View source for Militant atheism

[[Image:Stalin-140508 27880t.jpg|right|230px|thumb|[[Joseph Stalin]], the Premier of the [[Soviet Union]] from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953, patronised the [[League of Militant Atheists]], whose chief aim, under the leadership of Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, was to propagate militant [[atheism]] and eradicate [[religion]].<ref name=Hesemann-Strieber>{{cite book|author=Michael Hesemann, Whitley Strieber|title=The Fatima Secret|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tx-BEpkJBq8C&pg=PT107&dq=Joseph+Stalin+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=-DeRTpLrJoPi0QHo88wi&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=Joseph%20Stalin%20militant%20atheism&f=false|quote=Lenin's death in 1924 was followed by the rise of Joseph Stalin, "the man of steel," who founded the "Union of Militant Atheists," whose chief aim was to spread atheism and eradicate religion. In the following years it devastated hundreds of churches, destroyed old icons and relics, and persecuted the clergy with unimaginable brutality.|publisher=Random House Digital, Inc.|date=2000|accessdate=9 October 2011}}</ref><ref name=Steeves>{{cite book|author=Paul D. Steeves|title=Keeping the faiths: religion and ideology in the Soviet Union|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l7soAAAAYAAJ&q=%22When+a+priest+is+deprived+of+his+congregation,+that+does+not%22&dq=%22When+a+priest+is+deprived+of+his+congregation,+that+does+not%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_ijVUemwOoXRyQGqkICwBA&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ|quote=The League of Militant Atheists was formed in 1926 and by 1930 had recruited three million members. Five years later there were 50,000 local groups affiliated to the League and the nominal membership had risen to five million. Children from 8-14 years of age were enrolled in Groups of Godless Youth, and the League of Communist Youth (Komsomol) took a vigorous anti- religious line. Several antireligious museums were opened in former churches and a number of Chairs of Atheism were established in Soviet universities. Prizes were offered for the best 'Godless hymns' and for alternative versions of the Bible from which ... the leader of the League of Militant Atheists, Yemelian Yaroslavsky, said: "When a priest is deprived of his congregation, that does not mean that he stops being a priest. He changes into an itinerant priest. He travels around with his primitive tools in the villages, performs religious rites, reads prayers, baptizes children. Such wandering priests are at times more dangerous than those who carry on their work at a designated place of residence." The intensified persecution, which was a part of the general terror inflicted upon Soviet society by Stalin's policy, ...|publisher=Holmes & Meier|date=1989|accessdate=4 July 2013}}</ref>]]
'''Militant atheism''' ([[Russian language|Russian]]: воинствующий атеизм) is a term applied to [[atheism]] which is hostile towards [[religion]].<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Julian Baggini|title=Atheism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DUal7eYmEnEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Julian+Baggini+Militant+Atheism&hl=en&ei=MNP7TdWdJYbq0gHT0bSTAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Militant%20Atheism&f=false|quote=Militant Atheism: Atheism which is actively hostile to religion I would call militant. To be hostile in this sense requires more than just strong disagreement with religion—it requires something verging on hatred and is characterized by a desire to wipe out all forms of religious beliefs. Militant atheists tend to make one or both of two claims that moderate atheists do not. The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense, and the second is that is is usually or always harmful.|publisher=Sterling Publishing|year=2009|accessdate=2011-06-28}}
::{{cite book|author=Karl Rahner|title=Encyclopædia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WtnR-6_PlJAC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=encyclopedia+militant+atheism&source=bl&ots=nFaQ6oOndB&sig=50Ei0fNExEUT8VWQZAOKgUgmo2A&hl=en&ei=EpwYToCWEOn20gHotYiXBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q&f=false|quote=<big>'''ATHEISM'''</big> '''A. IN PHILOSOPHY''' I. ''Concept and incidence''. Philosophically speaking, atheism means denial of the existence of God or of'' any''  possibility of knowing God. In those who hold this theoretical atheism, it may be tolerant (and even deeply concerned), if it has no missionary aims; it is "militant" when it regards itself as a doctrine to be propagated for the happiness of mankind and combats every religion as a harmful aberration.|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|date=1975|accessdate=2011-06-28}}
::{{cite book|author=Kerry S. Walters|title=Atheism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eHOtkVFCKscC&pg=PA12&dq=militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=KCwiTu2FDoL2tgOXmLRD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBzgy#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism&f=false|quote=Both positive and negative atheism may be further subdivided into (i) militant and (ii) moderate varieties. Militant atheists, such as physicist Steven Weinberg, tend to think that God-belief is not only erroneous but pernicious. Moderate atheists agree that God-belief is unjustifiable, but see nothing inherently pernicious in it. What leads to excess, they argue, is intolerant dogmatism and extremism, and these are qualities of ideologies in general, religious or nonreligious.|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|year=2010|accessdate=10 March 2011}}
::{{cite book|author=Phil Zuckerman|title=Atheism and Secularity: Issues, Concepts, and Definitions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1hbaAHsAlUC&pg=RA1-PA214&dq=militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=ixjLTe30I4uitgeWg8nmBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism&f=false|quote=In contrast, militant atheism, as advocated by Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks, treats religion as the dangerous opium and narcotic of the people, a wrong political ideology serving the interests of antirevolutionary forces; thus force may be necessary to control or eliminate religion.|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2009|accessdate=10 March 2011}}
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{{cite journal|title=Between Secularist Ideology and Desecularizing Reality: The Birth and Growth of Religious Research in Communist China|journal=Sociology of Religion|date=2004|first=Fenggang|last=Yang|coauthors=|volume=65|issue=2|pages=101–119|id= |url=http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/2/101.full.pdf|quote=Scientific atheism is the theoretical basis for tolerating  religion while  carrying out atheist  propaganda, whereas militant atheism leads to antireligious measures. In practice, almost as soon as it took power in 1949, the CCP  followed the hard line of militant atheism. Within a decade, all religions were brought under the iron control of the Party: Folk religious practices considered feudalist superstitions  were vigorously suppressed; cultic or heterodox  sects regarded as reactionary  organizations were resolutely banned; foreign  missionaries, considered part of Western imperialism, were expelled; and major world religions, including Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism, were coerced into "patriotic" national associations under close supervision of the Party. Religious believers who dared to challenge these policies were mercilessly banished to labor camps, jails, or execution grounds.}}
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{{cite journal|title=The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China|journal=The Sociological Quarterly|date=2006|first=Fenggang|last=Yang|coauthors=|volume=47|issue=1|pages=93–122|id= |url=http://www.purdue.edu/crcs/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Yang3Markets.pdf|quote= In contrast, militant atheism, as advocated by Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks, treats religion as a dangerous narcotic and a troubling political ideology that serves the interests of antirevolutionary forces. As such, it should be suppressed or eliminated by the revolutionary force. On the basis of scientiﬁc atheism, religious toleration was inscribed in CCP policy since its early days. By reason of militant atheism, however, atheist propaganda became ferocious, and the power of “proletarian dictatorship” was invoked to eradicate the reactionary ideology (Dai 2001)}}</ref> Militant atheists have a desire to propagate the doctrine,<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Karl Rahner|title=Encyclopædia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WtnR-6_PlJAC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=encyclopedia+militant+atheism&source=bl&ots=nFaQ6oOndB&sig=50Ei0fNExEUT8VWQZAOKgUgmo2A&hl=en&ei=EpwYToCWEOn20gHotYiXBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q&f=false|quote=<big>'''ATHEISM'''</big> '''A. IN PHILOSOPHY''' I. ''Concept and incidence''. Philosophically speaking, atheism means denial of the existence of God or of any (and not merely of a rational) possibility of knowing God (theoretical atheism). In those who hold this theoretical atheism, it may be tolerant (and even deeply concerned), if it has no missionary aims; it is "militant" when it regards itself as a doctrine to be propagated for the happiness of mankind and combats every religion as a harmful aberration.|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|date=28 December 2004|accessdate=2011-06-28}}
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{{cite book|author=Charles Colson, Ellen Santilli Vaughn|title=God and Government|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3vAW2y_-pjUC&pg=PA198&dq=new+atheism+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=1XcmTtuTOdLhsQLjmNmTDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=new%20atheism%20militant%20atheism&f=false|publisher=Zondervan|quote=But Nietzsche's atheism was the most radical the world had yet seen. While the old atheism had acknowledged the need for religion, the new atheism was political activist, and jealous. One scholar observed that "atheism has become militant . . . inisisting it must be believed. Atheism has felt the need to impose its views, to forbid competing versions."|date=2007|accessdate=21 July 2011}}</ref> and differ from moderate atheists because they hold religion to be harmful.<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Kerry S. Walters|title=Atheism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eHOtkVFCKscC&pg=PA12&dq=militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=KCwiTu2FDoL2tgOXmLRD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBzgy#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism&f=false|quote=Both positive and negative atheism may be further subdivided into (i) militant and (ii) moderate varieties. Militant atheists, such as physicist Steven Weinberg, tend to think that God-belief is not only erroneous but pernicious. Moderate atheists agree that God-belief is unjustifiable, but see nothing inherently pernicious in it. What leads to excess, they argue, is intolerant dogmatism and extremism, and these are qualities of ideologies in general, religious or nonreligious.|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|year=2010|accessdate=10 March 2011}}
::{{cite book|author=Karl Rahner|title=Encyclopædia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WtnR-6_PlJAC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=encyclopedia+militant+atheism&source=bl&ots=nFaQ6oOndB&sig=50Ei0fNExEUT8VWQZAOKgUgmo2A&hl=en&ei=EpwYToCWEOn20gHotYiXBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q&f=false|quote=<big>'''ATHEISM'''</big> '''A. IN PHILOSOPHY''' I. ''Concept and incidence''. Philosophically speaking, atheism means denial of the existence of God or of any (and not merely of a rational) possibility of knowing God (theoretical atheism). In those who hold this theoretical atheism, it may be tolerant (and even deeply concerned), if it has no missionary aims; it is "militant" when it regards itself as a doctrine to be propagated for the happiness of mankind and combats every religion as a harmful aberration.|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|date=28 December 2004|accessdate=2011-06-28}}
::{{cite book|author=Julian Baggini|title=Atheism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DUal7eYmEnEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Julian+Baggini+Militant+Atheism&hl=en&ei=MNP7TdWdJYbq0gHT0bSTAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Militant%20Atheism&f=false|quote=Militant Atheism: Atheism which is actively hostile to religion I would call militant. To be hostile in this sense requires more than just strong disagreement with religion—it requires something verging on hatred and is characterized by a desire to wipe out all forms of religious beliefs. Militant atheists tend to make one or both of two claims that moderate atheists do not. The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense, and the second is that is is usually or always harmful.|publisher=Sterling Publishing|year=2009|accessdate=2011-06-28}}</ref> 

Militant atheism was an integral part of the [[Dialectical materialism|materialism]] of [[Marxism-Leninism]],<ref name="IntFund">Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Harold Joseph Berman|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j1208xA7F_0C&pg=PA394&dq=militant+atheism+soviet+union&hl=en&ei=fWXZTci_GMPY0QGfmun7Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism%20soviet%20union&f=false|title=Faith and Order: The Reconciliation of Law and Religion|year=1993|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|quote=One fundamental element of that system was its propagation of a doctrine called Marxism-Leninism, and one fundamental element of that doctrine was militant atheism. Until only a little over three years ago, militant atheism was the official religion, one might say, of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party was the established church in what might be called an ''<u>a</u>theocratic state''.|accessdate=2011-07-09}}
::{{cite book|author=J. D. Van der Vyver, John Witte|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XSnpr1ndq5kC&pg=PA289&dq=militant+atheism+soviet+union&hl=en&ei=QGbZTcGoA4ru0gHJ7fj8Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism%20soviet%20union&f=false|title=Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|year=1996|quote=For seventy years, from the Bolshevik Revolution to the closing years of the Gorbachev regime, militant atheism was the official religion, one might say, of the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party was, in effect, the established church. It was an avowed task of the Soviet state, led by the Communist Party, to root out from the minds and hearts of the Soviet state, all belief systems other than Marxism-Leninism.|page=289|accessdate=2011-07-09}}
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and significant in the [[French Revolution]],<ref name="Cloots">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=24Xk90Bsp4gC&pg=PT55&dq=french+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=Tuv6TZaKB8O1tge4lcG8Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=militant%20atheist&f=false|author=Alister E. McGrath|title =The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World|publisher=Random House|quote=So was the French Revolution fundamentally atheist? There is no doubt that such a view is to be found in much Christian and atheist literature on the movement. Cloots was at the forefront of the dechristianization movement that gathered around the militant atheist Jacques Hébert. He "debaptised" himself, setting aside his original name of Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grâce. For Cloots, religion was simply not to be tolerated. |accessdate = 2011-03-05}}
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[[State atheism|atheist states]] such as the [[Soviet Union]],<ref name="LiqIsl">Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Gerhard Simon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sTLc8H3b4vUC&pg=PA64&dq=militant+atheism+soviet+union&hl=en&ei=cZ_1TY64Eo26sAOa57C-Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism%20soviet%20union&f=false|title=Church, State, and Opposition in the U.S.S.R.|publisher=University of California Press|quote=On the other hand the Communist Party has never made any secret of the fact, either before or after 1917, that it regards 'militant atheism' as an integral part of its ideology and will regard 'religion as by no means a private matter'. It therefore uses 'the means of ideological influence to educate people in the spirit of scientific materialism and to overcome religious prejudices..' Thus it is the goal of the C.P.S.U. and thereby also of the Soviet state, for which it is after all the 'guiding cell', gradually to liquidate the religious communities.|year=1974|accessdate=2011-07-09}}
::{{cite book|author=Simon Richmond|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jcNZUzdd-ukC&pg=PA79&dq=liquidation+of+religion+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=xKz1Td2nLYr4swPXvYy8Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFQQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=liquidation%20of%20religion%20militant%20atheism&f=false|title=Russia & Belarus|publisher=BBC Worldwide|quote=Soviet 'militant atheism' led to the closure and destruction of nearly all the mosques and madrasahs (Muslim religious schools) in Russia, although some remained in the Central Asian states. Under Stalin there were mass deportations and liquidation of the Muslim elite.|year=2006|accessdate=2011-07-09}}</ref> and [[Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution]].<ref name="Revolt">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mofX6zdChgcC&pg=PA132&dq=china+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=I_z2TZmePMGW0gGr_5CHCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=china%20militant%20atheism&f=false|title =The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics)|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=Seeking a complete annihilation of religion, places of worship were shut down; temples, churches, and mosques were destroyed; artifacts were smashed; sacred texts were burnt; and it was a criminal offence even to possess a religious artifact or sacred text. Atheism had long been the official doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party, but this new form of militant atheism made every effort to eradicate religion completely.|accessdate = 2011-03-05}}
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The term has also been applied to antireligious [[Political philosophy|political thinkers]].<ref name="Stark & Finke">{{cite book|author=[[Rodney Stark]]; Roger Finke|title=Acts of Faith: explaining the human side of religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=913O9xcpBB4C&pg=PA14&dq=militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=7TAiTrn0JI_UtQOm88BG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCTg8#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism&f=false|publisher=University of California Press|quote=The militant atheism of the early social scientists was motivated partly by politics. As Jeffrey Hadden reminds us, the social sciences emerged as part of a new political "order that was at war with the old order" (1987, 590).|date=2000|accessdate=16 July 2011}}</ref> 

