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Even though, as you said, we can't tell for sure if many of them truly were atheists, this is still very interesting to learn. From an ex-believer's perspective, it's reassuring to remember how timeless dissent is.
GMS sent me here! :) Thx for the content you make. Thank you to all of the deceased atheist-adjacent people who were put to death or judged. It doesn't seem we've come far in some ways, but the ability to question your reality and your origin should be a right.
Atheism has to be a lot older than this as the Old Testament in the Bible itself says "The fool says there is no God" -so they must have been around in sufficient numbers then to elicit this statement. Actually there are ancient Egyptian texts that question the existence of the gods - and the pagan Romans alleged that among other things Christians were atheists as they didn't believe in gods. As someone once said -monotheism has to proceed only one more step to becoming atheism!
Yeah that's true I think it was also for pagans who believed in "gods" as opposed to the capital G one. And did they? To my knowledge the idea that other gods aren't real is a recent baptist thing. Pretty sure other christians believed the gods were real and just didn't worship them because they were thought to be evil, but I could be wrong.
@@gknight686 Something like this would probably vary a lot based on the time, place, and group of Christians. There's definitely reason to believe some people had those beliefs, but since Christianity has had a huge amount of adherents over a long history, that's also true of anything. But yeah, afaik your first sentence is correct, "says their is no god" means "doesn't believe in OUR god", not that they don't believe in any form of higher supernatural powers whatsoever. It's really just a trumped up "people who don't agree with me are dumb and bad."
That verse is widely misunderstood. It is not saying "atheists are fools," it means that the "fool" (someone who behaves unrighteously or for short term gain or pleasure) does not believe that the gods will visit consequences on evildoers because if they did, they would not act foolishly. Thus their hearts implicitly deny divine existence. This fits better with the rest of the Psalm, which is about corruption. (Minor distraction: because of the Jewish context Elohim is usually taken to be the name of the singular deity here. But grammatically I think it could be read as "there are no gods" and that the author may have intended this double meaning.)
Excellent video, and I've learned a lot from you as usual! I really like this longer episode; it's the next best thing to getting to sit in on a class of yours on atheism!
Love your videos! Especially on non-belief. I follow religious TH-cam for years, being an non-believing sociologist (but specialized in another topic) interested in religion. But no one I´m aware of has put this much attention to non belief. Please continue your good work!
Would you do a video on the Catholic church reformers way before German Martin Luther, such as Czech Jan Hus and English John Wycliffe ? Do you consider them proto-atheists?
@@religiologEng I believe so, too. Looking forward to watching it here in the future. I am an admirer of theirs, and also of all those scientists European or other, who dared question their Church's dogma and got killed for it like Giordano Bruno, or had to publicly renounce their findings like Galileo Galilei who later re-claimed "Eppure si muove", or simply got away like the smart Slav N. Kopernik. They too paved the way to public questioning of the Church's infallibility and made some of the first cracks in its dogma.
@@miovicdina7706 Bruno was a mystic who had no scinetif8c proof that he could validate any of his ideas with. It was his mystical ideas that got him killed. Galileos used circular orbits so much of his research was not accurate. He got into trouble for trying to interpret the Bible at the time of reformation.
Interesting video including many thinkers of whom I was unaware. Thank you. I would suggest that the title should have been "Atheist Priests (plural) who changed the fate of Europe." Also I don't understand why the restrictive definition of atheism by Febvre is taken so seriously. There could be no conception of atheism before the philosophy of Descartes? Come on.
I had to delete a complaint about not mentioning Lucien Febvre as soon as you mentioned him. Oops, my bad. Nice video! Any good tips to buy those "Ideas in Context" books for a reasonable price?
Jean Meslier for sure. Would love to go have a beer with him and Voltaire . Amazing video.; a herculean task incredibly well done. D’Holbach second place. (what is your paypal address for donation?)
Hey, thank you very much! I'm right now working on a video about Vanini and you provided me better source than the Wikipedia! Can you tell me what are Mitchells sources for his quotes on Vanini about diying cheerfully as a philosopher and don't pray for God's mercy? Those two quotes look so heroic, maybe there's some mythfication on Vanini's figure, and I'm trying to avoid that, so I wanna know if there's any contemporary sources for him saying that.
@@raquelpardal5343 glad you found it helpful. Here is what Mitchells writes: This account of Vanini’s execution is from Nicholas S. Davidson, “Science and Religion in the Writings of Giulio Cesare Vanini, 1585-1619,” in John Hedley Brooke and Ian Maclean, eds., Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science and Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 60, 66; and John Owen, The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance (London: S. Sonnenschein, 1893), 403.
You should make a video about Anacharsis Cloots, who installed a bust of Jean Meslier in Notre-Dame of Paris, and was sent to the guillotine by Robbespiere, who hated his atheism...
Have you covered Jean Meslier so far. If not, are you planning to? Edit: I watched the video, so I saw that you covered Meslier. Indeed, I think that he deserves bekng called the first 'proper' atheist in Western history. Excellent video, btw!
Thank you for your great work! I am a master's student of history. At the moment I'm researching Raëlism, arguably the largest UFO religion in the world. It originated in the 1970s. A central question of my work is whether there were also UFO religions in the Soviet Union and how cults in general were able to develop in the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s. Would you happen to know anything about this? That would be extremely helpful to me, as I unfortunately have little access to literature due to my lack of knowledge of the languages of the Soviet Union. Best regards :)
I know about Raelism and I even interviewed one of their former priests, but he isn't from the former USSR and I know nothing about Raelism in the USSR, sorry
@@religiologEng thanks for the fast response! Would you by any chance know anything about soviet religions/sects that put science at the centre of their beliefs? Sorry for all the questions
Excellent presentation. The history of all religions seems to be the same; blind acceptance by gullible wishful thinkers. I'm happily surprised by the ancient Freethinkers of Islam.
