Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "List of atheists in science and technology" in English language version.
After the initial mathematical work on relativity the ory had been done, the Big Bang theory itself was invented by a Belgian priest, Georges lemaitre, im proved upon by an avowed atheist, George Gamow, and is now all but universally accepted by those who hold advanced degrees in astronomy and the physical sciences, despite its obvious absurdity.
D'Alembert, though privately an atheist and materialist, presented the respectable public face of 'la philosophie' in the French capital while remaining henceforth uninterruptedly aligned with Voltaire.
By now, he was also a 'Protestant Atheist', which he remained all his life.
His mother was warm and intelligent, and his father, as Bohr himself later recalled, recognized "that something was expected of me." The family was not at all devout, and Bohr became an atheist who regarded religious thought as harmful and misguided.
Planck was religious and had a firm belief in God; Bohr was not, but his objection to Planck's view had no anti-religious motive.
Niels had quietly resigned his membership in the Lutheran Church the previous April. Although he had sought out religion as a child, by the time of their marriage he no longer "was taken" by it, as he put it. "And for me it was exactly the same," Margrethe later explained. "[Interest in religion] disappeared completely," although at the time of their wedding, she was still a member of the Lutheran Church. (Niels's parents were also married in a civil, not a religious, ceremony, and Harald also resigned his membership in the Lutheran Church just before his wedding, a few years later.)
Gunther S. Stent: "Niels Bohr was one of the few five-star scientists who really was an atheist — and not merely paying lip service to atheism."
Asked to join Le Conseil de l'Union Catholique des Scientifiques Français, Louis declined because, he said, he had ceased the religious practices of his youth.
SC: I am not religious in any sense; in fact, I consider myself an atheist.
However, the dogmatic position of the Anglican Church against Darwin's theory of evolution induced him to reexamine his beliefs. He soon evolved into an agnostic and then an atheist.
Curie, Pierre (1859–1906) A codiscoverer of radium, Pierre Curie was an atheist.
Kramers was certainly not a dogmatic atheist like, for instance, Dirac in his younger years, whose attitude was summed up by Pauli in one famous sentence: "Our friend Dirac has a religion; and the main tenet of that religion is: 'There is no God and Dirac was his prophet.
Du Bois-Reymond was a self-proclaimed atheist but more through intimate conviction than logical necessity.
Among celebrity atheists with much biographical data, we find leading psychologists and psychoanalysts. We could provide a long list, including...Hans Jürgen Eysenck...
Gamow was, like Hoyle, an atheist, but he was familiar with organized religion: his grandfather was the Metropolitan, the senior bishop, of Odessa Cathedral.
According to Hoyle: "I am an atheist, but as far as blowing up the world in a nuclear war goes, I tell them not to worry."
There were no prayers: Irene was deeply atheist.
Among celebrity atheists with much biographical data, we find leading psychologists and psychoanalysts. We could provide a long list, including...Melanie Klein...
Among celebrity atheists with much biographical data, we find leading psychologists and psychoanalysts. We could provide a long list, including...Jacques Lacan...
Markov (1856–1922), on the other hand, was an atheist and a strong critic of the Orthodox Church and the tsarist government (Nekrasov exaggeratedly called him a Marxist).
Among celebrity atheists with much biographical data, we find leading psychologists and psychoanalysts. We could provide a long list, including G. Stanley Hall, John B. Watson, Carl R. Rogers...Abraham Maslow...Maslow was a second-generation atheist, and his father was a militant freethinker.
Another area where he "goes against the flow" is in his spiritual beliefs. As far as religion is concerned, he's a confirmed atheist. "I think it [religion] is a contagious mental disease. . . . The brain has a need to believe it knows a reason for things.
Montgolfier (Michel Joseph), aeronaut. b. Aug. 1740. He was the first to ascend in an air balloon, 5 June 1783. A friend of Delambre and La Lalande, he was on the testimony of this last an atheist. Died 26 June 1810.
Also that year, a Montgolfier balloon sailed over Paris in the first manned free balloon flight. Montgolfier served the Revolution with zeal and was much honored. Lalande, who knew him well, wrote that Montgolfier was an atheist.
Nash, by then an atheist, balked at a Catholic ceremony. He would have been happy to get married in city hall.
Alexander Oparin (1894–1980), an atheist, suggested that natural chemical reactions produced biological molecules that came together to form the first living thing.
Most of them are either atheists like Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, or agnostics like JBS Haldane.
