TOP 50 ATHEISTS

Who's Number 1 ???

The Best Schools website had chosen the world's top atheists.

Among the 50, there are people whose names almost everyone will know and many I didn't recognize.  I am listing here those with whom I am most familiar. Use the link at the bottom on this post to see the entire list.








48. Dan Barker  - co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
45. James ("the Amazing") Randi - illusionist
42. Greta Christina - writer and blogger (I just posted something about her a few weeks ago.)
37. Ayaan Hirsi Ali -  her book "Infidel" presents an inside look into Islam from a
          girl's/woman's point of view.
35. Woody Allen - director
34. Ian McEwan - novelist
31. Philip Roth - novelist
18. Paul Kurtz - professor, author, founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
13. Sam Harris - author
10. Christopher Hitchens - journalist, essayist
 9. Stephen Hawking - mathematician, cosmologist
 8. Steven Weinberg - Nobel Prize Winner - Physics
 7. Richard Dawkins - scientist, author
 5. Daniel Dennett - professor of philosophy, author

Perhaps I should be embarrassed to admit that the top four names were not familiar to me, but I will definitely be learning more about them.

For the criteria used to select those included on the list and the entire list of the top 50 atheists in the world today, click HERE.

Comments welcome on any of these questions:

Who would you add to the list and who would you drop?

What are your thoughts on the criteria used to choose those included on the list?

Who would you choose as your #1 choice or perhaps your top 5?

FAMOUS FREETHINKERS A to E

Below, you will find just a part of my lengthy list of freethinkers, which include agnostics, atheists, brights, deists, humanists, materialists, milesians, pantheists, rationalists, skeptics and other champions of church and state separation.

There are obviously many more names I could add, but in order to keep the list manageable, I listed the names I thought the average educated person might recognize.

See also:

FREETHINKERS F to J

FREETHINKERS K to O

FREETHINKERS P to S

FREETHINKERS T to Z

Abigail Adams (2nd First Lady)

Douglas Adams (writer)

John Adams (2nd U.S. President)

John Quincy Adams (6th U.S. President)

Edward Albee (playwright)

Alan Alda (actor)

Ethan Allen (American revolutionary)

Steve Allen (songwriter, TV personality, writer)

Woody Allen (writer, actor, director)

Robert Altman (director)

Jorge Amado (Brazilian writer)

Sir Kingsley Amis (writer)

Eric Ambler (writer)

Susan B. Anthony (civil rights leader)

Aristotle (Greek philosopher)

Lance Armstrong (athelete)

Isaac Asimov (writer/scientist)

Sir David Attenborough (naturalist)

Margaret Atwood (writer)

Francis Bacon (philosopher)

Kevin Bacon (actor)

Clara Barton (nurse, humanitarian)

Russell Baker (writer)

Antonio Banderas (actor)

Dan Barker (freethought activist, former evangelical minister)

Dave Barry (writer, humorist)

Simone de Beauvoir (writer, philosopher)

Ludwig van Beethoven (composer)

Ingmar Bergman (director)

Irving Berlin (wrote “White Christmas”, “Easter Parade” and “God Bless America”)

Sarah Bernhardt (French actress)

Ambrose Bierce (writer)

Georges Bizet (composer)

William Blake (writer)

Bill Blass (fashion designer)

Dirk Bogarde (actor)

Simon Bolivar (South American revolutionary leader)

Rosa Bonheur (painter)

Margaret Bourke-White (photographer)

David Bowie (musician)

Johannes Brahams (composer)

Marlon Brando (actor)

Richard Branson (entrepreneur)

Robert Browning (writer)

Pearl Buck (writer)

Warren Buffet (businessman, philanthopist)

Luther Burbank (botanist)

Sir Richard F Burton (explorer)

Lord Byron (writer)

Albert Camus (writer)

George Carlin (comedian)

Andrew Carnegie (industrialist)

Johnny Carson (TV host)

Fidel Castro (revolutionary, Cuban leader)

Catherine the Great (Russian ruler)