Recently the term ''militant atheist'' has been used to describe adherents of the [[New Atheism]] movement,<ref name="New Atheism">{{cite web|url=http://biologos.org/blog/ian-hutchinson-on-the-new-atheists|title =Ian Hutchinson on the New Atheists|publisher=BioLogos Foundation|quote=Ian Hutchinson tells us in this video discussion that New Atheism -- a term used to describe recent intellectual attacks against religion -- is actually a misnomer. It is better, he says, to call the movement “Militant Atheism”. In fact, the arguments made by New Atheists are not new at all, but rather extensions of intellectual threads which have existed since the late 19th century. The only unique quality of this movement is the degree of criticism and edge with which its members write and speak about religion. According to Hutchinson, the books written by New Atheists in the past decade simply restate many of the same arguments which have emanated from atheist thinkers for decades. The militant edge of these arguments is what makes “New” Atheism unique and elevates it to a level of popularity within a subset of the population. It is because these Militant Atheists show no respect at all for religion, says Hutchinson, that they are receiving status as a new movement.|author=Ian H. Hutchinson|accessdate = 29 September 2011}}</ref> which is characterized by the belief that religion "should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized and exposed."<ref>Multiple references:
*{{cite web|author=Simon Hooper|title=The rise of the 'New Atheists'|url=http://articles.cnn.com/2006-11-08/world/atheism.feature_1_new-atheists-new-atheism-religion?_s=PM:WORLD|publisher=Cable News Network (CNN)|quote=What the New Atheists share is a belief that religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises.|accessdate=10 March 2011}}
*{{cite book|author=Amarnath Amarasingam|title=Religion and the New Atheism (Studies in Critical Social Sciences: Studies in Critical Research on Religion 1)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ri65bB04dlwC&pg=PA8&dq=new+atheism+tolerance&hl=en&ei=_t4dTuGyEYvfgQeYkID3CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=new%20atheism%20tolerance&f=false|publisher=Brill Academic Publishers|quote=For the new atheists, tolerance of intolerance (often presented in the guise of relativism of multiculturalism) is one of the greatest dangers in contemporary society.|accessdate=10 March 2011}}
*{{cite book|author=Stephen Prothero|title=God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U8lom4oVPJEC&pg=PA321&dq=new+atheism+tolerance&hl=en&ei=4eAdTpfDFMbv0gHQ24n5Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=new%20atheism%20tolerance&f=false|publisher=HarperOne|quote=For these New Atheists and their acolytes, the problem is not religious fanaticism. The problem is religion itself. So-called moderates only spread the "mind viruses" of religion by making them appear to be less authoritarian, misogynistic, and irrational than they actually are.|accessdate=10 March 2011}}
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==Concepts==
[[File:Militant atheist Bolsheviks firing upon a Christian Church Procession in Astrakhan.jpg|250px|thumb|"Расстрел безбожниками крестного хода в Астрахани": A Russian Orthodox Christian [[icon]] depicting [[Bolsheviks]] firing upon a church procession in Astrakhan, USSR in order to impose militant atheism on the Soviet population]]

British philosopher Julian Baggini postulates an atheistic active hostility to religion as militant and says hostility "requires more than just strong disagreement with religion – it requires something verging on hatred and is characterized by a desire to wipe out all forms of religious belief."<ref name=Baggini>{{cite book|author=Julian Baggini|title=Atheism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DUal7eYmEnEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Julian+Baggini+Militant+Atheism&hl=en&ei=MNP7TdWdJYbq0gHT0bSTAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Militant%20Atheism&f=false|quote=Militant Atheism: Atheism which is actively hostile to religion I would call militant. To be hostile in this sense requires more than just strong disagreement with religion—it requires something verging on hatred and is characterized by a desire to wipe out all forms of religious beliefs. Militant atheists tend to make one or both of two claims that moderate atheists do not. The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense, and the second is that is is usually or always harmful.|publisher=Sterling Publishing|year=2009|accessdate=2011-06-28}}</ref> Militant atheists, Baggini continues, "tend to make one or both of two claims that moderate atheists do not. The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense, and the second is that it is usually or always harmful."<ref name=Baggini/> According to Baggini, the "too-zealous" militant atheism found in the Soviet Union was characterized by thinking the best way to counter religion was "by [[oppression]] and making atheism the official state credo."<ref name=Baggini131>Baggini 2009 [https://books.google.com/books?id=DUal7eYmEnEC&pg=PA131 p. 131]</ref>

As such, philosopher Kerry S. Walters contends that militant atheism differs from moderate atheism because it sees belief in [[God]] as pernicious.<ref name="Walters">{{cite book|author=Kerry S. Walters|title=Atheism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eHOtkVFCKscC&pg=PA12&dq=militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=KCwiTu2FDoL2tgOXmLRD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBzgy#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism&f=false|quote=Both positive and negative atheism may be further subdivided into (i) militant and (ii) moderate varieties. Militant atheists, such as physicist Steven Weinberg, tend to think that God-belief is not only erroneous but pernicious. Moderate atheists agree that God-belief is unjustifiable, but see nothing inherently pernicious in it. What leads to excess, they argue, is intolerant dogmatism and extremism, and these are qualities of ideologies in general, religious or nonreligious.|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|year=2010|accessdate=10 March 2011}}</ref>
In the same vein, militant atheism, according to theologian Karl Rahner, regards itself as a doctrine to be propagated for the happiness of mankind and combats every religion as a harmful aberration;<ref name=Rahner>{{cite book|author=Karl Rahner|title=Encyclopædia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WtnR-6_PlJAC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=encyclopedia+militant+atheism&source=bl&ots=nFaQ6oOndB&sig=50Ei0fNExEUT8VWQZAOKgUgmo2A&hl=en&ei=EpwYToCWEOn20gHotYiXBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q&f=false|quote=<big>'''ATHEISM'''</big> '''A. IN PHILOSOPHY''' I. ''Concept and incidence''. Philosophically speaking, atheism means denial of the existence of God or of ''any'' possibility of knowing God. In those who hold this theoretical atheism, it may be tolerant (and even deeply concerned), if it has no missionary aims; it is "militant" when it regards itself as a doctrine to be propagated for the happiness of mankind and combats every religion as a harmful aberration.|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|date=1975|accessdate=2011-06-28}}</ref> "militant" atheism differs from the philosophy of "theoretical" atheism, which he states, may be tolerant and deeply concerned.<ref name=Rahner/>

The [[theological]] roots of militant atheism can be found in thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher, [[Leo Strauss]], [[Ludwig Feuerbach]], as well as in [[Karl Marx]]'s and [[Friedrich Engels]]'s critique of religion.<ref name="Roots">{{cite book |title=Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival |chapter=The Theological Roots of Militant Atheism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-xlLFUegIBQC&pg=PA18 |page=18 |author=Christopher Marsh|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|quote=Religious belief is quite distinct from a philosophical viewpoint, however, meaning that almost all previous studies have avoided serious consideration of the theological roots of militant atheism. While it is with Hegel that one must begin to understand Marxist philosophy, one must take a detour through the thought of Schleiermacher, Strauss, and Feuerback before coming to an understanding of Marx's and Engels's critique of religion.}}</ref> Under régimes which espouse militant atheism, such as [[Albania]] under [[Enver Hoxha]] and [[Cambodia]] under the [[Khmer Rouge]], in which traditional religion was banned, when the wave of militant atheism passes, traditional religion may reappear with undiminished strength when conditions allow for the expression of grassroots identities.<ref name="Reappear">{{cite book|title=Socialism: ideals, ideologies, and local practice |year=1993 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iPHPPMrmQVMC&pg=PA8 |page=8|author=C. M. Hann|publisher=Psychology Press|quote=It may disappear from view during the apogee of Marxism-Leninism, when the old temples are likely to be sacred (though only Albania and Cambodia went so far as formally to ban traditional religion ''per se''). When the wave of militant atheism passes and conditions permit the expression of grassroots identities once again, traditional religion may reappear with undiminished strength.}}</ref>

==Application==

===Soviet Bloc===
[[File:Svb-1.jpg|thumb|left|250px|The membership card of the [[League of Militant Atheists]] of the [[USSR]] (Russian: Членский билет Союза воинствующих безбожников)]]

''See also:'' [[Atheism and communism]] and [[Communism and religious persecution]] and [[Restrictions on religious activity and/or religious persecution in Czarist, Soviet, and contemporary Russia]]

