Famous Atheists, Freethinkers, Diests and Agnostics

Abraham Lincoln

- Abraham Lincoln, American president (1809-1865).

Albert Einstein

-Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist

Aldous Huxley

-Aldous Huxley, author "Roots"

Andrew Carnegie

- Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist

-Isaac Asimov, Russian-born - American author

Ernest Hemingway

- Ernest Hemingway, American author (1899-1961).

Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke, author

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist (1809-1882).

Ayn Rand

-Ayn Rand, Russian-born author (1905-1982).
(The Fountainhead)

Benjamin Franklin

-Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor

-Dave Matthews, South African rock musician

Carl Sagan

-Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author

Bertrand Russell

"I am myself a dissenter from all known religions, and I hope that every kind of religious belief will die out."

- Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, educator, mathematician, and social critic (1872-1970).

Billy Joel

-Billy Joel, American musician

Clarence Darrow

- Clarence Seward Darrow, American lawyer (1857-1938). (Scopes Monkey Trail- Creationism in schools)

- George Carlin, comedian

Elizabeth Cady-Stanton

- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American suffragist (1815-1902).

Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire"

- Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire", French author and playwright (1694-1778).

Frank Zappa

-Frank Zappa, American musician

Galileo Galilei

-Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer

Freidrich Nietzsche

- Friedrich Nietzsche, German philologist and philosopher (1844-1900).

Gene Roddenberry

-Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek (1921-1991).

George Bernard Shaw

- George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright (1856-1950).

Arthur Rubenstein, Polish-American pianist (1886-1982).
During a radio interview with Rubenstein the conversation took a sharp turn away from music when the interviewer suddeenly asked, "Mr. Rubenstein, do you believe in God?" Rubenstein calmly replied, "No. You see, what I believe in is something much greater."

Gloria Steinam

"By the year 2000, we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God."

-Gloria Steinam, women's rights activist

Helen Keller

-Helen Keller, American lecturer

James Madison, American president and political theorist (1751-1836).
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, Famous Atheist & Quotessuperstition, bigotry, and persecution."
"In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."

During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."

-John Adams, U.S. President, Founding Father of the United States

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

John Stuart Mill

"The time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make their dissent from religion known."

- John Stuart Mill, English philosopher and economist (1806-1873). Freethinker, if not strictly atheist.

Karl Marx

- Karl Marx, German political philosopher and economist (1818-1883).

Leo Tolstoy

-Leo Tolstoy, Russian revolutionary

Marilyn Manson

-Marilyn Manson, American rock musician

Kurt Vonnegut

-Kurt Vonnegut, American author

Napoleon Bonaparte

-Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor

-Dr. James Watson, American biologist, (Discoverer of DNA.)

Frank Zappa, American musician (1940-1993).
"Who you jivin' with that cosmic debris?"
"Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be."
"If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine -- but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or good -- and CARES about any of it -- to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working." [The Real Frank Zappa Book, ("Church and State" chapter) by Frank Zappa and Peter Occhiogrosso, p. 301]

Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian statesman (1889-1964).
A self-professed atheist, he said of India, "No country or people who are slaves to dogma and dogmatic mentality can progress." [Key Ideas in Human Thought]

James Joyce, Irish author (1882-1941).
Joyce rejected Catholicism and indeed all religion when he was a young man (as portrayed in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man). He considered Catholicism to be "black magic", and deplored its anti-individuality. "For me there is ony one alternative to scholasticism, scepticism." He also rejected the church's moralizing, etc. etc.

Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken, American editor and critic (1880-1956).
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the same extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility." ["Treatise on the Gods"]
"Since the early days, [the church] has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was an apologist for the divine right of kings."
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. . . . A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass: he is actually ill."
"God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters." [from the alt.quotations archive, found from http://www.starlingtech.com/quotes/search.html]
"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration--courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth." [1925]
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
"For centuries, theologians have attempted to explain the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing."
"The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."

And, from the song, "I Found Out"
"There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky Now that I found out I know I can cry, I found out! "

Walter "Walt" Disney, American cartoonist, showman, and film producer (1901-1966).
I had one report that Disney was non-religious. Apparently, he was not a member of any religion and did not attend services. Also, he apparently had an entirely secular funeral. It was "very private" and off-limits to the press, perhaps to conceal it was not religious. There is no "In God we Trust" on Disney Dollars!

