Atheist Priest who changed the fate of Europe. History of Atheism.

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According to The Cambridge History of Atheism, the French philosopher Mersenne, writing in 1623, estimated that there were up to 50,000 atheists in Paris alone. Around 1617, the Spanish ambassador estimated that there were about 900,000 atheists living in England. But who were all these people? And who can we recognize as the first documented atheist in history? Could it be a French atheist priest who enormously influenced Voltaire, Hume, D’Holbach, Diderot, and others?
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#atheism #meslier #historyofatheism #freethought
Check out my over videos:
History of Atheism in the Ancient World (Greece and Rome)| Tim Whitmarsh - • Is Monotheism an Anoma...
ATHEISM in Medieval Islam. - • ATHEISM in Medieval Is...
What is secularism? - • What is Secularism? 3 ...
Atheism in the USSR under Brezhnev. The Institute of Scientific Atheism. • Positive Atheism in th...
Bibliography:
The Cambridge History of Atheism edited by Stephen Bullivant & Michael Ruse. Cambridge University Press (2021).
Stephens, Mitchell. 2014. Imagine There's No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World. St. Martin's Press
Alec Ryrie. 2019. UNBELIEVERS: An Emotional History of Doubt
Michael Hunter. 2023. Atheists and Atheism Before the Enlightenment.
Nick Spencer. 2014. Atheists: The Origin of the Species.
Jennifer Michael Hecht. 2004. Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson.
Gordon Melton. 2011. Unbelief (Religious Skepticism, Atheism, Humanism, Naturalism, Secularism, Rationalism, Irreligion, Agnosticism, and Related Perspectives)
Michael J. Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987
Michael Hunter and David Wootton, eds., “Introduction” to Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)
David Berman, A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell (London: Croom Helm, 1988)
Meslier, Jean. Superstition in All Ages. Trans. by Anna Knoop. New York: Truth Seeker Company, 1950.
Testament: Memoir of the Thoughts and Sentiments of Jean Meslier. Trans. by Michael Shreve. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2009.
Candidates:
Francois Rabelais (1494 - 1553)
Bonaventure Deperrier (1501 - 1544)
Etienne Dolet (1509 - 1546)
Jacques Gruet (died 1547)
Paolo Sarpi (1552 - 1623)
Giulio Vanini (1585-1619)
Kazimir Lyshchinsky (1634-1689)
Kazimierz Łyszczyński
Matthias Knutzen (b. 1646 - death unknown)
Jean Meslier (1664-1729)

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23 май 2024

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Комментарии : 123

@religiologEng Месяц назад

Thank you for Likes and Comments! Check out my over videos on the History of Atheism: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eCjJeBfBBSU.html Please, support Religiolog through a one-time donation: www.paypal.com/paypalme/religiolog Or become my Patron: www.patreon.com/4religiolog

@miovicdina7706 29 дней назад

Hello, would you please give us the link to your channel in Russian language, I would like to watch and support it

@ApostateAladdin Месяц назад

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.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thank you for the comment. I'm glad it was helpful

@Dabordi 23 дня назад

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.

@LyndaWilliams Месяц назад

I hadn’t heard of Jean Meslier before. Thank you!

@religiologEng Месяц назад

Hope you like it!

@kaloarepo288 Месяц назад

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!

@religiologEng Месяц назад

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"

@johnnytass2111 Месяц назад

@@religiologEng Epicurus?

@gknight686 Месяц назад

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.

@Dabordi 23 дня назад

@@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."

@tombloom99 Месяц назад

Meslier was new to me. His book is available on Gutenberg and his writing is brilliant.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

enjoy the reading :)

@uncleanunicorn4571 Месяц назад

"There are some who deny revelation.They are not fools, But wise men."

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thank you for the comment!

@uncleanunicorn4571 Месяц назад

@@religiologEng I'm thinking Wang Chun. No one seemed to Argue that he might have had hidden supernatural beliefs.

@66666Dr Месяц назад

Love your videos! Especially on non-belief. I follow religious RU-vid 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!

@religiologEng Месяц назад

Thank you for the motivation!

@vejeke Месяц назад

Do you know the Pinecreek theorem? You are going to like it.

@gknight686 Месяц назад

Username checks out

@ricardocima Месяц назад

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?

@religiologEng Месяц назад

on eBay you may get used ones from libraries. they usually sell them for 5-10$

@mrk4022 Месяц назад

awesome vid, pal! Another win!

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thank you for helping with algorithms

@mrk4022 Месяц назад

@@religiologEng any time! ))

@oflunrazeuqram Месяц назад

Voltaire was my guess. Missed it by a couple of years Great documentary. Wonderful in depth and insightful teaching.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

Glad you enjoyed it! please share

@adamtyson3962 Месяц назад

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!

@religiologEng Месяц назад

Glad you enjoyed it, Adam! Thanks for commenting.