According to Harold J. Berman, a Harvard specialist in Soviet law, "militant atheism was the official religion, one might say, of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party was the established church."<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Harold Joseph Berman|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j1208xA7F_0C&pg=PA394&dq=militant+atheism+soviet+union&hl=en&ei=fWXZTci_GMPY0QGfmun7Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism%20soviet%20union&f=false|title=Faith and Order: The Reconciliation of Law and Religion|year=1993|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|quote=One fundamental element of that system was its propagation of a doctrine called Marxism-Leninism, and one fundamental element of that doctrine was militant atheism. Until only a little over three years ago, militant atheism was the official religion, one might say, of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party was the established church in what might be called an ''<u>a</u>theocratic state''.|accessdate=2011-07-09}}
::{{cite book|author=J. D. Van der Vyver, John Witte|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XSnpr1ndq5kC&pg=PA289&dq=militant+atheism+soviet+union&hl=en&ei=QGbZTcGoA4ru0gHJ7fj8Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism%20soviet%20union&f=false|title=Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|year=1996|quote=For seventy years, from the Bolshevik Revolution to the closing years of the Gorbachev regime, militant atheism was the official religion, one might say, of the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party was, in effect, the established church. It was an avowed task of the Soviet state, led by the Communist Party, to root out from the minds and hearts of the Soviet state, all belief systems other than Marxism-Leninism.|page=289|accessdate=2011-07-09}}
{{cite web|author=Harold J. Berman|url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/emint12&div=12&id=&page=|title=Freedom of Religion in Russia: An Amicus Brief for the Defendant|publisher=HeinOnline|quote=from the Bolshevik Revolution to the closing years of the Gorbachev regime, militant atheism was the official religion, one might say, of the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party was, in effect, the established church.|date=1998}}
</ref>
The militant atheism of the [[Bolsheviks]] owed its origins to the "standard Marxist feeling that religion was the opium of the masses."<ref name="Brinton">{{cite book|author=Crane Brinton|page=357 |year=1995 |title=A History of Civilization: 1648 to the present|publisher=Prentice Hall}}</ref> Vitalij Lazarʹevič Ginzburg, a Soviet physicist, wrote that the "Bolshevik communists were not merely atheists but, according to [[Lenin]]'s terminology, militant atheists."<ref name="Lenin & militant atheism">{{cite book|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ufC9Ar8iuDcC&pg=PA161&dq=The+Bolshevik+communists+were+not+merely+atheists+but,+according+to+Lenin%27s+terminology,+militant+atheists.&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1oFUUdj6PIiK0QGvq4CAAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=The%20Bolshevik%20communists%20were%20not%20merely%20atheists%20but%2C%20according%20to%20Lenin's%20terminology%2C%20militant%20atheists.&f=false|title =On Superconductivity and Superfluidity: A Scientific Autobiography |author=Vitalij Lazarʹevič Ginzburg|publisher = Springer Science+Business Media|year=2009|quote=The Bolshevik communists were not merely atheists but, according to Lenin's terminology, militant atheists.|accessdate = 2011–03–15}}</ref>
The goal of the Soviet Union was the liquidation of religion and the means to achieve this goal included the destruction of churches, mosques, synagogues, mandirs, madrasahs, religious monuments, as well the mass deportation to Siberia of believers of different religions.<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Gerhard Simon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sTLc8H3b4vUC&pg=PA64&dq=militant+atheism+soviet+union&hl=en&ei=cZ_1TY64Eo26sAOa57C-Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism%20soviet%20union&f=false|title=Church, State, and Opposition in the U.S.S.R.|publisher=University of California Press|quote=On the other hand the Communist Party has never made any secret of the fact, either before or after 1917, that it regards 'militant atheism' as an integral part of its ideology and will regard 'religion as by no means a private matter'. It therefore uses 'the means of ideological influence to educate people in the spirit of scientific materialism and to overcome religious prejudices..' Thus it is the goal of the C.P.S.U. and thereby also of the Soviet state, for which it is after all the 'guiding cell', gradually to liquidate the religious communities.|year=1974|accessdate=2011-07-09}}
::{{cite book|author=Simon Richmond|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jcNZUzdd-ukC&pg=PA79&dq=liquidation+of+religion+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=xKz1Td2nLYr4swPXvYy8Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFQQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=liquidation%20of%20religion%20militant%20atheism&f=false|title=Russia & Belarus|publisher=BBC Worldwide|quote=Soviet 'militant atheism' led to the closure and destruction of nearly all the mosques and madrasahs (Muslim religious schools) in Russia, although some remained in the Central Asian states. Under Stalin there were mass deportations and liquidation of the Muslim elite.|year=2006|accessdate=2011-07-09}}
::{{cite book|author=Dimitry Pospielovsky|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2cP0wc_E6yEC&pg=PA395 |page=395 |title=The Orthodox Church in the History of Russia|publisher=St Vladimir's Seminary Press|quote=It might be expected that as a Christian leader, he would at least declare that a Christian could not vote for a party that preached and practiced genocide, whether racial or class-based, nor for a party whose ideology included a militant atheism aiming at liquidation of religion.|year=1998}}
::{{cite book|author=Melvin Ember; Carol R. Ember; Ian Skoggard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7QEjPVyd9YMC&pg=PA988 |page=988 |year=2005 |title=Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World. Volume I: Overviews and Topics; Volume II: Diaspora Communities (v. 1)|publisher=Springer Science+Business Media|quote=The militant atheism of the Soviet period put an end to the traditional beliefs, religion, and rituals of Koreans.}}
::{{cite book|author=Ruth Ellen Gruber|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Ae-e3MUVjkC&pg=PA99 |page=99 |title=National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel|publisher=[[National Geographic Society]]|quote=But the hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Soviet sector were subject to the regime's ruthless campaign of militant atheism. Synagogues were closed, demolished, or converted for secular use, and religious life was crushed.|year=2007}}
::{{cite book|author=Albert Lee|page=108 |title=Henry Ford and the Jews|publisher=Stein and Day|quote=The atheist Jew, Gubermann, under the name of Jaroslawski and then the leader of the militant atheists in Soviet Union, also declared: 'It is our duty to destroy every religious world concept.'|date=1980}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wm3w1oGCaEoC&pg=PA1387 |page=1387 |title=World and Its Peoples|publisher=Marshall Cavendish Corporatio|quote=A campaign of militant atheism began. Many churches – as well as synagogues, mosques, and Buddhist temples – were closed or destroyed. For example, some eight thousand Russian Orthodox churches were closed in 1937 alone.|date=1980}}
</ref>
Under the Soviet doctrine of [[separation of church and state]], detailed in the Constitution of the Soviet Union, churches in the Soviet Union were forbidden to [[Religious charity|give to the poor]] or carry on [[Sunday School|educational activities]].<ref name="Separation">Berman 2009, [https://books.google.com/books?id=j1208xA7F_0C&pg=PA395 p. 395.] "Under the doctrine of separation of church and state, churches in the Soviet Union were forbidden to engage in any activities that were within the sphere of responsibilities of the state. That meant, for example, that churches could not give to the poor or carry on educational activities. They could not publish literature since all publishing was done by state agencies, although after World War II the Russian Orthodox Church was given the right to publish church calendars, a very limited number of Bibles, and a monthly journal in a limited number of copies. Churches were forbidden to hold any special meetings for children, youth or women, or any general meetings for religious study or recreation, or to open libraries or keep any books other than those necessary for the performance of worship services. Severe criminal penalties were imposed for violation of these rules. The formula of the 1936 and 1977 Soviet Constitutions was: freedom of religious worship and freedom of atheist propaganda – meaning, first no freedom of religious teaching other than the worship service itself, and second, a vigorous campaign in the schools and universities, in the press, and in special meetings organized by atheist so-called 'agitators,' to convince people of the folly of religious beliefs."</ref>
They could not [[publish]] literature since all publishing was done by state agencies, although after World War II the Russian Orthodox Church was given the right to publish church calendars, a very limited number of [[Bible]]s, and a monthly journal in a limited number of copies.<ref name="Separation"/> Churches were forbidden to hold any special meetings for children, youth or women, or any general meetings for religious study or recreation, or to open libraries or keep any books other than those necessary for the performance of worship services.<ref>Multiple references:
Berman 2009, [https://books.google.com/books?id=j1208xA7F_0C&pg=PA395 p. 395.] "Under the doctrine of separation of church and state, churches in the Soviet Union were forbidden to engage in any activities that were within the sphere of responsibilities of the state. That meant, for example, that churches could not give to the poor or carry on educational activities. They could not publish literature since all publishing was done by state agencies, although after World War II the Russian Orthodox Church was given the right to publish church calendars, a very limited number of Bibles, and a monthly journal in a limited number of copies. Churches were forbidden to hold any special meetings for children, youth or women, or any general meetings for religious study or recreation, or to open libraries or keep any books other than those necessary for the performance of worship services. Severe criminal penalties were imposed for violation of these rules. The formula of the 1936 and 1977 Soviet Constitutions was: freedom of religious worship and freedom of atheist propaganda – meaning, first no freedom of religious teaching other than the worship service itself, and second, a vigorous campaign in the schools and universities, in the press, and in special meetings organized by atheist so-called 'agitators,' to convince people of the folly of religious beliefs."
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VSmdHtacha8C&pg=PA232 |page=232 |year=1978 |title=Christian Religion in the Soviet Union: A Sociological Study|author=Christel Lane|publisher=State University of New York Press|quote=Militant atheist measures, both in premeditated and in unforeseen ways, have also caused far-reaching changes in the organisational structure of collectivities, in the ways they perform their religious functions and in which believers satisfy their religious requirements. In the field of organisation, most measures have had the effect of weakening or destroying central organisation and strengthening local independence and spontaneity.}}
::{{cite book|author=J. D. Van der Vyver, John Witte|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XSnpr1ndq5kC&pg=PA290 |page=290 |title=Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|year=1996|quote=Churches, mosques, and synagogues were deprived of almost all activities except the conduct or worship services. Moreover, schools were not merely to avoid the teaching of religion; they were actively to promote the teaching of atheism. These doctringes were spelled out in a 1929 law that remained the basic legistlation on the subject until the Gorbachev reforms of the late 1980s. There was freedom of religious worship, but churches were forbidden to give any material aid to their memebers or charity of any kind, or to hold any special meetings for children, youth, or women, or general meetings for religious study, recreation, or any similar purpose or to open libraries or to keep any books other thanose necessary for the performance of worhsip services. The formula of the 1929 law was repeated in the 1936 Constitution and again in the 1977 Constitution: freedom of religious worship and freedom of atheist propaganda-meaning (1) no freedom of religious teaching outside of the worship service itself, plus (2) a vigorous campaign in the schools, in the press, and in special meetings organized by atheist agitators, to convice people of the folly of religious beliefs.}}
</ref>
Furthermore, under militant atheist policies, Church property was expropriated.<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author= R. J. Overy |year=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YWUxDKN80BgC&pg=PA271 |page=271 |title=The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|quote=The communist regime treated the Church as a political institution rather than as a set of beliefs. On 28 January 1918 the Russian Orthodox Church was formally separated from the state; religious belief was permitted as long as it did not threaten public order or trespass on political soil. Religious property was liquidated, and a twenty-year programme of church closures begun. Religion was banned from schools. The state and the party were officially atheist.}}
::{{cite book|author=Richard Sakwa |year=1999 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EoQXhV8XTFUC&pg=PA74 |page=74 |title=The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917–1991|publisher=Psychology Press|quote=Marx's view on religion as the 'opiate of the people' under the Bolsheviks took the form a militant atheism that sought to destroy the social sources of the power of the Church, and to extirpate religious belief as a social phenomenon. Uner the slogan of separating Church and state, the Bolsheviks in effect expropriated church property and dramatically limited the Church's ability to conduct a normal religious life.}}</ref>
Moreover, not only was religion banned from the school and university system, but pupils were to be indoctrinated with atheism and antireligious teachings.<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=J. D. Van der Vyver, John Witte|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XSnpr1ndq5kC&pg=PA290 |page=290 |title=Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|year=1996|quote=Moreover, schools were not merely to avoid the teaching of religion; they were actively to promote the teaching of atheism.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8jkFD4ZXjd8C&pg=PA58 |pages=58, 79 |year=2008 |title=The Plot to Kill God: findings from the Soviet experiment in Secularization |publisher=University of California Press|author=Paul Froese|quote=Militant atheists also believed that science disproved religion because God remained unseen, his miracles were never subject to empirical verification, and certain religious stories were inconceivable. As such, the Soviet school system consistently promoted "atheistic science" to combat the effects of religion. The curriculum of scientific atheism resembled the curriculum of scientific atheism resembled the curriculum for much of the Soviet educational system, as it was based more on memorization than critical analysis. For homework, schoolchildren were sometimes asked to convert a member of their family to atheism by reciting arguments that were intended to disprove religious beliefs. And schoolchildren often memorized antireligious rhymes, songs, and catechisms. Antireligious ideas infiltrated the most basic in unrelated topics: "Physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, history, geography and literature all serve as jumping-off points to instruct pupils on the evils or falsity of religion." Although many school subjects appear unrelated to religion, Soviets believed that any intellectual activity was intrinsically opposed to religion. The Soviet educational system officially stated that "that bringing up of children in the atheist spirit" was one of its primary missions. University students were also required to actively propogate atheism and were told, "Those who refuse to make such practical application of their study [of scientific atheism] will lose their scholarships and must leave the university. Special pressure was placed on academics and scientists to join the atheist educational organization Znanie, and, b the late 1970s, for example, over 80 percent of all professors and doctors of science in Luthuania became members. The course syllabi from the atheist universities of the Soviet Union indicate how the topic of atheism was presented as a historically logical outcome of scientific development.}}
Berman 2009, [https://books.google.com/books?id=j1208xA7F_0C&pg=PA395 p. 395.] "Under the doctrine of separation of church and state, churches in the Soviet Union were forbidden to engage in any activities that were within the sphere of responsibilities of the state. That meant, for example, that churches could not give to the poor or carry on educational activities. They could not publish literature since all publishing was done by state agencies, although after World War II the Russian Orthodox Church was given the right to publish church calendars, a very limited number of Bibles, and a monthly journal in a limited number of copies. Churches were forbidden to hold any special meetings for children, youth or women, or any general meetings for religious study or recreation, or to open libraries or keep any books other than those necessary for the performance of worship services. Severe criminal penalties were imposed for violation of these rules. The formula of the 1936 and 1977 Soviet Constitutions was: freedom of religious worship and freedom of atheist propaganda – meaning, first no freedom of religious teaching other than the worship service itself, and second, a vigorous campaign in the schools and universities, in the press, and in special meetings organized by atheist so-called 'agitators,' to convince people of the folly of religious beliefs."</ref>  For example, schoolchildren were asked to convert family members to [[atheism]] and memorize antireligious rhymes, songs, and catechisms, while university students who declined to propagate atheism lost their scholarships and were expelled from universities.<ref name="Froese1">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8jkFD4ZXjd8C&pg=PA58 |pages=58, 79 |year=2008 |title=The Plot to Kill God: findings from the Soviet experiment in Secularization |publisher=University of California Press|author=Paul Froese|quote=Militant atheists also believed that science disproved religion because God remained unseen, his miracles were never subject to empirical verification, and certain religious stories were inconceivable. As such, the Soviet school system consistently promoted "atheistic science" to combat the effects of religion. The curriculum of scientific atheism resembled the curriculum of scientific atheism resembled the curriculum for much of the Soviet educational system, as it was based more on memorization than critical analysis. For homework, schoolchildren were sometimes asked to convert a member of their family to atheism by reciting arguments that were intended to disprove religious beliefs. And schoolchildren often memorized antireligious rhymes, songs, and catechisms. Antireligious ideas infiltrated the most basic in unrelated topics: "Physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, history, geography and literature all serve as jumping-off points to instruct pupils on the evils or falsity of religion." Although many school subjects appear unrelated to religion, Soviets believed that any intellectual activity was intrinsically opposed to religion. The Soviet educational system officially stated that "that bringing up of children in the atheist spirit" was one of its primary missions. University students were also required to actively propogate atheism and were told, "Those who refuse to make such practical application of their study [of scientific atheism] will lose their scholarships and must leave the university. Special pressure was placed on academics and scientists to join the atheist educational organization Znanie, and, b the late 1970s, for example, over 80 percent of all professors and doctors of science in Luthuania became members. The course syllabi from the atheist universities of the Soviet Union indicate how the topic of atheism was presented as a historically logical outcome of scientific development.}}</ref> Severe [[Gulag|criminal penalties]] were imposed for violation of these rules.<ref name="SeparWitte">Multiple references:
