Irreligion and atheism in France
Encyclopedia
Irreligion
and atheism
has a long history and a large demographic constitution in France, with advancement of atheism and the deprecation of theistic religion dating back as far as the French Revolution
. Today, according to estimates, at least 30% of the country's population identifies as atheist, while at least another 30% identifies as agnostic.
in about 1587.
The term atheist (from Fr. ), in the sense of "one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God",
predates atheism in English, being first attested in about 1571.
Scholar Étienne Dolet
was strangled
and burned in 1546 on a charge of atheism; in 1766, the French nobleman Jean-François de la Barre
, was torture
d, beheaded, and his body burned for alleged vandalism
of a crucifix
, a case that became celebrated because Voltaire
tried unsuccessfully to have the sentence reversed.
Among those accused of atheism was Denis Diderot
(1713–1784), one of the Enlightenment's most prominent philosophes, and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopédie
, which sought to challenge religious, particularly Catholic
, dogma: "Reason is to the estimation of the philosophe what grace is to the Christian", he wrote. "Grace determines the Christian's action; reason the philosophe's". Diderot was briefly imprisoned for his writing, some of which was banned and burned.
's long and strong association with the ancien regime. One atheistic religion, the Cult of Reason
, was established by Jacques Hébert
, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette
and their supporters
and intended as a replacement for Christianity, and was replete with ceremonious destruction of Christian relics, conversion of churches into Temples of Reason and the personification of Reason as a goddess; it also held such festivities as the Festival of Reason (or Festival of Liberty), dated on 10 November (20 Brumaire) 1793. The Cult of Reason, which strongly advocated the destruction of Christian and theistic cultural influences by force, was opposed to Robespierre's Cult of the Supreme Being
, which was considered a deistic cult which referred back to the theism of Christianity. The Cult of Reason was finally ended by Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety
through their execution of Hébert and several of his followers on March 24, 1794.
and onward. French atheists participated in the increasingly popular political movements which sought for greater economic and political parity in society, the most notable being the French Revolution of 1848
and the Paris Commune
of 1871.
In 1877, the Grand Orient de France
(GOdF), the largest Masonic body, at the instigation of the Protestant priest Frédéric Desmons
, allowed those who had no belief in a Supreme being to be admitted as members, resulting in an ongoing schism between the GOdF and the United Grand Lodge of England
(and their respective affiliated lodges) due to the departure of the GoDF from the theistic requirement of belief in a Supreme Being for all members.
Following the war, atheists and secular humanists became increasingly involved in defining and interpreting the existence of humanity and the individual, among them being existentialist
writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre
.
, has enlivened the debate over the issue of religious liberty, expression and atheistic rationalism in France.
To this day, the GOdF maintains a strongly secular stance in the public eye and has been frequently accused of a strong anti-Christian position by Roman Catholic apologists and clergy.
Irreligion
Irreligion is defined as an absence of religion or an indifference towards religion. Sometimes it may also be defined more narrowly as hostility towards religion. When characterized as hostility to religion, it includes antitheism, anticlericalism and antireligion. When characterized as...
and atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
has a long history and a large demographic constitution in France, with advancement of atheism and the deprecation of theistic religion dating back as far as the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. Today, according to estimates, at least 30% of the country's population identifies as atheist, while at least another 30% identifies as agnostic.
Renaissance and Reformation
The word atheism was derived from the FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
in about 1587.
The term atheist (from Fr. ), in the sense of "one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God",
predates atheism in English, being first attested in about 1571.
Persecutions
Until the Enlightenment, those who embraced a non-theistic belief were regarded as being immoral or amoral, and profession of atheism was considered to be a punishable crime.Scholar Étienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet was a French scholar, translator and printer.-Early life:He was born in Orléans. A doubtful tradition makes him the illegitimate son of Francis I; but it is evident that he was at least connected with some family of rank and wealth.From Orléans he was taken to Paris about 1521, and...
was strangled
Strangling
Strangling is compression of the neck that may lead to unconsciousness or death by causing an increasingly hypoxic state in the brain. Fatal strangling typically occurs in cases of violence, accidents, and as the auxiliary lethal mechanism in hangings in the event the neck does not break...
and burned in 1546 on a charge of atheism; in 1766, the French nobleman Jean-François de la Barre
Jean-François de la Barre
Jean-François Lefevre de la Barre was a French nobleman, famous for having been tortured and beheaded before his body was burnt on a pyre along with Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary". He is often said to have been executed for not saluting a procession, but the elements of the case were far...
, was torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d, beheaded, and his body burned for alleged vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
of a crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
, a case that became celebrated because Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
tried unsuccessfully to have the sentence reversed.
