"We Believe in God" -- The Greatest Minds Believed

 Is God Cruel?

THE IMMORALITY OF LEADING ATHEISTS

     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'HAIR (Atheist leader)

(From Playboy Interview)

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> (28 Oct  2007).

AYN RAND (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.

"She was also an atheist, and promoted ethical egoism...while condemning altruism."

^{"Ayn Rand," Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand>} (3 June,  2009).

"After several years, Rand's close relationship with the much younger Branden turned into a romantic affair, with the consent of their spouses."

^{"Ayn Rand," Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand>} (3 June,  2009).

ALBERT CAMUS (French 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 (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). Cited 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.)

SIGMUND FREUD (Father of psychoanalysis)

(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> (25 April, 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.

 "Baron D'Holbach," Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_d'Holbach>  (4 April, 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.

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

 ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (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).

"Arthur Schopenhauer," Wikipedia.  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer> (13 August, 2008)

NATHANIEL BRANDEN (Psychologist)

"In 1950, after having become a fan of Ayn Rand's novels and exchanging letters and phone calls with her, the 19-year-old Branden met Rand. The pair went on to develop an eighteen-year personal and professional relationship. Eventually, Rand and the much younger Branden had a romantic affair. While both were married to other people at the time, both of their respective spouses consented to the affair before it started.

In 1965 Branden separated from his wife. In 1968, the close relationship between Rand and Branden came to an abrupt end when Rand discovered that Branden had been having a sexual relationship with a third woman, actress Patrecia Scott, without Rand's knowledge, for more than four years.

Shortly thereafter, Branden moved to California and married Scott (a divorce with Barbara having occurred before his break with Ayn).

Branden married a third time in 1978, wedding businesswoman Devers Israel, from whom he is also divorced.^"

^{"Nathaniel Branden," Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Branden>} (3 June,  2009).

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