Many atheists take issue with some believers' contention that one cannot be truly moral without God and a God-given moral code. Some atheists insist that they are moral and that they do not need God to be moral beings. Though some may hold on to some form of "self-conceived," "flexible" ethics, they clearly do not uphold Judeo-Christian morality. This section offers evidence of the kind of morality the leaders of modern atheism openly embraced. These individuals have been the "role models" for many atheists for decades.

MADALYN MURRAY O'HARE (Militant leader of the atheist movement)

PLAYBOY: How many lovers have you had, if you don't mind our asking?

MURRAY: ... I've had five affairs, all of them real wingdings.

PLAYBOY: Would you call yourself an advocate of free love?

MURRAY: I'd describe myself as a sexual libertarian -- but I'm not a libertine. "To each his own" is my motto. If anybody wants to engage in any kind of sexual activity with any consenting partner, that is their business. I don't feel that I can sit in judgment on them, or that society can sit in judgment on them. And my sex life is peculiarly my own. I will engage in sexual activity with a consenting male any time and any place I d--n well please.

Playboy Interview of Madalyn Murray O’hair, http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/madplay.htm, (Viewed Oct 28, 2007).

AYN RAND (Atheist philosopher)

“ To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose.”

Rand, Ayn, The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: Signet Books, 1964, 27.

RICHARD DAWKINS (Scientist, and militant atheist leader)

"The world would be a better place...if morality was all about doing good to others and refraining from hurting them, rather than religion's morbid obsession with private sin and the evils of sexual enjoyment."

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/04/30/dawkins/, (Viewed November 6, 2006).

ALBERT CAMUS (French atheist writer)

“In 1940, Camus married again. His second wife was Francine Faure,… Although never divorced, Francine suffered immensely from Albert’s persistent and public infidelities.”

“Camus…bought a handsome stone farm house for his family in Province. (Mi, Camus’ young Danish mistress often stayed at the farm house nearby.”

“ But Camus was not a Christian. He neither believed in God nor accepted the specific morality of Christianity. He liked to think of himself as instinctively pagan, a man in love with the tangible pleasures of this earth rather than the ethereal blessings of Heaven.”

Kamber, R., On Camus. Belmont California: Wadworth Philosophers Series, 2001, 3, 5, 7.

JEAN PAUL SARTRE / SIMONE DE BOUVOIR (French writers/philosophers)

"Although Sartre and Simone (De Bouvoir) were lovers from the early 1930’s onwards, they never married, and each had what were quite often well-publicized affairs with other people."

Thody, P., Read, H., Introducing Sartre. Cambridge: Icon Books, 2005, 72.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (German atheist philosopher)

"He believed that the values of self-sacrifice inherent in Christianity undermined the cultural development; that democracy and socialism, which treated all people equally, stifled individual creativity and genius; and that universal suffrage gave power to the masses. Therefore, it was up to exceptional individuals to take leadership. He outlined his plan for a new generation of “supermen” who “were free from sentimental inhibitions and prepared …to use violence in the building of a new, nobler world.” (Hitler was one of his most committed followers).

"Thus Spake Zarathustra" (1883-1884) In Christopher, J.R., Wittet, G.G., Modern Western Civilization. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991, 214.

BERTRAND RUSSELL (Philosopher)

(Although Russell is often quoted by atheists as one of their champions, he was an agnostic, by his own admission.)

"He was a regular visitor at Garsington, the country estate of Lady Ottoline Morrell with whom he had a long affair. It was there that he also met D.H.Lawrence with whom he had a fairly virulent falling out.

In 1921 he divorced and married for the second time to Dora Black, with whom he set up a progressive school.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, as his marriage to Dora broke down and as he lost faith in Beacon Hill, Russell continued to write books intended to emancipate readers from what he saw as the fetters of outmoded religious belief, restrictive marriages, repressed attitudes towards human sexuality, and authoritarian education practices.

In 1936 he married for the third time to Patricia (Peter) Helen Spence. "

Mantex, "Bertrand Russell," http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/russell.htm, (Viewed November 6, 2006).

SIGMUND FREUD

(Freud is revered as the father of modern psychology. He was a committed atheist, and apparently an incestuous adulterer)

WAS FREUD A cad? Has the founder of psychoanalysis been caught with his pants down? Evidence has emerged that suggests Freud had an affair with Minna Bernays, his sister-in-law, who shared his apartment at Vienna's Berggasse 19, where Freud lived with his wife Martha and their six children.

A hotel ledger discovered by Franz Maciejewski, a German sociologist and specialist in psychoanalysis, shows that on August 13, 1898, Freud checked into a Swiss hotel...But when Freud checked into the Schweizerhaus (Swiss House) in Maloja, he signed the register "Dr Sigm Freud u frau", meaning "Dr Sigmund Freud and wife". Minna and Freud spent that night together in Room 11.

"Freud's first slip?" The Age, http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/freuds-first-slip/2007/03/01/1172338791947.html (Viewed April 25, 2007)

BARON D'HOLBACH (Author/Philosopher)

Denying the existence of a deity, and refusing to admit as evidence all a priori arguments, d'Holbach saw in the universe nothing save matter in motion. In this, he was influenced by John Toland. The foundation of morality is happiness: "It would be useless and almost unjust to insist upon a man's being virtuous if he cannot be so without being unhappy. So long as vice renders him happy, he should love vice." This theory of morality can be seen as a precursor to utilitarianism.

Wikipedia, "Baron D'Holbach.". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_d'Holbach, (Viewed April 4, 2007).

BARON DE SADE (Philosopher)

(18th Century French Philosopher who epitomizes the life style of many who abandon God and conceive their own immoral code. The word "Sadism" originates in this man)

"French philosopher Donatien Aldonse Louis de Sade argued, often eloquently, for the rejection of faith and religion and embrace of the self and its desires..."

"It was de Sade's unusual sexual proclivities that made him the man who lent his name to the term 'sadism', and although his personal preferences are perverse by today's standards, they were not particularly unusual for young aristocrats in the eighteenth century. It was his writings -- 'Justine', '120 Days of Sodom', 'Lusts of the Libertines', and others -- which branded him an arch pornographer. The lion's share of these writings involve varying combinations of dubious sexual activities, violence, and fecal matter."

His work aside, de Sade was a rather romantic figure, spending some 29 years behind bars (either prison or asylum), and escaping in circumstances that shame the Scarlet Pimpernel.

History House, "De Sade," http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/desade/ (Viewed April 4, 2007).

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (Atheist philosopher)

The ultra-intolerant view of women contrasts with Schopenhauer's generally liberal views on other social issues: he was strongly against taboos on issues like suicide and masochism ... (To be fair, it must be added that he did oppose slavery).

Wikipedia, "Arthur Schopenhauer," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer

READ ALSO, "CAN ATHEISTS BE MORAL PEOPLE?," ON THIS SITE.