Antireligion is opposition to
religion
Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
or traditional religious beliefs and practices. It involves opposition to
organized religion,
religious practices or
religious institutions. The term ''antireligion'' has also been used to describe opposition to specific forms of supernatural worship or practice, whether organized
or not.
Antireligion is distinct from deity-specific positions such as
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...
(the lack of belief in deities) and
antitheism (an opposition to belief in deities); although "antireligionists" may also be atheists or antitheists.
History
Some Catholics have accused the
Reformation
The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
of
Martin Luther
Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...
as having inspired anti religiosity.
Early anti religious tendencies were expressed by skeptics such as
Christopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe ( ; Baptism, baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the English Renaissance theatre, Eli ...
.
Significant antireligion was advanced during the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained th ...
, as early as the 17th century.
Baron d'Holbach
Paul Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (; ; 8 December 1723 – 21 January 1789), known as d'Holbach, was a Franco-German philosopher, encyclopedist and writer, who was a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born in Edesheim, near Landau ...
's book ''
Christianity Unveiled'', published in 1766, attacked not only Christianity but religion in general as an impediment to the moral advancement of humanity. According to historian
Michael Burleigh, antireligion found its first mass expression of barbarity in
revolutionary France as "organised ... irreligion...an 'anti-clerical' and self-styled 'non-religious' state" responded violently to religious influence over society.
State atheism
Soviet Union
The
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
adopted the political ideology of
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism () is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the History of communism, communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist gov ...
and by extension the policy of
state atheism
State atheism or atheist state is the incorporation of hard atheism or non-theism into Forms of government, political regimes. It is considered the opposite of theocracy and may also refer to large-scale secularization attempts by governments ...
, which opposed the growth of religions.
[: "The Soviet policy of state atheism (gosateizm), albeit inconsistently applied, remains a major goal of official ideology. Massive state resources have been expended not only to prevent the implanting of religious belief in nonbelievers but also to eradicate "prerevolutionary remnants" already existing. The regime is not merely passively committed to a godless polity but takes an aggressive stance of official forced atheization. Thus a major task of the police apparatus is the persecution of forms of religious practice. Not surprisingly, the Committee for State Security (KGB) is reported to have a division dealing specifically with "churchmen and sectarians." ] It directed varying degrees of antireligious efforts at varying faiths, depending on what threat they posed to the Soviet state, and their willingness to subordinate themselves to political authority. In the 1930s, during the
Stalinist period, the government destroyed church buildings or put them into secular use (as museums of religion and atheism, clubs or storage facilities), executed clergy, prohibited the publication of most religious material and persecuted some members of religious groups.
Less violent attempts to reduce or eliminate the influence of religion in society were also carried out at other times in Soviet history. For instance, it was usually necessary to be an atheist in order to acquire any important political position or any prestigious scientific job; thus, many people became atheists in order to advance their careers. Some estimate that 12–15 million Christians were killed in the Soviet Union. Up to 500,000
Russian Orthodox
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...
Christians were persecuted by the Soviet government, not including other religious groups. At least 106,300 Russian clergymen were executed between 1937 and 1941. The
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic targeted numerous clergy for arrest and interrogation as enemies of the state,
[Martiri pentru Hristos, din România, în perioada regimului comunist, Editura Institutului Biblic și de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, București, 2007, pp.34–35] and many churches, mosques, and synagogues were converted to secular uses.
Albania
The
People's Republic of Albania
The People's Socialist Republic of Albania, () was the Marxist-Leninist state that existed in Albania from 10 January 1946 to the 29 April 1991. Originally founded as the People's Republic of Albania from 1946 to 1976, it was governed by the P ...
had an objective for the eventual elimination of all religion in
Albania
Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...
with the goal of creating an atheist nation, which it declared it had achieved in 1967. In 1976, Albania implemented a constitutional ban on religious activity and actively promoted atheism.
The government nationalized most property of religious institutions and used it for non-religious purposes, such as cultural centers for young people. Religious literature was banned. Many clergy and theists were tried, tortured, and executed. All foreign
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
clergy were expelled in 1946, and Albania officially tried to eradicate religion.
Romania
Authorities in the
People's Republic of Romania aimed to move towards an atheistic society, in which religion would be considered as the ideology of the bourgeoisie; the régime also set to propagate among the laboring masses in science, politics and culture to help them fight
superstition
A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic (supernatural), magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly app ...
and
mysticism
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute (philosophy), Absolute, but may refer to any kind of Religious ecstasy, ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or Spirituality, spiritual meani ...
, and initiated an anti-religious campaign aimed at reducing the influence of religion in society. After the communist takeover in 1948, some church personnel were imprisoned for political crimes.
[January 23, 1999, issue of the London Tablet by Jonathen Luxmoore, Published by Chesterton Review Feb/May 1999]
Cambodia
The
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihano ...
attempted to eliminate Cambodia's cultural heritage, including its religions, particularly
Theravada Buddhism.
Over the four years of Khmer Rouge rule, at least 1.5 million Cambodians perished. Of the sixty thousand Buddhist monks that previously existed, only three thousand survived the
Cambodian genocide.
Notable antireligious people
Philosophers
*
Al-Ma'arri (973–1057), Arab philosopher, poet and writer.
*
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In ...