He was a Jew and Groves was at least conventionally anti-Semitic; but perhaps worse, Oppenheimer practiced no religion at all and thus was almost certainly an atheist or agnostic, whereas Groves was the sincerely believing son of an army chaplain.
Jean and Francis Perrin held similar political and philosophical ideas. Both were socialists and atheists.
Among celebrity atheists with much biographical data, we find leading psychologists and psychoanalysts. We could provide a long list, including G. Stanley Hall, John B. Watson, Carl R. Rogers...
a self-described atheist, saha loved swimming in the river and his devout wife loved the sanctity of the spot. swimming and walking were among the few things they could do together.
In one respect, however, he is not a romantic: he does not idealize the person of the beloved, his highest praise is to consider her his equal. "When you feel your own equal in the body of a beautiful woman, just as ready to forget the world for you as you for her – oh my good Lord – who can describe what happiness then. You can live it, now and again – you cannot speak of it." Of course, he does speak of it, and almost always with religious imagery. Yet at this time he also wrote, "By the way, I never realized that to be nonbelieving, to be an atheist, was a thing to be proud of. It went without saying as it were." And in another place at about this same time: "Our creed is indeed a queer creed. You others, Christians (and similar people), consider our ethics much inferior, indeed abominable. There is that little difference. We adhere to ours in practice, you don't." Whatever problems they may have had in their love affair, the pangs of conscience were not among them. Sheila was as much an unbeliever as Erwin, but in a less complex, more realistic way. She was never entirely convinced by his vedantic theology.
Schopenhauer often called himself an atheist, as did Schrodinger, and if Buddhism and Vedanta can be truly described as atheistic religions, both the philosopher and his scientific disciple were indeed atheists. They both rejected the idea of a "personal God," and Schopenhauer thought that "pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism."
He rejected traditional religious beliefs (Jewish, Christian, and Islamic) not on the basis of any reasoned argument, nor even with an expression of emotional antipathy, for he loved to use religious expressions and metaphors, but simply by saying that they are naive.
Steinhaus was an outspoken atheist.
Tinbergen had never been a religious man. Wartime atrocities, however, had highlighted the absence of a deity for him while both sides invoked one aligned with themselves, and this turned him into a militant atheist.
And yet it did, even though since moving into the boarding house he had become an atheist and most of his friends, including his best friend, were Russians.
I think that you know me well enough: I am an absolute atheist, and all days of the week are completely the same to me.
The author is Emile Zuckerkandl of Stanford University. Prof. Zuckerkandl ferociously attacks ID and any belief in a designer, God, or other "superghost".
Naturally, I was raised as an atheist. This was quite easy since the only one in the family that had any religion was my grandmother, and she was of German stock. Although she believed in God, and went to the synagogue on the high holy days, there was no nonsense about ritual. I well remember when I went off to the army, she said, "God will protect you." I smiled politely. She added, "I know you don't believe in God, but he will protect you anyway." I know many sophisticated and highly intelligent people who are practicing Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mormons, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., feel strongly that religion, or lack of it, is a highly personal matter. My own attitude is like Lagrange's. One day, he was asked by Napoleon whether he believed in God. "Sire," he said, "I have no need of that hypothesis."
He was a member of the firm of Vickers' Sons and Maxim. Maxim was an aggressive Atheist (personal knowledge) and the compiler (with the present writer) of the collection of strong criticisms of religion...
The Nobel Prize-winning geneticist and stringent atheist Thomas Hunt Morgan was developing the chromosome theory of heredity by examining his swarm of mutated Drosophila (fruit flies) through a jeweler's loupe.
Even though he later came to be known as an atheist, Saha was well-versed in all religious texts— though his interest in them was purely academic.
Zwicky has dealt critically with religion during his whole life. A 1971 diary entry states: "To base the inexplainabilty and the immense wonder of nature upon another miracle, God, is unnecessary and not acceptable for any serious thinker." According to one story, Zwicky once discussed the beginning of the universe with a priest. The priest, quoting Scriptures, stated that the universe had started with "and there is light." Zwicky replied that he would buy this, if instead God had said "and there is electronmagnetism".
Although having a distinct loyalty to his Jewish origins and friends, Dennis himself was an avowed atheist, as was his father, and neither generally followed Jewish religious practice.
Tamm's circumspect humorous reply: "Generally speaking, I am an atheist but may I give the answer next time?"
