Who inspired Atheism? Who is the founder?

Question

Christians have their Jesus and Muslims hold Mohammed to the highest esteem, but this article points out that atheism is false as it has no founder.
http://www.tencommandments.org/heathens5.shtml
for those that hate links, here is a blurb: Not even the most "educated" atheists - particularly those associated with the most elite universities throughout the world can truthfully inform you when and by whom atheism originated.
I'm pretty sure Ernestine Rose had the answer if anyone cares to quote it, but I was wondering if any of you had answers. Thanks

I never said it was a religion; I only quoted Robert T Lee. We are merely exploring why there is no founder and why this would be needed.

And yes, it is absurd, I am only pointing that out.

Answer 1

Uh...I'm voting for RATIONAL thought.

Answer 2

That's an inane assertion. Why would atheism need to have a founder? I feel like that would only restrict it. There is a wide range of beliefs encompassed under the name atheism, spanning from simply not believing in God but not necessarily disbelieving in God to those who vehemently deny the existance of God.

If you want to get down to it, there was necessarily a first atheist considering that a finite number of people have lived on earth. Just because we can't name him doesn't mean he didn't exist. It's just that knowing who he was isn't important in our belief system. Do you know who invented ceramics? If not, does that mean they don't exist?

As for the article, I only had to read a paragraph or two just to see how biased the author is and how illogical (I'll go with a male author) his arguments are. He says that because we don't know when or from whom atheism came about, it must have come from a supernatural force, Satan. I think the holes in that argument quite possibly outweigh the substance. Firstly, atheism is a philosophy, not a physical entity. If you don't have a single book or artifact that you can declare to be the first work or a specifically dated oral history, knowing the time of origin is an impossible task.

Then he makes the amazing jump to say that if we don't know this information, that necessarily means it was supernatural influence. He has no basis on which to make this claim. Plenty of literature and art were created anonymously, but we don't assume that they came from a supernatural being even if they teach something blasphemous. Just because the author has not been able to identify a source on Earth does not mean that atheism must be from beyond. It only mean that the author was not enough of a competent historian to trace it back to its roots.

And finally, even taking the supernatural source at face-value, he goes on to assume that this source is Satan. Again a very narrow-minded thought. It seems that all things that scare Christians should be credited to the devil. Fine, if we accept momentarily that a supernatural force was the source of atheism, why couldn't it be God himself? Time and again we see God putting people through trials, most often depriving them of property and such. What's to say this isn't another test from your God? He'd be quite capable of doing something like this. Or we could give up on the two extremes and say it was some other being, possibly a benign spirit. To jump to the conclusion that its Satan is not a fair assessment.

I could have read on through the article, but it's not really worth my time and it seemed fairly long.

Answer 3

The argument postulated in your question is absurd and is not a valid measurement of the "truth" of a belief.
An atheist is simply a person who does not believe in a god, as a theist is a person who does believe in a god.
Let's say you know a person who founds a religion that does not believe in, oh, Volvos. Does that mean that Volvos don't exist? I don't think so, I see them on the street almost every day. Knowing the "founder" of any particular belief system does not give it validity. Just think-L. Ron Hubbard founded Scientology!

Answer 4

Atheism is as old as humanity, simply put. It has no founder because it doesn't need one. Atheism is lack of an organized religion or set of religious beliefs. Organized groups have a founder; a lack of an organized group has no founder, because it obviously predates the organized groups.

Simply put: Atheism is older than religion, so no one can have said, "Well, we'll be the guys who don't follow a religion." The concept of religion hadn't even been thought of yet.

Answer 5

I think Lucretius (94-49 BC) articulated a version of atheism that is very familiar to us today.

From Wikipedia:

The main purpose of the work was to free men's minds of superstition and the fear of death. It achieves this through expounding the philosophical system of Epicurus, whom Lucretius apotheosizes. Lucretius identifies superstition with the notion that the gods/supernatural powers created our world or interfere with its operations in any way. Fear of such gods is banished by showing that the operations of the world can be accounted for entirely in terms of the regular but purposeless motions of tiny atoms and agglomerations of atoms in interaction in empty space, instead of in terms of the will of the gods. The fear of death is banished by showing that death is the dissipation of a being's material mind, and so, as a simple ceasing-to-be, death can be neither good nor bad for this being.

Answer 6

Wow, the other people answering this question are fools...

My dear, there is definitely a specific founder of atheism: the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Answer 7

How does having a founder make anything true? L. Ron Hubbard founded Scientology. Does that make it true? Marx founded Marxism. Does that make it true? That is hands down the smelliest red herring I've ever encountered.

Answer 8

does it really matter? atheism isn't a religion, do you really need to know who the 'founder' is? i would guess people throughout time spread throughout the world were 'atheists' but then one day a guy just came up with a title for it, and here you guys are

Answer 9

It doesn't matter.

But my guess is the first atheist was born when his stupid friend pointed to that big bright disc in the sky and said it watched over them.

Atheism is far older then theism of any kind.

Answer 10

Because all that that you said, contradics atheism.
I'm not atheist but they do not believe in anything.
We evolved, when we die we are dead, nothing else, so to know who started it all, and where it originated from would be going aganst the athiest belifs, with they have none.
It would be like asking where can you find an atheist church.

Answer 11

I always thought it was Madelyn Murray O'Hare but I did not know much about atheist until a couple of months ago.