(September 27, 2010 at 5:48 pm)Diamond Wrote: My grandfather(who is very religious. Christian, to be specific), upon finding out I'm an atheist, gave me a short list of people who "believed in God", trying to prove a point, I guess.
By "short", I mean there are only three items on the list, but only two I'd like to address on here:
-All the [US] presidents
-Every great leader
What I would like is a little help creating my own little list of these kind of people who were atheists, irreligious, freethinkers, etc. because I know for a fact that he's exaggerating.
Additionally, if you wish to tell me of any not-so-great, or infamous leaders who did believe in a higher power, I would love to know.
The third one, if you must know, is the Indians(Native Americans), but in addition it says "believed in the great white spirit". However, if you would like to give any further information regarding this, no one's stopping you.
First all the Presidents were not religious or Christian. Washington was a Deist, as was Adams. Jefferson was anti Christian, and at best an agnostic. He disliked christianity to the point of writing his own bible. Lincoln was in the view of many an atheist, and without question a non christian. After his death his biographers made him appear religious to sooth the christian’s ruffled feathers. I think we have has many more who would fall into deist, or Agnostic views, but due to the discrimination and prejudice against atheist have opted to keep their views private.
Here is a short list of a few who changed the world. I would have listed mor, but I have run out of time this morning.
Confucius A form of Humanism
Anaxagoras (Greek) 551 BC
Diagoras (Greek) 500 BC
Protagoras (Greek) 481 BC
Democritus (Greek) 460BC
Epicuus (Greek) 341 BC
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Roman) 106 BC
Lucretius (Roman) 96 BC
Lisius Seneca (Roman) 4 BC
Gallus Petronius 1st Century
John of Lackland (English King) 1199
Giordano Bruno (Italian) 1548
Thomas Hobbes (English) 1588
Aphra Behn (German) 1640
Voltair (French) 1694
Ben Franklin 1706
Frederick the Great 1712
Denis Diderot (French) 1713
Thomas Paine (American) 1737
Napoleon Bonaparte (“All religions have been made by men)
Simon Bolivar, Venezuelan 1783
Percy Bysshe Shelley, English
Elizur Wright, American 1804
Abraham Lincoln, American president 1809
Edgar Allan Poe, American writer 1809
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American suffragist 1815
Karl Marx, German political philosopher and economist 1818
Mary Ann Evans "George Eliot", English novelist 1819
Walt Whitman, American poet 1819
Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist 1820
Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist 1825
Henry Stephens Salt, American Humanitarian 1851
Robert Green Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer 1833
Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist 1835
Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist 1835
Friedrich Nietzsche, German philologist and philosopher (1844
Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician and pioneer psychoanalyst (1856-
George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright (1856
William Howard Taft, American President and Chief Justice: "I do not believe in the divinity of Christ and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe."
Herbert George "H.G." Wells, English author 1866
Marie Curie, Polish-born French chemist and physicist 1867
Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect 1869
Robert Frost, American poet 1874
Culbert Olson, American politician 1876
Albert Einstein, German born American threoretical physicist 1879
W. C. Fields, American entertainer 1880
James Joyce, Irish author 1882
Arthur Rubenstein, Polish-American pianist 1886-
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, English biologist and author 1887
Sir Alfred Hitchcock, British film director 1899
Pearl S. Buck, American author 1892
Ernest Hemingway, American author 1899
Linus Carl Pauling, American chemist 1901
Gene Kelly, American dancer, singer, actor, and director 1912
Francois Mitterrand, French Politician 1916
Richard Burton, Welsh actor 1925
George C. Scott, American Actor 1927
Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author 1934