Dick Cavett (TV host)

Charlie Chaplin (actor)

Noam Chomsky (philosopher)

Winston Churchill (British prime minister)

Marcus Tullius Cicero (Roman philosopher, statesman)

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (writer)

Georges Clemenceau (French Prime Minister)

George Clooney (actor)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (writer)

Billy Connolly (comedian, actor)

Aaron Copland (composer)

Noel Coward (actor, playwright, composer)

Quentin Crisp (writer)

David Cronenberg (filmmaker)

E. E. Cummings (writer)

Marie Curie (physicist, chemist)

Clarence Darrow (lawyer)

Charles Darwin (naturalist)

Richard Dawkins (biologist, writer)

Eugene Debs (labor leader, reformer)

Claude Debussy (composer)

Eugene Delacroix (artist)

Daniel Dennett (philosopher)

John Dewey (philosopher)

Phyllis Diller (comedian)

Isak Dineson (writer)

Charles Dickens (writer)

Emily Dickenson (writer)

Marlena Dietrich (actor)

Phil Donahue (TV host)

Frederick Douglass (abolitionist)

Arthur Conan Doyle (writer)

Richard Dreyfus (actor)

David Duchovny (actor)

Patrick Duffy (actor)

Isodora Duncan (dancer)

Roger Ebert (film critic)

Thomas Edison (inventor)

Bart Ehrman (New Testament scholar)

Albert Einstein (physicist)

George Eliot (writer)

Ralph Waldo Emerson (writer, philosopher)

Friedrich Engles (economist, writer)

Epicurus (Greek philosopher)

I welcome additions to this list.

Please leave additional names in comments.

I will be updating it frequently.

See also:

FREETHINKERS F to J

FREETHINKERS K to O

FREETHINKERS P to S

FREETHINKERS T to Z

FAMOUS FREETHINKERS F to J

Below, you will find just a part of my lengthy list of freethinkers, which include agnostics, atheists, brights, deists, humanists, materialists, milesians, pantheists, rationalists, skeptics and other champions of church and state separation.

There are obviously many more names I could add, but in order to keep the list manageable, I listed the names I thought the average educated person might recognize.

See also:

FREETHINKERS A to E

FREETHINKERS K to O

FREETHINKERS P to S

FREETHINKERS T to Z

Philip Jose Farmer (writer)

Jules Feiffer (writer, cartoonist)

W. C. Fields (actor)

Harvey Fierstein (actor)

Carrie Fisher (actress/writer)

F. Scott Fitzgerald (writer)

Gustave Flaubert (writer)

Ken Follett (writer)

Henry Fonda (actor)

Harrison Ford (actor)

E. M. Forster (writer)

Jodie Foster (actor)

John Fowles (writer)

Benjamin Franklin (writer, inventor, founding father, ambassador)

Sigmund Freud (psychiatrist)

Betty Friedan (feminist writer)

Kinky Friedman (writer)

Milton Friedman (economist)

Erich Fromm (writer)

Robert Frost (poet)

Buckminster Fuller (architect)

Matilda Joslyn Gage (feminist, writer)

John Kenneth Galbraith (economist)

Mohandes Gandhi (Indian political and spiritual leader)

Bill Gates (businessman, philanthropist)

George Gershwin (composer)

Ira Glass (public radio host)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (writer)

Whoopi Goldberg (actor)

Emma Goldman (writer)

Maxim Gorky (playwright)

Marjoe Gortner (child evangelist)

Stephen J. Gould (paleontologist)

U.S. Grant (Civil War General & 18th U.S. President)

Graham Greene (writer)

Germaine Greer (writer)

Kathy Griffin (actor)

Edmund Halley (astronomer, mathematician)

Yip Harburg (lyricist: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” 100’s of other songs)

Sam Harris (writer)

Harry Harrison (writer)

James A. Haught (journalist)

Stephen Hawking (physicist)

Hugh Hefner (publisher)

Robert Heinlein (writer)

Joseph Heller (writer)

Katharine Hepburn (actor)

