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Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577. [14] The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme, [15] and appears in English about 1587. [16] An earlier work, from about 1534, used the term atheonism. [17] [18] Related words emerged later: deist in 1621, [19] theist in 1662, [20] deism in 1675, [21 ...
Censorship of the Bible occurred in the past and is still going on today. In the 20th century, Christian resistance to the Soviet Union's policy of state atheism occurred through Bible-smuggling. [1] The People's Republic of China, officially an atheist state, engages in Bible burning as a part of antireligious campaigns there. [2]
Atheists in Indonesia experience official discrimination in the context of registration of births and marriages, and the issuance of identity cards. [144] In 2012, Indonesian atheist Alexander Aan was beaten by a mob, lost his job as a civil servant and was sentenced to two and a half years in jail for expressing his views online.
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which is the belief that at least one deity exists.
A lack of written records results in most of the knowledge of pre-historic religion being derived from archaeological records and other indirect sources, and from suppositions. Much pre-historic religion is subject to continued debate.
In 186 BC, the Roman senate issued a decree that severely restricted the Bacchanals, ecstatic rites celebrated in honor of Dionysus. Livy records that this persecution was due to the fact that "there was nothing wicked, nothing flagitious, that had not been practiced among them" and that a "greater number were executed than thrown into prison; indeed, the multitude of men and women who ...
Atheism in the United States is protected under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause. There are also online churches that have been created by atheists to secure legal rights, to ordain atheist clergy to hold ceremonies, as well as for parody, education, and advocacy. [37] [38] [39] [40]
In The Gospel of Christian Atheism, he stated, "Every man today who is open to experience knows that God is absent, but only the Christian knows that God is dead, that the death of God is a final and irrevocable event and that God's death has actualized in our history a new and liberated humanity."