Olof Palme, Swedish prime minister (1927-1986).
Palme is said to be partly responsible for the current state of wide-spread disbelief in Sweden. He had conflicts with the Church of Sweden during his administration, because he wished to separate it completely from the state. He said, "human beings will find a balanced situation when they do good things not because God says it, but because they feel like doing them."

Margaret Sanger, American birth control activist, founder of Planned Parenthood (1883-1966).
"No Gods, No Masters."

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect (1869-1959).

Denis Diderot

-Denis Diderot, French philosopher, author, and encyclopedist (1713-1784).

Sir Alfred Hitchcock, British film director (1899-1980).
I have heard that in later life, Hitchcock become areligious. If you have any information on his beliefs, please let me know. Here is an anecdote that may illustrate his growing anti-religious sentiments. (Though at the time he was apparently still a church-going Catholic.)
Driving through a Swiss city one day, Hitchcock suddenly pointed out of the car window and said, "That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen." His companion was surprised to see nothing more alarming that a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the child's shoulder. "Run, little boy," cried Hitchcock, leaning out of the car. "Run for your life!"

Karl Popper, Austrian/British philosopher (1902-1994).
He was the author of such well-known works as The Logic of Scientific Discovery, The Open Society and Its Enemies, The Poverty of Historicism, Conjectures and Refutations, and many others. He was particularly influential in the philosophy of science for his defense of fallibilism and his critique of induction. Popper described himself as an agnostic, and he was a member of the Academy of Humanism.
The magazine, Skeptic Vol. 6, No. 2 (1998) features a 1969 interview with Karl Popper - "Karl Popper On God: The Lost Interview" by Edward Zerin. In this interview Popper discusses his agnosticism, his attitudes towards both Judaism and Christianity, the reasons for his disbelief which he combined with a respect for the moral teachings of both religions.

Richard Burton, Welsh actor (1925-1984).
According to the Denver Post, Richard Burton wrote this in his diary in 1969: "The more I read about man and his maniacal ruthlessness and his murderous envious scatological soul, the more I realize that he will never change. Our stupidity is immortal, nothing will change it. The same mistakes, the same prejudices, the same injustice, the same lusts wheel endlessly around the parade ground of the centuries. Immutable and ineluctable. I wish I could believe in a god of some kind but I simply cannot."

Irving Berlin, Russian-born American lyricist and composer (1888-1989).
In her biography of her father, Irving Berlin: A Daughter's Memoir, Mary Ellin Barrett mentions her father's "agnosticism," (p.123) and refers to him as a "nonbeliever," (p.124

George Orwell (1903-1950).
Orwell's biography calls him an atheist. His books also have themes that are explicitly and/or suggestively anti-religious. In Animal Farm, the parody was a raven named Moses who told the animals stories about a great mountain in the sky that they would go to when they died, called Sugar Candy Mountain. In 1984, the concept of Big Brother is a parody of God: You never see him, but the fact of him is drilled into so many people's minds that they become robots, almost. Plus, if you speak bad against Big Brother, it's a Thoughtcrime.

Robert A. Heinlein, American science-fiction author (1907-1988).
Being a fiction author, all Heinlein left us is quotations from characters in his novels. There are lots to choose from, here are a couple from Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love:
"History does not record anywhere or at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it."
"Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proven innocent."

William M. Gaines, American publisher (1922-1992).
Founder and publisher of Mad magazine. He was quite definitely an atheist, according to Frank Jacobs's biography, The MAD World of William M. Gaines. When emphasizing his sincerity, Gaines would declare, "On my honor as an atheist . . ." Also, when long-time contributor Dave Berg would greet him with "May God give you his blessing," Gaines would politely reply, "Dave, shut the hell up!"

Charles Schultz, American cartoonist (1922-2000).
In an interview in 1999, Schultz said that although his philosophical views evolved over the years, "the term that best describes me now is 'secular humanist.'" He went on to say, "I despise those shallow religious comics. Dennis the Menace, for instance, is the most shallow. When they show him praying--I just can't stand that sort of thing, talking to God about some cutesy thing that he'd done during the day. I don't think Hank Ketcham [Dennis' creator] has any deep knowledge of things like that." Schultz cringed at the mention of Family Circus, the strip by Bill Keane that is strewn with cutesy references to Jesus (who wants to protect children on school buses, but can't because of laws about separation of church and state!) and those sickly-sweet images of invisible deceased grandparents looming protectively over the kids. "Oh, I can't stand that," Schultz laughed. "You could get diabetes reading them, couldn't you?"

