Talk:Lists of atheists

See also Talk:Celebrity atheists for more of the same debate.

Who cares about these people being atheists? I find it of little encyclopedic value to have this list around; same for the other lists of noted (religion x)s. These lists would only be useful if they contained people who are actively proclaiming their opinion on this topic, and are known for that. Not just a bunch of actors that happen to share some opinion. We might just as well make a list of noted people that have a hamster as a pet... jheijmans

I am tempted to agree. Does anybody want to argue the case for listing everyone who might happen to be an atheist here? --Robert Merkel

These types of lists aren't really useful. Although I wouldn't like to see lists of noted persons in certain professions go away. Religious affiliation seems peripheral in importance to me (but then, so does sexual orientation. See: Famous gay lesbian or bisexual people). --maveric149

I also would tend to agree; a listing of people whose atheistic beliefs are relevant to what they've accomplished in life and how they present themselves would be interesting, but a mish-mash of people who happen to be atheists and also happen to be somewhat famous? Maybe someone might like it, but I don't really care. (On the other hand, I'm not a militant atheist. The kind of people who want to see Christmas Day removed as a national holiday might think otherwise.) --Brion VIBBER

These lists are useful as an expression of support or community for minorities or out-groups. Many adolescents find these especially useful - "Gee, I always thought I was the only 'X'!"

I think these lists are a valuable service in this regard, and we can´t make any case against them that outweighs this value. Again - if you don't like these lists, don't read them! :-)

I've made that exact same argument in the past, but these things are getting less and less useful.

The debate is on whether we should list *all* 'X's, or whether we should restrict the list to people whose X'ism is part of the reason they are encyclopedia-worthy.For instance, Bob Hawke was agnostic, and worthy of an encyclopedia article here, but does he warrant an appearance on a list of noted agnostics? I would argue not. --Robert Merkel

I'd say this is pretty simple: People who like these lists can make them. People who don't like these lists can ignore them - it's not like the lists are hurting anything. I think we need to be very wary of judging what "we" consider to be "encyclopedia worthy". Personally, I'd remove all articles on video and computer games, rap music, US counties, and I'd seriously consider removing everything on professional sports. Fortunately, my opinion on these things isn't important. Live and let live. Work on the subjects you like. :-)

Indeed. I'm certainly not arguing against the existence of the list, just for some judicial trimming to make it an interesting and informative list. Expressions of support for out-groups are lovely and wonderful, but they're advocacy, which isn't really the mission of an encyclopedia. All-inclusive lists of famous people who were/are/might have been atheists for the purpose of making dejected teenages feel better can be found in warmer, fuzzier places that are specifically pro-atheism -- [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] were the first five that came up in a google search for "famous atheists".

Want to include some links to advocacy sites at the bottom of an article about people who are noted for being atheists? Fine by me! What to have "a partial list of persons believed to be atheists"? What's the point? --Brion VIBBER

The point is to have a partial list of persons believed to be atheists, of course! (what Wikipedia article can claim to be "complete"?) (and the same for lists of other types of persons 'X')(Though I'd like a slightly more rigorous standard than "believed to be")

Sturgeon's Law says "90% of everything is crap".

90% of Wikipedia is crap.

'However', one person's crap is another person's fertilizer. We do NOT all agree on *which* 90%! As I said above, I detest a lot of what I see on Wikipedia. However, I understand very well that *somebody* likes it (and "somebody" is generally at least several thousand people, I'd guess). I think when we work on Wikipedia, we should confine ourselves to 1)writing what we believe to be true 2)correcting what we believe to be false 3)making things more NPOV. I *don't* think we should be in the business of judging what others might find useful or interesting.

To say "People who like these lists can make them. People who don't like these lists can ignore them." misses the point. The point is that no encyclopedia or almanac for that matter would simply list noted persons of any faith just because they happen to be a member of that faith (or anti-faith as in this case). This would be the true even if they were like wikipedia and did't have paper contraints; because such lists are inherently non-neutral propoganda designed to make other people with similar views feel good about themselves (and wikipedia is attempting to be a neutral encyclopedia that has some almanac type information -- such as valid lists of noted professionals who are famous because they advanced their profession). Think of the hideous hugeness a Christian list might become (or the inevitable controversy over who is "really" a Christian rubbish). Brion is right, if there is to be such as list it must be short and informative and, as Robert said, the people listed should be famous in relation to, at least, being X faith -- just because they were otherwise famous and a member of X faith doesn't count. The problem with having these lists is that they can never be said to be nearly complete, are oftentimes difficult to verify, many people change their faith several times during their lives and others only pretended to be faithful or are not considered to have belonged to a certain faith by some groups. In addition, having "Listing of X faith" encourages the creation of other such meaningless lists and brings down the average quality of wikipedia. I'm starting to see a strong consensus here that this page in its current form is not informative and should either be fixed or remain in the deletion queue for final review. I don't see any reason why this page shouldn't be copied over to the meta though. Hard drive space is cheap, but wikipedia's strived for reputation for NPOV content is a very important goal -- these faith and related lists are more proselytizing propoganda than anything else -- this also goes for Famous gay lesbian or bisexual people too (I'm both atheist and gay BTW). --maveric149

