50 Top Atheists in the World Today

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50 Top Atheists in the World Today Atheists deny that God exists. Yet for an atheist to
make our ranking of the 50 top atheists in the worldgiven in ascending orderit is not
enough merely to deny that God exists. More is required.
Certainty. To make our list, someone has to be very sure of him- or herself. No mere
agnostics will do. To make the cut, one has to do more than merely question Gods
existence or even deny that knowledge of Gods existence is possible.
Celebrity is another requirement. To make our list, the atheist must have a public
identification with atheism and must have made some public impact by challenging
religion and/or promoting atheism, either in print or on the Internet. In other words, our
ranking is a list of people who are well known because they are atheists, among other
thingsas opposed to people who are mainly famous for some other reason (like Jodie
Foster or Bruce Willis). In a few cases, a person has made the list mainly on the basis
of his or her attack on free will and moralitythe foundation of the traditional religious
view of human beingsso long as the person has also publicly identified as an atheist.
Energy is another requirement. To make our ranking, the atheist must be an activist. He
or she must exhibit some desire to win others over to atheism. The person must look

upon atheism not just as an intellectual position or worldview, but also as a cause or
movement. You might say ours is a list of atheists with attitude.
As the final requirement, we give pride of place to seriousness. Besides the certainty,
celebrity, and energy of an atheist, we put a premium on the depth and seriousness of
the man or womans case for atheism. We ask ourselves this question: How many
rounds could this person go in the ring (so to speak) with a top-notch defender of
religious belief? The more rounds we feel the person would last in such an imagined
intellectual match-up, the higher on our list he or she appears. (Compare our feature
article on influential persons of faith here.)
This last requirement leads to some counterintuitive rank assignments for well-known
atheists. For instance, Richard Dawkins does not make the head of our list. Because
this may disappoint some of our readers, we have, after our ranking, also ordered the
atheists on our list by the number of Google hits that their names obtain.
Finally, to keep the list manageable, we have included only atheists who are still living at
the time of this articles writing.

The Sheldrake-Shermer Nature of Science Dialogue

In the summer of 2015, two world-renowned thinkers, Rupert Sheldrake and Michael
Shermer, discussed and debated the nature of science here at TheBestSchools.org.
Be sure to check out the wide-ranging dialog!

For more in-depth interviews of leading thinkers, click here.

Here, then, is our list of the 50 top atheists in the world today:

50. David Silverman (b. 1966)

Silverman is President of American Atheists, the organization

founded in 1963 by the grande dame of American atheism, Madalyn Murray OHair
(19191995). The group, which has local chapters in many states, is currently based in
Cranford, New Jersey, where Silverman makes his home. In recent years, the group
has sponsored the Christmas-season You Know Its a Myth billboard campaign in the
New York City area. Silvermanwho should not be confused with either the
Egyptologist or the television animator of the same namehas appeared on such TV
talk shows as The OReilly Factor. He writes on his blog that Religion is my bitch.

49. Wrath James White (born c. 1970)

White, a former world-class heavyweight kickboxer, is a prolific

novelist who boxed and now writes under the name, Wrath. He resides in Austin,
Texas, with his wife and two sons, where he runs a popular web site, Words of Wrath.
His novels are horror stories with an atheist slant. He also blogs for Atheist Nexus. On
his own blog, he has written that I am saddened and somewhat disgusted by the very
idea of a Black Christian. It would seem to me that after having so recently escaped our
slavemasters that we would have had enough of masters.

48. Dan Barker (b. 1949)

Barker, a former Protestant minister, is a jazz pianist, composer,

author, and television personality. He was ordained in 1975 in California, and served as
pastor of churches affiliated with the Quaker, Assembly of God, and other

denominations. He also served as a missionary for two years in Mexico. Barker

announced his conversion to atheism in 1984. He is co-president of the Freedom from
Religion Foundation (FFRF), and is the editor of that organizations online magazine
Freethought Today. He is also a host with the Freethought Radio Network. Barker
makes frequent appearances on Phil Donahue, Oprah Winfrey, and similar TV shows.
Books: Godless and The Good Atheist

47. Greydon Square (b. 1981)

Greydon Square is an Iraq-War veteran and rap artist, who

incorporates atheism into his musical act. Born Eddie Collins in the low-income Los
Angeles suburb of Compton, Square became immersed in gang culture, but changed
his life by enlisting in the United States Army in May of 2001. The punning title of his
2007 album, The Compton Effect, reflects his background as an erstwhile physics
majorto which he attributes his conversion to atheism. In his rap songs, he boasts
about desecrating Brigham Youngs grave and urinating in a synagogue. The Phoenix
New Times has called Square the black Carl Sagan.