Blind beliefs lead to conflicts & violence with other blind believers unless things are checked in time, a role played by atheists, philosophers and logical thinkers as opposed to logical believers, throughout centuries. The complete negation and resulting absolute existence of Atheism, logical thinkers or philosophers is what has put Muslim societies and Hindu societies on back foot in recent times and propelled ongoing European civilisation on the throne of modern guide of the world. If not for Buddhism and similar Atheistic, agnostic schools in India the situation in Indian subcontinent would habe become much worse than it was when Europeans came to its shore to bring them back to their senses. I also believe all religions had in their sources philosophical ideas, great logical thinkers, who understood the importance of logic and limitations of logic too and helped guide their desperately blind, reeling societies to its feet and helped them walk their own path with as less crutches as feasible. There are credible ideas that Jesus might have been influenced by ideas of the Agnostic Buddha who had preceded him about 500 years and was Agnostic in all sense of the term. However as with most if not all religious systems a successful movement evolves into more of a custom and tradition based belief system clinging onto the very crutches provided by their pioneers even when realities have deviated from historical circumstances and situations which had given birth to the movement. **** However, i am not glorifying Atheism or logical thinking. Remember human logic has their limitations too and like anything else that limitation is set by NECESSITY OF INDIVIDUAL HUMAN LIFE. I BELIEVE Human Logic do not and cannot stand for goodness and do not and cannot stand forever if it is without any specific objective and the only universally supportable objective of human beings is preservation , sustenance of goodness of individual life and rejection of deviation from it, even religions are based on similar efforts
I prefer to use the term "bright" for those who deny all supernatural claims and leave the term atheist to those who deny the existence of gods. It makes the discourse clearer.
Many early modern philosophers wanted to use the tools of philosophy to make the Christian beliefs of their time a lot less damaging. This is implicit in Spinoza's _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,_ for example. Meslier's problem is that he was giving the game away by saying the quiet part out loud.
I mean there's some evidence that elephants bury the dead and have a proto-religion worshipping the moon so I would guess that religion has probably existed longer than humans have. Pretty wild to think about
Hey I just wanted to tell you, I'm only about 12 minutes in I think, I'm looking at Elisha ben Abuya, and I really hope this isn't just a list of people. I mean I'll be really interested to see that list of people and hear about them and thank you very much for doing that but I hope you also have a little section at some point for just random people whose actual names and dates are unknown, like the people in the Christian Bible who are called atheists and presumably were around before this guy. Unless you're not going in chronological order like it seems that this very moment. Anyway, this is a great idea for a video and I'm super happy to see it so thanks for making it and posting it Edit: to clarify, I'm super excited about the video and I hope there's a whole lot of it. I hope there are a bunch of named people in history and I'm looking forward to the stories and on top of that I hope there are also unknowns. Because we're all people looking for solidarity and most of us are nobodies, not great scientists or theologians. Anyway, having a great time
I am glad you are enjoying the video. And I hope you understand the concept of the video and my criteria. Also, check out some other videos on the channel. Best!
I'll give the award to Meslier simply because he did his letters postumaly wich is a checkmate to the foxhole argument. As atheists we have a hard time understanding how important this is, but him denying god in death should be more meaningfull to religious people than any of us denying in life because christians have a really hard time accepting 100% atheism. Meslier not only blasphemed he found a way to do it in death, the ultimate challenge to god's supposed power over him. It's a brilliant move I wish I could have met this man, thanks for introducing me to his work.
I always take a while to watch these videos. I definitely love all the new information I get out of them, but man they're depressing, and this video is particularly heavy on the bitter without any sweet to go around. To be honest I don't think I have a strong opinion on the first "real atheist" here - my gut wants to go with Vanini. One could easily argue him a pantheist, looking into more detail, to be honest I don't put much stock in calling historical figures pantheist on what were likely analogies meant to make their views more comprehensible to their contemporaries. Saying something like "the Earth itself is the creator" or "God is natural law" or such doesn't necessarily represent a sincere, thought-through viewpoint they're holding, but just sounds to me like rhetoric meant to convey that they don't feel these concepts are lofty/special. The real atheism is the friends we made along the way! But obviously, trying to call one of them the first documented atheist is silly semantics, and to be honest, as far as their impact on thought and culture goes, the simple fact they rejected the prevailing beliefs of their culture is infinitely more meaningful than if they believed in some sort of hand-waved irrelevant-to-life higher power, or took the full final step into assuming nothing supernatural (and even then, it depends a lot on what they felt fit into the "super"natural bucket in the first place). Especially since the "documented" part there is more key than "atheist" - I imagine many freethinkers in eras past found it easier to tell people that they "didn't believe in a god that X" rather than just saying "didn't believe in god" in an attempt to focus the conversation on something practical and not just anger people to no benefit. Once it becomes a matter of deciding like "who was the first 16-17th century European to put this specific sentiment in a way that we'd associate with a certain belief system now" you're trying to unravel so many layers of semantics and rhetoric that it gets pretty damn blurry. But that's not to say I didn't find it interesting to hear about all of them! Still very proud to be your patron. If you're not too busy, I'd actually like to hear your thoughts on my suspicion of "deism/pantheism as rhetoric" being a common case throughout history - it simply having been more convenient for many of these thinkers to re-frame god than to deny him, since the end result was identical (removing any mandates from religion on people and culture).
Dabor, thank you for your thoughtful comment. I agree that many people find it easier not to use labels such as pantheist, deist, or atheist. While many could be considered these terms in the modern sense, they didn't necessarily identify as such. I also agree that searching for the "first atheist" is a broad and somewhat meaningless endeavor. I wouldn't attempt to write such an article for an academic source, but for TH-cam, I need to find ways to keep viewers engaged. My aim is to make the topic interesting without delving too deeply into the complexities of definitions. Of course, the idea of "history's first atheist" is somewhat misleading and not the main focus of the video. It serves more as a way to draw attention to religious skeptics who were pioneers in this area and on whose shoulders many modern skeptics stand. It's intriguing to learn about those who broke the spell and openly declared their nonbelief, even though such individuals likely existed throughout history. I thought the topic might be interesting given the stigma that still surrounds the word "atheist."