Berman 2009, [https://books.google.com/books?id=j1208xA7F_0C&pg=PA395 p. 395.] "Under the doctrine of separation of church and state, churches in the Soviet Union were forbidden to engage in any activities that were within the sphere of responsibilities of the state. That meant, for example, that churches could not give to the poor or carry on educational activities. They could not publish literature since all publishing was done by state agencies, although after World War II the Russian Orthodox Church was given the right to publish church calendars, a very limited number of Bibles, and a monthly journal in a limited number of copies. Churches were forbidden to hold any special meetings for children, youth or women, or any general meetings for religious study or recreation, or to open libraries or keep any books other than those necessary for the performance of worship services. Severe criminal penalties were imposed for violation of these rules. The formula of the 1936 and 1977 Soviet Constitutions was: freedom of religious worship and freedom of atheist propaganda – meaning, first no freedom of religious teaching other than the worship service itself, and second, a vigorous campaign in the schools and universities, in the press, and in special meetings organized by atheist so-called 'agitators,' to convince people of the folly of religious beliefs."
::{{cite book|author=J. D. Van der Vyver, John Witte|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XSnpr1ndq5kC&pg=PA290 |page=290 |title=Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|year=1996|quote=In 1960 Criminal Code of the Russian Republic imposed a fine for violating lasw of separation from the state and of the school from the church, and, for repeated violators, deprivation of freedom up to three years (Article 142). Such violations included organizing religious assemblies and processions, organizing religious instruction for minors, and preparing written materials calling for such activities. Other types of religious activities were subject to more severe sanctions: thus leaders and active participants in religious groups that caused damage to the health of citizens or violated personal rights, or that tried to persuade citizens not to participate in social activities or to perform duties of citizens, or that drew minors into such group, were punishable by deprivation of freedom up to give years (Article 277).}}
</ref>
By the 1960s, with the fourth Soviet anti-religious campaign underway, half of the amount of [[Russian Orthodox Church|Russian Orthodox]] churches were closed, along with five out of the eight [[seminary|seminaries]].<ref name="Closure">
{{cite book|author=J. D. Van der Vyver, John Witte|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XSnpr1ndq5kC&pg=PA289&dq=militant+atheism+soviet+union&hl=en&ei=QGbZTcGoA4ru0gHJ7fj8Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism%20soviet%20union&f=false|title=Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|year=1996|quote=These articles of the Criminal Code were enacted as part of the severe anti-religious campaign launched under Khrushchev in the early 1960s, when an estimated 10,000 Russian Orthodox churches-half the total number-were closed, together with five of the eight insitutions for training priests, and the independence of the priesthood were curtailed both nationally and locally.|page=291|accessdate=16 August 2011}}
</ref>
In addition, several other Christian denominations were brought to extinction, including the [[Baptist Church]], [[Methodist Church]], Evangelical Christian Church, and the [[Lutheran Church|Evangelical Lutheran Church]].<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Gerhard Simon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sTLc8H3b4vUC&pg=PA64&dq=militant+atheism+soviet+union&hl=en&ei=cZ_1TY64Eo26sAOa57C-Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism%20soviet%20union&f=false|title=Church, State, and Opposition in the U.S.S.R.|publisher=University of California Press|quote=On the other hand the Communist Party has never made any secret of the fact, either before or after 1917, that it regards 'militant atheism' as an integral part of its ideology and will regard 'religion as by no means a private matter'. It therefore uses 'the means of ideological influence to educate people in the spirit of scientific materialism and to overcome religious prejudices..' Thus it is the goal of the C.P.S.U. and thereby also of the Soviet state, for which it is after all the 'guiding cell', gradually to liquidate the religious communities.|year=1974|accessdate=2011-07-09}}
{{cite web|author=Thomas Hoffmann; William Alex Pridemore |month=December |year=2003 |url=http://www.demokratizatsiya.org/bin/pdf/DEM%2012-3%20Pridemore%20.pdf|title=Esau’s Birthright and Jacob’s Pottage: A Brief Look at Orthodox-Methodist Ecumenism in Twentieth-Century Russia|publisher=Demokratizatsiya|quote=One of these was the resurgence of non-Orthodox Christian confessions, including the Methodist Church – a denomination completely eradicated in Russia during the Soviet era.|accessdate=19 October 2009}}
</ref>
Before the [[Russian Revolution]], there were more than fifty thousand Russian Orthodox clergymen, by 1939, there were no more than three to four hundred left.<ref name="Froese2">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8jkFD4ZXjd8C&pg=PA58 |pages=58, 79 |year=2008 |title=The Plot to Kill God: findings from the Soviet experiment in Secularization |publisher=University of California Press|author=Paul Froese|quote=There were more than fifty thousand Orthodox priests before the Russian Revolution, and by mid-1939, there were no more than three to four hundred clergy.}}</ref>
In the year 1922 alone, under the militant atheistic system, 2691 secular priests, 1962 [[monk]]s and 3447 [[nun]]s were [[martyrs|martyred]] for their faith.<ref name="Martyrs">Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gGqPftVkwgUC&pg=PA225 |page=225 |title =Witness to the World |year=1987 |publisher=St Vladimir's Seminary Press|author=John Meyendorff|quote=After having been the state religion for centuries both in Russian and in almost all the countries of Europe, Christianity suddenly was confronted with a militant atheistic system claiming to regulate not only the material, but also the spiritual life of man. The number of those who died for the faith is innumerable: in the year 1922 alone, 2691 secular priests, 1962 monks and 3447 nuns.}} Quoted from N. Struve, ''Christians in Russia'', Harvill Press, London, 1967, p. 38
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f7D-5Q-Q19MC&pg=PA145 |page=145 |year=1993 |title =The Orthodox Church|publisher=[[Penguin Books]]|author=Timothy Ware|quote=The Ottoman Turks, while non-Christians, were still worshippers of the one God and, as we have seen, allowed the Church a large measure of toleration. But Soviet Communism was committed by its fundamental principles to an aggressive and militant atheism. Not only were churches closed on a massive scale in the 1920s and 1930s, but huge numbers of bishops and clergy, monks, nuns and laity were sent to prison and to concentration camps. How many were executed or died from ill-treatment we simply cannot calculate. Nikita Struve provides a list of martyr-bishops running to 130 names, and even this he terms 'provisional and incomplete'. The sum total of priest-martyrs must extend into tens of thousands.}}</ref>  In total, the number of Christians who were martyred for their faith under the militant atheism of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is 12 million.<ref name="Nelson2009">{{cite book|last=Nelson|first=James M.|title=Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LBv_K9Q0Z6gC&pg=PA427|accessdate=2012-12-19|date=2009-02-27|publisher=Springer|isbn=9780387875729|page=427|quote=It is an enormous problem, as the 20th century saw the worst persecution of Christians since Roman times. For instance, millions of Orthodox believers perished in purges by atheists in the former Soviet Union. In the anti-Christian campaign by Stalin and Soviet communism, many churches were closed, and monks were arrested and deported to labor camps. As many as 40,000 Orthodox priests were killed or died from abuse during the first half of 1936 alone, and it is believed that the total number of priests, monks, and nuns killed during the purges of the 1930s are in excess of 200,000 (Forest, 1997, pp. 134-149; Wynot, 2004). Estimates of the total number of all Christian martyrs in the former Soviet Union are about 12 million. Estimates from the 20th century of Christians who died from secular antireligious violence worldwide are over 25 million, more than all previous centuries combined (Bergman, 1996).}}</ref> In his book, ''Islam and the Contemporary World'', Golam Wahed Choudhury writes that the atheistic régime, "killed thousands, even millions of Muslims in 1917: they displaced millions in 1921. More than two million were martyred in 1926 when the communists confiscated their livestock according to communist principles: they died of starvation." He goes on further to state that "Stalin's oppression and suppression of the Muslim populations of the Soviet Union can only be compared to Hitler's persecution of the Jews."<ref name="Choudhury1990">{{cite book|last=Choudhury|first=Golam Wahed|title=Islam and the Contemporary World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xf7XAAAAMAAJ&q=%22their+livestock+according+to+communist+principles:+they+died+of+%22&dq=%22their+livestock+according+to+communist+principles:+they+died+of+%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Xeb2UpSpHeHXygGFzIDABA&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ|accessdate=2014-02-08|date=1990-05-01|publisher=Indus Thames Publishers Ltd.|page=152|quote=The Russians killed thousands, even millions of Muslims in 1917: they displaced millions in 1921. More than two million were martyred in 1926 when the communists confiscated their livestock according to communist principles: they died of starvation. The communist rulers have also divided Muslims into numerous nationalities in order to scatter them. Stalin's oppression and suppression of the Muslim populations of the Soviet Union can only be compared to Hitler's persecution of the Jews. Both cases are the worst examples of ruthless and systematic suppression of people for their religious faith. }}</ref> 
[[File:Bibi Eybat Mosque destruction.jpg|thumb|250px|The destruction of Bibi-Heybat Mosque (Azerbaijani: Bibiheybət məscidi) by the [[Bolshevik]]s in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR (1936)]]
{{cquote|In an extreme case from the 1920s, the government promoted the ''khudjum'' campaign, a movement that encouraged women to voluntarily discard the ''paranja'', as the veil is called in the Turkic-speaking regions, but also brought gangs of militant young atheists to [[Central Asia]] who physically [[assault]]ed women, often tearing the veil from their faces in the streets of Tashkent, Samarkand, and other cities. —Global Security Watch<ref name="Hanks">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tjMg_rNPnycC&pg=PA46&dq=gangs+of+militant+young+atheists+to+Central+Asia+who+physically+assaulted+women&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dBTMT6iRLoeU2AX_yqzaCw&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=gangs%20of%20militant%20young%20atheists%20to%20Central%20Asia%20who%20physically%20assaulted%20women&f=false|pages=46|date=21 October 2010|title=Global Security Watch--Central Asia|publisher=ABC-CLIO|author=Reuel R. Hanks|quote=In an extreme case from the 1920s, the government promoted the ''khudjum'' campaign, a movement that encouraged women to voluntarily discard the ''paranja'', as the veil is called in the Turkic-speaking regions, but also brought gangs of militant young atheists to Central Asia who physically assaulted women, often tearing the veil from their faces in the streets of Tashkent, Samarkand, and other cities.}}</ref>}}
Due to the militant atheistic campaigns against [[Judaism]],<ref name="Judaism">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mY0hdxKfpusC&pg=PA266 |page=266 |year=1995 |title =Terms of Survival: the Jewish World since 1945 |publisher=Psychology Press|author=Robert S. Wistrich|quote=Anti-Semitism, too, was relatively mild in the USSR during these interim post-Stalin years, despite the militant atheistic campaigns against the Jewish religion and the implication of Jews in economic crimes under Khruschev.}}</ref>
the religion was inaccessible to its followers;<ref name="Jews">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QM1hloeMQqgC&pg=PA30 |page=30 |year=1998 |title =American Jewish Year, Book 1998|publisher=Amer Jewish Committee|author=David Singer|quote=For most Soviet Jews, raised in an atmosphere of militant atheism, Judaism was inaccessible; and so the Soviet Jewish renaissance focused instead on national identity. Israel and its military victories, especially the Six Day War, emboldened thousands of young Jews to form the Soviet Union's only mass, nationwide, dissident movement.}}</ref>
most Soviet Jews focused on a national identity, which fueled a mass dissident movement.<ref name="Jews">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QM1hloeMQqgC&pg=PA30 |page=30 |publisher=Amer Jewish Committee|author=[[David Singer]]|quote=For most Soviet Jews, raised in an atmosphere of militant atheism, Judaism was inaccessible; and so the Soviet Jewish renaissance focused instead on national identity. Israel and its military victories, especially the Six Day War, emboldened thousands of young Jews to form the Soviet Union's only mass, nationwide, dissident movement.}}</ref> [[Buddhist]]s also suffered under the militant atheism of the CCCP, as "lamaist priests were rounded up in Mongolia by the [[NKVD]] in concert with its local affiliate, executed on the spot or shipped off to the Soviet Union to be shot or die at hard labor in the mushrooming GULAG system".<ref name="Buddhism">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8lyN4jQ7mBwC&pg=PA12&dq=soviet+union+lamaism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Qer2UsvrBOnkyQH-5ICIBg&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=soviet%20union%20lamaism&f=false|page=12|year=1994|title =Law in Eastern Europe|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers|author=George Ginsburgs, William B. Simons|quote=Just as outrageous was the conduct of the NKVD abroad on those occasions where it was afforded the opportunity to enlarge the geographical scope of its work. Thousands of political suspects and lamaist priests were rounded up in Mongolia by the NKVD in concert with its local affiliate, executed on the spot or shipped off to the Soviet Union to be shot or die at hard labor in the mushrooming GULAG system.}}</ref> The Soviet study of Buddhism in the autonomous republic of Buryatiya began "in the 1930's, with the establishment of a special secretariat for the propagation of atheism and the setting up of an antireligious museum under the auspices of the Buryat Academy of Sciences."<ref name="Thrower1983">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BGJtDwJ7aPwC&pg=PA423&dq=soviet+union+lamaism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Qer2UsvrBOnkyQH-5ICIBg&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=soviet%20union%20lamaism&f=false|page=423|year=1983|title =Marxist-Leninist "scientific Atheism" and the Study of Religion and Atheism in the USSR|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|author=James Thrower|quote=Soviet study of Buddhism in the autonomous republic of Buryatiya - which Soviet 'scientific atheism' tends to distinguish from Buddhism itself and call 'Lamaism' - began, under the exigences of the imperative to propagate atheism there in the 1930's, with the establishment of a special secretariat for the propagation of atheism and the setting up of an antireligious museum under the auspices of the Buryat Academy of Sciences.}}</ref> As Sovietization advanced in the Buryat and Kalmyk areas, "the number of Lamaist clergy and ''khuruls'' was reduced", with some Kalmyk officials in 1925, "cautioning [militant atheists] against committing atrocities against Lamaist monks."<ref name="Khodarkovsky2001">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cEiRrDIIcmIC&pg=PA224&dq=soviet+union+lamaism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Qer2UsvrBOnkyQH-5ICIBg&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=soviet%20union%20lamaism&f=false|pages=224–225|year=2001|title =Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia|publisher=Cornell University Press|author=Robert P. Geraci, Michael Khodarkovsky|quote=As Sovietization advanced futher into Buriat and Kalmyk regions, the number of Lamaist clergy and ''khuruls'' was reduced. Antireligious propaganda was especially successful among assimilated Kalmyk fisherman in the Iandyko-Mochazhnyi ''ulus'', who in the last decades had intensive contact with the Russian industry. When the registration of denominations began there in 1924, twelve of nineteen ''khuruls'' were closed without difficulty, and 143 clergy transferred to secular status. Letters of complaint written to the Central Confessional Commission on 17 June 1924 show that clergy bitterly resisted decrees of the Soviet government undermining the activities of the ''emchi'', limiting the importation of Tibetan medicine, and imposing a minimum age requirment of eighteen for monastic education. One letter remarked that persecution had become more extreme under the Communists: "even in the old days, when Buddhism was under attack by the missionaries, we never had to experience such oppression". In its physical assault of Buddhist clerical influence, the party intended "to allow only the strongest and most resilient of the clergy to remain." A pogrom-like atmosphere prevailed, and in 1925 some Kalmyk officials were cautioning against committing atrocities against Lamaist monks.}}</ref> The [[League of Militant Atheists]] considered "the reform movement in Soviet Buddhism a most serious menace".<ref name="Kolarz1962">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3H8VAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Militant+Godless+considered+the+reform+movement+in+Soviet+Buddhism+a+most+serious%22&dq=%22Militant+Godless+considered+the+reform+movement+in+Soviet+Buddhism+a+most+serious%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=a__2UrT_MsqyyAHwgYHADA&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA|page=455|year=1962|title =Religion in the Soviet Union|publisher=St. Martin's Press|author=Walter Kolarz|quote=They included Ivan Maisky, author of a book on Contemporary Mongolia, and Professor Reisner, the well-known Soviet orientalist. No wonder that the Militant Godless considered the reform movement in Soviet Buddhism a most serious menace, and great pains were taken to point out that 'Buddhist atheism has nothing to do ...}}</ref> In 1915, there were over 16,000 lamas (Buddhist monks), a number that had reduced drastically in 1960.<ref name="Keefe1971">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XQdhlGPBkW0C&q=%22Buddhism+has+suffered+at+the+hands+of+%22&dq=%22Buddhism+has+suffered+at+the+hands+of+%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cP72UpzLFsekyQHN64HACg&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA|page=256|year=1971|title =Area handbook for the Soviet Union|publisher=American University|author=Eugene K. Keefe|quote=As with all other major religious groups, Buddhism has suffered at the hands of Communist antireligious propaganda. In 1915 it was estimated that there were over 16,000 lamas (Buddhist monks) in the country. By 1960 this number had ...}}</ref>
Marxist-Leninist militant atheism resulted in the administrative elimination of the [[clergy]], the housing of atheist museums where churches had once stood, the sending of many religious people to prisons and concentration camps, a continuous stream of propaganda, and the imposing of atheism through education (and forced [[brainwashing|re-education]] through torture at various prisons).<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=De James Thrower|url=http://www.google.com/books?id=BGJtDwJ7aPwC&pg=PA135 |page=135 |year=1983 |title=Marxist-Leninist Scientific Atheism and the Study of Religion and Atheism in the USSR|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|quote=In the pre-war period the emphasis was on 'practical atheism' – the more so as Stalin, the sole arbiter in such matters had not made a single theoretical pronouncement on religion or the study of religion – and 'practical atheism' meant schools from the propagation of atheism, the administrative elimination of the clergy, atheist museums where churches had once stood, and a continuous stream of hate-propaganda designed to terrorise the faithful into submission.}}