46. Paul Zachary (P.Z.) Myers (b. 1957)

Myers is Associate Professor of Biology at the University of

Minnesota, Morris, where he researches the developmental biology of zebrafish from an
evolutionary perspective. He has also taught at the University of Oregon, the University
of Utah, and Temple University. He runs one of the most popular atheist blogs on the
Internet, called Pharyngula (a stage of the embryonic development of vertebrates). The
website is notable for its over-the-top vituperation. Myers also has a flair for attentiongetting stunts, like piercing a consecrated host with a rusty nail. In 2009, Myers was
named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.

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45. James (The Amazing) Randi (b. 1928)

Born in Canada, Randi has had a long career as a stage magician,

TV personality, and prolific author. However, the most distinctive feature of his career
has been debunkingshowing how his own and others magic tricks are done. He
came to international attention in 1972 by revealing the tricks used by Uri Geller, an
Israeli magician who claimed supernatural telekinetic powers. His career then became
more and more dedicated to debunking paranormal claims. Most recently, he has
become an outspoken atheist and critic of religion.
Books: The Faith Healers and Flim-Flam

44. Polly Toynbee (b. 1946)

Toynbee has been a columnist for Londons The Guardian

newspaper since 1998 and President of the British Humanist Association since 2007.
Granddaughter of the famous historian, Arnold J. Toynbee, she stood for MP,
unsuccessfully, in 1983 as a Social Democratic Party candidate. She has published
several books on social and political topics, including Hard Work (Bloomsbury
Paperbacks, 2003). In 2011, she agreed to debate Christian apologist William Lane
Craig, but later pulled out, saying I hadnt realised the nature of Mr. Lane Craigs
debating style, and having now looked at his previous performances, this is not my kind
of forum.
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43. Michael Newdow (b. 1953)

Newdow is an attorney and physician famous for his atheistinspired litigation. He was born into a Jewish family in the Bronx, but never believed in
God, saying I was born an atheist. His many lawsuits have been aimed at forcing the
United States government to remove references to the Deity from American currency
and coinage, from the Pledge of Allegiance, and from oaths of office. Though some of
his lawsuits have gone all the way to the Supreme Court, so far all have been
unsuccessful. Newdow is an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church.

42. Greta Christina (b. 1961)

Based in San Francisco, Christina is an author and blogger. Hers

has been named one of the Top Ten most popular atheist blogs on the Web. She has
contributed to The Skeptical Inquirer magazine and to the anthology, Everything You
Know about God Is Wrong, edited by Russ Kick (Disinformation Company, 2007). The
latter anthology includes her essay, Comforting Thoughts about Death That Have
Nothing to Do with God, which has been frequently reprinted on the Internet. In addition
to atheism, Christina writes and blogs about feminism and lesbianism. She also
publishes pornographic fiction.

41. Ophelia Benson (born c. 1948)

Based in Seattle, Benson is a philosopher, co-author (with Jeremy

Stangroom), and prolific blogger, best known for editing the atheist web site Butterflies
and Wheels (the title refers to Alexander Popes counsel against rhetorical overkill,

Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?). She is also a frequent contributor to Londons
The Guardian newspaper and to TPM: The Philosophers Magazine, where she writes a
weekly online column reviewing philosophy blogs. She has said that religion remains
the last great prop and stay of arbitrary injustices and the coercion which backs them
up.
Books: Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense, Why Truth Matters, and Does God Hate
Women?

40. Michael Shermer (b. 1954)

Shermer is an Adjunct Professor at Claremont Graduate University

in Claremont, California, as well as a journalist, prolific author, TV personality, and
cycling enthusiast. He currently teaches an interdisciplinary course at Claremont called
Evolution, Economics, and the Brain. He is also the editor-in-chief of Skeptic
magazine, the chief organ of the Skeptics Society, which is devoted to attacking religion
and promoting atheism. He is perhaps best known as an advocate for the highly
speculative field of evolutionary psychology, which seeks to find evolutionary
explanations for all fundamental aspects of human behavior.
Books: Why People Believe Weird Things, The Mind of the Market, and The Believing
Brain

39. Susan Blackmore (b. 1951)

Blackmore is an English popular-science author who holds a B.A.

in psychology from St. Hildas College, Oxford, and a Ph.D. in parapsychology from the
University of Surrey. She later became disenchanted with parapsychology and made a
career out of debunking paranormal claims. After that, she became a supporter of the
supposed science of memetics. Most recently, she has become an outspoken critic of
religion in the U.K. She is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and one of

the 55 signatories in 2010 to a controversial open letter to The Meme Machine

demanding that Pope Benedict XVIs official invitation to visit the U.K. be withdrawn.
Books: The Meme Machine and Consciousness: An Introduction
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38. Sumitra Padmanabhan (b. 1953)

Padmanabhan is President of the Rationalists Association of India

and General Secretary of the Humanists Association. The former organization, which
was founded in Kolkata (Calcutta) in 1985, is also known by its Bengali name, Bharatiya
Bigyan O Yuktibadi Samity (literally, Indian Science and Rationalists Association). The
latter organization was established in 1993 with the aim of replacing all established
religions with Humanism. The Rationalists Associations announced aim is to
eradicate superstition and blind faith, which include religious fanaticism, astrology,
caste-system, spiritualism and numerous other obscurantist beliefs. Padmanabhan is
also Executive Editor of The Freethinker online magazine.