@@religiologEng Thanks for the response! I hope I didn't come across as overly critical of your "hook" of the sort of "first modern atheist" concept - I think most people here get it's a stylistic flourish, and it's more just "here's a bunch of thinkers who ere influential in near-enlightenment atheistic thinking and which made stronger claims in what regards". It was a pretty good format.
...of course, feeling (and BEING) Safe to Hold such views -- much less SURVIVING should the induvidual express them (or just be ACCUSED of them by a Vindictive neighbor) wasn't Possible in most of Xtian Europe until the latter 20th Century...and is Still true in much of the Xtian- & Muslimist-Conquered World...
This is a great video. Thank you. First of all, they all freed themselves from traditional ways of thinking and authority pressure. Second, they all have some skepticism and logical thinking and they are mostly educated and well-informed with some conscience and logic. Mostly they all come (or eventually will come) to the same conclusions as atheists. Also, we must consider that these are too radical ideas that need to be developed with discussions, debates, and research but those were difficult times. So even if they could not write or say or even if we do not have enough evidence, I think anyone who starts to think like these and question religions and other dogmas, sees the world and how it works and has knowledge about past and suffering and injustice around themselves (who are not ignorant or hateful) are atheists. I feel really bad about humanity, especially after seeing that for centuries, many did their best to overcome religious authority and oppression and tried to develop skepticism and reasoning, we are still not so much better. Even right now there are wars of belief and there is hatred/fear for other believers/non-believers and discrimination because of religions. Religion still prevents humanity from science and being better. And even now many suffer....
The Charvaka from india were one of the fiest openly atheists in history we know of and the existed thousands of years ago. The first documented self proclaimed atheist is not in Europe. How can you teach religion and not know this? Not to mention some Greek atheist pbilosophers.
@@hashifvs519 why? Meslier, according to this review is the first documented atheist in history (in the broad sense of this word). But I am open to any suggestions. Do you have a better suggestion?
@@religiologEng I mean there were atheists before him in history in almost any civilization, say greek, indian or even islamic all of them were documented too, so why someone from the middevial europe has to be the first atheist recorded in history as a broad sense of this world, c'mon man world isn't just Europe.
If you don’t mind me asking which UC do you teach at? I am an alum from Davis and am interested in what campus is allowing the class. I still remember my time at Davis and how much the campus had a religious population (including preacher in the quad) about 15 years ago.
I'm gratefull to you. How can it be that such influential authors like Bayle and Meslier were totally out of my knoledge of the enlightnment? Do Historians writting for large audiences still avoid them out fear of hurting susceptibilities? The Marquis de Sade is a more palabatable topic in the XXI centuary... Sordid scandals don't hurt. Doubting our intimate believes rooted in faith hurt hard.
15:02 As a paleography aficionada, this slide perfectly illustrates the transitional periods of Galego Português and the early split of Occitan and Provençal based on geography. Occitan is how it is called around Andorra, Catalonia, Basque, and the rest of the Iberian peninsula. But it is called Provençal in France. _please, if you speak any of these languages, help me fact-check this_
I knew the USAnian school system was bad, but before you teach anything about Atheism you need to understand that it does not mean "Rationalist Materialist" !
Critiques of religion certainly precede Christianity: “A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.” - Aristotle (384-322 BCE) “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” - Seneca the Younger (4 BCE - 65 CE)
If Dawkins is right that we are the product of mindless unguided natural processes, then he has given us strong reason to doubt the reliability of human cognitive faculties and therefore inevitably to doubt the validity of any belief that they produce - including Dawkins’ own science and his atheism. His biology and his belief in naturalism would therefore appear to be at war with each other in a conflict that has nothing at all to do with God.”- Alvin Plantinga
You have to look in antique Greece, before Ptolemy. Most of those writing were atheist. It was also the Greeks then who invented Christianity. Damn, those Greeks.
