Atheism

Definition of Atheism
“...the exact meaning of 'atheist' varies between thinkers and caution must always be shown to
make sure that discussions of atheism are not working at cross purposes. ”

Atheism is a complex term to define, and many definitions fail to capture the range of positions
an atheist can hold. Perhaps the most obvious meaning to many people now is the absence or
rejection of a belief in a God, or gods. However, it has been used through much of history to
denote certain beliefs seen as heretical, particularly the belief that God does not intervene in the
world. More recently, atheists have argued that atheism only denotes a lack of theistic belief,
rather than the active denial or claims of certainty it is often associated with. This is held to
follow from its etymology: it stems from the Greek adjective atheos, deriving from the alpha
privative a -,'without, not', and 'theos', 'God'. It is not clear, however, that this could not equally
mean 'godless' in the earlier sense as meaning a heretical or immoral person.

The exact meaning of 'atheist' varies between thinkers, and caution must always be shown to
make sure that discussions of atheism are not working at cross purposes. Michael Martin, a
leading atheist philosopher, defines atheism entirely in terms of belief.[1] For him, negative
atheism is simply the lack of theistic belief, positive atheism is the asserted disbelief in God, and
agnosticism is the lack of either belief or disbelief in God. This suggests that negative atheism,
the minimal position that all atheists share, divides neatly into agnosticism and positive atheism.
It is worth noting that the 'positive atheist' need not have certainty that God doesn't exist: it is a
matter of belief, not knowledge.

The Statue of Atheism being destroyed and replaced with the Statue of Wisdom at the Festival of
the Supreme Being, 'Jardin National des Decorations', Paris, 8th July 1794

Musee de la Ville de Paris, Musee Carnavalet, Paris, France/ Archives Charmet/ The Bridgeman
Art Library',
This understanding of atheism is fairly commonly accepted by other atheists, although some
theists complain that 'negative atheism' is trivial or evasive. William Lane Craig argues that
Martin is 'redefining' the term to argue for the presumption of atheism,[2] and it is certainly clear
that atheists involved in these debates tend to be positive atheists. As well as the claim that it
represents the etymology of the term, atheists tend to favour this definition because it treats
atheism as the 'null hypothesis', and seems to clearly put the burden of proof on the believer.
Martin is clear that defence of negative atheism merely requires refutations of theistic argument,
while defence of positive atheism requires reasons for disbelief to be given.[3] One criticism of
Martin's definition is that it is not what is commonly understood by 'atheism', and may therefore
be confusing and unhelpful. As well as Martin's acknowledgement that dictionaries tend to define
atheism positively, many surveys have shown that far fewer people identify as atheists than lack
belief in God. For example, Greeley's 2003 survey found that 31% of Britons did not believe in
God, but only 10% considered themselves 'atheist'.[4] Martin's appeal to etymology does not
necessarily make his definition more helpful if it is not how the word is understood: and his use
of agnosticism to be a question of belief rather than knowledge sits uneasily with this
etymological approach. Putting to one side the question of what atheism 'should' or 'really'
means, the positive-negative distinction is certainly useful in philosophical discussions as a
shorthand for different sorts of atheism.

Richard Dawkins does not provide such a strict definition of atheism, and the fact he opposes
describing a child as 'Atheist' or 'Christian'[5] suggests that he views atheism as a conscious
position and thus leans towards the dictionary definition of atheism as necessarily an active
disbelief: Martin's 'positive atheism'. Dawkins' central argument against religion is probabilistic,
and his scale of belief reflects this, ranging from 1: 'Strong theist. 100% probability of God' to
the equivalent 7: 'Strong atheist'. He doesn't see 7 as a well-populated category, placing himself
as 6: 'Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist'.[6] Again, this terminology
suggests that he sees atheism as strictly requiring certainty. It should not be taken for a lack of
certainty in a practical sense, however: Dawkins states 'I am agnostic only to the extent that I am
agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden'.[7]

