What do Woody Allen, Bill Gates, George Clooney, and Samuel Clemens have in common? They’re all non-believers of one kind or another. In an age when the vast majority of Americans are embracing various faiths, the secular humanists, atheists, agnostics, rationalists, skeptics, and other non-theists among us may be getting short shrift.
Warren A. Smith has spent the last 50 years compiling an encyclopedic tome that chronicles historical currents of non-theistic thought, and catalogs about 10,000 of its better-known adherents. From the Marquis de Sade, who described himself as “atheistic to the point of fanaticism”, to Carl Sagan, who called religions “the nurseries of pseudo-science”, to Marlene Dietrich, who said “if there is a Supreme Being, he’s crazy,” Warren A. Smith has unearthed a bevy of non-believers.
The book is called “Who’s Who In Hell”, and we’re checking to see if we’re in it.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Warren A. Smith, Author of “Who’s Who In Hell”