37. Ayaan Hirsi Ali (b. 1969)

Hirsi Ali, a vocal critic of Islam, is a feminist and atheist activist,

author, and Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, DC. Born
Ayaan Hirsi Magan in Mogadishu, Somalia, she was granted political asylum by The
Netherlands in 1992, after which she changed her name and renounced Islam. In 2003,
aged 33, Hirsi Ali was elected to the Dutch parliament. She wrote the script and
provided the voiceover narration for Theo van Goghs controversial film, Submission,
about the eploitation of women in Muslim countries. After van Goghs murder by a
radical Muslim in 2004, Hirsi Ali went into hiding, eventually resettling in the United
States in 2006.

Books: Infidel, The Caged Virgin, and Nomad

36. Philip Pullman (b. 1946)

Pullman was born in Norwich, U.K., and took a third-class English

degree at Oxford University. He worked as a middle-school teacher while writing the
childrens booksmore than 30 by nowthat would make his reputation. However, he
only achieved real celebrity with the publication of his best-selling trilogy, His Dark
Materials, between 1994 and 2001. The trilogy is loosely based on Miltons Paradise
Lostexcept that the Satan figure is the hero, while God is the villain. It has been
praised by atheists as an antidote to C.S. Lewiss Narnia series, which Pullman has
denounced as religious propaganda. He is outspoken on behalf of atheist causes in the
U.K.
Books: His Dark Materials and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

35. Woody Allen (b. 1935)

Allen, a former stand-up comedian, is a playwright, jazz clarinetist,

and world-renowned filmmaker. Born Allen Konigsberg in Brooklyn, he began selling
jokes to newspapers while still in his teens. Allens trademark black humor reflects
strong atheist convictions, emphasizing the futility of human existencefor example:
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to
despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the
wisdom to choose correctly. In 1992, Allen was at the center of a sex scandal involving
the daughter of his companion, the actress Mia Farrow. Some of his subsequent films
are less funny than unpleasantly bitter.
Books: Getting Even, Without Feathers, and Side Effects
Films: Love and Death, Stardust Memories, Deconstructing Harry, and Match Point

34. Ian McEwan (b. 1948)

Born in Aldershot, Hampshire, McEwan is considered by many to

be one of the finest novelists of his generation in the U.K. From the beginning of his
career, his work has been characterized by an extremism verging on cynical
detachment with respect to his main subjects: sex, death, and moral evil. But it is with
Black Dogs in 1992 that his books begin to acquire an explicitly theological dimension.
In his recent work, McEwans heroes tend to be raionalists who are almost crushed by
the irrational forces threatening them. He has written that Atheists have as much
conscience, possibly more, than people with deep religious convictions.
Books: Black Dogs, Saturday, On Chesil Beach, and Solar

33. Michel Houellebecq (b. 1958disputed)

Born Michel Thomas on the French Indian Ocean island

possession of Runion, Houellebecq is one of the most controversial literary novelists in
the world today. Abandoned by his parents, he was raised by his paternal grandmother,
whose maiden name he adopted. In 1998 his second novel, Les particules l
mentaires, enjoyed an enormous succs de scandale. His books are graphic satires of
the nihilism plaguing modern society in a godless universe. However, any moral force
they might otherwise have is undercut by Houellebecqs evident loathing of human
beings. He has written that God doesnt exist, and even if one is a bloody idiot, one
finishes up understanding that.
Books: The Elementary Particles, Platform, and The Possibility of an Island

32. Martin Amis (b. 1949)

Son of the famous English post-war comic novelist, Kingsley Amis,

Amis fils is the author of nearly 30 books, including novels, short-story collections, and
works of non-fiction. He is both prized as a stylist (of the postmodern school) by other
writers and appreciated as a chronicler of men behaving badly by the broader
readingpublic. His masterwork is generally considered to be the London trilogy (see
below), published between 1984 and 1995. Atheism is implicit in the worldview
expressed in Amiss work, rather than one of his explicit themes. Speaking of religion,
he has said: I think in Europe, we have outgrown it. Weve waited it out, and its gone.
Books: Money, London Fields, The Information