Hm, wasn't 'atheism' the reason to burn Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) in Campo dei Fiori, or was it 'heresy'? He spooked people out by his 'mnemonic' methods and allegedly was the most knowlegable man of his times. Atheists, Pantheists, Deists and Freethinkers all claim him als predecessor, and he was greatly influential with most contemporary and later Humanists. There is also the doctor Miguel Serveto y Reves (1509/11-1553) that had his lethal run into Calvin, and was also burned for 'heresy' and 'blasphemy' - but he limited his published critics on how foolish trinity was. (Well, facing Calvin it is very hard not to see - and recognize - a religious fool.) But one of the first I ever heard about was a nameless southern french mountain-farmer, that was 'caught' when the inquisition searched for Cathars in the 12th century. He told the dominicans there was no god, and if such a petty tyrannic god, like the priest described, would really exist, it was the duty of every human to raise against and battle him on judgement day with teeth and claws. I'm not sure what they did with him. They couldn't burn him for being a Cathar. They probably even let him go, because the bible says, those that say there is no god are just fools, and he had no learning and undergone no religious teachings from neither side, and just brought every-day materialistic farmer's reasoning to the court. - I seem to recall he was sentenced to religious education with some priests, and if he was smart he probably 'accepted Jesus as his saviour' just to make the Dominicans happy they had successfully educated an unlearnt savage, but probably I mix that outcome up with a later story, because looking for the source of the first story - (I had been pretty certain, I had read it first mentioned by Labouvie, who wrote about testimonies and reconstructed lives of 'simple' medieval and renaissance country-folks in southern french juristiction, but I failed to refind it) - Where have I been? ah, yes: ... looking for atheistic country&mountain-folks I found there was another story in a book about late medieval/early renaissance inquisition-acts on witchcraft, about another materialistic alpine shephard in the 14/15th century that was caught by some heretic/wizard-hunters, who also hadn't received any religious teachings, and told the priest that his stories about an invisible allmighty being were highly unlikely, he only believed what he saw, and some long dead man he did not believe to have risen from dead certainly had no effect on his life. But since the retold reasonings of the inquisitioned sounded rather similar - it might be, that a) I misremember (I read about 10 books a week in my twenties) or that b) the book I found was the same case, that was only brought forth for a later period as an example that religious teachers of any colour didn't always make it into remote areas even in Europe, and the freedom from religious education was creating all sorts of private philosophies, that weren't all 'pagan' or some sort of somewhat traditional animistic folk-superstitions. Edit: No, I walked down my soft-cover library: the last time I moved, I have not moved all my books on medieval religion and christian heresies (and rightly so, because my actual place is too moist), but I can give you the name of some authors on medievistic or renaissance folk-culture that I read on medieval religiousity and who might have written about religious low-class rebels and 'Caught' atheists: Eva Labouvie, Richard van Dülmen, Richard Kiekhefer, Nathalie Zenon Davis, Norbert Schindler, Franz Irsigler/Arnold Lasotta, Norbert Ohler, Arno Borst, Jaques LeGoff, Carlo Ginsburg, probably even one of the 'serious works' by Umberto Eco. And eventually the woman with the far away mirror I can't remember the name of right now... - But I'm pretty certain the first case was mentioned in a book specialized on the persecution of the Cathars (or a general one about those Dualistis religions, Lollards or Bogumiles, because the southern french atheist might have heard about the idea of an 'evil god' or he wouldn't have come up with the idea it was necessary to fight the monstrous demon the priest imagined to be his god) alltogether (don't think it were the Beghines and Beghardes, those being more mystics) probably originally produced by an either french or italian author famous enough to be citated by a german author, and that in one chapter also mentioned the everyday-religiosity (or the lack tehreof) of 'normal people', that hadn't made it into the history-books by name.
...I must respectfully contest the Professor's "expansive definition" of an Atheist as: 'One who Discounts Both the Existence(s) of any deities -- And the Reality of Any/All Other 'Supernatural' Actors & Forces.' Such an Individual could be called an "Asupernaturalist"...but the last time I checked, the term "A-Theism" ONLY describes the "Absence of Belief in..." entities that 'Qualify(*) as god(s)'. (*) Setting the stage for "Fallacy of the Beard" debates.
In India, the Atheist was known as the first Atheist. We have an era named after him. The atheist school goes by different names. Charvaka, Prathama Nastika (first atheist), Lokayata (rank materialist). He lived and preached around the time of Jesus. This is what he preached: There is no god. This is the only life you have, there is no afterlife. There are no morals and sins. Just enjoy your life. Even Buddha was agnostic and he is placed around 6 century BC. ... and you come out with the title of the first atheist of the world, for a person who lived in the 13th century.
Okay no. You do not get it every which way. You are sliding between definitions equivocating terms. You claim on the one hand atheism is naturalism, then when someone denied the supernatural and claims there is only the natural they are still a theist.
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Hello, would you please give us the link to your channel in Russian language, I would like to watch and support it
Even though, as you said, we can't tell for sure if many of them truly were atheists, this is still very interesting to learn. From an ex-believer's perspective, it's reassuring to remember how timeless dissent is.
thank you for the comment. I'm glad it was helpful
I love your name, has a great ring to it. Looks like you have a decent little channel of your own of this type! Might go check it out.
GMS sent me here! :) Thx for the content you make. Thank you to all of the deceased atheist-adjacent people who were put to death or judged. It doesn't seem we've come far in some ways, but the ability to question your reality and your origin should be a right.
thanks for sharing! Welcome to the channel
faith in humanity restored by this
Atheism has to be a lot older than this as the Old Testament in the Bible itself says "The fool says there is no God" -so they must have been around in sufficient numbers then to elicit this statement. Actually there are ancient Egyptian texts that question the existence of the gods - and the pagan Romans alleged that among other things Christians were atheists as they didn't believe in gods. As someone once said -monotheism has to proceed only one more step to becoming atheism!
more likely atheists existed long ago before CE, but we do not have access to such records, I mean in a broad sense "No Supernatural assumptions"
@@religiologEng Epicurus?
Yeah that's true I think it was also for pagans who believed in "gods" as opposed to the capital G one. And did they? To my knowledge the idea that other gods aren't real is a recent baptist thing. Pretty sure other christians believed the gods were real and just didn't worship them because they were thought to be evil, but I could be wrong.
@@gknight686 Something like this would probably vary a lot based on the time, place, and group of Christians. There's definitely reason to believe some people had those beliefs, but since Christianity has had a huge amount of adherents over a long history, that's also true of anything. But yeah, afaik your first sentence is correct, "says their is no god" means "doesn't believe in OUR god", not that they don't believe in any form of higher supernatural powers whatsoever. It's really just a trumped up "people who don't agree with me are dumb and bad."
That verse is widely misunderstood. It is not saying "atheists are fools," it means that the "fool" (someone who behaves unrighteously or for short term gain or pleasure) does not believe that the gods will visit consequences on evildoers because if they did, they would not act foolishly. Thus their hearts implicitly deny divine existence. This fits better with the rest of the Psalm, which is about corruption.
(Minor distraction: because of the Jewish context Elohim is usually taken to be the name of the singular deity here. But grammatically I think it could be read as "there are no gods" and that the author may have intended this double meaning.)
"There are some who deny revelation.They are not fools, But wise men."
thank you for the comment!
@@religiologEng I'm thinking Wang Chun. No one seemed to Argue that he might have had hidden supernatural beliefs.
I hadn’t heard of Jean Meslier before. Thank you!