Robert A. Heinlen

-Robert A. Heinlen, American science-ficiton.

Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain"

"If there is a God, he is a malign thug."

"'In God We Trust.' I don't believe it would sound any better if it were true."
"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."
"Man is a marvelous curiosity . . . he thinks he is the Creator's pet . . . he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea." [Letters from the Earth]
Mr. Clemens was once asked whether he feared death. He said that he did not, in view of the fact that he had been dead for billions and billions of years before he was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

- Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist (1835-1910).

Marquis de Sade, French libertine (1740-1814).
In his dialogue, Philosophy in the Bedroom, de Sade insults and derides Christianity several times. In his novel 120 Days of Sodom, he is quoted as saying "The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." Also, the "Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man," which can be found online, is clearly the work of someone with contempt for religion.

"The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know."

- Robert Green Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer (1833-1899).

Robert Frost

-Robert Frost, American poet

Susan B. Anthony

- Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist (1820-1906).

Vincent Van Gogh

-Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter

Thomas Jefferson (Deist)

- Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat

Madalyn Murray O'Hair, American atheist activist (1923-1995).
O'Hair challenged prayer in the schools in the US Supreme Court (Murray vs. Curlett) and won. She went on to found American Atheists and became perhaps America's most infamous and outspoken atheist. When asked, "Do you support religious freedon," she responded, "Oh, absolutely! I feel that everyone has a right to be insane. And that they can do this any place at all. If they want religious schools, build them! My only problem with that is, do not ask for the land to be tax-free. Do not ask for a government grant to build them. Do not ask for money for teacher's salaries, or more books, or anything else. Just go ahead and do your thing, and do it yourself. Just exactly the same as if you were a nudist. Somebody doesn't get a tax break for being a Mason, or whatever they're interested in. [Interview in Freedom Writer magazine, March 1989]

William Howard Taft

- William Howard Taft, U.S. President

Thomas Edison

- Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847-1931).

Thomas Paine (Deist?) – Author of "Common Sense"

Labeled an atheist, but actually a deist, raised by Quakers, who was extremely critical of organized religion. According to Carl Sagan in The Demon Haunted World, "later generations reviled him for his social and religious views. Theodore Roosevelt called him a 'filthy little atheist.' . . . He is probably the most illustrious American Revolutionary uncommemorated by a monument in Washington, D.C."
The Age of Reason also attacks Christianity as a system of superstition that "produces fanatics" and "serves the purposes of despotism." When the book reached England, several sellers were convicted of blasphemy and jailed.
"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law."

- Thomas Paine, English born American author and revolutionary leader (1737-1809).

Sigmund Freud

-Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician and pioneer psychoanalyst (1856-1939).

Charles Laughton, English-born American actor (1899-1962).
Atheism mentioned in his wife's autobiography, Charles and I (Elsa Lanchester, 1938)

Jonathan Swift

"We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough religion to make us love one another"

"When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it." [Oscar Wilde – Author]

-Thomas Henry Huxley, English biologist

Ambrose Bierce, American writer (1842-1914?).
Author of The Devil's Dictionary. Here are some entries:
FAITH: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
RELIGION: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
OCEAN: A body of water occupying about two thirds of a world made for man- who has no gills.
PRAY: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

SAINT: A dead sinner revised and edited.
In the definition of occident, he claims christians to be "a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call 'war' and 'commerce'".
For more information on Ambrose Bierce, visit the Ambrose Bierce Appreciate Society.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet (1792-1822).
Thrown out of Oxford University for writing the essay, The Necessity of Atheism in 1810.
"If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced."
"It is easier to suppose that the universe has existed for all eternity than to conceive a being beyond its limits capable of creating it."

