famous Atheists and Agnostics

[JI7]

the link below has a list of atheists and agnostics and an ambiguous list for those who could be atheist or agnostic but don't know for sure yet.

scrolling down to about the middle of the page off to the side is a link to famous atheists throughout history who are now dead and a link for a list of black atheists. and a link for quotations.

i'm not sure how accurate the lists are but based on some names i recognize and what i have heard or know about them it looks to be based on reliable info.

you can also click on the names to find out some info on them.

http://www.celebatheists.com/

[Hamlette]

1. if they could only play sports, we would forgive them their transgressions

n/t

[Az]

2. The site is very out of date but valuable still

I post there from time to time and like a few other stragglers hope someone with the time and skill will bring the site back to life. Its actually a very usefull little site.

[Tafiti]

3. I love Maynard's quote in there.

When asked if he reads the Bible, he replied, "Sure, I love fairy tales." I love it.

[onager]

4. 2000 Years Of Disbelief

is a good reference book full of "historical celebrity" non-believers. Author is James Haught.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573920673/qid=1109182833/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-5543963-1862522

The first review posted at Amazon is clearly biased, calling the book "vitriol." The second one is better:

Midwest Book Review: The English speaking world rarely acknowledges the many and varied gifts that "disbelievers" have bestowed upon humanity.

Churchmen generally contend that great figures in history, such as America's founders, were conventional believers.

But author James A. Haught demonstrates that this just isn't true. In "2000 Years Of Disbelief: Famous People With The Courage To Doubt," he offers a spirited collection of biographical sketches and choice quotations to set the record straight -- intelligent, educated people tend to doubt the supernatural.

It is hardly surprising to find a high ratio of religious skeptics among major thinkers, scientists, writers, reformers,scholars, champions of democracy, and other world changers -- people called "great" in history.

The advance of Western civilization has been partly a story of gradual victory over oppressive religion, and these brilliant doubters were men and women who didn't pray, didn't kneel at altars, didn't make pilgrimages, and didn't recite creeds.

Included in this handy reference are such internationally famous figures as Isaac Asimov, W. E. B. DuBois, Will Durant, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Edward Gibbon, Langston Hughes, Thomas Jefferson, Omar Khayyam, Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, John Stuart Mill, Ayn Rand, Gene Roddenberry, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Voltaire, and many others whose own words reveal their rejection of the supernatural.