Hope you like it!
awesome vid, pal! Another win!
thank you for helping with algorithms
@@religiologEng any time! ))
This video should have much more likes
thank you! please help to share
Excellent video, and I've learned a lot from you as usual!
I really like this longer episode; it's the next best thing to getting to sit in on a class of yours on atheism!
Glad you enjoyed it, Adam! Thanks for commenting.
I learned a lot thank you
Glad to hear it!
Love your videos! Especially on non-belief. I follow religious TH-cam for years, being an non-believing sociologist (but specialized in another topic) interested in religion. But no one I´m aware of has put this much attention to non belief. Please continue your good work!
Thank you for the motivation!
Do you know the Pinecreek theorem? You are going to like it.
Username checks out
Meslier was new to me. His book is available on Gutenberg and his writing is brilliant.
enjoy the reading :)
Voltaire was my guess.
Missed it by a couple of years
Great documentary.
Wonderful in depth and insightful teaching.
Glad you enjoyed it! please share
Would you do a video on the Catholic church reformers way before German Martin Luther, such as Czech Jan Hus and English John Wycliffe ?
Do you consider them proto-atheists?
Maybe will some day. The Reformation helped a lot to advance skepticism, especially Unitarians. I'll do a video about this.
@@religiologEng I believe so, too. Looking forward to watching it here in the future.
I am an admirer of theirs, and also of all those scientists European or other, who dared question their Church's dogma and got killed for it like Giordano Bruno, or had to publicly renounce their findings like Galileo Galilei who later re-claimed "Eppure si muove", or simply got away like the smart Slav N. Kopernik. They too paved the way to public questioning of the Church's infallibility and made some of the first cracks in its dogma.
@@miovicdina7706 Bruno was a mystic who had no scinetif8c proof that he could validate any of his ideas with. It was his mystical ideas that got him killed.
Galileos used circular orbits so much of his research was not accurate. He got into trouble for trying to interpret the Bible at the time of reformation.
Interesting video including many thinkers of whom I was unaware. Thank you. I would suggest that the title should have been "Atheist Priests (plural) who changed the fate of Europe." Also I don't understand why the restrictive definition of atheism by Febvre is taken so seriously. There could be no conception of atheism before the philosophy of Descartes? Come on.
good points! Thank you!
Everyone is born an atheist.
evidence ?
@@neomatrix4412 so you were born knowing what religion is?😄
@@pipestone67 so you were born knowing what atheism is?
@neomatrix4412 not one person does, that is the point. Obviously you aren't bright enough to understand that. Atheism is not a religion you goof.
The universe IS Atheist
I had to delete a complaint about not mentioning Lucien Febvre as soon as you mentioned him. Oops, my bad. Nice video! Any good tips to buy those "Ideas in Context" books for a reasonable price?
on eBay you may get used ones from libraries. they usually sell them for 5-10$
I was right there with you
Jean Meslier for sure. Would love to go have a beer with him and Voltaire . Amazing video.; a herculean task incredibly well done. D’Holbach second place. (what is your paypal address for donation?)
Thank you, Mason! The link is in the description, but here it is: www.paypal.com/paypalme/religiolog
8:56 Right now. My bet is Lucilio Vanini.
thanks for sharing. Yes, he was great!
Hey, thank you very much! I'm right now working on a video about Vanini and you provided me better source than the Wikipedia! Can you tell me what are Mitchells sources for his quotes on Vanini about diying cheerfully as a philosopher and don't pray for God's mercy? Those two quotes look so heroic, maybe there's some mythfication on Vanini's figure, and I'm trying to avoid that, so I wanna know if there's any contemporary sources for him saying that.
@@raquelpardal5343 glad you found it helpful. Here is what Mitchells writes: This account of Vanini’s execution is from Nicholas S. Davidson, “Science and Religion in the Writings of Giulio Cesare Vanini, 1585-1619,” in John Hedley Brooke and Ian Maclean, eds., Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science and Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 60, 66; and John Owen, The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance (London: S. Sonnenschein, 1893), 403.
Thank you.
Wonderful 😊
thanks! please share
you made a great point Meslier was a wonderful wise man.
but for thought and knowledge are fluent in one's life who can one be seen as (are) these?
Meslier! ❤
thanks!
You should make a video about Anacharsis Cloots, who installed a bust of Jean Meslier in Notre-Dame of Paris, and was sent to the guillotine by Robbespiere, who hated his atheism...
thank you for the great idea!
Great ivdeo! I love learning this sort of history!
Glad you enjoyed it! and more to come.
Have you covered Jean Meslier so far. If not, are you planning to?
Edit: I watched the video, so I saw that you covered Meslier. Indeed, I think that he deserves bekng called the first 'proper' atheist in Western history. Excellent video, btw!
thank you! please share
Thank you for your great work! I am a master's student of history. At the moment I'm researching Raëlism, arguably the largest UFO religion in the world. It originated in the 1970s. A central question of my work is whether there were also UFO religions in the Soviet Union and how cults in general were able to develop in the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s. Would you happen to know anything about this? That would be extremely helpful to me, as I unfortunately have little access to literature due to my lack of knowledge of the languages of the Soviet Union. Best regards :)
I know about Raelism and I even interviewed one of their former priests, but he isn't from the former USSR and I know nothing about Raelism in the USSR, sorry
@@religiologEng thanks for the fast response! Would you by any chance know anything about soviet religions/sects that put science at the centre of their beliefs? Sorry for all the questions
this channel is awesome
thanks, there are many great video here
Well done 👍🏿🖤❤️👍🏿
Thanks!
The 1603 petition definitely has it right when it comes to English atheists... they truly live on brawls
But couldn't this just represent the English baseline... ?😄
Meliere seems the best candidate by a mile
thank you Russell for the comment!
Atheism must precede Descartes because his "I think therefore I am" was part of the groundwork for an argument for the existence of God.
good point
Excellent presentation. The history of all religions seems to be the same; blind acceptance by gullible wishful thinkers. I'm happily surprised by the ancient Freethinkers of Islam.