Zwicky has dealt critically with religion during his whole life. (Source: "Everybody a genius"). In a diary entry of 1971, he writes "To base the unexplainabilty and the immense wonder of nature onto an other miracle God is unnecessary and not acceptable for any serious thinker".
As for his own Jewish identity, Cohen was an avowed atheist who was cremated after he died, against Jewish tradition. But still he was proud of being Jewish, his daughter said, and even had a kind of "arrogant attitude" about Jewish intelligence.
I turned secular at the age of 11, by divine revelation. [Laughs.] I was standing on the roof of the house my father built, looking down on the street and suddenly it became very clear to me that there is no God.
In one respect, however, he is not a romantic: he does not idealize the person of the beloved, his highest praise is to consider her his equal. "When you feel your own equal in the body of a beautiful woman, just as ready to forget the world for you as you for her – oh my good Lord – who can describe what happiness then. You can live it, now and again – you cannot speak of it." Of course, he does speak of it, and almost always with religious imagery. Yet at this time he also wrote, "By the way, I never realized that to be nonbelieving, to be an atheist, was a thing to be proud of. It went without saying as it were." And in another place at about this same time: "Our creed is indeed a queer creed. You others, Christians (and similar people), consider our ethics much inferior, indeed abominable. There is that little difference. We adhere to ours in practice, you don't." Whatever problems they may have had in their love affair, the pangs of conscience were not among them. Sheila was as much an unbeliever as Erwin, but in a less complex, more realistic way. She was never entirely convinced by his vedantic theology.
Schopenhauer often called himself an atheist, as did Schrodinger, and if Buddhism and Vedanta can be truly described as atheistic religions, both the philosopher and his scientific disciple were indeed atheists. They both rejected the idea of a "personal God," and Schopenhauer thought that "pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism."
In his own words, "I'm not qualified to say whether or not God exists. I kind of doubt He does. Nevertheless, I'm always saying that the SF has this transfinite Book that contains the best proofs of all mathematical theorems, proofs that are elegant and perfect...You don't have to believe in God, but you should believe in the Book." (SF was his tongue- in-cheek reference to God as "the Supreme Fascist").
He was not only a distinguished German physicist and one of the most famous inventors on the staff at the Zeiss optical works at Jena but a notable social reformer, By a generous scheme of profit-sharing he virtually handed over the great Zeiss enterprise to the workers. Abbe was an intimate friend of Haeckel and shared his atheism (or Monism). Leonard Abbot says in his life of Ferrer that Abbe had "just the same ideas and aims as Ferrer."
Dirac was contemptuous of philosophy and, as many scientists do, professed atheism. But it was a narrow sort, mainly dismissive of religious orthodoxy. In notes he wrote in 1933, he embraces another creed: "[T]his article of faith is that the human race will continue to live for ever and will develop and progress without limit . . . Living is worthwhile if one can contribute in some small way to this endless chain of progress."
The paradox is that he thought of himself as a hard-boiled philosophical materialist. He was also what one may call a devoted atheist; a freemason; a member of the Austrian Socialist Party; and a regular contributor to the Monisticshe Monatshelfe, the monthly published by the German league of Monists.
In some ways, Penrose and Hameroff are the odd couple of science. Hameroff is upfront about his spiritual views, talking openly about the possibility of the soul existing after death. Penrose is an atheist who calls himself "a very materialistic and physicalist kind of person," and he's bothered by New Agers who've latched onto quantum theories about non-locality and entanglement to prop up their paranormal beliefs.
He claimed to be an atheist, but he used religious symbolism and believed that his scientific work was 'an approach to God'.
Although both parents were English Lutherans, Crile, after reading Paine, Ingersoll, and Voltaire in his college years, became a lifelong atheist, devoted to the concept of intellectual freedom.
But that tells you about my religious affiliation, which is not very strong, and I must say I'm not even an agnostic. I'm just an atheist in real life.
Leon Lederman is himself an atheist and he regrets the term, and Peter Higgs who is an atheist too, has expressed his displeasure, but the damage has been done!
Born and raised in a Sephardic Jewish family in which culture and love of learning were categorical imperatives, she abandoned religion and embraced atheism.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)Rabid atheist by age six. (His father, Boris, was too, but intensely studied great religious works.)
I am a practising atheist.
Generally, I do not get a lot of satisfaction out of being identified with causes or logos. But – a couple of years ago, when Richard Dawkins started his "out campaign" for atheists, I thought that showing my support was not a bad idea.