31. Philip Roth (b. 1933)

Author of over 30 highly acclaimed books, Roth is considered by

many to be Americas greatest living novelist. A perennial Nobel Prize candidate, he has
won every major American literary prize. Roth grew up in a Jewish family in Newark,
New Jersey, but his unsparing depictions of his largely Jewish characters have been
controversial within the American Jewish community. His always pronounced
misanthropy has taken on an explicitly atheistic tenor in his late books, with their
dominant theme of human frailty, futility, and the finality of death. He has said in a recent
interview: When the whole world doesnt believe in God, itll be a great place.
Books: The Human Stain, The Dying Animal, Everyman, and Nemesis

30. Ray Kurzweil (b. 1948)

Kurzweil is an entrepreneur, author, and leading light of the

influential transhumanist movement. In the 1970s, his company, Kurzweil Computer
Products, Inc., developed the first practical optical scanning software. Recently,
Kurzweil has risen to national prominence with a series of books in which he claims that
we human beings are on the verge of shedding our bodies and uploading our minds
(our software) into superior, artificial hardware. In so doing, he argues, we are
destined to become immortal. He calls this event the singularity. He has been harshly
criticized by P.Z. Myers and others, but his ideas are the logical extension of premises
most atheists share.
Books: The Age of Intelligent Machines, The Age of Spiritual Machines, and The
Singularity Is Near
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29. John Brockman (b. 1941)

Brockman is a literary agent, book editor, and self-proclaimed

cultural impresario. He serves as publicist for many leading atheist authors. However,
Brockman is perhaps best known as the founder of Edge.org, a web site promoting
speculative thought about the nexus of science, technology, and culture. He has said: I
mean I dont believe: Im sure theres no God. Im sure theres no afterlife. But dont call
me an atheist. Its like a losers club. When I hear the word atheist, I think of some
crummy motel where theyre having a function and these people have nowhere else to
go.
Books: The Next Fifty Years, What We Believe but Cannot Prove, This Will Change
Everything, Culture, and The Mind

28. Susan Jacoby (b. 1946)

Jacoby, a former newspaper reporter, is a bestselling author and

blogger. She contributes to The Spirited Atheist blog at The Washington Post, as well as
to one of her own. Jacoby is Program Director for the Center for InquiryNew York City,
and sits on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America. Though she is a
strong atheist activist, her voice is one of relative moderation. She has written that:
Atheism, in a mature form, is not angry anarchy that lashes out at religion, but simply
looking for a collective and personal moral code independent of an external god.
Books: Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism and The Age of American
Unreason
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27. Victor Stenger (b. 1935)

Stenger is Emeritus Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the

University of Hawaii and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado.
He has done research on the properties of neutrinos and other elementary particles. He
is best known, however, as a prolific author of popular-science books and as a crusader
against paranormal claims and against religion. Stenger has a special interest in
challenging claims that the so-called fine-tuning coincidences constitute evidence for
the existence of God. He is a long-time Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry,
and is famous for saying: Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into
buildings.
Books: Not by Design, God: The Failed Hypothesis, The New Atheism, and The Fallacy
of Fine-Tuning
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26. Jennifer Michael Hecht (b. 1965)

Hecht is a true polymath: she pursued advanced studies in France

and received her Ph.D. in the history of science from Columbia University; she has
published two well-received volumes of poetry and three meticulously researched but
popular books (one of them a bestseller) in the esoteric field of the history of ideas; and
she currently teaches writing at Columbia University and New School University in New
York. She also maintains a busy schedule of interviews, lectures, and poetry readings.
Hechts approach to atheism is informed more by the arts than by the sciencesa
perspective she promotes through her blog, Poetic Atheism.
Books: The End of the Soul, Doubt: A History, and The Happiness Myth
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25. Fang Zhouzi (born 1967)

Fang, who holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry, is a poet, popularscience author, and blogger who made his name by publicizing corruption in Chinese
academia and by debunking Chinese traditional medicine. Born Fang Shimin, he was
attacked with a hammer by hired thugs in 2010, but escaped with only minor injuries. A
prominent surgeon whose work Fang had criticized was jailed for ordering the attack.
He writes that Religion wants you to believe blindly, while science wants you to doubt,
to rely on evidence and logic. They have fundamental conflicts. I have always opposed
efforts at reconciliation. None of Fangs books has yet been translated into English.

