Étienne Dolet (1509) It was on this date, August 3, 1546, that the French scholar and printer of books critical of religion, Étienne Dolet, was burned alive for his opinions. Dolet was born in Orléans in 1509, possibly also on 3 August, and possibly into a family of wealth and rank. Dolet studied in Paris […]

Abbot Gregor Mendel was a freethinker who entered a monastery to study science.

It was on this date, June 25, 1961, that English comedian, writer and actor Ricky Gervais was born Ricky Dene Gervais in Whitley, Berkshire, England. He attended University College, London, to study biology but changed to philosophy and earned an upper second-class honours degree in the subject. Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series […]

It was on this date, June 4, 1945, that American writer and independent scholar Susan Jacoby was born. A journalist for the Washington Post and other publications for over 25 years, and author of the Post’s weekly column, “The Spirited Atheist,” Jacoby has authored the 1984 Pulitzer Prize finalist Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge, […]

W.P. Kinsella (1935) It was on this date, May 25, 1935, that Canadian novelist W.P. Kinsella was born William Patrick Kinsella in Edmonton, Alberta. A writer of baseball fiction, Kinsella's bestselling 1982 novel, Shoeless Joe, was made into the very successful 1989 motion picture Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones. Kinsella […]

Having “little taste for the otherworldly speculations of dogmatic theology,” Wagner wrote his most powerful music in his “Ring” years, when he was an Atheist.

In an earlier age, a Deist of Pope's beliefs would have been tried and either burned or hanged for impiety. Today, no longer having the power to do that, they embrace him as a "Catholic poet."

Mill said he believed in a "probable God," or a "limited liability God," but disbelieved in miracles and immortality.

"I think of myself as an agnostic, but an agnostic is really a cowardly atheist," said Terkel.

"I'm an atheist, and that's it," said Hepburn. "Our Constitution was not intended to be used by ... any group to foist its personal religious beliefs on the rest of us."