Thank you, Maureen! Yes, freethinkers of Islam are amazing. What do you think of Meslier?
Blind beliefs lead to conflicts & violence with other blind believers unless things are checked in time, a role played by atheists, philosophers and logical thinkers as opposed to logical believers, throughout centuries.
The complete negation and resulting absolute existence of Atheism, logical thinkers or philosophers is what has put Muslim societies and Hindu societies on back foot in recent times and propelled ongoing European civilisation on the throne of modern guide of the world.
If not for Buddhism and similar Atheistic, agnostic schools in India the situation in Indian subcontinent would habe become much worse than it was when Europeans came to its shore to bring them back to their senses.
I also believe all religions had in their sources philosophical ideas, great logical thinkers, who understood the importance of logic and limitations of logic too and helped guide their desperately blind, reeling societies to its feet and helped them walk their own path with as less crutches as feasible.
There are credible ideas that Jesus might have been influenced by ideas of the Agnostic Buddha who had preceded him about 500 years and was Agnostic in all sense of the term.
However as with most if not all religious systems a successful movement evolves into more of a custom and tradition based belief system clinging onto the very crutches provided by their pioneers even when realities have deviated from historical circumstances and situations which had given birth to the movement.
****
However, i am not glorifying Atheism or logical thinking.
Remember human logic has their limitations too and like anything else that limitation is set by NECESSITY OF INDIVIDUAL HUMAN LIFE. I BELIEVE Human Logic do not and cannot stand for goodness and do not and cannot stand forever if it is without any specific objective and the only universally supportable objective of human beings is preservation , sustenance of goodness of individual life and rejection of deviation from it, even religions are based on similar efforts
I prefer to use the term "bright" for those who deny all supernatural claims and leave the term atheist to those who deny the existence of gods. It makes the discourse clearer.
I agree that we need a new term for this and in our forthcoming publication with Phil Zuckerman we suggest such term
Self-flattering titles are unflattering
In Western history.
Many early modern philosophers wanted to use the tools of philosophy to make the Christian beliefs of their time a lot less damaging. This is implicit in Spinoza's _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,_ for example. Meslier's problem is that he was giving the game away by saying the quiet part out loud.
thanks for sharing this
My question is not who was the first Atheist of all time but who was the first who believed in gods without any evidence?
good question and also impossible to find out
I mean there's some evidence that elephants bury the dead and have a proto-religion worshipping the moon so I would guess that religion has probably existed longer than humans have. Pretty wild to think about
Hey I just wanted to tell you, I'm only about 12 minutes in I think, I'm looking at Elisha ben Abuya, and I really hope this isn't just a list of people. I mean I'll be really interested to see that list of people and hear about them and thank you very much for doing that but I hope you also have a little section at some point for just random people whose actual names and dates are unknown, like the people in the Christian Bible who are called atheists and presumably were around before this guy. Unless you're not going in chronological order like it seems that this very moment.
Anyway, this is a great idea for a video and I'm super happy to see it so thanks for making it and posting it
Edit: to clarify, I'm super excited about the video and I hope there's a whole lot of it. I hope there are a bunch of named people in history and I'm looking forward to the stories and on top of that I hope there are also unknowns. Because we're all people looking for solidarity and most of us are nobodies, not great scientists or theologians. Anyway, having a great time
I am glad you are enjoying the video. And I hope you understand the concept of the video and my criteria. Also, check out some other videos on the channel. Best!
@@religiologEng subscribed. Looking forward to your other videos. Thank you very much this has been great fun
I'll give the award to Meslier simply because he did his letters postumaly wich is a checkmate to the foxhole argument. As atheists we have a hard time understanding how important this is, but him denying god in death should be more meaningfull to religious people than any of us denying in life because christians have a really hard time accepting 100% atheism.
Meslier not only blasphemed he found a way to do it in death, the ultimate challenge to god's supposed power over him. It's a brilliant move I wish I could have met this man, thanks for introducing me to his work.
I always take a while to watch these videos. I definitely love all the new information I get out of them, but man they're depressing, and this video is particularly heavy on the bitter without any sweet to go around.
To be honest I don't think I have a strong opinion on the first "real atheist" here - my gut wants to go with Vanini. One could easily argue him a pantheist, looking into more detail, to be honest I don't put much stock in calling historical figures pantheist on what were likely analogies meant to make their views more comprehensible to their contemporaries. Saying something like "the Earth itself is the creator" or "God is natural law" or such doesn't necessarily represent a sincere, thought-through viewpoint they're holding, but just sounds to me like rhetoric meant to convey that they don't feel these concepts are lofty/special. The real atheism is the friends we made along the way!
But obviously, trying to call one of them the first documented atheist is silly semantics, and to be honest, as far as their impact on thought and culture goes, the simple fact they rejected the prevailing beliefs of their culture is infinitely more meaningful than if they believed in some sort of hand-waved irrelevant-to-life higher power, or took the full final step into assuming nothing supernatural (and even then, it depends a lot on what they felt fit into the "super"natural bucket in the first place). Especially since the "documented" part there is more key than "atheist" - I imagine many freethinkers in eras past found it easier to tell people that they "didn't believe in a god that X" rather than just saying "didn't believe in god" in an attempt to focus the conversation on something practical and not just anger people to no benefit. Once it becomes a matter of deciding like "who was the first 16-17th century European to put this specific sentiment in a way that we'd associate with a certain belief system now" you're trying to unravel so many layers of semantics and rhetoric that it gets pretty damn blurry.
But that's not to say I didn't find it interesting to hear about all of them! Still very proud to be your patron. If you're not too busy, I'd actually like to hear your thoughts on my suspicion of "deism/pantheism as rhetoric" being a common case throughout history - it simply having been more convenient for many of these thinkers to re-frame god than to deny him, since the end result was identical (removing any mandates from religion on people and culture).