Other dead Atheists

Anaxagoras, Greek philosopher (500?-428? BCE).
. . . probably the first freethinker we know of to be condemned for his beliefs." "He regarded the conventional gods as mythic abstractions endowed with anthropomorphic attributes. His writings led him to a dungeon, charged with impiety, probably about the year 450 B.C.E." Only the intervention of the great statesman and orator Pericles saved Anaxagoras from a death sentence. He had to pay a fine and, according to some accounts, was banished. He lived his final years in exile.

Diagoras "the Atheist" of Melos, Greek poet, (5th cent. BCE).
Threw a wooden image of a god into a fire, remarking that the deity should perform another miracle and save itself. The uproar this caused in Athens prompted Diagoras to flee for his life. "Athens outlawed him and offered a reward for his capture dead or alive. He lived out his life in Spartan territory."

Democritus, Greek philosopher (460?-357 BCE).
The father of Materialism. Argued that mechanical relationships or arrangements of the atoms account for various characteristics of nature, the intimation here being that the natural order of the world resulted from chance. Even morality, the soul, and all mental life are reducible to mechanistic terms with physical imperceptible atoms as their basic structure. Spiritual reality does not exist; what appears to be spiritual is attributed simply to subperceptible atomic structure or else to mere superstition. Hence, the Democritan philosophy of mechanistic Materialism is complete, self-sufficient, and self-contained. [History of Philosophy] [Visit The Philosophy Garden

Epicurus, Greek philosopher (341-270 BCE).
As a Materialist, Epicurus accepted the idea that the soul consists of atomic material which disintegrates at death, at which time all sensation ceases. Consequently, he said, death need not be a matter of anxious concern, inasmuch as it is merely the state in which all sensation ceases. [History of Philosophy] [Visit The Philosophy Garden]

Lucius Annaeus Seneca "the Younger," Roman stoic philosopher, writer, and politician (4-65).
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful."

John of Lackland, English King (1199-1216) (1167?-1216).
John may not have been a bonafide atheist, but he moved farther in that direction than was common in medieval times. From the biography, Eleanor of Aquitaine (John's mother) by Alison Weir, p. 234: "John's bad press in the monastic chronicles may be attributed to his failures as a king *and his cynical contempt for religion*; he quarrelled with the Church during his reign and was excommunicated. 'He led such a dissipated life that he ceased to believe in the resurrection of the dead and other articles of the Christian faith...'(Medieval chroniclers Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris; quoted in Weir). Once, upon seeing a buck slaughtered, at the end of a hunt, remarked 'You happy beast, never forced to patter prayers nor dragged to Holy Mass.'" (Paris, in Weir).

Christopher Marlowe, English dramatist and poet (1564-1593).
"I count religion but a childish toy and hold there is no sin but innocence." - the character Machiavel, in The Jew of Malta, "Prologue." The lines are often modernized: "I count religion but a childish toy and hold there is no sin but ignorance."

Thomas Woolston, English writer (1669-1731) or? (1670-1733).
Was put under house arrest for the remainder of his life when he voiced doubt about the resurrection and other Bible miracles. [Holy Horrors]

Jean Meslier, French erstwhile priest (1678-1733).
A country priest who led an exemplary life, he died an atheist. He left behind a memoir which was circulated by Voltaire. This expressed his disgust with humanity and his inability to believe in God. Newton's infinite space, Meslier believed, was the only eternal reality: nothing but matter existed. Religion was a device used by the rich to oppress the poor and render them powerless. Christianity was distinguished by its particularly ludicrous doctrines, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. [A History of God]

Noel Coward, English playwright, author, and performer (1899-1973).
Coward proclaims several times in his diaries (The Noel Coward Diaries, Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1982, ISBN 0 75380 547 2) that he is an atheist, at least during the time he was writing them (1941-1969).

David Hume, Scottish philosopher and historian (1711-1776).
"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless . . . its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." [Of Miracles]
"The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one."
"When I hear a man is religious, I conclude that he is a rascal, although I have known some instances of very good men being religious."

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, British born actor, director, and producer (1889-1977).
"By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none."
Quoted in Manual of a Perfect Atheist.