@KohanKilletz Месяц назад

The 1603 petition definitely has it right when it comes to English atheists... they truly live on brawls

@sabineottala3588 Месяц назад

But couldn't this just represent the English baseline... ?😄

@exundfluriba Месяц назад

Wonderful 😊

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thanks! please share

@russellkelly701 Месяц назад

Meliere seems the best candidate by a mile

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thank you Russell for the comment!

@annieschnall3058 Месяц назад

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...

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thank you for the great idea!

@Nexus-jg7ev Месяц назад

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!

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thank you! please share

@zuvarian Месяц назад

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?)

@religiologEng Месяц назад

Thank you, Mason! The link is in the description, but here it is: www.paypal.com/paypalme/religiolog

@robinharwood5044 Месяц назад

In Western history.

@Sergio1Rodrigues Месяц назад

this channel is awesome

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thanks, there are many great video here

@pipestone67 Месяц назад

Everyone is born an atheist.

@tommygamba170 Месяц назад

Yes we can.

@fadishihadeh1747 Месяц назад

Well done 👍🏿🖤❤️👍🏿

@religiologEng Месяц назад

Thanks!

@williamlarochelle6833 Месяц назад

Meslier! ❤

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thanks!

@tonitomato9997 Месяц назад

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 :)

@religiologEng Месяц назад

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

@tonitomato9997 Месяц назад

@@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

@user-ml8bx2kc2d Месяц назад

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.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

Thank you, Maureen! Yes, freethinkers of Islam are amazing. What do you think of Meslier?

@ABO-Destiny Месяц назад

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

@GregCorrin Месяц назад

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.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

good points! Thank you!

@eedobee Месяц назад

Nonsense. The idea that skepticism is new is plain wrong. Nobody ever needed to know what philosophers thought to afford their doubts.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

skepticism isn't new. It always have been part of our nature

@neclark08 Месяц назад

...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...

@miovicdina7706 29 дней назад

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 29 дней назад

Maybe will some day. The Reformation helped a lot to advance skepticism, especially Unitarians. I'll do a video about this.

@miovicdina7706 28 дней назад

@@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.

@NcowAloverZI Месяц назад

I learned a lot thank you

@religiologEng Месяц назад

Glad to hear it!

@oorzuis1419 Месяц назад

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?

@Joe-bx4wn Месяц назад

The universe IS Atheist

@raquelpardal5343 Месяц назад

8:56 Right now. My bet is Lucilio Vanini.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

thanks for sharing. Yes, he was great!

@raquelpardal5343 14 дней назад

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.

@religiologEng 14 дней назад

@@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.

@raquelpardal5343 14 дней назад

Thank you.

@covfefe_drumpfh Месяц назад

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_

@sunwukong6917 Месяц назад

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.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

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

@hashifvs519 Месяц назад

@@religiologEng the thumbnail's quiet misleading

@religiologEng Месяц назад

@@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?

@hashifvs519 Месяц назад

@@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.

@neclark08 Месяц назад

...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.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

yes, you need a better definition

@djbar0202 Месяц назад

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.

@Dabordi 23 дня назад

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).

@religiologEng 22 дня назад

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 RU-vid, 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."

@Dabordi 22 дня назад

@@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.

@kvprasannan6442 Месяц назад

Have you heard of Charvakas - arguably the first known atheists in ancient India?

@religiologEng Месяц назад

of course! I mention them in this video, haven't you seen?

@LuisAldamiz Месяц назад

My question is not who was the first Atheist of all time but who was the first who believed in gods without any evidence?

@religiologEng Месяц назад

good question and also impossible to find out

@gknight686 Месяц назад

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

@ciprianpopa1503 Месяц назад

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.

@religiologEng Месяц назад

I have a review on my channel about the Greeks. The link is in the top comment and under the video

@piotrleszczynski5744 Месяц назад

Confucius? Democritus?

@religiologEng Месяц назад

what do you think of Kazimir Lyshchinsky? I see that you have a similar last name

@piotrleszczynski5744 Месяц назад

@@religiologEng I think nothing. What do you think about Confucius and Democritus?

@religiologEng Месяц назад

@@piotrleszczynski5744 they both were great, but they don't match my criteria set in the video, that's why I didn't mention them

@sahilhossian8212 Месяц назад

Lore of Atheist Priest who changed the fate of Europe. History of Atheism. Momentum 100

@Mr.PeabodyTheSkeptic Месяц назад

Uhtred son of Uhtred

@KohanKilletz Месяц назад

What's the difference between atheism and monotheism?

@GregCorrin Месяц назад

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.

@zvimur Месяц назад

Don't know exactly how Socrates stood on matter of gods, but you may look up Epicurus and Titus Lucretius Carus.

@alananimus9145 Месяц назад

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.

@prashanthkamath7437 Месяц назад

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.

@alananimus9145 Месяц назад

You are playing fast and loose with the term "god" equivocating.