I’m all for publicly promoting atheism, but without the practice of skepticism (of the general methodological variety that demands claims be backed up by evidence) the advocates of godlessness can end up sharing memes of no greater merit than those clogging up the average Facebook wall. The above image might well be the perfect example. Clearly, someone put a good deal of time and effort into composing it, getting the right sort of portraits, photoshopping them out of their original backgrounds and into an harmonious final print. Having dabbled in such things, I can say that it must have taken some significant level of effort. What would happen if we put some effort into fact checking as well? Have any of these men unequivocally claimed that all the gods are fictitious? Have any of them affirmed, at the very least, that they don’t believe in any sort of supernatural minds supervening upon the course of human events? Have any of them clearly gone beyond heterodoxy, deism, or agnosticism to affirm outright atheism?
Ernest Hemingway – Raised as a Congregationalist, he formally converted to Catholicism for the sake of his second wife. It has been said by some of his biographers that this conversion was strictly for the sake of outward appearances, but to the best of my knowledge, Hemingway never publicly came out in favour of atheism, nor can I find any explicit affirmations of atheism in his private writings. He was harshly critical of organized religion in his fiction, however, and at least one biographer seems to believe that he was privately atheist:
He not only did not believe in God but regarded organized religion as a menace to human happiness… He published blasphemous parodies of the Our Father in his story ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’ and of the Crucifixion in Death in the Afternoon; there is a blasphemous spittoon-blessing in his play The Fifth Column. – Paul Johnson, Intellectuals, pg. 196
I’d like to trust Johnson on his claim here, but he cites nothing directly from Hemingway to back up his characterization of unbelief, and mocking religion is not a practice reserved for the irreligious, although we do tend to excel in the field.
There is also this widely quoted passage from A Farewell to Arms:
“The Pope wants the Austrians to win the war,” the major said. “He loves Franz Joseph. That’s where the money comes from. I am an atheist.”
“Did you ever read the Black Pig?” asked the lieutenant. “I will get you a copy. It was that which shook my faith.”
“It is a filthy and vile book,” said the priest. “You do not really like it.”
“It is very valuable,” said the lieutenant. “It tells you about those priests. You will like it,” he said to me. I smiled at the priest and he smiled back across the candlelight. “Don’t you read it,” he said.
“I will get it for you,” said the lieutenant.
“All thinking men are atheists,” the major said. “I do not believe in the Free Masons however.”
I severely doubt whether we can read too much into the fact that Hemingway was willing to create sympathetic atheist characters, but maybe there is something there. Hemingway scholars, please help me out on this one. Was his alleged lack of belief in gods something that this man of letters ever expressed for himself, on paper?
Abraham Lincoln – Everyone wants to claim Lincoln for their own faith (or lack thereof) but he was famously close-lipped about his personal beliefs. He never publicly affirmed orthodox Christian beliefs, but then he never went on record against the existence of gods either. Most likely, he followed in the Deistic footsteps of many American Founding Fathers, as was stated by a close associate who should well know:
Mr. Lincoln’s religion is too well known to me to allow of even a shadow of a doubt; he is or was a Theist & a Rationalist, denying all extraordinary – supernatural inspiration or revelation. At one time in his life, to say the least, he was an elevated Pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understands that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force. Subsequent to this he rose to the belief of a God, and this is all the change he ever underwent. I speak knowing what I say. He was a noble man- a good great man for all this. My own ideas of God- his attributes – man, his destiny, & the relations of the two, are tinged with Mr. Lincoln’s religion. – William Herndon, private letter
Such an independently-minded rationalist theism would surely be a huge improvement over the orthodox faith openly professed by those who’ve held the highest office in my lifetime, but that doesn’t make Lincoln an atheist.
Carl Sagan – Finally, a modern scientific skeptic! Surely, this time we’ll find ourselves an unabashed unbeliever, unwilling to grant theism even a shadow of the benefit of the doubt. Alas, not so. Sagan was a self-described agnostic, who never took up the mantle of atheism for himself:
Those who raise questions about the God hypothesis and the soul hypothesis are by no means all atheists. An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed. A wide range of intermediate positions seems admissible, and considering the enormous emotional energies with which the subject is invested, a questioning, courageous and open mind seems to be the essential tool for narrowing the range of our collective ignorance on the subject of the existence of God. – Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain, pg 365.