Albert Camus, French author, Existential Philosopher (1913-60).
Preached a heroic atheism. People should reject God defiantly in order to pour out all their loving solicitude upon mankind. [A History of God]

Jean Paul Sartre, French Existential philosopher and author (1905-80).
Sartre insisted that even if God existed [which he did not believe], it was still necessary to reject him, since the idea of God negates our freedom. Traditional religion tells us that we must conform to God's idea of humanity to become fully human. Instead, we must see human beings as liberty incarnate. [A History of God]

Burrhus Frederick "B. F." Skinner, American Psychologist (1904-1990).
In an interview with CBS radio a few weeks before his death, Skinner was asked if he feared death. He replied, "I don't believe in God, so I'm not afraid of dying."

". . . he embraced eighteenth-century rationalism, which confirmed him in his atheistic materialism."

Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach, German philosopher (1804-1872).
Feuerbach was a prominent materialist philosopher of the nineteenth century. His book, The Essence of Christianity, quickly became a classic of freethought literature. In that book he argued that religion is the projection of human wishes and is a form of alienation. He began his philosophical career as a Hegelian idealist but soon moved in the direction of materialism thus encouraging the Young Hegelians with whom he was associated to similiarly move. The Essence of Christianity electrified the Young Hegelians, particularly influencing the youthful Karl Marx who adopted and extended its theory of alienation.

Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1860).
There was, Schopenhauer believed, no Absolute, no Reason, no God, no Spirit at work in the world: nothing but brute instinctive will to live. [A History of God]

In addition to The Science of Ethics, Stephen wrote many other works including Essays on Freethinking and Plainspeaking (1873), An Agnostic's Apology and Other Essays (1893), as well as History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876), and The English Utilitarians (1900). [James Farmelant]

William Howard Taft, American President and Chief Justice (1857-1930).
Probably not an atheist, but I thought it was interesting that an American president in this century said: "I do not believe in the divinity of Christ and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe."

Rudolf Carnap, German-American philosopher (1891-1970).
A central figure of the Vienna Circle which was devoted to the philosophy of logical positivism. In his Intellectual Autobiography printed in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap ed. by Paul Schilpp (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1963) he described the basic worldview he shared with the rest of the Circle. The first is the view that man has no supernatural protectors or enemies . Second, we had the conviction that mankind is able to change the conditions of life in such a way that many of the sufferings of today may be avoided . The third is the view that all deliberate action presupposes knowledge of the world , that the scientific method is the best method of acquiring knowledge and that therefore science must be regarded as one of the most valuable instruments for the improvement of human life. In Vienna we had no names for these views; if we look for a brief designation in American terminology for the combination of these three convictions, the best would seem to be 'scientific humanism.'"

Not long afterwards, he began to write -- first against the priesthood itself and then for the position of Atheism. He was one of the founding members of Britain's Rationalist Press Association, and was a prolific writer for Haldeman-Julius Publications. He was also a much-respected speaker, giving, by his own estimate, three or four thousand lectures in the United States, Australia, and Great Britain by the age of eighty. Still fighting against the injustices and dishonesties of religion, he died on January 10, 1955, at the age of eighty-seven. The epitaph he requested was "He was a rebel to his last day." [The Secular Web]

"On Saturday night, I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing organ for tent-show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday they'd be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. I knew then that the Christianchurch thrives on hypocrisy, and that man's carnal nature will out no matter how much it is purged or scoured by any white-light religion"

However, some claim that The Church of Satan is nothing more than a scam cooked up by an "old carnie" to take people's money (there is a $100 membership fee). The Church of Satan web site.

Other Famous Atheists or Agnostics :