24. Jerry Coyne (b. 1949)

Coyne is Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at

the University of Chicago. Educated at Harvard University, where he studied under
Richard Lewontin, he is a specialist in the problem of speciation. He runs a web site
called Why Evolution Is True, and has published a bestselling book by the same name.
He is a frequent contributor to The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement, and
other prominent publications. He confesses to impatience with the New Atheists,
remarking: [H]ow much is there to say about a movement whose members are united,
after all, by only one thing: disbelief in divine beings and a respect for reason and
evidence. What more is there to say?
Books: Why Evolution Is True

23. Robert Wright (b. 1957)

Wright is a journalist, bestselling author, and founder of

Bloggingheads.tv. Currently Senior Future Tense Fellow at the New America
Foundation, he is a revisionist Darwinian evolutionary psychologist, who believes
emergent and nonlinear dynamical effects influence the evolutionary process. Wright is
also a critic of the dogmatism of the New Atheist authors, qualifying his own atheism as
follows: I would say theres reason to believe there is some sort of purpose unfolding
through the natural workings of the world. This doesnt by itself establish the existence
of a god, much less a good one, but it seems to cut against the grain of pure atheism.
Books: Three Scientists and Their Gods, The Moral Animal, Nonzero: The Logic of
Human Destiny, and The Evolution of God

22. Richard Carrier (b. 1969)

Carrier is a historian, author, and blogger. He received a Ph.D. in

ancient history from Columbia University in 2008. As a crusading atheist, Carriers
specialty is attacking the historicity of the New Testament. He has said that he thinks it
very probable Jesus never actually existed as a historical person (original emphasis).
He has also been an active promoter of atheism on the Internet, formerly serving as
Editor-in-Chief of the Internet Infidels/Secular Web site. He now runs the Naturalism as
a Worldview web site, as well as a blog. He also participates in numerous public
debates with Christians.
Books: Sense and Goodness without God, Not the Impossible Faith, and Why I Am Not
a Christian
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21. Michel Onfray (b. 1959)

Onfray is a philosopher and prolific author who teaches in the

philosophy seminar at the Universit Populaire de Caen (UPC). He has written more
than 50 volumes of philosophy, journals, travel, and political and cultural commentary.
The principal focus of his philosophical writing, both historical and systematic, has been
philosophical hedonism. His 2006 Trait dathologie (translated as Atheist Manifesto)
became a sensation and elevated him onto the national stage in France. The Trait
dathologie has been closely associated with the books of the Four Horsemen of the
New Atheism in France, Italy, Australia, and elsewhere. He traces his philosophical
lineage to the Cynic, Diogenes of Sinope.
Books: Atheist Manifesto and La Puissance dexister: Manifeste hdoniste

20. Steven Pinker (b. 1954)

Pinker is a psychologist, linguist, and bestselling author. Born in

Montreal and a naturalized U.S. citizen, he is Professor of Psychology at Harvard
University. He is best known for advancing the language instinct hypothesis, and for
promoting a version of Darwinian evolutionary psychology. It has been announced that
Pinker will join the faculty of the New College of the Humanities in London, the all-star
university founded by A.C. Grayling. He has said that I never outgrew my conversion to
atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew, and that Atheists are
the most reviled minority in the United States, so its no small matter to come out and
say it.
Books: The Language Instinct, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, and The Better
Angels of Our Nature

19. Patricia Churchland (b. 1943)

Churchland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of

California, San Diego, where she is also an adjunct faculty member at the Salk Institute
for Biological Studies. A native of British Columbia, she is married to the philosopher,
Paul Churchland. Together, the Churchlands are associated with the position called
eliminative materialism, which claims that our everyday folk psychology concepts,
like love, ought to be eliminated in favor of neuroscientific concepts, like oxytocin levels.
Discussing morality, Churchland writes: Evolution sets the brains style of drives and
emotions. Experience in a culture shapes the style into specific habits and preferences
using the reward system.
Books:Neurophilosophy, The Computational Brain, and Braintrust: What Neuroscience
Tells Us about Morality

18. Paul Kurtz (b. 1925)

Kurtz is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the State University of

New York, Buffalo. He is both a productive scholar and a prolific author of popular
philosophical works. Among Kurtzs notable achievements are the founding of both
Prometheus Press, a publishing house dedicated to promoting science and atheism,
and a number of skeptical, rationalist, and atheist organizations, including the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism. He has also
served as Editor-in-Chief of the latter organizations in-house magazine, Free Inquiry.
These oganizations may be said to combat paranormal claims and religion in equal
measure. Kurtz has been called the Father of Secular Humanism.
Books: The Transcendental Temptation, Living without Religion, Humanist Manifesto
2000, and What Is Secular Humanism?