Dawkins divides agnosticism into TAP (temporary agnosticism in practice) and PAP (permanent
agnosticism in principle), identifying the first as Sagan's stance on alien life. All but 1 and 7 on
his scale can be identified as TAP. The second, PAP, he rightly argues would not be on the scale
at all, even in the middle,[8] though it is not clear if this is not sometimes true for TAP as well:
Sagan does not give a probabilistic response to the question of alien life. Dawkins reserves PAP
for questions that can never be answered by science: and it is central to his thought that God can
be shown to be incredibly improbable scientifically. As such, committed agnostics tend to be
portrayed as obscurantist, and Dawkins attempts to claim that Huxley overlooked the question of
probability, perhaps in an attempt to accommodate the religious to make his central points more
effective. Whether this can be squared with Huxley's references to Kant and his 'pretty strong
conviction that the problem was insoluble' is another question.[9] In any case, Dawkins' reading
of agnosticism makes a useful distinction and seems fairer to the etymology and common use of
the term 'agnostic', and most agnostics can be helpfully placed in the TAP or PAP categories.

Another useful distinction can be made between a broad sense of atheism (positive or negative),
according to which an atheist lacks a belief or positively disbelieves in any God or gods, and a
narrow sense of atheism (positive or negative) according to which an atheist lacks a belief or
positively disbelieves in the personal God believed in by members of the Abrahamic religions, or
some other subset of gods. Certain thinkers are positive atheists about Abrahamic religion, but
best described as agnostic (whether TAP or PAP) about a deist God, or some other possible sort
of God.

In the current atheist debates the New Atheists generally deny that there are good reasons to
believe in the sort of personal God believed in by members of the Abrahamic religions. This is
because they perceive the great Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - as the
greatest threat to the integrity of science and the rule of secular law. However, they also reject
deism - the belief in a God that is not based on revelation but on evidence from nature and does
not intervene in the world - polytheism (belief in many gods), and pantheism (belief that God is
identical with nature). The last is described by Dawkins as 'sexed-up atheism', as he sees it as
seeing the natural world in a spiritual way: probably very true for modern pantheists, though by
no means universal amongst earlier pantheists, many of whom were more accurately
panentheists, seeing the world as within God, rather than exhausting a description of him.

If we apply this distinction to the contemporary debates, the three chief public atheists,
(Dawkins, Dennett and Harris) should probably be categorised as positive atheists in the broad
sense. Dawkins, for example, denies not only of the personal God of the Abrahamic religions but
also the more minimal deist God; he also dismisses the gods of the polytheistic religions, as well
as the alleged pantheism of scientists such as Einstein, which he interprets as mere religious
metaphor. The Abrahamic God is their primary target, but they broadly dismiss all other forms of
belief in God as well.

Moreover, although this is not entailed by atheism in any of the abovementioned senses, avowed
atheists tend also to disbelieve in supernatural entities of any kind (e.g., spirits, disembodied
souls) and also in supernatural interventions of any kind in the course of nature or events
inexplicable in terms of the best contemporary (orthodox) scientific understanding of the
universe (for example, parapsychological occurrences).

It is noteworthy, however, that the strident atheist Sam Harris has signalled an openness towards
the possibility of parapsychological events in nature.[10] This, of course, does not affect his
status as an atheist, since the existence of phenomena such as telepathy and precognition is
compatible with there being no God or gods. However, this puts him at odds with Dawkins and
Dennett, for whom belief in such things is inextricably associated with the religious mentality.

The attitude to the term 'atheist' also varies, with some thinkers wishing to escape its negative
connotations, or purely reactive definition. Sam Harris did not use the term in his first book, 'The
End of Faith', and argued at a recent conference that 'our use of this label is a mistake-and a
mistake of some consequence', objecting on both 'philosophical and strategic' grounds.[11]
Alternatives proposed or used include 'free- thinker', 'rationalist' and the controversial 'Bright'.

References
Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. London: Bantam Press, 2006.
Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 2004.
Martin, Michael, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007.

