There is a popular atheist poster
on which are Ernest Hemingway,
Abraham Lincoln, Carl Sagan,
Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Franklin,
Albert Einstein,
and Charles Darwin,
along with the words:
"Atheism, good enough
for these idiots."
Clearly, atheism
is for intellectuals.
But one moment.
Abraham Lincoln
wasn't an atheist.
He said,
"I know that the Lord
is always on
the side of the right.
But it's my constant anxiety and
prayer that I and this nation
should be
on the Lord's side."
Neither was Carl Sagan.
He clearly stated,
"I am an agnostic."
Mark Twain hated religion, but
he certainly wasn't an atheist,
saying, "None of us
can be as great as God,
but any of us
can be as good."
Benjamin Franklin said,
"God governs
in the affairs of men."
You'll find Thomas Edison
listed on Celebrity Atheists,
on Positive Atheism,
and other atheist websites,
but he wasn't an atheist.
He said, "There is a great
directing head of people
and things--
a Supreme Being
who looks after the destinies
of the world."
Thomas Jefferson said,
"Say nothing of my religion.
It is known to myself
and my God alone."
Albert Einstein rejected
the Bible as the Word of God,
and that God
being personal was childlike.
He lamented, "In view of such
harmony in the cosmos which I,
with my limited
human understanding,
am able to recognize,
there are yet people
who say there is no God.
But what really makes me
angry is that they quote me
to support such views."
He categorically said,
"I am not an atheist,"
and when referring to those
who deny the Creator,
he used the term
"fanatical atheists."
Charles Darwin said,
"I have never been an atheist."
So out of the eight
famous men on the poster,
there is only one who was
an atheist: Ernest Hemingway.
According to his biographer,
back in 1961, Hemingway, quote,
"pushed two shells into
the twelve-gauge Boss shotgun,
put the end of the barrel
into his mouth,