17. Peter Atkins (b. 1940)

Atkins is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Born

in Buckinghamshire, U.K., he is a prolific author of textbooks on quantum mechanics
and physical chemistry, as well as of expositions of physics and cosmology aimed at a
popular audience. He is an outspoken critic of religion, and engages in frequent debates
with Christians on college and university campuses around the world and on television.
He has written: My aim is to argue that the universe can come into existence without
intervention, and that there is no need to invoke the idea of a Supreme Being in one of
its numerous manifestations.
Books: Creation Revisited, Four Laws That Drive the Universe,and On Being

16. William B. (Will) Provine (born c. 1942)

Provine is a historian of science specializing in population biology

and the Modern Synthesis in evolutionary theory. He has published the definitive study
of the distinguished geneticist, Sewall Wright. A Tennessee native educated at the
Unviersity of Chicago, he is Distinguished University Professor at Cornell University,
where he holds appointments in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,
the Department of History, and the Department of Science and Technology Studies.
Provine, who is a hard determinist as well as an atheist, rejects all forms of teleology in
biology and claims that evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented.
Books: The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics and Sewall Wright and
Evolutionary Biology

15. David Sloan Wilson (b. 1949)

Wilson is Distinguished Professor at Binghamton University

(formerly known as State University of New York, Binghamton), with appointments in the
Department of Anthropology and the Department of Biological Sciences. He is best
known as a proponent of the controversial theory of group selection, which he defended
in the book Unto Others , co-written with Elliott Sober. He is also known for his
evolutionary theory of the origins of religious belief, detailed in his book Darwins
Cathedral However, he has been critical of the New Atheists, whose dogmatism he has
denounced as a stealth religion. Most recently, he has spearheaded an effort to apply
Darwinian principles to urban renewal.
Books: Unto Others, Darwins Cathedral, Evolution for Everyone, and The
Neighborhood Project

14. Alexander (Alex) Rosenberg (b. 1946)

Rosenberg is Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. He is a

proponent of philosophical naturalismthe idea that natural science, when complete,
will describe reality exhaustively. He only recently began to be known outside the
academic community, publishing a widely noticed op-ed piece in the New York Times
(see below) to help publicize his new book, The Atheists Guide to Reality Rosenberg
claims that natural science must eventually take over all of human knowledge: 400
years of scientific success in prediction, control and technology shows that physics has
made a good start. We should be confident that it will do better than any other approach
at getting things right.
Books: Darwinian Reductionism, Philosophy of Biology, and The Atheists Guide to
Reality

13. Sam Harris (b. 1967)

Harris is a best-selling author and television personality who is

regarded as one of the Four Horsemen of the New Atheist movement. He is from a
Jewish background, but was raised in a secular home. He holds a B.A. in philosophy
from Stanford and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. His neuroscience research
focused on the neural basis of belief, using fMRI technology. He is the co-founder of
Project Reason, whose aim is to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of
dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world. Prominent among his controversial
pronouncements on public affairs is his call for a new science of morality.
Books: The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and The Moral Landscape

12. Anthony Clifford (A.C.) Grayling (b. 1949)

Born in what is now Zambia, Grayling was until recently Professor

of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. In 2011, he founded the all-star New
College of the Humanities in London. His academic work has focused on skepticism
and related problems at the interface between epistemology and metaphysics. He is
also concerned with articulating a naturalistic foundation for ethics. Over the past
decade, Grayling has become an outspoken critic of religion in the U.K. He was a
signatory to the 2010 open letter protesting the British governments invitation for an
official visit to Pope Benedict XVI.
Books: Against All Gods, Meditations for the Humanist, Life, Sex and Ideas: The Good
Life without God, and The Good Book: A Humanist Bible

11. Lawrence M. Krauss (b. 1954)

Krauss is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space

Exploration, as well as Director of the Origins Project, at Arizona State University at
Tempe. He is a cosmologist, who was one of the developers of the theory of dark
energy. He is also known as a critic of string theory and the multiverse concept. He
testified before the Ohio school board in 2004 in a hearing on the teaching of evolution,
and worked as an adviser to Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. He
is given to provocative statements like Forget Jesus. The stars died so you could be
born.
Books: Quantum Man: Richard Feynmans Life in Science and A Universe from Nothing

10. Christopher Hitchens (19492011)

Hitchens was a journalist, essayist, autobiographer, world-class

debater, blogger, and one of the Four Horsemen of the New Atheist movement. He
was born in Portsmouth, England, but moved permanently to the U.S. in 1981, where he
eventually became a naturalized citizen. He first attracted widespread public attention
through his blistering attacks on Mother Teresa. Widely admired as a brilliant stylist, he
wrote many bestselling books and was a regular columnist for Slate online magazine.
He made innumerable appearances on television and in documentary films, as well as
on debating platforms at college and university campuses around the world. He died
one week after this ranking was first published.
Books: The Portable Atheist, God Is Not Great, The Quotable Hitchens, and Arguably