Dabor, thank you for your thoughtful comment. I agree that many people find it easier not to use labels such as pantheist, deist, or atheist. While many could be considered these terms in the modern sense, they didn't necessarily identify as such. I also agree that searching for the "first atheist" is a broad and somewhat meaningless endeavor. I wouldn't attempt to write such an article for an academic source, but for TH-cam, I need to find ways to keep viewers engaged. My aim is to make the topic interesting without delving too deeply into the complexities of definitions.
Of course, the idea of "history's first atheist" is somewhat misleading and not the main focus of the video. It serves more as a way to draw attention to religious skeptics who were pioneers in this area and on whose shoulders many modern skeptics stand. It's intriguing to learn about those who broke the spell and openly declared their nonbelief, even though such individuals likely existed throughout history. I thought the topic might be interesting given the stigma that still surrounds the word "atheist."
@@religiologEng Thanks for the response! I hope I didn't come across as overly critical of your "hook" of the sort of "first modern atheist" concept - I think most people here get it's a stylistic flourish, and it's more just "here's a bunch of thinkers who ere influential in near-enlightenment atheistic thinking and which made stronger claims in what regards". It was a pretty good format.
Nonsense. The idea that skepticism is new is plain wrong. Nobody ever needed to know what philosophers thought to afford their doubts.
skepticism isn't new. It always have been part of our nature
...of course, feeling (and BEING) Safe to Hold such views -- much less SURVIVING should the induvidual express them (or just be ACCUSED of them by a Vindictive neighbor) wasn't Possible in most of Xtian Europe until the latter 20th Century...and is Still true in much of the Xtian- & Muslimist-Conquered World...
Great video, thank you!
thanks for your comment
Yes we can.
This is a great video. Thank you.
First of all, they all freed themselves from traditional ways of thinking and authority pressure. Second, they all have some skepticism and logical thinking and they are mostly educated and well-informed with some conscience and logic. Mostly they all come (or eventually will come) to the same conclusions as atheists. Also, we must consider that these are too radical ideas that need to be developed with discussions, debates, and research but those were difficult times. So even if they could not write or say or even if we do not have enough evidence, I think anyone who starts to think like these and question religions and other dogmas, sees the world and how it works and has knowledge about past and suffering and injustice around themselves (who are not ignorant or hateful) are atheists.
I feel really bad about humanity, especially after seeing that for centuries, many did their best to overcome religious authority and oppression and tried to develop skepticism and reasoning, we are still not so much better. Even right now there are wars of belief and there is hatred/fear for other believers/non-believers and discrimination because of religions. Religion still prevents humanity from science and being better. And even now many suffer....
Great video
Glad you enjoyed it
The Charvaka from india were one of the fiest openly atheists in history we know of and the existed thousands of years ago. The first documented self proclaimed atheist is not in Europe. How can you teach religion and not know this? Not to mention some Greek atheist pbilosophers.
thanks for your comment, but have you seen the review? I mention all this and BTW I have a separate review about the Greek atheists on my channel
@@religiologEng the thumbnail's quiet misleading
@@hashifvs519 why? Meslier, according to this review is the first documented atheist in history (in the broad sense of this word). But I am open to any suggestions. Do you have a better suggestion?
@@religiologEng I mean there were atheists before him in history in almost any civilization, say greek, indian or even islamic all of them were documented too, so why someone from the middevial europe has to be the first atheist recorded in history as a broad sense of this world, c'mon man world isn't just Europe.
If you don’t mind me asking which UC do you teach at? I am an alum from Davis and am interested in what campus is allowing the class. I still remember my time at Davis and how much the campus had a religious population (including preacher in the quad) about 15 years ago.
I am at Riverside
@@religiologEng Nice! Thank you for the videos you make and the classes you teach. Hoping the best for you!
I'm gratefull to you.
How can it be that such influential authors like Bayle and Meslier were totally out of my knoledge of the enlightnment?
Do Historians writting for large audiences still avoid them out fear of hurting susceptibilities?
The Marquis de Sade is a more palabatable topic in the XXI centuary...
Sordid scandals don't hurt. Doubting our intimate believes rooted in faith hurt hard.
Everyone was an atheist before the first god was invented
15:02
As a paleography aficionada, this slide perfectly illustrates the transitional periods of Galego Português and the early split of Occitan and Provençal based on geography. Occitan is how it is called around Andorra, Catalonia, Basque, and the rest of the Iberian peninsula. But it is called Provençal in France.
_please, if you speak any of these languages, help me fact-check this_
I knew the USAnian school system was bad, but before you teach anything about Atheism you need to understand that it does not mean "Rationalist Materialist" !
Seems a bit Western focused, what about al-Maʿarri?
That's so true! Wow!!!
thanks!
Check Charvaka from India.
Thanks for suggestion, I do mention them in this video
Have you heard of Charvakas - arguably the first known atheists in ancient India?
of course! I mention them in this video, haven't you seen?
Critiques of religion certainly precede Christianity:
“A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.”
- Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
- Seneca the Younger (4 BCE - 65 CE)
thanks for sharing!
If Dawkins is right that we are the product of mindless unguided natural processes, then he has given us strong reason to doubt the reliability of human cognitive faculties and therefore inevitably to doubt the validity of any belief that they produce - including Dawkins’ own science and his atheism. His biology and his belief in naturalism would therefore appear to be at war with each other in a conflict that has nothing at all to do with God.”- Alvin Plantinga
I propose Fredric the Second, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
I know the story, but is it historical?
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
You have to look in antique Greece, before Ptolemy. Most of those writing were atheist. It was also the Greeks then who invented Christianity. Damn, those Greeks.
I have a review on my channel about the Greeks. The link is in the top comment and under the video
I find this definition of atheism quite narrow. Not all atheists are materialists.
