here, in Austria, we have a law dating back to 1867 that say, no employer may force his religion on his workers, nor is he allowed to discriminate based on religion or absence thereoff.