Among those accused of atheism was Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie....
(1713–1784), one of the Enlightenment's most prominent philosophes, and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopédie
Encyclopédie
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert...
, which sought to challenge religious, particularly Catholic
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
, dogma: "Reason is to the estimation of the philosophe what grace is to the Christian", he wrote. "Grace determines the Christian's action; reason the philosophe's". Diderot was briefly imprisoned for his writing, some of which was banned and burned.
French Revolution
The French Revolution marked a turning point for the ascendancy of atheism to a preeminent position as a cognitive and cultural stance against the supremacy of (Roman Catholic) ChristianityChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
's long and strong association with the ancien regime. One atheistic religion, the Cult of Reason
Cult of Reason
The Cult of Reason was an atheistic belief system established in France and intended as a replacement for Christianity during the French Revolution.-Origins:...
, was established by Jacques Hébert
Jacques Hébert
Jacques René Hébert was a French journalist, and the founder and editor of the extreme radical newspaper Le Père Duchesne during the French Revolution...
, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette
Pierre Gaspard Chaumette
Pierre Gaspard Chaumette was a French politician of the Revolutionaryperiod.-Early activities:Born in Nevers France, 24 May 1763, his main interest was botany and science. Chaumette studied medicine at the University of Paris in 1790, but gave up his career in medicine at the start of the Revolution...
and their supporters
Hébertists
The Hébertists were an ultra-revolutionary political faction associated with the populist journalist Jacques Hébert. They came to power during the Reign of Terror and played a significant role in the French Revolution....
and intended as a replacement for Christianity, and was replete with ceremonious destruction of Christian relics, conversion of churches into Temples of Reason and the personification of Reason as a goddess; it also held such festivities as the Festival of Reason (or Festival of Liberty), dated on 10 November (20 Brumaire) 1793. The Cult of Reason, which strongly advocated the destruction of Christian and theistic cultural influences by force, was opposed to Robespierre's Cult of the Supreme Being
Cult of the Supreme Being
The Cult of the Supreme Being was a form of deism established in France by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. It was intended to become the state religion of the new French Republic.- Origins :...
, which was considered a deistic cult which referred back to the theism of Christianity. The Cult of Reason was finally ended by Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...
through their execution of Hébert and several of his followers on March 24, 1794.
19th century
Even after the Thermidorean Reaction ended the revolutionary anti-clerical manifestations, the movement for secularization continued during the Napoleonic eraNapoleonic Era
The Napoleonic Era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory...
and onward. French atheists participated in the increasingly popular political movements which sought for greater economic and political parity in society, the most notable being the French Revolution of 1848
French Revolution of 1848
The 1848 Revolution in France was one of a wave of revolutions in 1848 in Europe. In France, the February revolution ended the Orleans monarchy and led to the creation of the French Second Republic. The February Revolution was really the belated second phase of the Revolution of 1830...
and the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
of 1871.
In 1877, the Grand Orient de France
Grand Orient de France
The Grand Orient de France is the largest of several Masonic organizations in France and the oldest in Continental Europe, founded in 1733.-Foundation:...
(GOdF), the largest Masonic body, at the instigation of the Protestant priest Frédéric Desmons
Frédéric Desmons
Frédéric Desmons was a French Calvinist priest and freemason who persuaded the Grand Orient de France in a vote to remove the term of the Great Architect of the Universe from their Constitution...
, allowed those who had no belief in a Supreme being to be admitted as members, resulting in an ongoing schism between the GOdF and the United Grand Lodge of England
United Grand Lodge of England
The United Grand Lodge of England is the main governing body of freemasonry within England and Wales and in other, predominantly ex-British Empire and Commonwealth countries outside the United Kingdom. It is the oldest Grand Lodge in the world, deriving its origin from 1717...
(and their respective affiliated lodges) due to the departure of the GoDF from the theistic requirement of belief in a Supreme Being for all members.
20th century
In 1905, the law on the Separation of the State and the Church was passed, establishing state secularism in the country and preventing interaction between religious communities and the government, except through religious organizations. Atheists were among the many French citizens put to death and torture in the concentration camps ran by the German Nazi regime.Following the war, atheists and secular humanists became increasingly involved in defining and interpreting the existence of humanity and the individual, among them being existentialist
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
.
21st century
The 21st century, beginning with the advent of the American-led War on TerrorWar on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
, has enlivened the debate over the issue of religious liberty, expression and atheistic rationalism in France.
To this day, the GOdF maintains a strongly secular stance in the public eye and has been frequently accused of a strong anti-Christian position by Roman Catholic apologists and clergy.