Hm, wasn't 'atheism' the reason to burn Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) in Campo dei Fiori, or was it 'heresy'? He spooked people out by his 'mnemonic' methods and allegedly was the most knowlegable man of his times. Atheists, Pantheists, Deists and Freethinkers all claim him als predecessor, and he was greatly influential with most contemporary and later Humanists.
There is also the doctor Miguel Serveto y Reves (1509/11-1553) that had his lethal run into Calvin, and was also burned for 'heresy' and 'blasphemy' - but he limited his published critics on how foolish trinity was. (Well, facing Calvin it is very hard not to see - and recognize - a religious fool.)
But one of the first I ever heard about was a nameless southern french mountain-farmer, that was 'caught' when the inquisition searched for Cathars in the 12th century. He told the dominicans there was no god, and if such a petty tyrannic god, like the priest described, would really exist, it was the duty of every human to raise against and battle him on judgement day with teeth and claws. I'm not sure what they did with him. They couldn't burn him for being a Cathar. They probably even let him go, because the bible says, those that say there is no god are just fools, and he had no learning and undergone no religious teachings from neither side, and just brought every-day materialistic farmer's reasoning to the court.
- I seem to recall he was sentenced to religious education with some priests, and if he was smart he probably 'accepted Jesus as his saviour' just to make the Dominicans happy they had successfully educated an unlearnt savage, but probably I mix that outcome up with a later story, because looking for the source of the first story - (I had been pretty certain, I had read it first mentioned by Labouvie, who wrote about testimonies and reconstructed lives of 'simple' medieval and renaissance country-folks in southern french juristiction, but I failed to refind it) - Where have I been? ah, yes: ... looking for atheistic country&mountain-folks I found there was another story in a book about late medieval/early renaissance inquisition-acts on witchcraft, about another materialistic alpine shephard in the 14/15th century that was caught by some heretic/wizard-hunters, who also hadn't received any religious teachings, and told the priest that his stories about an invisible allmighty being were highly unlikely, he only believed what he saw, and some long dead man he did not believe to have risen from dead certainly had no effect on his life.
But since the retold reasonings of the inquisitioned sounded rather similar - it might be, that a) I misremember (I read about 10 books a week in my twenties) or that b) the book I found was the same case, that was only brought forth for a later period as an example that religious teachers of any colour didn't always make it into remote areas even in Europe, and the freedom from religious education was creating all sorts of private philosophies, that weren't all 'pagan' or some sort of somewhat traditional animistic folk-superstitions.
Edit: No, I walked down my soft-cover library: the last time I moved, I have not moved all my books on medieval religion and christian heresies (and rightly so, because my actual place is too moist), but I can give you the name of some authors on medievistic or renaissance folk-culture that I read on medieval religiousity and who might have written about religious low-class rebels and 'Caught' atheists: Eva Labouvie, Richard van Dülmen, Richard Kiekhefer, Nathalie Zenon Davis, Norbert Schindler, Franz Irsigler/Arnold Lasotta, Norbert Ohler, Arno Borst, Jaques LeGoff, Carlo Ginsburg, probably even one of the 'serious works' by Umberto Eco. And eventually the woman with the far away mirror I can't remember the name of right now... - But I'm pretty certain the first case was mentioned in a book specialized on the persecution of the Cathars (or a general one about those Dualistis religions, Lollards or Bogumiles, because the southern french atheist might have heard about the idea of an 'evil god' or he wouldn't have come up with the idea it was necessary to fight the monstrous demon the priest imagined to be his god) alltogether (don't think it were the Beghines and Beghardes, those being more mystics) probably originally produced by an either french or italian author famous enough to be citated by a german author, and that in one chapter also mentioned the everyday-religiosity (or the lack tehreof) of 'normal people', that hadn't made it into the history-books by name.
...I must respectfully contest the Professor's "expansive definition" of an Atheist as:
'One who Discounts Both the Existence(s) of any deities -- And the Reality of Any/All Other 'Supernatural' Actors & Forces.'
Such an Individual could be called an "Asupernaturalist"...but the last time I checked, the term "A-Theism" ONLY describes the "Absence of Belief in..." entities that 'Qualify(*) as god(s)'.
(*) Setting the stage for "Fallacy of the Beard" debates.
yes, you need a better definition
Herman Reimarus?
Confucius? Democritus?
what do you think of Kazimir Lyshchinsky? I see that you have a similar last name
@@religiologEng I think nothing. What do you think about Confucius and Democritus?
@@piotrleszczynski5744 they both were great, but they don't match my criteria set in the video, that's why I didn't mention them
Lore of Atheist Priest who changed the fate of Europe. History of Atheism. Momentum 100
it'd be the first baby
Uhtred son of Uhtred
What's the difference between atheism and monotheism?
Surely you jest? In the books, Uhtred is a Norse pagan who always wears his Mjolnir. The historical Uhtred (the Bold) was a devout Christian.
Don't know exactly how Socrates stood on matter of gods, but you may look up Epicurus and Titus Lucretius Carus.
The first atheist? Obviously god was the forst atheist.
Good video... atrocious pronunciations...
Sorry for that
In India, the Atheist was known as the first Atheist. We have an era named after him. The atheist school goes by different names. Charvaka, Prathama Nastika (first atheist), Lokayata (rank materialist). He lived and preached around the time of Jesus.
This is what he preached:
There is no god.
This is the only life you have, there is no afterlife.
There are no morals and sins. Just enjoy your life.
Even Buddha was agnostic and he is placed around 6 century BC.
... and you come out with the title of the first atheist of the world, for a person who lived in the 13th century.
Okay no. You do not get it every which way. You are sliding between definitions equivocating terms. You claim on the one hand atheism is naturalism, then when someone denied the supernatural and claims there is only the natural they are still a theist.
You are playing fast and loose with the term "god" equivocating.
Animus on display for sure 😂