We can accurately claim that Sagan did not profess belief in any gods, so that’s certainly something. Still, it strikes me as misleading and perhaps even dishonest to group him in with “atheism” when he took such a dim view of the label itself and preferred to be thought of as an agnostic.
Mark Twain – Entire books have been written on the religion of Mark Twain, and so far as I can tell, they are not anywhere close to converging upon an authoritative answer. Like Lincoln, Twain has been claimed by infidels and orthodox like, and like Lincoln, he seems to have been a skeptical and heterodox thinker rather than either an atheist or a conventional religious believer. Here is a sample of Twain’s thoughts on God:
The Being who to me is the real God is the one who created this majestic universe & rules it. He is the only originator, the only originator of thoughts; thoughts suggested from within, not from without; the originator of colors & of all their possible combinations; of forces & the laws that govern them; of forms & shapes of all forms-man has never invented a new one. He is the only originator. He made the materials of all things; He made the laws by which, & by which only, man may combine them into the machines & other things which outside influences suggest to him. He made character–man can portray it but not “create” it, for He is the only creator. – Mark Twain’s notebook, quoted from Albert B. Paine
Mark Twain may well have authored some of the most cutting satirical take-downs of organized religion ever composed in American English, but calling out the hypocrisy and duplicity of human religious institutions is not an activity reserved solely for atheists.
Thomas Jefferson – Like Lincoln, Jefferson has his own reserved wiki page dedicated solely to the question of his religion. I commend it to your reading, as it pretty much covers the gamut of Jefferson’s religious leanings and his religious skepticism. At no point in his voluminous collection of preserved writings does Jefferson openly endorse atheism, but he does tiptoe up to the line in a personal letter filled with profound and avuncular advice:
Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, and the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand, shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy & Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates…
Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, & that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a God, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love. In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision.
Note that Jefferson isn’t trying to tell his nephew to become an atheist, but rather that there is nothing to fear in doing so. He is, in effect, encouraging his nephew to take the Outsider Test for Faith.
Albert Einstein – Relatively recently, a fascinating letter surfaced which made it sound as if perhaps we can claim Einstein for Team Atheism:
The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
Alas, however, it turns out that Sagan was basically following Einstein in stating an express preference for agnosticism over atheism:
I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being. – Private letter to Guy H. Raner Jr, July 2, 1945
As with Sagan, we cannot put this scientific luminary firmly in the atheist column by his own request.
Charles Darwin – At this point in my reading, I have begun to suspect that the original meme creator may have been deliberately trolling us, because Darwin is the third of the three scientists to explicity affirm a preference for agnosticism over atheism:
What my own views may be is a question of no consequence to any one except myself.— But as you ask, I may state that my judgment often fluctuates. Moreover whether a man deserves to be called a theist depends on the definition of the term: which is much too large a subject for a note. In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.
For more on the evolution of Darwin’s religious thinking, check out the wiki page. Once again, we cannot put someone in the atheist column who has specifically asked that we refrain from doing so.
Benjamin Franklin – Lastly, we have the epic American hero who was “the only Founding Father who is a signatory all four of the major documents of the founding of the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, the Treaty of Alliance with France, and the United States Constitution.” Alas, once again, we find ourselves faced with a skeptic of orthodox faith who falls well short of disavowing belief in any sort of god. Franklin converted to deism early on, and remained a deist throughout his life, as documented here. In his own words:
Here is my Creed: I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That he governs it by Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we render to him is doing good to his other Children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its conduct in in this. These I take to be the fundamental Principles of all sound Religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
So, clearly not an atheist by any stretch.
Conclusion – I have been unable to find any unequivocal affirmations of atheism from any of the men in the meme. At least three of them were self-professedly agnostic on the question of whether anything like a god might exist, one or two of them may have been closet atheists some of the time, while the others ranged from deism to theistic rationalism. Since the meme claims far more than can be delivered in terms of historical documentation, I would ask that atheists please stop using this meme. In general, it is a very good idea to try to find primary sources backing up any bold historical claims prior to sharing them on social media. Let us please leave the practice of myth-making to the people of faith.