''A short history of Soviet socialism'', [http://www.google.com/books?id=BBTNdyAbfckC&pg=PA126 p. 126.] ISBN 9781857283556



[http://www.uq.edu.au/~laacassi/OrthodoxChristianityandMilitantAtheism.html Orthodox Christianity and Militant Atheism in the Twentieth Century]

::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e9OJSW5dkM8C&pg=PA171 |page=171 |year=1994 |title =Toward a New Enlightenment: the philosophy of Paul Kurtz |author=Paul Kurtz, Vern L. Bullough, Tim Madigan|publisher=Transaction Books|quote=There have been fundamental and irreconcilable differences between humanists and atheists, particularly Marxist-Leninists. The defining characteristic of humanism is its commitment to human freedom and democracy; the kind of atheism practiced in the Soviet Union has consistently violated basic human rights.}}</ref>
Specifically, by 1941, 40,000 Christian [[church]]es and 25,000 Muslim [[mosque]]s had been closed down and converted into schools, cinemas, clubs, warehouses and grain stores, or Museums of Scientific Atheism.<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Allan Todd, Sally Waller |year=2011 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yNpjjkTZiPAC&pg=PT53 |page=53 |title=Origins and Development of Authoritarian and Single Party States|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=By the time of the Nazi invasion in 1941, nearly 40,000 Christian churches and 25,000 Muslims mosques had been closed down and converted into schools, cinemas, clubs, warehouses and grain stores, or Museums of Scientific Atheism.}}
{{cite journal|author=Allan Todd, Sally Waller|url=http://presentpasts.info/articles/10.5334/pp.13/|title=Crispin Paine|journal=Present Pasts|volume=1|quote=By the time of the Nazi invasion in 1941, nearly 40,000 Christian churches and 25,000 Muslims mosques had been closed down and converted into schools, cinemas, clubs, warehouses and grain stores, or Museums of Scientific Atheism.}}</ref>

[[File:Bezhnoznik u stanka 15-1929.jpg|thumb|left|250px|A Soviet propaganda poster disseminated in the ''Bezbozhnik'' (''Atheist'') magazine depicting [[Jesus]] being dumped from a wheelbarrow by an industrial worker as well as a smashed church [[bell]]; the text advocates Industrialisation Day as an alternative replacement to the [[Christian]] Transfiguration Day.]]

Oscar J. Hammen, a historian, classified [[Engels]] as a militant atheist.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/187483/Friedrich-Engels Freidrich Engels] [[Encyclopedia Britannica]] 2008.
</ref> The ascent of the [[Bolsheviks]] to power in 1917 "meant the beginning of a campaign of militant atheism,"<ref>John F. Pollard (2001). ''Benedict XV: the unknown pope and the pursuit of peace'' p. 199.</ref>
and in 1922 [[Lenin]], himself a militant atheist,<ref name="Lenin">{{cite book|author=Edward Craig|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1wL-MriFm2YC&pg=PA564 |page=564 |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume 1|publisher=Taylor & Francis|quote=Lenin, leader of the October 1917 Revolution in Russia, wrote mainly about politics and economics, but as a Marxist of his generation he assumed that ideas about society needed to rest on sound philosophical premises. He was a militant atheist.}}
</ref>
referred with approval to "militant atheist literature" and demanded that the journal ''Pod Znamenem Marksizma'' "must be a militant atheist organ", explaining that he meant militant 'in the sense of unflinchingly exposing and indicting all modern “graduated flunkeys of clericalism”, irrespective of whether they act as representatives of official science or as free lances calling themselves “democratic Left or ideologically socialist” publicists'.<ref>[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/12.htm On the Significance of Militant Materialism] [[Lenin]] 1922
</ref>
In 1923, the ''Bezbozhnik'' ("Atheist", or "Godless") magazine appeared,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110723035451/http://cartoonia.net/z/zh_bezbozhnik.htm Журнал "БЕЗБОЖНИК", Москва, СССР] (''Bezbozhnik'' Magazine, Moscow, USSR). The caption to the front page picture of the No. 1 issue, by Dmitry Moor, shown in the article, is "We've finished with the earthly kings – now it's time to take care of the heavenly ones!"
</ref>
around which the "Union of the Friends of the ''Bezbozhnik''" was formed in 1924. The organization, renamed the [[League of Militant Atheists]] ([[Russian language|Russian]]: Союз воинствующих безбожников, ''Soyuz voinstvuyushchikh bezbozhnikov'') in 1929, along with the [[Tatar Union of the Militant Godless]],<ref name="Tatar">{{cite book|author=Alexandre A. Bennigsen, S. Enders Wimbush|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uKr2O2GBDsQC&pg=PA202 |page=202 |year=1980 |title=Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World|publisher=University of Chicago Press|quote=In disgrace after Sultan Galiev's trial in 1928, he was, until his final purge in 1937, chairman of the Tatar Union of Militant Godless.}}
</ref>
carried out anti-religious propaganda at the grassroots level.<ref name="Grassroots">Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Michael Kemper; Stephan Conermann|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t7E6GdaHtdsC&pg=PA69 |page=69 |year=2011 |title=The Heritage of Soviet Oriental Studies|publisher=Taylor & Francis|quote=The League of the Militant Godless and the Knowledge Society conducted anti-religious propaganda at the grassroots level.}}
::{{cite book|author=Sabrina P. Ramet |year=1993 |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Religious_Policy_in_the_Soviet_Union.html?id=w5tHpwAACAAJ |page=14 |title=Religious Policy in the Soviet Union|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=Local public and voluntary organisations – the ''Komsomol'', the Young Pioneers, workers' Clubs and, of course, the League of Militant Atheists – were encouraged to undertake a whole range of anti-religious initiatives: promoting the observance of the five day working week, ensuring that priests did not visit believers in their homes, supervising the setting-up of cells of the League of Militant Atheists in the army. Public lampoons and blasphemous parades, recalling the early 1920s, were resumed from 1928. One of the main activities of the League of Militant Atheists was the publication of massive quantities of anti-religious literature, comprising regular journals and newspapers as well as books and pamphlets. The number of printed pages rose from 12 million in 1927 to 800 million in 1930.}}
::{{cite book|author=William G. Rosenberg |year=1990 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7JeUwFST2e0C&pg=PA218 |page=18 |title=Bolshevik Visions: First Phase of the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia, Part 1 |publisher=University of Michigan Press|quote=The publication in 1923 of Yaroslavsky's response to Khegund (see below), signalled the beginning of an organized ant-religious movement. Many in the party still urged caution; the "League of Militant Atheists, formally the a "private union" rather than a party body, was not permitted to function until 1925.}}
::{{cite book|author=M. Searle Bates|title=Religious Liberty: An Inquiry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i6QlNcyDxucC&pg=PA6 |page=6 |year=2005 |publisher=Kessinger Publishing Company|quote=On the other hand, the League of Militant Atheists reported for 1932 an organization of 80,000 cells with 7,000,000 members, besides 1,500,000 children in affiliated groups.}}</ref>
In 1941, soon after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, the newspaper closed, and in 1947 the society itself folded, the task of the anti-religious propaganda being transferred to the more neutrally named All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge (Всесоюзное общество по распространению политических и научных знаний).<ref>[http://slovari.yandex.ru/dict/bse/article/00073/55000.htm Союз воинствующих безбожников] (Union of the Militant Atheists) in the [[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]]
</ref>
[[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], a Soviet concentration camp survivor, wrote of the The Union of the Militant Godless, stating that its members "went on rampages, blew out candles, and smashed icons with axes."<ref name="Solzhenitsyn">{{cite book|title=Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lgPwzq0M9lkC&pg=PT72 |page=72 |author=Joseph Pearce|publisher=Ignatius Press|quote=In the years immediately before and after the Revolution, the church was shunned and subjected to ridicule by young people and the intelligentsia. Solzhenitsyn rememberd how many fiery adherents were claimed by militant atheism in the 1920s. "Those who went on rampages, blew out candles, and smashed icons with axes have now crumbled into dust, like their Union of the Militant Godless."|year=2011}}</ref>
The League of Militant Atheists, which was renamed the Znanie Society (Общество "Знание"), published a monthly journal called ''Nauka i Religya'' (''Science and Religion'') which described itself as "a fighting organ of militant atheism", rejecting the view that religion would disappear "of itself."<ref>Multiple references:
[http://slovari.yandex.ru/dict/bse/article/00028/07900.htm "Знание", Всесоюзное общество] (The All-Union "Knowledge" Society) in the [[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]]
::{{cite book|title=Religion, state, and politics in the Soviet Union and successor states|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S9vPzWk9uowC&pg=PA44 |page=44 |year=1994 |author=John Anderson|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=Finally, various public organisations were drawn into the struggle against religion, most notably the Znanie Society. Formed in 1947, in large part as a successor to the disbanded League of the Militant Godless, the society had begun to expand its work beyond the narrowly anti-religious. In September 1959 it at last produced the first copy of the monthly atheist magazine ''Nauka i religiya''. The unusual decision to commence publication part way through the year perhaps suggested the increasing degree of urgency in anti-religious campaigning. The first editorial reflected this mood in describing the journal as 'a fighting organ of militant atheism' and in its rejection of the view that religion would disappear 'of itself.'}}</ref> In 1961 the Ukrainian branch produced a similar journal called ''Militant Atheist'' (''Voivnichy Ateist'').<ref name="Znanie">{{cite book|title=Religion, state, and politics in the Soviet Union and successor states|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S9vPzWk9uowC&pg=PA44 |page=44 |year=1994 |author=John Anderson|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=Finally, various public organisations were drawn into the struggle against religion, most notably the Znanie Society. Formed in 1947, in large part as a successor to the disbanded League of the Militant Godless, the society had begun to expand its work beyond the narrowly anti-religious. In September 1959 it at last produced the first copy of the monthly atheist magazine ''Nauka i religiya''. The unusual decision to commence publication part way through the year perhaps suggested the increasing degree of urgency in anti-religious campaigning. The first editorial reflected this mood in describing the journal as 'a fighting organ of militant atheism' and in its rejection of the view that religion would disappear 'of itself.'}}</ref>
[[File:PX 1.jpg|thumb|In order to promote militant atheism, a banner reading "Monks - the bloody enemies of working people" (Ченці - криваві вороги трудящих) was placed by the government of the Soviet Union at the entrance of Dormition Cathedral of the Kyivan Cave Monastery (1930s).|250px]]
Scientists and party philosophers in the Soviet Union worked to establish a [[Atheism and the suppression of science|view of science acceptable to Marxist–Leninist philosophy]].<ref name=Kragh>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GB3Zst_4HLsC&pg=PA226 |page=226 |year=2008 |title =Entropic Creation|author=Helge Kragh|publisher=Ashgate Publishing|quote=In the attempts to establish an ideologically acceptable view of science, the new physics became a matter of considerable controversy in the young Soviet Union. Physicists and party philosophers discussed the problematic relationship of relativity theory and quantum mechanics to Marxist-Leninist philosophy.}}</ref>
In addition to the antireligious substance of each course, the curriculum from the universities in the Soviet Union presented scientific findings correct or incorrect based on their supposed ideological positions, not on the objective, applied, and experimental essence of science.<ref name="Froese3">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8jkFD4ZXjd8C&pg=PA58 |pages=58, 79 |year=2008 |title=The Plot to Kill God: findings from the Soviet experiment in Secularization |publisher=University of California Press|author=Paul Froese|quote=Militant atheists also believed that science disproved religion because God remained unseen, his miracles were never subject to empirical verification, and certain religious stories were inconceivable. The course syllabi from the atheist universities of the Soviet Union indicate how the topic of atheism was presented as a historically logical outcome of scientific development; Soviet college students chose from the following course selections: Physics...Chemistry...Geology...Mathematics...Biology...Medicine...What stands out in these syllabi, in addition to the antireligious substance of each course, is the way in which the curriculum appears to ignore the objective, applied, and experimental essence of science. Instead, scientific findings are presented as correct or incorrect based on their supposed ideological positions. Religion is presented as the historic cofounder of scientific advancement, with atheism providing the phislosophical framework from which to conduct accurate science.}}</ref> Some Soviet militant atheists also believed science disproved religion because God remained unseen, His miracles were never subject to empirical verification, and certain religious stories were scientifically inconceivable.<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8jkFD4ZXjd8C&pg=PA58 |pages=58, 79 |year=2008 |title=The Plot to Kill God: findings from the Soviet experiment in Secularization |publisher=University of California Press|author=Paul Froese|quote=Militant atheists also believed science disproved religion because God remained unseen, his miracles were never subject to empirical verification, and certain religious stories were scientifically inconceivable. Following World War II and after the dissolution of the League of Militant Atheists, Soviet officials started a campaign to produce natural-scientific arguments against belief in God. For instance, Soviet scientists placed holy water under a microscope to prove that it had no special properties, and the corpses of saints were exhumed to demonstrate that they too were subject to corruption. These activities indicated that atheist propgandists held a very literal interpretation of religious language; for them, holy water and the bodies of saints were expected to hold some physical sign of their divinity.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FA4G8e8muYMC&pg=PA53 |page=53 |title =Life Evolving: Molecules, Mind, and Meaning|publisher=Oxford University Press|author=Christian De Duve|year=2002|quote=Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, a naturalistic view of the origin of life does not necessarily exlude beleif in a Creator. The notion, propagated at the same time, though for opposite reasons, by militant atheistic scientists and by many antiscientific circles, that the findings of science are incompatible with the existence of a Creator is false.}}</ref>
Bruce Sheiman, himself a leader in the [[Atheist 3.0]] movement, has criticized militant atheism for asserting this belief that science is capable of determining the [[existence of God]].<ref name="Existence">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GvFUvFuUFWYC&pg=PT119 |page=119 |year=2009 |title=An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off with Religion Than Without It |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |author=Bruce Sheiman |quote=The militant atheist asserts, incorrectly, that science is capable of determining the nonexistence of God.}}</ref>
Joseph McCabe, a militant atheist,<ref name="Joseph">{{cite book|url=|title =The Atheist World|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|author=Madalyn Murray O'Hair|quote=This is a listing of the great and near great compiled by Joseph McCabe, ex-Roman Catholic priest and militant Atheist of early in this century.}}
</ref>
wrote in 1936 that "Russia is doing the finest and soundest reconstructive work of our time, and it is doing this, not only without God, but on a basis of militant Atheism."<ref name="McCabe">{{cite book |year=2010 |title=Is the Position of Atheism Growing Stronger?|publisher=Kessinger Publishing|author=Joseph McCabe|quote=For the news is spreading, and is triumphing even over reactionary opposition that Russia is doing the finest and soundest reconstructive work of our time, and it is doing this, not only without God, but on a basis of militant atheism.}}</ref> [[Christopher Hitchens]], a militant atheist, stated that "One of Lenin's great achievements, in my opinion, is to create a secular Russia. The power of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition, is probably never going to recover from what he did to it."<ref name="Hitchesn">{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/interview_pdfs/Hitchens_Web_SW.pdf|year=2005|title=Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism|publisher=[[Public Broadcasting Service]]|author=[[Christopher Hitchens]]|quote=One of Lenin's great achievements, in my opinion, is to create a secular Russia. The power of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition, is probably never going to recover from what he did to it.}}</ref> 