Ernest Hemingway (writer)

Thor Heyerdahl (adventurer)

Sir Edmund Hillary (mountaineer, explorer)

Ayaan Hirsi-Ali (Dutch feminist, writer, politician)

Christopher Hitchens (writer)

Eric Hoffer (social writer)

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (Supreme Court Justice)

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (physician, writer)

Langston Hughes (writer)

Victor Hugo (writer)

John Huston (actor/director)

Aldous Huxley (writer)

Julian Huxley (biologist)

Thomas Huxley (biologist)

Henrik Ibsen (playwright)

Eric Idle (actor/writer)

Robert Ingersoll (Civil War veteran, orator)

John Irving (writer)

Molly Ivins (journalist)

Eddie Izzard (actor, comedian)

Thomas Jefferson (3rd U.S. President)

Billy Joel (singer, songwriter)

Elton John (singer, songwriter)

Angelina Jolie (actor)

Scott Joplin (composer)

James Joyce (writer)

Carl Jung (psychiatrist)

I welcome additions to this list.

Please leave additional names in comments.

I will be updating it frequently.

See also:

FREETHINKERS A to E

FREETHINKERS K to O

FREETHINKERS P to S

FREETHINKERS T to Z

FAMOUS FREETHINKERS K to O

Below, you will find just a part of my lengthy list of freethinkers, which include agnostics, atheists, brights, deists, humanists, materialists, milesians, pantheists, rationalists, skeptics and other champions of church and state separation.

There are obviously many more names I could add, but in order to keep the list manageable, I listed the names I thought the average educated person might recognize.

See also:

FREETHINKERS A to E

FREETHINKERS F to J

FREETHINKERS P to S

FREETHINKERS T to Z

Frida Kahlo (artist)

Immanuel Kant (writer)

Diane Keaton (actor)

John Keats (writer)

Helen Keller (writer, activist)

Jerome Kern (composer)

Margo Kidder (actor)

Larry King (radio/TV host)

Stanley Kubrick (director, screenwriter)

Burt Lancaster (actor)

Elsa Lanchester (actor)

Hugh Laurie (actor)

D. H. Lawrence (writer)

Cloris Leachman (actor)

Richard Leakey (paleoanthropologist)

John LeCarre (writer)

Bruce Lee (actor)

John Lennon (singer/songwriter)

Monica Lewinsky (White House intern)

Sinclair Lewis (writer)

G. Gordon Liddy (campaign manager)

Abraham Lincoln (16th U.S. President)

John Locke (philosopher)

Jack London (writer)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (writer)

James Russell Lowell (writer)

Robert Lowell (poet)

James Madison (4th U.S. President)

Ferdinand Magellan (explorer)

Bill Maher (TV host, comedian)

Norman Mailer (writer)

John Malkovich (actor)

Barry Manilow (singer, songwriter)

Christopher Marlowe (writer)

Everett Dean Martin (writer)

Karl Marx (philosopher, political theorist)

Henri Matisse (artist)

Somerset Maughm (writer)

Mary McCarthy (writer)

Malachy McCourt (writer)

Ian McEwan (writer)

Sir Ian McKellen (actor)

Butterfly McQueen (actor ---Prissy in “Gone with the Wind”)

Herman Melville (writer)

H. L. Mencken (writer)

James Michener (writer)

Edna St. Vincent Millay (writer)

Arthur Miller (playwright)

David Mills (writer)

A. A. Milne (writer)

Christopher Robin Milne (writer, son of A.A. Milne, subject of Pooh books)

John Stuart Mill (philosopher)

Helen Mirren (actor)

Moliere (French playwright)

Julianne Moore (actor)

Desmond Morris (zoologist)

Gouverneur Morris (statesman, founding father, writer)

John Mortimer (barrister, writer)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (composer)

Iris Murdoch (writer, philosopher)

Paul Newman (actor)

Randy Newman (singer, songwriter)

Mike Nichols (director)

Jack Nicholson (actor)

Leslie Nielsen (actor)

Oscar Niemeyer (architect)

Friedrich Nietzsche (philosopher)

Florence Nightingale (nurse, writer)

Joyce Carol Oates (writer)

Sean O’Casey (playwright)

Flannery O’Conner (writer)

Madalyn Murray O’Hair (WWII veteran, atheist actvist)

Eugene O’Neill (playwright)

George Orwell (writer)

Patton Oswalt (actor/comedian)

I welcome additions to this list.