9. Stephen Hawking (b. 1942)

Until his recent retirement, Hawking was Lucasian Professor of

Mathematics at the University of CambridgeIsaac Newtons old job. Since 2009, he
has been Director of Research at Cambridges Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. His
major contribution to cosmology has been the discovery that black holes evaporate by
means of the Hawking radiation mechanism. A victim of Lou Gehrigs disease, he was
catapulted to world fame following the publication of his bestselling A Brief History of
Time in 1988. With respect to God, he has said: When you look at the vast size of the
universe, and how accidental and insignificant human life is in it, that seems most
implausible.
Books: The Universe in a Nutshell, The Theory of Everything, The Grand Design, and
The Dreams That Stuff Is Made Of

8. Steven Weinberg (b. 1933)

Weinberg occupies the Regents Chair in Science at the University

of Texas at Austin, where he also leads the Theory Group in the Department of Physics.
He won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Abdus Salam and Sheldon
Glashow, for his work on the unification of the electromagnetic and weak forces of
nature. Weinberg has also made many other seminal contributions to todays Standard
Model in physics. He has written a widely used textbook, The Quantum Theory of Fields
as well as the classic, The First Three Minutes, and other bestselling books for a
popular audience. Weinberg has said that Religion is an insult to human dignity.
Books: The First Three Minutes, Dreams of a Final Theory, Facing Up: Science and Its
Cultural Adversaries, Lake Views: This World and the Universe

7. Richard Dawkins (b. 1941)

Dawkins is the most famous of the Four Horsemen of the New

Atheist movement, and perhaps the most influential living atheist. He was formerly
Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. In science,
Dawkinss main contribution has been as a popularizer of such ideas as uni-level genic
selection and inclusive fitness. Through his outstanding gifts as a writer, Dawkins has
had an incalculable impact on the dissemination of modern evolutionary theory to the
general educated public. He claims that human beings are gigantic lumbering robots
controlled by our selfish genes. In recent years, he has instigated a series of publicity
campaigns against religion in the U.K.
Books: The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Unweaving the Rainbow, The God
Delusion, and The Magic of Reality

6. Edward O. (E.O.) Wilson (b. 1929)

Wilson, a native of Alabama and one of the worlds foremost

experts on ants, is Emeritus University Professor at Harvard University. His research on
ant societies led to the publication of his seminal work, Sociobiology: The New
Synthesis, in 1975. His ideas on the evolution of altruism in human society were
hugely controversial at that time, and remain sonow rebranded as evolutionary
psychologytoday. In later years, Wilson became deeply involved with the movement
to save endangered species and thus preserve the Earths biodiversity. He has written
that: Religion [has] to be explained as a material process, from the bottom up, atoms to
genes to the human spirit.
Books: On Human Nature, Biophilia, Consilience, and The Future of Life

5. Daniel Dennett (b. 1942)

Dennett, one of the Four Horsemen of the New Atheist

movement, is University Professor, Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the
Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He introduced the idea that the theory
of natural selection is a universal acid that eats through every theoretical domain it
touches. Dennetts distinctive position on human nature combines a computationalist
perspective on the mind with an ultra-adaptationist approach to biological traits. This
combination led to his notorious claim that your great-great- . . . grandmother was a
macro (a software module). He describes belief in God as a useful crutch that we
have outgrown.
Books: Consciousness Explained, Darwins Dangerous Idea, and Breaking the Spell:
Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

4. Quentin Smith (b. 1952)

Smith is University Distinguished Scholar and Professor of

Philosophy at Western Michigan University (WMU) in Kalamazoo. He works in a
number of different fields of analytical philosophy: language, mind, physics, religion, and
the metaphysics of feeling. Probably, his most significant contributions have been to the
philosophy of quantum cosmology and the philosophy of time. Smiths work on the
natural selection of universes has had an impact within physics itself, and he has also
collaborated with the prominent Christian apologist, William Lane Craig. He denies the
existence of a personal Godand so is an atheistbut he defends a form of
pantheism.
Books: Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology, Time, Change and Freedom: An
Introduction to Metaphysics, Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of
Language, Language and Time, and Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives

3. Kai Nielsen (b. 1926)

Nielsen is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of

Calgary and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University in Montreal. Born
in Denmark, he was educated in the United States. After teaching at New York
University, he has made his career in Canada. Nielsen, who is the author of more than
30 books and 400 scholarly articles, is one of the founders of the Canadian Journal of
Philosophy. His work has focused on the unintelligibility of the various concepts of God,
and on the naturalistic grounding of ethics. Nielsen has been called one of the leading
atheists of the century.
Books: Ethics without God, Naturalism without Foundations, Naturalism and Religion,
and Atheism and Philosophy

2. Michael Martin (b. 1932)

Martin is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Boston University.