Militant atheism resulted in the production of generations of non-believers.<ref name="Genis1999">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8pciFcaGXR0C&pg=PA379&dq=soviet+union+buddhist+militant+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pvP2UvWqHunOyQG-sIHIAg&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=soviet%20union%20buddhist%20militant%20atheism&f=false|page=379|title =Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture|publisher=Berghahn Books|author=Mikhail Epstein, Aleksandr Genis |year=1999|quote=Only in the Soviet Union did militant atheism penetrate into the masses. It created several generations of non-believers. Even if the majority were not antagonistic to religion, they became profoundly indifferent to it. Even if they themselves did not destroy churches and burn icons, neither did they pray or invoke the name of God; indeed they forgot about His very existence.}}
</ref> However, militant atheism failed to eradicate [[Christianity]], which resulted in the reopening of churches, the abandonment of the atheist teaching in schools, and the restoration of the seven day week.<ref name="Failure">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3Kb3rPreUgC&pg=PA455 |page=455 |title =Christianity through the centuries: a History of the Christian Church|publisher=Zondervan|author=Earle E. Cairns |year=1996 |quote=The failure of militant atheism to eradicate Christianity; the persistence of belief in God, which approximately half of the Russian people expressed in the 1937 census; and the threatening international situation dictated the need for a strategic retreat after 1939. Churches were reopened, the antireligious carnivals were dropped, and the teaching of atheism in schools was abandoned. In 1943 Sergius was permitted to function as the patriarch of Moscow and all Russia. The seven-day week was restored, seminaries were permitted to reopen, and the Orthodox church was freed of many burdensome restrictions.}}
</ref>
Moreover, John W. Garver observes that the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the dominance of militant atheism over [[Central Asia|South-Central Asia]] and led to the reemergence of [[Islam]] in the region.<ref name="Reemergence">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u2X1DNUATjkC&pg=PA130 |page=130 |title =China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World|publisher=University of Washington Press|author=John W. Garver |year=2006 |quote=Post-Soviet Central Asia witnessed a swift revival of Islam. The collapse of Soviet power lifted a seventy-year-long reign of militant atheism and opened the way to reemergence of the long-suppressed Islamic faith of the Central Asian peoples.}}</ref>

====Czechoslovakia====
When [[Communists]] seized power in former [[Czechoslovakia]] in February 1948, part of their agenda included fighting against a “dangerous ideological enemy that holds enormous influence over the masses”.<ref name="NMMI1">{{cite web|author=NMI|url=http://www.upn.gov.sk/sk/likvidacia-klastorov-v-komunistickom-ceskoslovensku-barbarska-noc |title= Likvidácia kláštorov v komunistickom Československu – Barbarská noc  ("Eradication of monasteries in communist Czechoslovakia – Barbaric night")|publisher=[http://www.upn.gov.sk/en/about-nations-memory-institute/ Nation's Memory Institute]|date=2011|quote=Už pred rokom 1948 považovali československí komunisti rehole za dôležitý náboženský organizmus, ktorý neželateľne vplýva na obyvateľstvo a usmerňuje ho. Po uchopení moci komunistickou stranou vo februári 1948 sa mohli ich plány namierené proti reholiam uskutočniť. Prvé zásahy voči jednotlivým kláštorom sa objavovali už od leta 1948, kedy boli tieto, pod zámienkou že sú centrami protištátnej činnosti, likvidované. Hoci ich nebolo veľa, naznačovali smer, ktorým sa bude vývoj uberať. Realizácia plánov, ktoré štátna moc s rehoľami mala, sa kvôli iným akciám (ako bola napr. schizmatická Katolícka akcia v júni 1949, príprava tzv. cirkevných zákonov na jeseň 1949) mohla uskutočniť až v prvej polovici roku 1950. ...Po akcii „K“ sa v noci z 3. na 4. mája 1950 uskutočnila aj akcia „K2“, v rámci ktorej boli obsadené aj zvyšné mužské kláštory. Týmito dvoma zásahmi bolo na Slovensku postihnutých 1180 rehoľníkov z 15 reholí, žijúcich v 76 kláštoroch. Po týchto dvoch akciách boli rehoľníci na Slovensku sústredení do kláštorov v Mučeníkoch (dnes Močenok), Hronskom Beňadiku, Podolínci, Kostolnej a v Báči. Režim v tzv. sústreďovacích kláštoroch sa riadil podľa pravidiel blízkych väznici. Popri práci (lepenie vrecúšok, preberanie šípok, stolárske a krajčírske práce, práce v poľnohospodárstve) mali rehoľníci vyhradený čas na politickú prevýchovu. Komunikácia s vonkajším svetom bola úplne vylúčená, alebo sa obmedzovala na minimum. Najprísnejší režim bol v kláštore v Podolínci, kde sa nachádzal najväčší počet rehoľníkov. Objekt bol strážený ozbrojenou strážou so psami, pričom na strážnu službu boli určovaní strážcovia z Leopoldova a iných väzníc. Na budove kláštora boli postupne zamrežované okná a inštalovaný ostatný drôt. Na nádvorí bola vybudovaná strážna veža a okolie bolo v noci osvetľované reflektormi. Rehoľníci, ktorí porušili predpísaný poriadok boli trestaní samoväzbou v pivnici.... V týchto kláštoroch sa akcia zopakovala v noci za asistencie príslušníkov Zboru národnej bezpečnosti, Ľudových milícií a Štátnej bezpečnosti. V akcii „R“ bolo v dňoch 28. – 31. augusta 1950 sústredených 1962 rehoľníčok a obsadených 137 objektov. Rehoľníčky boli sústredené v 16 sústreďovacích kláštoroch. ... Po obsadení kláštorov boli nešetrným zaobchádzaním zo strany štátnych orgánov zničené knižnice a rozkradnuté mnohé vzácne rukopisy, tlače, obrazy a nábytok. Samotné budovy získali najmä krajské a miestne národné výbory, rôzne administratívne úrady, telovýchovné spolky, detské domovy a pod. Komunistická štátna moc nazerala na rehole ako na nebezpečného ideologického nepriateľa, ktorý má značný vplyv na masy. Išlo však aj o hnuteľný a nehnuteľný majetok, ktorý rehole spravovali. V správe pre politický sekretariát ÚV KSČ, ktorá bilancovala získané materiálne hodnoty, bol výsledok akcie označený za najväčší majetkový presun od privlastnenia majetku Nemcov, „znárodnenia“ a pozemkovej reformy. Inak povedané, išlo o rozsahom tretiu najväčšiu krádež od roku 1945. Najbolestnejším dôsledkom zásahov však boli strastiplné osudy tisícok rehoľníkov a rehoľníčok, ktorí sa na niekoľko desaťročí stali prenasledovanou skupinou občanov.}}</ref> Thus, the [[monasteries]] were seized by the State Security (ŠtB) during three so-called “barbaric nights” in 1950.<ref name="NMMI1"/> 
[[File:Destroyed Synagogue in Bykhov.jpg|thumb|300px|left|Interior of a [[synagogue]] in Bykhov, Byelorussian SSR, destroyed under the doctrine of militant atheism (1988)]]
In total, 3142 people, including male members of [[Religious orders|religious order]]s, were coerced into the selected concentration monasteries,<ref name="NMMI1"/> which were turned into prison or [[Labor camp#Labor camps in various countries#Czechoslovakia|labor camps]] secured with guards, who implemented a strict régime aiming at the “political [[Brainwashing|re-education]]” of [[monk]]s.<ref name="NMMI1"/> The 213 monastery buildings and facilities were confiscated by state and the content of many ancient precious libraries which survived the Turko-Tatar attacks of the [[Middle Ages]] was scrapped and used for cardboard production.<ref name="NMMI2">Multiple references:
*{{cite web|author=NMI|url= http://www.upn.gov.sk/sk/likvidacia-klastorov-v-komunistickom-ceskoslovensku-barbarska-noc|title= Likvidácia kláštorov v komunistickom Československu – Barbarská noc  ("Eradication of monasteries in communist Czechoslovakia – Barbaric night")|publisher=[http://www.upn.gov.sk/en/about-nations-memory-institute/ Nation's Memory Institute]|date=2011|quote=Už pred rokom 1948 považovali československí komunisti rehole za dôležitý náboženský organizmus, ktorý neželateľne vplýva na obyvateľstvo a usmerňuje ho. Po uchopení moci komunistickou stranou vo februári 1948 sa mohli ich plány namierené proti reholiam uskutočniť. Prvé zásahy voči jednotlivým kláštorom sa objavovali už od leta 1948, kedy boli tieto, pod zámienkou že sú centrami protištátnej činnosti, likvidované. Hoci ich nebolo veľa, naznačovali smer, ktorým sa bude vývoj uberať. Realizácia plánov, ktoré štátna moc s rehoľami mala, sa kvôli iným akciám (ako bola napr. schizmatická Katolícka akcia v júni 1949, príprava tzv. cirkevných zákonov na jeseň 1949) mohla uskutočniť až v prvej polovici roku 1950. ...Po akcii „K“ sa v noci z 3. na 4. mája 1950 uskutočnila aj akcia „K2“, v rámci ktorej boli obsadené aj zvyšné mužské kláštory. Týmito dvoma zásahmi bolo na Slovensku postihnutých 1180 rehoľníkov z 15 reholí, žijúcich v 76 kláštoroch. Po týchto dvoch akciách boli rehoľníci na Slovensku sústredení do kláštorov v Mučeníkoch (dnes Močenok), Hronskom Beňadiku, Podolínci, Kostolnej a v Báči. Režim v tzv. sústreďovacích kláštoroch sa riadil podľa pravidiel blízkych väznici. Popri práci (lepenie vrecúšok, preberanie šípok, stolárske a krajčírske práce, práce v poľnohospodárstve) mali rehoľníci vyhradený čas na politickú prevýchovu. Komunikácia s vonkajším svetom bola úplne vylúčená, alebo sa obmedzovala na minimum. Najprísnejší režim bol v kláštore v Podolínci, kde sa nachádzal najväčší počet rehoľníkov. Objekt bol strážený ozbrojenou strážou so psami, pričom na strážnu službu boli určovaní strážcovia z Leopoldova a iných väzníc. Na budove kláštora boli postupne zamrežované okná a inštalovaný ostatný drôt. Na nádvorí bola vybudovaná strážna veža a okolie bolo v noci osvetľované reflektormi. Rehoľníci, ktorí porušili predpísaný poriadok boli trestaní samoväzbou v pivnici.... V týchto kláštoroch sa akcia zopakovala v noci za asistencie príslušníkov Zboru národnej bezpečnosti, Ľudových milícií a Štátnej bezpečnosti. V akcii „R“ bolo v dňoch 28. – 31. augusta 1950 sústredených 1962 rehoľníčok a obsadených 137 objektov. Rehoľníčky boli sústredené v 16 sústreďovacích kláštoroch. ... Po obsadení kláštorov boli nešetrným zaobchádzaním zo strany štátnych orgánov zničené knižnice a rozkradnuté mnohé vzácne rukopisy, tlače, obrazy a nábytok. Samotné budovy získali najmä krajské a miestne národné výbory, rôzne administratívne úrady, telovýchovné spolky, detské domovy a pod. Komunistická štátna moc nazerala na rehole ako na nebezpečného ideologického nepriateľa, ktorý má značný vplyv na masy. Išlo však aj o hnuteľný a nehnuteľný majetok, ktorý rehole spravovali. V správe pre politický sekretariát ÚV KSČ, ktorá bilancovala získané materiálne hodnoty, bol výsledok akcie označený za najväčší majetkový presun od privlastnenia majetku Nemcov, „znárodnenia“ a pozemkovej reformy. Inak povedané, išlo o rozsahom tretiu najväčšiu krádež od roku 1945. Najbolestnejším dôsledkom zásahov však boli strastiplné osudy tisícok rehoľníkov a rehoľníčok, ktorí sa na niekoľko desaťročí stali prenasledovanou skupinou občanov.}}
*{{cite web|author=NMI|url=http://www.upn.gov.sk/sk/vypovede-pamatnikov-o-barbarskej-noci/|title= Likvidácia kláštorov v komunistickom Československu – Barbarská noc, výpovede svedkov ("Eradication of monasteries in communist Czechoslovakia – Barbaric night, reports of witnesses")|publisher=[http://www.upn.gov.sk/en/about-nations-memory-institute/ Nation's Memory Institute]|date=2011|quote=Čiže tá Barbarská noc bola naozaj barbarská, pretože v tom čase, keď sme my takto nacvičovali pokrokové pesničky, tak v tom čase v nákladiakoch odvážali knižnice z týchto inštitúcií, z kláštorov, z rôznych inštitútov, odvážali ich do zberu, do fabriky, kde ich zomleli a urobili z nich kartón. Takže to, čo sa neudialo, ja viem napríklad, že potom, čo ešte spomeniem, že v Rajhrade nám vraveli ľudia z Rajhradu, že tamojšia knižnica, ktorá bola jedna z najstarších knižníc vôbec na území Čiech a Moravy. Za tatárskych pádov, ba aj za tureckého vpádu, keď sa dostali Turci až potiaľ, knižnica nebola zničená a Tatári rešpektovali tzv. bielych mníchov, ktorí im pomáhali liečiť a podobne. Až teraz bola táto knižnica zlikvidovaná, tým, že ju odviezli za onej Barbarskej noci, čiže to nie je nijakým zveličovaním, ak sa táto noc likvidácie kláštorov nazve, Barbarskou nocou. Toľko škôd na kultúrnych pamiatkach sa zaiste málokedy v histórii udialo.}}</ref>