I agree that these lists should go. If there is any justification to keeping them, it would be only after they are trimmed down to include only people who are famous because of their affiliation. In other words, a list of famous atheists should only include people who contributed to atheism and are famous for doing so (Madeleine Murray O'Hare comes to mind). In that case, the list could be appended to the Atheism article. I feel the same way about the list of famous gay people, Jews, Prussians, Canadians, etc. Oh, and I am very much opposed to the list of "Beautiful Italians," which puts these lists to shame. Danny

Bertrand Russell wrote a book called Why I am an Atheist. In the late 19th century, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll's lectures on atheism made him one of the most popular speakers in the country. The American Humanist Association is an organization of atheists. These are atheists who make a splash. Most of these lists have this problem. How to plow through all the fan favorites to find the ones that would be important to, say, some student working on a paper on atheism, for whom pointers to Ingersoll and Russell and the Humanists would be useful.

I have added quite a few names to Famous African-Americans and it is still mostly an honest list of genuinely important people, but if I add Jimi Hendrix knowing that he truly advanced the art of music, what's to stop someone else from adding Buddy Miles, who's just a hell of a drummer? None of us would be inclined to take him out. There's one name on the A-A list that drives me nuts, but I haven't deleted it. I would never delete the article on that person, but boy does my finger linger over the name when I see it on the list. I've often thought of currying the lists of jazz and rock performers to move a bunch of people to the "Beloved Performers category" just to clear the deck for the important people. "Important" defined here as "likely to be looked up in this category".

I just did a search in wikipedia on atheist and Bertrand Russell was the only one both on this list and in the search results. The others in the search results were Baruch Spinoza, Harold Kroto, and Aleister Crowley. On the other hand, the article on Thomas Edison does not mention his atheism and judging from my search the others don't either. Ortolan88, Thursday, June 20, 2002

As the person starting this debate, I'm pleased so many reactions :-) My problem with this and many other Wikipedia lists is that they're obscure. If you have, for example, a list of all capital cities in the world, or all Olympic Champions in athletics, this list can be (and usually is) complete, or at least rather complete. The "atheist" list (and many other lists containing "famous" or "noted", or the like) usually contain a short list started by somebody, with some "random" figures added later. My first question then is: why is somebody noted, why is he famous? And what makes that he is on the list, and somebody else is not; the criteria are vague. A list of Famous Scots says me that the people on that list have some connection with Scotland - maybe born there, maybe lived there, maybe both - and they are in some way famous. As a reader, however, I have no idea (except for those about who an article exists) why they are in this list, and why some other Scot I can think of is not. Therefore, to me it seems like a rather arbitrary (maybe even NPOV) list of figures with some vague interconnection. Not really encyclopedia stuff if you ask me. As a reader, it would be more informative to just mention a few Scotsmen - say, Macbeth - in the article about Scotland that really helped to put Scotland on the map. Further, these lists may also be de-orphaning many article that are otherwise unlisted.

To summarise, I think we should carefully review the usefulness of each list (please note, I've contributed to many lists like these myself). If the list is to be an article on its own, its usefulness should be made clear, and entries in the list should be annotated. If the list itself is not useful, than moving the most important items to a non-list article will be a good solution. The latter is what I propose for this: clear the list, put a few major contributors to the atheistic faith (well, euh) in the article on atheism. jheijmans

Let's not go overboard now. Lists are useful if the entries on those lists are in fact relevant to the topic. For example, there is nothing at all wrong about having a list on noted biologists that have substantally contributed to the science of biology at List of biologists. It would be nice to have birth and death dates and a very brief blurb on what they are most notable for, but that isn't likely to happen any time soon. It will, however, eventually happen and in the interim we can live with the skeletal lists -- so long as they are relevant to the topic and are named correctly ("List of X). Not having things that are complete is the very nature of wikipedia. --maveric149, Sunday, June 23, 2002

I'm not saying we should abandon lists, I'm just saying one should be more careful when making one. Unfinished things are fine, but when they're finished (preferably before that), they should at least be useful. jheijmans

So what should we do with the entry in its present form? Delete it? --Robert Merkel

I'll edit it down in conformance with the ideas presented here if no one more interested in atheists wants to.

I really do think lists in the following form can be quite useful and interesting

Here are some famous pieces of silverware:

Fork, used to hold food for cutting and convey it to the mouth
Knife, historically the first piece of silverware
Spoon, used for measuring and scooping
Runcible spoon, used for eating quince and mince, see Edward Lear

With all the detail relegated to the linked article. With the one-line tags in place, the list can be useful even if there is no article. Ortolan88

As an atheist and former teenager, I have to agree with the sentiment that such lists are important. I think in this venue, however, there is an additional criteria of relevance. The page should not simply list Atheists who happen to be famous. Rather, I think it would be better thought of as a list of people who's fame had something to do with their Atheism. Dawkins and Russell should therefore be on the list, but Christopher Reeves and Thomas Edison should not. Just my $.02.JFQ

I agree with the sentiment above - this page is silly when you note that Madalyn Murray O'Hair, arguably one of the most important atheists in modern history, and definitely one of the most important American atheists, is absent from this list. It ought to be pared down to the above criteria. Graft

I'm going to add back George Carlin, since a great deal of his comedy comes from his nonbelief.JFQ

Also putting back Marx, Freud, and Sade. I'm going to add blurbs about each person's atheism too, to hopefully build in some deterrence to just including "pet favorite" celebrity atheists.