(1737–1809), British-American writer and
deist
Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin term '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...
who wrote a scathing critique on religion in ''
The Age of Reason'' (1793–94): "All national institutions of churches, whether
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
,
Christian
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
, or Turkish
.e. Muslim">Muslim.html" ;"title=".e. Muslim">.e. Muslim appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
* Karl Marx (1818–1883), German philosopher, social scientist, socialist. He said "religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the
opium of the people
The opium of the people or opium of the masses () is a dictum used in reference to religion, derived from a frequently paraphrased partial statement of German revolutionary and critic of political economy Karl Marx: "Religion is the opium of the ...
. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness."
*
John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and Education reform, educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
The overridi ...
(1859–1952), an American
pragmatist philosopher, who believed neither religion nor
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...
could provide legitimate moral or social values, though scientific
empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...
could (see
science of morality).
*
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
(1872–1970), English logician and philosopher who believed that authentic philosophy could only be pursued given an atheistic foundation of "unyielding despair". In 1948, he famously debated with the
Jesuit
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
priest and
philosophical historian Father
Frederick Copleston on the
existence of God
The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and theology. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God (with the same or similar arguments also generally being used when talking about the exis ...
.
*
Ayn Rand
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which s ...
(1905–1982), Russian-American novelist and philosopher, founder of
Objectivism.
*
Rajneesh
Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain; 11 December 193119 January 1990), also known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and later as Osho (), was an Indian Godman (India), godman, philosopher, Mysticism, mystic and founder of the Rajnees ...
(born Chandra Mohan Jain; 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990), also known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and later as Osho, was an Indian Godman, philosopher, mystic, and founder of the
Rajneesh movement
The Rajneesh movement is a new religious movement inspired by the Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (1931–1990), also known as Osho. They used to be known as ''Rajneeshees'' or "Orange People" because of the orange they used from 1970 unti ...
. He was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader during his life. He rejected institutional religions, Rajneesh said that spiritual experience could not be organized into any one system of religious dogma.
*
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...
(born 1941), English biologist, one of the "Four Horsemen" of
New Atheism. He wrote ''
The God Delusion'', criticizing
belief in the divine, in 2006.
*
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author and journalist. He was the author of Christopher Hitchens bibliography, 18 books on faith, religion, culture, politics, and literature. He was born ...
(1949–2011), English-American author and journalist, one of the "Four Horsemen" of
New Atheism. He wrote ''
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything'' in 2007.
*
Lawrence M. Krauss (born 1954), a theoretical physicist, author of ''
A Universe from Nothing''.
*
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...
(born 1954), Canadian-American cognitive scientist who believes religion incites violence.
*
Sam Harris
Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, determinism, neuroscience, meditation ...
(born 1967), author of ''
The End of Faith''. He said, "If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion."
Politicians
*
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
(1870–1924), Soviet leader from 1917 until 1924, who believed all religions to be "the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class".
*
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
(1894–1971), Soviet leader in 1953–1964, who initiated, among other measures,
the
1958–1964 Soviet anti-religious campaign.
*
Plutarco Elías Calles
Plutarco Elías Calles (born Francisco Plutarco Elías Campuzano; 25 September 1877 – 19 October 1945) was a Mexican politician and military officer who served as the 47th President of Mexico from 1924 to 1928. After the assassination of Ál ...
(1877–1945), president of Mexico between 1924 and 1928. During his government the
Cristero War began.
*
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
(18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953), while he was the leader of the USSR he worked on ending religion in the country.
*
Enver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist revolutionary and politician who was the leader of People's Socialist Republic of Albania, Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was the Secretary (titl ...
(1908–1985), leader of
Albania
Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...
who described himself as an "Arch atheist" and sought to eradicate religion in his country, going as far as to ban religiously based names.
Others
*
Haruki Murakami
is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for hi ...
, Japanese novelist who wrote: "God only exists in people's minds. Especially in Japan, God's always has been a kind of flexible concept. Look at what happened to the war.
Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American general who served as a top commander during World War II and the Korean War, achieving the rank of General of the Army (United States), General of the Army. He served with dis ...
ordered the divine
emperor
The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...
to quit being a God, and he did, making a speech saying he was just an ordinary person."
*
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Dene Gervais ( ; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, writer, television producer and filmmaker. He co-created, co-wrote, and acted in the British television sitcoms ''The Office (British TV series), The Office'' (2001–2003) ...
, British comedian and actor who has been critical of religion in sketches and other comedic performances.
*
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Born in Provi ...
, American horror writer and creator of the
Cthulhu Mythos The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American Horror fiction, horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, t ...
, who, according to
S. T. Joshi, "considered religion not merely false but dangerous to social and political progress."
*
Bill Maher
William MaherStated on ''Finding Your Roots'', January 12, 2016, PBS; on a series that lists "Jr." and "Sr." distinctions, Bill Maher's birth name was listed simply as William Maher, while his father was William Aloysius Maher Jr., and his pa ...
, American comedian, who wrote and starred in ''
Religulous'', a 2008 documentary criticizing and mocking religion.
*
Marcus Brigstocke
Marcus Alexander Brigstocke (born 8 May 1973) is a British comedian and actor. He has worked in stand-up comedy, television, radio and musical theatre. He has appeared on many BBC television and radio shows.
Early life
Brigstocke is the son of N ...
, British comedian.
*
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential comedians of all time, he was dubbed "the dean of countercultur ...
, American comedian who frequently mocked religion throughout his career.
*
James Randi, former magician, professional "debunker" of psychics, outspoken atheist and founder of the
James Randi Educational Foundation.
*
Philip Roth, a Jewish-American novelist who described himself as anti-religious.
*
Matt Dillahunty, host of
''The Atheist Experience'' and former president of the Atheist Community of Austin, engages in debates with Apologists.
See also
References
Sources
*
External links
*
{{Portal bar, Religion