Woody Allen – Actor

Dr. Melvin Konner

Michael Kinsley

William B. Davis

Gillian Anderson

Madison Arnold

Paul Kurtz

Milan Kundera

Russell Baker

Iain M. Banks

Alexander I. Lebed

Richard Leakey – Anthropoligist

Greg Bear – Science Fiction Author

Steve Benson

Stanislaw Lem

Mike Leigh

Jim Bohanan

Sir Herman Bondi

Tom Leykis

Michael Martin

Dr. Nathaniel Branden

Marlon Brando – Actor

Jonathan Meades

Antonio Mendoza

John Byrne

Dean Cameron

Marvin Minsky – Scientist

Hans Moravec

Fidel Castro

Dick Cavett – TV Actor

Dr. Taslima Nasreen

Ted Nelson

Noam Chomsky - Scientist

Paul and Patricia Churchland

Kai Nielsen

Camille Paglia

Alexander Cockburn

John Conway

Jean Luc Godard

Julia Phillips

Michael Crichton – Author

Dr. Francis Crick

Paul Pfalzner

Paula Poundstone – Comedian

Crowded House – Rock Group

Ron Dakron

Katha Pollitt

Jean-Pierre Rampal

Daniel Dennett – Author

Amanda Donohoe

Paul Provenza

Brian Ritchie

Greg Egan

Barbara Ehrenreich

Rick Reynolds

Al Goldstein

Garth Ennis

Brian Eno – Musician

Richard Rorty

John Sayles

Nuno Filipe

Filter

Pamela Sargent

George H. Smith

James Forman

Jodie Foster – Actress

J.J.C. Smart

Mira Sorvino – Actress

Ed Fredkin

Janeane Garofalo – Comedian

Lee Smolin

J. Michael Straczynski

Simone de Beauvoir, French author, feminist, and philosopher (1908-1986).

Linus Carl Pauling, American chemist (1901-1994).

Mao Tse-tung, Chinese Communist leader and theorist (1893-1976).

Francois Mitterrand, French Politician (1916-1996). Publicly called himself an atheist on several occasions.

Spalding Gray

Joe Haldeman

Gore Vidal – Author

James A. Haught

Bill Hayden

Annika Walter

Sir Alfred Hitchcock – Author

Christopher Hitchens

Nicholas Humphrey

Dr. Ian Wilmut

William Shatner – Actor

Neil Kinnock

W. P. Kinsella

John Mortimer

Mr. Lavanam

Paul Krassner

Stanley Kubrick – Director

Nick Zedd

Ring Lardner Jr.

Ursula K. LeGuin

Tom Lehrer – Comedian

Salman Rushdie – Author of "The Statnic Verses"

Leonard Peikoff

Gerda Lerner

Michael Lewis

Stephen Jay Gould

Mark Pauline

Todd McFarlane – Author

Sir Ian McKellen

Edward O. Wilson

Adam Corolla

Randy Newman – Musician

Jack Nicholson – Actor

Frank Mullen

Douglas Coupland

Arthur Miller – Author

Mike Mills

Robin Lane Fox

Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)

Gary Numan – Musician

Ronald Numbers

Zarkov

Vladimir Pozner

Ferdinand Piech

Roman Polanski – Author

Lionel Jospin

James Randi

Chris Robinson

Terry Pratchett

Harvey Fierstein

David Feherty

Mona Sahlin

Ron Reagan Jr.

Larry Flynt – Publisher

Antony Flew

Jyoti Shankar

Neil Rogers

Nat Hentoff

Pierre Boulez

Michael Smith

Sebastião Salgado

Billy Bragg

Mikhail Gorbachev

Benjamin Spock

Robert I. Sherman

Greg Graffin

Wendy Kaminer

Burt Lancaster, American actor (1913-1994).

Robert Smith

Bill Gates – Founder – Microsoft

Derek Humphry

Ingmar Bergman

Rodney Stark

Stephen Chapman

Richard Dawkins

Warren Buffett - Businessman

Katharine Hepburn – Actress

Florence King

Dr. Dean Edell

Douglas Adams – Author

Pierre Berton

Penn Jillette

Paul Edwards

Harlan Ellison - Scinece Fiction Author

Susie Bright

Howard Hughes, American manufacturer, film producer, and recluse (1905-1976).

Jack Germond

Dave Matthews – Musician

Arthur C. Clarke – Science Fiction Author

Quentin Crisp

Harry Harrison

Christopher Reeve – Actor

Albert Ellis

Clive Barker

Teller – Comedian

Michael Crichton – Author

Vic Chesnutt

Billy Joel – Musician

Max von Sydow – Actor

Thomas J. Altizer

Asia Carrera

Virginia Woolf, English author (1882-1941).

Paul Watson

Peter William Atkins

Michael Stipe (R.E.M.)

Sir John Gielgud – Actor

Bruce Wright

Richard Feynman, American physicist (1918-1988).

Shulamit Aloni

Nina Hartley

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. – Author

Dan Barker

David Cronenberg

XTC

Steven Weinberg

Robert Frost, American poet (1874-1963).

Marie Curie, Polish-born French chemist and physicist (1867-1934).

Joseph Conrad, Polish-born English author (1857-1924).