Bibliography

Footnotes
[1]↑ Michael Martin, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), 1.
[2]↑ Ibid., 70.
[3]↑ Ibid., 2.
[4]↑ Ibid., 49.
[5]↑ Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam Press, 2006), 380.
[6]↑ Ibid., 73.
[7]↑ Ibid., 74.
[8]↑ Ibid.
[9]↑ Ibid., 72.
[10]↑ See Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York:
W.W. Norton & Co., 2004).
[11]↑ See Washington Post article
Current Controversies
In this section

Contents
Causes
New Atheist Goals
Responses

'New Atheism'
Over the past couple of years there has been an unexpected revival of strident atheism of a sort
not seen in Europe or America for over half a century. Despite the claims of historians that that
the old days of militant atheism are over and the previously sharp distinction between atheist and
believer can be expected to be effaced still further in the postmodern climate of general
relativism and indifferentism, [1] the current 'New Atheists' seem to be determined to buck the
trend: at the time of writing the works of the new public atheists are topping the best-seller lists,
with the most recent contribution to the genre, Christopher Hitchens'"God Is Not Great: How
Religion Poisons Everything," establishing itself as the latest international bestseller of this kind
since its publication in April 2007.[2]

At Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, February 2008.

© University of Cambridge 2008. All rights reserved.

Prior to Hitchen's book, Sam Harris'"The End of Faith" (2005)[3]and his subsequent "Letter to a
Christian Nation" (2006)[4]sold (and are still selling) very successfully, as did Daniel Dennett's
"Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" (2006)[5]and (perhaps most
successfully of all) Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" (2006).[6]

Dawkins, Dennett and Harris can be regarded as the central trio of the new movement, although
more recent adherents also include the British philosopher A.C.Grayling,[7] and the British-
American public intellectual Christopher Hitchens. In addition to their publications the New
Atheists have also been active in organising academic conferences as a forum for high level
discussion of the chief issues raised in their writings. The first of these, Beyond Belief, took
place in November 2006, and a subsequent one (Beyond Belief II) took place in October 2007.

References
Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. London: Bantam Press, 2006.
Dennett, Daniel. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Penguin,
2006.
Grayling, A.C. Against All Gods. London: Oberon Books, 2007.
Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 2004.
Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation. London: Bantam, 2007.
Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: The Case against Religion. London: Atlantic Books,
2007.
Minois, Georges. Histoire de L'atheisme. La Fleche: Fayard, 1998.

Bibliography

Footnotes
[1]↑ See, for example, Georges Minois, Histoire de L'atheisme (La Fleche: Fayard, 1998).
[2]↑ Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: The Case against Religion (London: Atlantic
Books, 2007).
[3]↑ Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 2004).
[4]↑ Letter to a Christian Nation (London: Bantam, 2007).
[5]↑ Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York:
Penguin, 2006).
[6]↑ Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantam Press, 2006).
[7]↑ A.C. Grayling, Against All Gods (London: Obero

Causes of “New Atheism”

Causes

« Back to Current Controversies

The reason for the popularity and sales success of these books has been attributed to various
factors such as shock at the events of September 11th and subsequent terrorist attacks, outrage
over the policies of President George W. Bush, and secular reaction against the bold
pronouncements of American evangelical leaders. As for the motivation of the New Atheists
themselves, some believers (and also some nonbelievers) are inclined to interpret the present
renaissance of public atheism as a sort of panic on the part of the secularists, as they realise that
faith remains a powerful force in the contemporary world.[1]

What is certain is that the events of September 11th directly inspired Sam Harris to write the first
of these recent bestselling atheist works, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of
Reason (2004). He began to write this book the day after the terror attacks on America,
September 12th 2001, and in it he establishes his case that the values of the Western secular
Enlightenment are under threat from religious extremism. What is new in Harris' book, and in the
subsequent books of the New Atheists, is the vehemence with which religion is critiqued. These
authors and their sympathisers typically see themselves in a battle for reason in a world full of
religious superstition. In their view, unethical behaviour under the banner of religion (especially
by Christians, Jews and Muslims) is the chief cause of some of the most dangerous global
conflicts of recent years, and the greatest threat to the future survival of civilisation itself.