Please leave additional names in comments.

I will be updating it frequently.

See also:

FREETHINKERS A to E

FREETHINKERS F to J

FREETHINKERS P to S

FREETHINKERS T to Z

FAMOUS FREETHINKERS P to S

Below, you will find just a part of my lengthy list of freethinkers, which include agnostics, atheists, brights, deists, humanists, materialists, milesians, pantheists, rationalists, skeptics and other champions of church and state separation.

There are obviously many more names I could add, but in order to keep the list manageable, I listed the names I thought the average educated person might recognize.

See also:

FREETHINKERS A to E

FREETHINKERS F to J

FREETHINKERS K to O

FREETHINKERS T to Z

Thomas Paine (revolutionary, pamphleteer)

Sara Paretsky (writer)

Dorothy Parker (writer)

Linus Pauling (scientist, Nobel Peace Prize winner)

Sean Penn (actor)

Penn and Teller (comedic illusionists)

Joaquin Phoenix (actor)

Allan Pinkerton (detective)

Harold Pinter (playwright, director)

Camille Pissaro (artist)

Brad Pitt (actor)

William Pitt (British statesman)

Edgar Allen Poe (writer)

Roman Polanski (director)

Alexander Pope (writer)

Cole Porter (composer, songwriter)

Natalie Portman (actor)

Joseph Priestly (chemist)

Marcel Proust (writer)

Ayn Rand (writer)

Tony Randall (actor)

James Randi (The Amazing Randi, illusionist)

Ron Reagan (radio host, son of Ronald Reagan)

Keanu Reaves (actor)

Robert Redford (actor)

Carl Reiner (actor/director)

Christopher Reeve (actor)

Paul Robeson (singer)

Gene Roddenberry (writer)

Tom Robbins (writer)

Auguste Rodin (artist)

Richard Rodgers (composer)

Ray Romano (actor)

Andy Rooney (TV commentator, writer)

Jane Rule (writer)

Salman Rushdie (writer)

Bertrand Russell (philosopher)

Carl Sagan (astronomer, writer)

Jonas Salk (physician best known for development of polio vaccine)

George Sand (writer)

Carl Sandberg (writer)

Margaret Sanger (birth control activist)

George Santayana (philosopher, writer)

Susan Sarandon (actor)

Jean-Paul Sartre (philosopher, writer)

Charles Schultz (cartoonist)

Seneca (orator, writer)

Omar Sharif (actor)

William Shatner (actor)

George Bernard Shaw (writer)

Mary Shelley (writer)

Percy Shelley (writer)

Sarah Silverman (comedian)

Neil Simon (playwright)

Frank Sinatra (singer)

Upton Sinclair (writer)

B. F. Skinner (psychologist, writer)

Steven Soderbergh (screenwriter, producer, director)

Stephen Sondheim (composer, lyricist)

Susan Sontag (writer, activist)

Annika Sorenstam (athlete)

Mira Sorvino (actor)

Baruch Spinoza (philosopher)

Joseph Stalin (world leader)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (social activist)

Rod Steiger (actor)

Gertrude Stein (writer)

Gloria Steinem (feminist, journalist)

John Steinbeck (writer)

Howard Stern (radio personality)

Robert Louis Stevenson (writer)

Richard Strauss (composer)

Meryl Streep (actor)

Donald Sutherland (actor)

Julia Sweeney (actor)

I welcome additions to this list.

Please leave additional names in comments.

I will be updating it frequently.

See also:

FREETHINKERS A to E

FREETHINKERS F to J

FREETHINKERS K to O

FREETHINKERS T to Z