He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1962. He has written or
edited numerous monographs and anthologies devoted to the critique of religion and the
vindication of atheism. Though not as well known to the general public, Martin is highly
regarded among professional philosophers, believers and nonbelievers alike. He has
written: My object is to show that atheism is a rational position and that belief in God is
not. I am quite aware that atheistic beliefs are not always based on reason. My claim is
that they should be.
Books: Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, The Case against Christianity, Atheism,
Morality, and Meaning, The Impossibility of God,The Improbablity of God, and The
Cambridge Companion to Atheism

1. Peter Singer (b. 1946)

Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and

Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Born in Melbourne, he is
one of the worlds most controversial philosophers. A Utilitarian in ethics, he believes
that only sentience, not species membership, confers moral value. This leads him to
ascribe greater moral value to healthy adult nonhuman mammals than to unborn,
newborn, mentally defective, and comatose humans. Singer has written: The notion
that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval. We believe his blend
of philosophical sophistication, extremism, and high public profile makes him the most
formidable living atheist in the world.
Books: Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, The Expanding Circle, Rethinking Life and
Death, Writings on an Ethical Life, Unsanctifying Human Life, and The Life You Can
Save
***

So, thats our ranking of the 50 top atheists in the world according to our combined
criteria, emphasizing both celebrity and seriousness.
Here is an ordering of the same 50 names in terms of celebrity alone, as determined by
a Google search. The number of results (in parentheses) for each atheist was obtained
by searching on the exact name, using quotes (Richard Dawkins). Where an individual
is well known under two different versions of his name (E.O. Wilson and Edward O.
Wilson), we have ranked him according to the higher score. For common names, a
descriptor (Michael Martin atheist) has been added for disambiguation purposes. The
searches were conducted on December 8, 2011.*
* The search queries were run again on Tuesday, September 01, 2015, and the list reordered according to the
current search engine result-set.

Rank
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.

Name
Woody Allen
Stephen Hawking
Richard Dawkins
Christopher Hitchens
Michel Houellebecq
Philip Roth
Sam Harris
Ian McEwan
Michel Onfray
Peter Singer
Philip Pullman
Martin Amis
Steven Pinker
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
James Randi
Edward O. Wilson
Ray Kurzweil
Daniel Dennett
Robert Wright
Michael Shermer
David Silverman
Steven Weinberg
Peter Atkins
Lawrence M. Krauss
A.C. Grayling
Dan Barker

2015 Search Results

82,500,000
21,100,000
6,760,000
2,370,000
959,000
747,000
744,000
672,000
626,000
594,000
576,000
565,000
558,000
549,000
537,000
532,000
515,000
468,000
449,000
437,000
97,400
405,000
394,000
330,000
316,000
298,000

2011 Search Results,

Old Rank
(32,600,000, #1)
(13,200,000, #2)
(11,400,000, #3)
(6,020,000, #4)
(2,410,000, #9)
(4,400,000, #6)
(5,680,000, #5)
(2,870,000, #8)
(204,000, #39)
(2,140,000, #10)
(3,210,000, #7)
(1,500,000, #16)
(2,110,000, #11)
(1,560,000, #15)
(1,810,000, #12)
(1,360,000, #17)
(1,730,000, #14)
(1,770,000, #13)
(1,260,000, #19)
(1,190,000, #20)
(57,000, #48)
(1,100,000, #21)
(1,320,000, #18)
(345,000, #31)
(677,000, #23)
(461,000, #28)

Rank
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.

Name
P.Z. Myers
John Brockman
Polly Toynbee
Jerry Coyne
Richard Carrier
Paul Kurtz
Susan Blackmore
Kai Nielsen
Greta Christina
Quentin Smith
David Sloan Wilson
Susan Jacoby
Patricia Churchland
Victor Stenger
Ophelia Benson
Alexander Rosenberg
Greydon Square
Jennifer Michael Hecht
Wrath James White
Michael Newdow
Michael Martin
Fang Zhouzi
William B. Provine
Sumitra Padmanabhan

2015 Search Results

286,000
231,000
222,000
201,000
198,000
158,000
147,000
139,000
133,000
114,000
96,700
94,300
66,500
278,000
47,100
46,000
44,100
40,800
37,900
36,600
120,000
15,700
26,300
2,410

2011 Search Results,

Old Rank
(683,000, #22)
(365,000, #30)
(373,000, #29)
(287,000, #34)
(173,000, #41)
(240,000, #36)
(334,000, #33)
(119,000, #44)
(215,000, #37)
(164,000, #42)
(174,000, #40)
(243,000, #35)
(158,000, #43)
(663,000, #24)
(68,500, #47)
(109,000, #45)
(471,000, #26)
(81,700, #46)
(470,000, #27)
(345,000, #32)
(636,000, #25)
(46,700, #49)
(209,000, #38)
(3,670, #50)