Bibliography

Footnotes
[1]↑ See Rachel Zoll's article 'Atheist authors grapple with believers' in the Los Angeles Times of
26 May 2007, republished on Sam Harris' website.

'New Atheist' Goals

New Atheist Goals

Contents
Articles - New Atheism

Please contact us if you would like to write an article for the site.

« Back to Current Controversies

The New Atheists are typically concerned with defending (at least) the following theses:

 It is almost certain that there is no God.

 Religions are dangerous and do not automatically deserve respect.

 Religious belief has a naturalistic evolutionary explanation.

  Belief in God and evolution are not compatible.

 Religion tends to subvert science.

 An autonomous secular morality is possible; morality does not presuppose God.

 Life is not meaningless without belief in God.

 Atheism is not discredited by the 'atheist tyranny of Stalin.'

 Religious education of children is 'child abuse'.

The contemporary atheist backlash can be understood as an attempt to achieve at least two social
goals: firstly, to guarantee the integrity and safety of science in society (and its promotion);
secondly, to strongly discourage religion and encourage its obsolescence (or at least
privatisation) in order to safeguard the rule of secular law, to which New Atheists believe
religion poses a threat. At the root of this is a concern that religion is anti-intellectual (irrational),
authoritarian, and violent, thus posing a threat to liberty and security. The New Atheists typically
understand themselves as completing the (interrupted) project of the European radical
Enlightenment.

Responses
Ironically, some of the sternest critics of the New Atheists to date have been fellow atheists. The
philosopher of science Michael Ruse, himself a renowned critic of intelligent design, has written
that 'The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist.'[1] Although himself a renowned
critic of intelligent design, Ruse nevertheless defends the claim that a Darwinian can also be a
Christian, despite the position of Dawkins and others. Furthermore, the anthropologist and
evolutionary psychologist Scott Atran, also an atheist, subjected the New Atheists' knowledge of
religion (and especially of the relationship between religion and violence) to harsh criticism
following the November 2006 Beyond Belief conference.[2]

Less surprisingly, New Atheism has also drawn criticism from theologians. Critics have included
biologist and theologian Alister McGrath (The Dawkins Delusion 2007)[3] who has contested
Dawkins' evolutionist explanation of religion (especially his appeal to the theory of memetics) as
well as his treatment of scripture, and theologian Keith Ward (Is Religion Dangerous? 2006)[4],
who has argued that the religion-violence link is not as straightforward as many critics of religion
allege and appealed to a more nuanced account of the causes of human violence.

At the time of writing the 'God Wars' show no signs of abating and it can be expected that the
controversy will continue into the foreseeable future.

References
McGrath, Alister. The Dawkins Delusion. London: SPCK, 2007.
Ward, Keith. Is Religion Dangerous? Oxford: Lion, 2006.
Bibliography

Footnotes
[1]↑ See, for example, Richard Harries' article 'Is it possible to be moral without God?' in the
Guardian newspaper of 30 December 2007
[2]↑ See Atran's 'A Response' at: thesciencenetwork.org. For streaming video of Atran's
criticisms during the conference follow the links at: thesciencenetwork.org
[3]↑ Alister McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion (London: SPCK, 2007).
[4]↑ Keith Ward, Is Religion Dangerous? (Oxford: Lion, 2006).
History of Modern Atheism
In this section

Contents
17th Century History
18th Century History
19th Century History
20th Century History