What about people believed to be atheists who, in fact, were/are not? -- asilvahalo

Thomas Jefferson? Ortolan88

why Richard Branson? His article doesn't even mention atheism, but he's well known for various other things.

Latest addition:

Kai Nielsen, adjunct professor of philosophy at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

I wonder how many adjunct professors of philosophy at provincial universities are atheists. Perhaps there should be a separate article, [[List of adjunct professors of philosophy who are atheists]]? Ortolan88

Haha...how dumbly patronizing and condescending. None would be as particularly relevant as Nielsen who specializes in the philosophy of religion and is a leader in this field...on the atheist side...his focus on incoherency arguments against God are particularly important. Obviously, Nielsen is not as popular as say, Ayn Rand, but that doesn't mean that he shouldn't be...this list isn't necessarily about celebrity status. Although for some anecdotal evidence on his celebrity status just do a simple google search on atheist and nielsen...see on how many lists of notable atheists he is listed. Your comment and Martin's deletion from the list reflect an unfortunate disjunct between what lay people consider important contributions to the atheism and what professional philosophers who specialize in this area do. (I think a number of professional philosophers would object to labeling some of the folks now on the list such as Rand & Branden as "philosophers"...the "postmodern philosopher" (an oxymoron?) Rorty has been given the benefit of a doubt.) In one respect, who gives a $h1t what Rand, Twain, Carlin or some others have to say on atheism except for the fact of their celebrity status or in the case of O'Hair, also their rabid activism?! (A number of humanist atheists would rather not see O'Hair as a representative of atheists.) Prominent professional philosophers or scientists (like Quine, Putnam, K Popper, Einstein, etc), who also happen to be atheists but don't specialize in that field or make a point of proclaiming it, would probably have something more original or sophisticated to add to atheism than most everyone now on the list! And if Rorty is on this list, why not list Quine, et. al.? At any rate Nielsen SHOULD be on this list. B

Add me to the list of formerly hamster owning former atheists when you get a chance. In the first place, a person prominent within the Atheism-discussing community (allegedly e.g. Nielsen) should be mentioned on the Atheism page (or the unwritten Incoherency arguments page). In the second place a person picking up an Encyclopedia and reading the Atheism section would not be too surprised to find a sidebar listing prominent (i.e. celebrity) Atheists. There is no point in cluttering this list with names that do not have Biographical Entries that mention their Atheism. This list is just as relevant and important as the other figures which should be present such as number of members of the First Church of Atheism (a figure you should find with all other religions). Consequently, Nielsen does not belong in the List of atheists, because he is not known otherwise. He belongs in the Atheism article because he is a world renowned expert on Atheism. In addition, he should have a Biographical Entry which would discuss his role in shaping world opinion. the librarian

How could I consider his contribution to atheism important or unimportant without a biography entry on the man that explains what his contribution to atheism is? I've got nothing against Kai, but I second Librarian's comment that "There is no point in cluttering this list with names that do not have Biographical Entries that mention their Atheism". However, that's just IMO... Martin

Librarian: 1) The Atheism article does refer to Nielsen by linking to this list, OR if you think that is insufficient then instead of whining about Nielsen not being on the Atheism article itself, add him. (Note the supposedly "unwritten incoherency arguments" are listed on the Arguments against the existence of God article.) 2) what's the point of your second observation? that prominent merely means celebrity? because prominent does NOT merely mean celebrity, and further the list of atheists has already been renamed from "celebrity atheists" to "list of atheists" to steer away from the idea that this list is merely supposed to be about atheists with celebrity status. Your seeming construction of what this list is about is wrong and appears to lead you to attack a position that is not being taken. For the sake of argument, I'll assume that this list is important, but not because it lists celebrity atheists, but because it lists prominent atheists...which does not necessarily mean celebrity! I was never arguing against celebrity itself except to imply that it is not the over-riding factor of this list; there are other considerations as to who should be included on this list. 3) As far as not cluttering the lists, who would disagree with the grade school assumption that a person prominent enough to be on the list should probably also have an article written on the person including their atheism?! and as a corollary, AS A WORK IN PROGRESS a person should not be removed from the list because an article hasn't YET been written about the person. If a person doesn't know one way or another about a person, he/she should find out before taking action, eh? Consequently your ill-founded observations don't support your conclusion. However, I can understand Martin deleting the entry because good sense without particular knowledge in Nielsen's case could warrant it...I could've just as easily done something similar on some other article. B