In 1957 ŠtB arrested university students in eastern Slovakia in the town Košice for holding [[Bible study]] meetings.<ref name="Korene">{{cite book
|title= Naše korene. Vznik a vývoj prebudeneckého hnutia na Slovensku
|last=Slavka, M. et al.
|publisher = Nádej
|location= Bratislava 
|year=1994 
|page=187
|ISBN=80-7120-029-8
|quote=R.1957 štátna bezpečnosť zatkla Miloša Rataja, vysokoškoláka v Košiciach. Bol to syn Jána Rataja – učiteľa a básnika. Tento s niekoľkými spolužiakmi v internáte sa tajne stretávali, aby rozprávali o Božom slove  a spolu sa aj modlili. Niekto ich udal, a bolo z toho veľké vyšetrovanie a súdny proces. Vo Východoslovenských novinách sa objavili články „Jed v pozlátku“  (1951 č.41), „Sekty hubia myseľ mládeže“, „Na margo procesu s modrokrižiakmi“. Bola to príprava na rozšírenie procesu v Bratislave, kde v roku 1959 zatkli bratov: Ing. O. Luptáka, Ing. Vl. Mateja, J. Rosu a J. Hollého zo Starej Turej. Súdne pojednávanie bolo neverejné (sept. 1959). Hlavnou vinou obžalovaných bolo, že rozširovali ako členovia Modrého kríža nepriateľskú kresťanskú ideológiu, ktorá je v rozpore s vedeckou marxistickou ideológiou a teda sú vlastne nepriateľmi socializmu. Preto ich odsúdili podľa paragrafu o podvracaní republiky. Súčasne im zabavili kresťanskú literatúru, hlavne od Kristíny Royovej, osobnú korešpondenciu a písacie stroje.}}</ref> The consequent investigations lead to further arrests of [[Christians]] as well as a [[lawsuit]] in 1959 with non-public hearing and coverage by state-controlled media.<ref name="Korene"/> Newspapers brought up the case under titles including: "Poison in gold-foil," "Sects are eradicating the thinking of youth"  and "Report on trial with blue [[crusaders]]" ([[Blue Cross]] [in Slovak "''Modrý kríž''"] was Christian [[abstinence]] association fighting [[alcoholism]]).<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book
|title= Naše korene. Vznik a vývoj prebudeneckého hnutia na Slovensku
|last=Slavka, M. et al.
|publisher = Nádej
|location= Bratislava 
|year=1994 
|page=187
|ISBN=80-7120-029-8
|quote=R.1957 štátna bezpečnosť zatkla Miloša Rataja, vysokoškoláka v Košiciach. Bol to syn Jána Rataja – učiteľa a básnika. Tento s niekoľkými spolužiakmi v internáte sa tajne stretávali, aby rozprávali o Božom slove  a spolu sa aj modlili. Niekto ich udal, a bolo z toho veľké vyšetrovanie a súdny proces. Vo Východoslovenských novinách sa objavili články „Jed v pozlátku“  (1951 č.41), „Sekty hubia myseľ mládeže“, „Na margo procesu s modrokrižiakmi“. Bola to príprava na rozšírenie procesu v Bratislave, kde v roku 1959 zatkli bratov: Ing. O. Luptáka, Ing. Vl. Mateja, J. Rosu a J. Hollého zo Starej Turej. Súdne pojednávanie bolo neverejné (sept. 1959). Hlavnou vinou obžalovaných bolo, že rozširovali ako členovia Modrého kríža nepriateľskú kresťanskú ideológiu, ktorá je v rozpore s vedeckou marxistickou ideológiou a teda sú vlastne nepriateľmi socializmu. Preto ich odsúdili podľa paragrafu o podvracaní republiky. Súčasne im zabavili kresťanskú literatúru, hlavne od Kristíny Royovej, osobnú korešpondenciu a písacie stroje.}}
<br>
{{cite web|author=International Blue Cross|url= http://www.ifbc.info/aboutus.aspx|title= About us|publisher=[http://www.ifbc.info/ IFBC]|date=2012|quote=The International Federation of the Blue Cross - henceforth referred to as 'International Blue Cross' - is an independent, non-governmental health development organisation, caring for alcohol and drug dependent people and their families. It was established in 1886 in Geneva, Switzerland, and is presently made up of more than a thousand health professionals around the world. ...Who we are: Forty-two national Blue Cross organizations across the world that are independent, non-denominational Christian organizations.}}</ref>  The arrested members of Blue Cross were found guilty of "spreading hostile [[Christianity|Christian ideology]]" that "contradicts scientific [[Marxism|Marxist ideology]]."<ref name="Korene"/> They were sentenced pursuant to a paragraph on subversion of the republic.<ref name="Korene"/> At the same time their personal correspondence, [[typewriter]]s and Christian literature were confiscated, including writing by national author Kristína Royová,<ref name="Korene"/> who was regarded by some authors as the "Slovak [[Kierkegaard]]."<ref>{{cite web|last= Trúsik|first=Pavol |year=2/2011|title= Kristína Royová – slovenský Kierkegaard? (Kristína Royová – Slovak Kierkegaard?) |publisher=Ostium, Internet journal for humanitarian science|quote=Na záver možno o Royovej povedať, že bola akýmsi slovenským variantom Kierkegaarda...|accessdate=2011-08-19|url=http://www.ostium.sk/index.php?mod=magazine&act=show&aid=75}}</ref>

====Kyrgyzstan====
In 1929, when Soviet officials established the Militant Atheist-Marxist Association in the [[Kyrgyzstan|Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic]], over 1,800 clerics – [[Minister|Christian priests]], Jewish [[rabbi]]s, and Muslim [[imam|mullahs]] – were denied their electoral rights.<ref name="Kyrgyzstan">{{cite book |author=Mark Avrum Ehrlich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NoPZu79hqaEC&pg=PA1138 |page=1138 |year=2009 |title=Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture |volume=1 |publisher=ABC-CLIO|quote=1929 Soviet authorities establish a branch of the Militant Atheist-Marxist Association in Kyrgyzstan. More than 1,800 clerics – priests, rabbis, and mullahs – are denied their electoral rights. Nevertheless, Jews attempt to observe Jewish religious traditions in secret.}}</ref>
Despite this, [[Jews]] [[worship]]ed in secrecy.<ref name="Kyrgyzstan"/>

====Moldova====
In [[Moldova]], according to Mihaela Robila, during "the several decades of state-sponsored militant atheism, drastic methods were used" to prohibit the "expression of religious life"; such methods included the "forcible destruction of religious monuments, liquidation of churches, and mass deportation" of believers of different religions to [[Siberia]].<ref name="Deportation">{{cite book|author=Mihaela Robila |year=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eYDNdZvc8wkC&pg=PA181 |page=181 |title=Families in Eastern Europe|publisher=Emerald Group Publishing|quote=During several decades of state-sponsored 'militant atheism,' drastic methods were used to suppress and prohibit any expression of religious life. There was a forcible destruction of religious monuments, liquidation of churches, and mass deportation to Siberia of religious people and believers of different religions.}}</ref>

===French Revolution===
[[File:Cruikshank - the radicals arms.jpg|thumb|200px|1819 Caricature by English caricaturist George Cruikshank. Titled "The Radical's Arms", it depicts the infamous guillotine. "No God! No Religion! No King! No Constitution!" is written in the republican banner.]]
Counter-Enlightenment writers frequently charged the [[Philosopher|philosophes]] with militant atheism which sought to destroy the Church and the [[Monarchy|monarchical]] form of government."<ref name="Counter">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wVIoCtB3m74C&pg=PA329 |page=329 |author=Mark Bevir|year=2010 |title =Encyclopedia of Political Theory, Volume 1|publisher=SAGE Publications|quote=Moreover, materialism simultaneously was expected to undermine religious faith, and the philosophes, despite their wide variety of religious views, were charged with a militant atheism bent on the destruction of church and throne alike. As these pillars of traditional society were under attack, Counter-Enlightenment writers predicted horrific scenes of anarchy, chaos, perversion, and bloodshed. When the French Revolution culminated in regicide and the Reign of Terror, the bloody warnings of the anti-philosophes suddenly appeared prophetic.}}</ref> In addition, Timothy Dwight also went as far as to not only accuse Voltaire and Diderot, two of the philosophes, with trying to dechristianize France, but even listed a six-step plan they created to do so.<ref>The Duty of Americans at the Present Crisis by Timothy Dwight, July 4, 1798<br />
“About the year 1728, Voltaire, so celebrated for his wit and brilliancy and not less distinguished for his hatred of Christianity and his abandonment of principle, formed a systematical design to destroy Christianity and to introduce in its stead a general diffusion of irreligion and atheism. For this purpose he associated with himself Frederick the II, king of Prussia, and Mess. D’Alembert and Diderot, the principal compilers of the Encyclopedie, all men of talents, atheists and in the like manner abandoned. // “The principle parts of this system were: // “1. The compilation of the Encyclopedie: in which with great art and insidiousness the doctrines of … Christian theology were rendered absurd and ridiculous; and the mind of the reader was insensibly steeled against conviction and duty. // “2. The overthrow of the religious orders in Catholic countries, a step essentially necessary to the destruction of the religion professed in those countries. // “3. The establishment of a sect of philosophists to serve, it is presumed as a conclave, a rallying point, for all their followers. // “4. The appropriation to themselves, and their disciples, of the places and honors of members of the French Academy, the most respectable literary society in France, and always considered as containing none but men of prime learning and talents. In this way they designed to hold out themselves and their friends as the only persons of great literary and intellectual distinction in that country, and to dictate all literary opinions to the nation. // “5. The fabrication of books of all kinds against Christianity, especially such as excite doubt and generate contempt and derision. Of these they issued by themselves and their friends who early became numerous, an immense number; so printed as to be purchased for little or nothing, and so written as to catch the feelings, and steal upon the approbation, of every class of men. // “6. The formation of a secret Academy, of which Voltaire was the standing president, and in which books were formed, altered, forged, imputed as posthumous to deceased writers of reputation, and sent abroad with the weight of their names. These were printed and circulated at the lowest price through all classes of men in an uninterrupted succession, and through every part of the kingdom.”<br />Read more at https://www.wnd.com/2006/04/35810/#LFe1HvZ0eTHxBBmT.99</ref> Two prominent militant atheists of the [[French Revolution]] included Jacques Hébert and Baron Anacharsis Cloots,<ref name="Timothy Ferris">Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3L0jfOA7RwC&pg=PA86&dq=cloots+militant+atheist&hl=en&ei=R0lUTr72ENLKqQGk9Kx7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=cloots%20militant%20atheist&f=false|page=86|author=Timothy Ferris  |year=2008 |title =The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature|publisher=[[Harper]]|quote=Locked up in the Luxembourg prison, he passed the time debating religion with his friend Anacharsis Cloots, a militant atheist, until Cloots was guillotined on March 24.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DeeZ1yHjlFUC&pg=PT584&dq=cloots+militant+atheist&hl=en&ei=R0lUTr72ENLKqQGk9Kx7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false|page=86|author=John Keane|year=2003 |title =Tom Paine: A Political Life|publisher=[[Harper]]|quote=nvariably, their conversations turned into heated arguments, with Paine resisting the militant atheism of Cloots, who regularly called himself “Jesus Christ's personal enemy” and berated Paine “for his credulity in still indulging so many religious and political prejudices."}}</ref> who both advocated the dechristianisation of France.<ref name="Jean-Pierre Gross">Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=24Xk90Bsp4gC&pg=PT55&dq=french+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=Tuv6TZaKB8O1tge4lcG8Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=militant%20atheist&f=false|author=Alister E. McGrath|title =The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World|publisher=Random House|quote=So was the French Revolution fundamentally atheist? There is no doubt that such a view is to be found in much Christian and atheist literature on the movement. Cloots was at the forefront of the dechristianization movement that gathered around the militant atheist Jacques Hébert. He "debaptised" himself, setting aside his original name of Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grâce. For Cloots, religion was simply not to be tolerated. |accessdate = 2011-03-05}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9gqLGoAsrxwC&pg=PA23&dq=militant+atheists,+who+took+naturally+dechristianization&hl=en&ei=DEhUTtvLA4O1qQGTh4F8&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false|page=23|author=Jean-Pierre Gross  |year=1997 |title =Fair Shares for All: Jacobin Egalitarianism in Practice |publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=It is not without significance in this regard that, while many of the confirmed terrorists were militant atheists, who took naturally to blasphemy and adhered to the dechristianisation movement in the autumn and winter of 1793, the moderates were often deists who shared Robespierre's and Tom Paine's belief in the usefulness of religion.}}</ref> Cloots, says [[Alister McGrath]], did not believe in [[religious tolerance]].<ref name="Cloots"/> He vigorously campaigned for the atheistic [[Cult of Reason]], which was officially proclaimed on 10 November 1793. According to James Gray, Thomas Holcroft,<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dnqi3gRxgvQC&pg=PA164 |page=164 |author=Christine L. Krueger; George Stade; Karen Karbiener; Book Builders Llc (COR)|title =Encyclopædia of British Writers: 19th and 20th Centuries|publisher=Infobase Publishing|quote=Holcroft, Thomas (1745–1809) ''playwright'', ''novelist'' A militant atheist and a fervent believer in the individual's capacity for self-improvement, he was drawn into a circle of political and social radicals that included Thomas Paine, John Tooke, William Godwin, and Mary Wollstonecraft.}}
<br>
{{cite web|url=http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/cla/ebro/?p=531|author=James Gray|title =Review of The French Revolution and the London Stage 1789–1805, by George Taylor|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=In two chapters devoted to reactions of the English stage to the Reign of Terror in France, Taylor notes that Thomas Holcroft (1745–1809), a militant atheist and a pro-Revolutionary zealot, helped to found in 1792 the London Corresponding Society, whose main aim was to connect with radical elements in Paris in the same year.}}</ref> an English militant atheist, was instrumental in founding the London Corresponding Society in 1792, "whose main aim was to connect with radical elements in [[Paris]] in the same year".<ref name="Corresponding">{{cite web|url=http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/cla/ebro/?p=531|author=James Gray|title =Review of The French Revolution and the London Stage 1789–1805, by George Taylor|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=In two chapters devoted to reactions of the English stage to the Reign of Terror in France, Taylor notes that Thomas Holcroft (1745–1809), a militant atheist and a pro-Revolutionary zealot, helped to found in 1792 the London Corresponding Society, whose main aim was to connect with radical elements in Paris in the same year.}}</ref>