Introduction: the Difficulty with Histories of Atheism

There are many accounts of the history of atheism, but they disagree substantially over its
beginnings and its main protagonists.[1] Part of the explanation for this is that many of these
accounts - for example, Fritz Mauthner's Atheism and its History in the West [Der Atheismus und
seine Geschichte im Abendlande] (1922-24), and Michael Hunter and David Wootton's Atheism
from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (1992), to name just two prominent ones, work with
too broad a definition of atheism, which besides strict negation of God's existence also covers
various forms of religious criticism, heterodoxy and nonconformity. As the German
contemporary scholar of atheism Winfried Schroeder points out, a 'history of atheism' can often
in fact amount to something more like a history of various religious departures from orthodoxy
than of atheism in any strict sense.[2] Schroeder notes that in Hunter and Wootton’s view the
church critic Paolo Sarpi, the deist Jean Bodin, the Jewish questioner of the authority of the
Torah and the immortality of the soul Uriel da Costa and the strictly atheistic clandestine text
Theophrastus redivivus are all lumped together under the broad catch-all term 'atheism.’ In fact
only the latter text has a clear claim to being described as atheistic.[3] However, Hunter and
Wootton's fusing of the history of atheism with the history of certain forms of heterodoxy can
gives the impression that there has been a continuous history of atheism from the Reformation
(or earlier) to the Enlightenment, a thesis which is open to question.

By contrast, Lucien Febvre's Le probleme de l'incroyance au XVIe siecle (1942), and Paul Oskar
Kristeller's The Myth of Renaissance Atheism and the French Tradition of Free-Thought (1968)
employ a narrower (and more modern) definition of atheism that more strictly distinguishes
blasphemy, heresy and anticlericalism from direct questioning of God's existence. [4] They
conclude that there is no good evidence for atheism (in this stricter sense) prior to the
seventeenth century. According to these historians, accusations of atheism in the sixteenth
century and earlier amount to nothing more than an indication that the accuser was in some
respect or other hostile to the position of the accused, not that there was any genuine atheism
around.[5]

Depending on the history of atheism consulted, the interested reader can come away either with
the impression that contemporary atheism has a long lineage stretching back through the atheists
of the French Enlightenment, the Paduan Averroists of the sixteenth century, the middle ages and
back to antiquity; or that it appears surprisingly late in history, no earlier than the mid
seventeenth century.

In one respect historians defending their employment of a broader definition of atheism

obviously have a point. Strict philosophical atheism (in the narrow sense of the denial of God's
existence) did not come from nowhere, and as Schroeder has noted, a range of heterodox
strategies employed by deists and pantheists from radical biblical criticism, religious
comparativism, the undermining of Christian revelation and the establishment of natural religion
can be identified as important factors determining atheism's first appearance. However, these
cannot be identified with atheism, even if they prepare the way for it.

These differences between accounts often have ideological bases. It is tempting for sympathisers
of atheism to lend greater legitimacy to their position by appealing to a long lineage of atheistic
thinkers stretching back to antiquity. Conversely, it is equally tempting for religious apologists to
stress the exceptional nature of atheism in human history and present it as an anomaly.

The historians employing a narrower definition of atheism have it in their favour that at most
only a 'practical' as opposed to a philosophical atheism seems to have existed prior to the
seventeenth century. It is sometimes objected by historians who favour the 'broader' definition
that this usage is justified by the fact that the modern definition of atheism is anachronistically
applied to past societies, since they did not have such a definition themselves. However, this
seems mistaken; as Schroeder points out, past societies did have synonyms for the narrower
(modern) definition of atheism as negation of God's existence - variously expressed as 'atheismus
kat'exochen', 'atheismus consummatus', or 'atheisme A la rigueur' - so had atheism in the
narrower sense existed, it could have been identified as such.[6] It therefore seems reasonable
with Febvre, Kristeller, and Schroeder to prefer the employment of the narrower definition of
atheism by historians, and accept the consequence of this, namely, that atheism in the strict sense
as captured by the modern definitions (i.e., denial of God's existence) is not encountered in the
West prior to the seventeenth century.

A further difficulty which besets histories of atheism is the problem of crypto-atheists. It can
reasonably be assumed that there were atheists who disguised their convictions in the
seventeenth century and perhaps earlier, and Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Spinoza (1632-77),
and (in the eighteenth century) Hume (1711-76) are commonly assimilated into the ranks of the
atheists. However, it is questionable whether one can increase the number of early modern
atheists by going beyond the explicit documents of philosophical atheism to include early
modern writers whose atheism is inferred by historians reading 'between the lines' of their
surviving works.[7] Unless they left documentary proof of their crypto-atheism, such as in the
case of the posthumous manifesto of Meslier (1729), the attribution of atheism in uncertain cases
must always remain dubious.[8]

For the purposes of understanding the immediate context of the 'New Atheists' the difficult
question of the existence of a premodern atheism and of crypto-atheists can be set aside, since
the context that matters is that of modern atheism. However, the difficulties of constructing a
history of atheism, and the ideological interests which play a role here must constantly be kept in
view.