Although he is an atheist, Dr Ashtekar says, his attitude toward work is from the Hindu religious text, the Bhagavad Gita.
As Richard Dawkins points out, I have no obligation to explain why I am an atheist, it's for those who believe in a god to supply evidence. Atheism, religion, science and ethics are linked: Religion provides a simple world view based on the existence of one or more gods. Gods are super-beings who are unscrutable, far superior to humans and endowed with supernatural powers. Such a world view starts from the axiom that humans will not be able to understand the world around them. There is no further argument possible: one lives "by the book".
Although having a distinct loyalty to his Jewish origins and friends, Dennis himself was an avowed atheist, as was his father, and neither generally followed Jewish religious practice.
As for standard religion, though, Bohr was unsympathetic. His mother was a nonpracticing Jew, his father an atheist Lutheran.
I'm Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center.
If you'd asked, I would've told you that I, like yourself, am what most people would call a disbelieving atheist infidel heretic.
Although having a distinct loyalty to his Jewish origins and friends, Dennis himself was an avowed atheist, as was his father, and neither generally followed Jewish religious practice.
It's a portrait of besotted opposites: Both Kahneman and Tversky were brilliant scientists, and atheist Israeli Jews...
I made them quit essentially. When I was nine years old I decided that I was an atheist. So I told them, "Well you shouldn't go to church anymore, it's silly." Well, apparently they'd been going to church primarily for my benefit. So after I refused to go, they quit going too.
By the way I'm an atheist.
Hering and Mach were atheists, and disbelieved in a soul, but still accepted the idea that nature had internal direction.
Karlin was born in Yonova, Poland, in 1924. His family immigrated to Chicago when he was a small child and struggled financially through the Great Depression. He was raised in a strict Orthodox Jewish household but broke with religion in his early teens and remained an atheist for the rest of his life.
He died in 1984, aged 82. An atheist, he was buried under a gravestone chosen by Manci. It read "because God said it should be so".
Reber was a diehard atheist, and whatever he understood of those bumps in the night is not certain.
As it turns out, Lord Rees is an atheist, though one who said in a recent interview that he is "not allergic to religion," and that he enjoys participating in aesthetic and cultural activities of the Anglican church, in which he was raised.
Thorne grew up in an academic, Mormon family in Utah but is now an atheist. "There are large numbers of my finest colleagues who are quite devout and believe in God, ranging from an abstract humanist God to a very concrete Catholic or Mormon God. There is no fundamental incompatibility between science and religion. I happen to not believe in God."
By most definitions he would be called an atheist, but he hated the term. 'An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid.'
I'm Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center.
As Richard Dawkins points out, I have no obligation to explain why I am an atheist, it's for those who believe in a god to supply evidence. Atheism, religion, science and ethics are linked: Religion provides a simple world view based on the existence of one or more gods. Gods are super-beings who are unscrutable, far superior to humans and endowed with supernatural powers. Such a world view starts from the axiom that humans will not be able to understand the world around them. There is no further argument possible: one lives "by the book".
Leon Lederman is himself an atheist and he regrets the term, and Peter Higgs who is an atheist too, has expressed his displeasure, but the damage has been done!
By the way I'm an atheist.
As it turns out, Lord Rees is an atheist, though one who said in a recent interview that he is "not allergic to religion," and that he enjoys participating in aesthetic and cultural activities of the Anglican church, in which he was raised.
He claimed to be an atheist, but he used religious symbolism and believed that his scientific work was 'an approach to God'.
But that tells you about my religious affiliation, which is not very strong, and I must say I'm not even an agnostic. I'm just an atheist in real life.
... I am also atheist or agnostic (I don't even know the difference). I've never been to church and prefer to think for myself. I do believe that religions stand for good things, and that if you make irrational sacrifices for a religion, then everyone can tell that your religion is important to you and can trust that your most important inner faiths are strong.
... I am also atheist or agnostic (I don't even know the difference). I've never been to church and prefer to think for myself. I do believe that religions stand for good things, and that if you make irrational sacrifices for a religion, then everyone can tell that your religion is important to you and can trust that your most important inner faiths are strong.
Like, for me, as an atheist, bisexual, Jew, I'm gonna go on, uh – oh and Emma Goldman is one of my great heroes and I really think that anarchism is a fantastic principle by which to fashion a utopian society even if we can't get there.
I believe atheism makes coherent sense.