References
Berman, David. A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell. London: Croom
Helm, 1988.
Hunter, Michael, and David Wootton, eds. Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Mauthner, Fritz. Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte Im Abendlande. Stuttgart: Deutsche
Verlagsanstalt, 1920-23.
Schroeder, Winfried. Ursprunge des Atheismus: Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und
Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Tubingen: Frommann- Holzboog, 1998.

Bibliography

Footnotes
[1]↑ See for example Winfried Schroeder, Ursprunge des Atheismus: Untersuchungen zur
Metaphysik- und Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Tubingen: Frommann-Holzboog,
1998), 15.
[2]↑ Ibid.
[3]↑ Ibid., 22.
[4]↑ Ibid., 16.
[5]↑ Ibid.
[6]↑ Ibid., 27.
[7]↑ Ibid., 38. See also Berman's treatment of the problem of crypto-atheism in David Berman, A
History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell (London: Croom Helm, 1988).
[8]↑ Schroeder, Atheismus, 37.

17th Century - First Appearance of Atheism (circa 1650-)

The first undoubted documents of philosophical atheism (following the narrower, modern
definition) appear at the earliest in the mid to late seventeenth century. At some time around
1650 an anonymous manuscript appeared (probably in France) entitled Theophrastus redivivus
which appears to be the oldest extant atheistic document; in the last quarter of the same century
another anonymous manuscript, the Symbolum sapientiae was in circulation.

These clandestine manuscripts were for the most part written by hand or sometimes printed
illegally.[1] Some of them - such as the Symbolum sapientiae - are solidly argued and often had
an important influence on later public atheists. However, these documents at first remained
unknown to the broader public. At the time of their first appearance they were read by a very
small number of people. In general, there was a great deal of talk about atheism on the part of
religious apologists, but no genuine atheists were known to them.[2]
In the middle of the seventeenth century it was still assumed that it was impossible not to believe
in God. The evidence for God from design and from the ubiquity of belief seemed so clear it was
thought atheists were necessarily atheist against the evidence. At this stage atheism - if it were
even admitted to exist - was still seen as an illness or a result of a perverse will, since it was not
apparent how such a view could be held rationally.[3] Such early modern apologists had nothing
to do with atheism in the strict sense.

By the end of the century, however, the situation had dramatically changed. Pierre Bayle (1647-
1706) - though he did not describe himself as an atheist - had raised the possibility of a virtuous
society of atheists, and for the first time real atheists could be named; the appearance of the
avowed atheist Matthias Knutzen (1646-?) in Europe, for example, provided the first inklings of
what was to come.[4]

References
Berman, David. A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell. London: Croom
Helm, 1988.
Schroeder, Winfried. Ursprunge des Atheismus: Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und
Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Tubingen: Frommann- Holzboog, 1998.
Smith, Nigel. "The Charge of Atheism and the Language of Radical Speculation, 1640-1660." In
Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, edited by Michael Hunter and David
Wootton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Bibliography

Footnotes
[1]↑ Winfried Schroeder, Ursprunge des Atheismus: Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und
Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Tubingen: Frommann-Holzboog, 1998), 19.
[2]↑ On this shadow boxing, see for example David Berman, A History of Atheism in Britain:
From Hobbes to Russell (London: Croom Helm, 1988). See also Nigel Smith, "The Charge of
Atheism and the Language of Radical Speculation, 1640-1660," in Atheism from the
Reformation to the Enlightenment, ed. Michael Hunter and David Wootton (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1992).
[3]↑ Schroeder, Atheismus, 71.
[4]↑ See for example Ibid., 76-77.