===People's Republic of China and the Cultural Revolution===
[[File:Destroy the old world Cultural Revolution poster.jpg|thumb|200px|left|A People's Republic of China propaganda poster stating "Destroy the Old World & Forge the New World," with a worker smashing a [[crucifix]], a [[Buddha]] murti, and a classical Chinese sacred text; 1967.]]

''See also:'' [[China and atheism]] and [[Persecution of Christians in the People's Republic of China]]

The [[People's Republic of China]] is officially an [[atheist state]],<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X49uEF5XUX0C&pg=PA108 |page=108 |title =China in the 21st century|publisher=Oxford University Press|quote=China is still officially an atheist country, but many religions are growing rapidly, including evangelical Christianity (estimates of how many Chinese have converted to some form of Protestantism range widely, but at least tens of millions have done so) and various hybrid sects that combine elements of traditional creeds and belief systems (Buddhism mixed with local folk cults, for example).}}
::{{cite book|page=108 |title =The State of Religion Atlas|publisher=Simon & Schuster|quote=Atheism continues to be the official position of the governments of China, North Korea and Cuba.}}</ref> as atheism is endorsed and promoted by the ruling [[Chinese Communist Party]].<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mofX6zdChgcC&pg=PA132&dq=china+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=I_z2TZmePMGW0gGr_5CHCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=china%20militant%20atheism&f=false|title =The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics)|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=Seeking a complete annihilation of religion, places of worship were shut down; temples, churches, and mosques were destroyed; artifacts were smashed; sacred texts were burnt; and it was a criminal offence even to possess a religious artifact or sacred text. Atheism had long been the official doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party, but this new form of militant atheism made every effort to eradicate religion completely.|accessdate = 2011-03-05}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GglrUksvCUcC&pg=PA34&dq=china+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=I_z2TZmePMGW0gGr_5CHCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=militant%20atheism&f=false|page=34|title =Between China and Europe: Person, Culture, and Emotion in Macao|author=João de Pina Cabral|publisher=Berg|date=2002|isbn=0826457495|quote=These statistics could be interpreted to mean that the policies of militant atheism furthered by the Chinese Communist regime affected the population that arrived in the Territory after 1976.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qhe6vP66jN0C&pg=PA129&dq=china+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=I_z2TZmePMGW0gGr_5CHCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=china%20militant%20atheism&f=false|page=129|title =Modern China: A Guide to a Century of Change|author=Graham Hutchings|publisher=Harvard University Press|date=15 October 2003|isbn=0674012402|quote=The problem for Beijing is that these homelands constitute strategic border regions containing valuable natural resources. The central government's determination to control such territories, coupled with the militant atheism at the heart of its ideology, has often made a powder keg of relations between the Han and the non-Han in west China.}}</ref> When the People's Republic of China was established, militant atheist functionaries compelled the Party to impose control on and limit religious suppliers.<ref name="PRC">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SX8ZTp2vdu4C&pg=PA432 |page=432 |title =The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|quote=As soon as the PRC was established, militant atheism compelled the party to impose control and limitations on religious suppliers. Foreign missionaries, who were considered a part of Western imperialism, were expelled, and cultic or heterodox sects that were regarded as reactionary organizations (''fandong hui dao men''), were banned. Further, major religions – Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism, which were difficult to eliminate and possesed diplomatic value for the isolated regime – were co-opted into national associations.}}</ref> As a result, foreign [[missionary|missionaries]] were expelled from the nation.<ref name="PRC"/> Furthermore, major religions including [[Buddhism]], [[Daoism]], [[Islam]] and [[Christianity]] were co-opted into national associations, while minor sects were labelled as reactionary organisations and were therefore banned.<ref name="PRC"/> "Up to 1 October 1949, when Mao Tse-tung officially proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC)," the communists, acting as the de facto government of the regions they controlled, killed to 3,500,000 individuals.<ref name="October">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Q30HcvCVuIC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=china+number+killed+communism&source=bl&ots=jYezNqjNjp&sig=5UF-iGS-qG3HQdbvzw-wXgxnlhg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PZVXUMTHA8fByQGirIGoCA&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=china%20number%20killed%20communism&f=false|page=150|title =Encyclopedia of Genocide, Volume I|publisher=ABC-CLIO|date=1999|isbn=0874369282|quote=As for the communists, from their very formation as a Party on the Soviet model (with the help of Soviet advisors), the Chinese communists used the same kind of repression and terror employed by the Chinese nationalists. They executed so-called counterrevolutionaries, nationalist sympathizers, and other political opponents. Up to 1 October 1949, when Mao Tse-tung officially proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC), the communists, acting as the de facto government of the regions they controlled, killed from almost 1,800,000 to almost 11,700,000 people, most likely close to 3,500,000.}}</ref>

However, during the [[Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution]], a new form of militant atheism made great efforts to eradicate religion completely.<ref name=ConflictRevolt>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mofX6zdChgcC&pg=PA132&dq=china+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=I_z2TZmePMGW0gGr_5CHCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=china%20militant%20atheism&f=false|title =The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics)|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=Seeking a complete annihilation of religion, places of worship were shut down; temples, churches, and mosques were destroyed; artifacts were smashed; sacred texts were burnt; and it was a criminal offence even to possess a religious artifact or sacred text. Atheism had long been the official doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party, but this new form of militant atheism made every effort to eradicate religion completely.|accessdate = 2011-03-05}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jn-kcJc47m4C&pg=PA129 |page=129 |title =Religion and Modern Society: Citizenship, Secularisation and the State |publisher=Cambridge University Press|author=Bryan S. Turner|quote=The contrast between religion in American and militant atheism in China could not have been more stark or profound. While the Red Guards under Mao Zedong's leadership were busy destroying Buddhist pagodas, Catholic churches and Daoist temples, the Christian Right were equally busy condemning the communists.}}</ref> Under this militant atheism espoused by [[Mao Zedong]], houses of worship were shut down; Buddhist pagodas, Daoist temples, Christian [[church]]es, and Muslim [[mosque]]s were destroyed; artifacts were smashed; and sacred texts were burnt.<ref name=ConflictRevolt/>  Moreover, it was a criminal offence to even possess a religious artifact or sacred text.<ref name="Revolt"/> The death toll in 20th Cenutry China attributable to Mao Tse-Tsung's "[[Great Leap Forward]]" is estimated by reputable sources "to be as high as forty million."<ref name="Leap">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rbgK8wA7ubgC&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=China+number+of+people+perished+militant+atheism&source=bl&ots=bN8QWuhcq2&sig=X2BB0iKRJbWNA8DlHzJeT2yS6to&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZZNXUOP1KcaDywHEvYCIDg&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=China%20number%20of%20people%20perished%20militant%20atheism&f=false|page=125|title=No, We Can't: Radical Islam, Militant Secularism and the Myth of Coexistence|publisher=Chosen Books|date=1 October 2011|isbn=0800795202|author=Robert Stearns|quote=Reputable sources estimate the death toll in twentieth-century China to be as high as forty million, attributed directly to Mao Tse-Tung's "Great Leap Forward."}}</ref> However, following the death of [[Mao Zedong]] in 1976, many former policies towards religious freedom returned although they are limited and tenuous, as religion is closely regulated by the government.<ref name="Revolt"/>

According to philosopher Julia Ching, the [[Falun Gong]] religion was seen by [[Jiang Zemin]], the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, as an ideological threat to militant atheism and historical materialism.<ref name="Ching">{{cite web|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120817111550/http://www.rickross.com/reference/fa_lun_gong/falun258.html|author=Julie Ching|title =The Falun Gong: Religious and political implications|publisher=American Asian Review|date=1 January 2001|quote=Now, Jiang is emphasizing the need for people, especially party members, to study politics. He accepts the threat of Falun Gong as an ideological one: spiritual beliefs against militant atheism and historical materialism. He wishes to purge the government and the military of such beliefs. His decision is in line with the suspicion of religious protest by the traditional Chinese state. As it turns out, the government's campaign against "evil cults" includes popular folk cults, as well as underground Christians-Catholics and Protestants who meet at house churches.|accessdate = 28 July 2011}}</ref> Nevertheless, Fengang Yang, a professor at [[Purdue University]], writes that the "predominant view on religion has moved away from militant atheism to a more scientific, objective and consequently more balanced approach to religion."<ref name="Purdue">{{cite journal|page=101 |author=Fengang Yang|title =Between Secularist Ideology and Desecularizing Reality: The Birth and Growth of Religious Research in Communist China|journal=Sociology of religion|vol=65|quote=Under the ride of the Chinese Communist Party, the scholarship of religious research in China has changed from virtual nonexistence in the first thirty years (1949–1979) to flourishing in the reform era (1979–present). Moreover, the predominant view on religion has moved away from militant atheism to a more scientific, objective and consequently more balanced approach to religion. This paper attempts to trace this intellectual history in China and to examine the role of academia in the religious scene. There are three distinct periods in this development: the domination of atheism from 1949 to 1979, the birth of religious research in the 1980s, and the growth of the scholarship in the 1990s, despite political restrictions. Religious research was intended by the government to serve atheist propaganda, but it grew into an independent academic discipline responsive to the desecularizing reality.|year=2004}}</ref>

===Cuba===
[[File:Militant Atheism in Cuba.jpg|thumb|250px|A former Catholic Christian [[church]], which was closed down by militant atheist authorities in [[Cuba]].]]
Between the late 1960s and late 1980s, the state of [[Cuba]] adopted a policy of militant atheism.<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4MYGfvqpbsC&pg=PA73&dq=Cuba+militant+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9HGhUaHIBMLZyQGwtYHACA&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Cuba%20militant%20atheism&f=false|date=7 June 2013|page=73|title =The Cooking of History|author=Stephan Palmié|publisher=University of Chicago Press|quote=For had it not been for the post-1959 exodus from the island-fueled in part by the policies of "militant atheism" adopted by the Cuban state between the late 1960s and late 1980s-that spread Afro-Cuban religious practices across much of the western world, chances are that the event at which Prieto uttered such momentous words might never have taken place (Argyriadis 2005, Argyriadis and Capone 2004, Capone 2010, Frigeriod 2004).}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i5PhTtgxc84C&pg=PA22&dq=Cuba+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KLahUeDkKYrWygGr1IGQDA&ved=0CFgQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Cuba%20atheism&f=false|title =Cuba: Foreign Policy & Government Guide, Volume 1|publisher=International Business Publications|date=1 May 2001|quote=Officially, Cuba has been an atheist state for most of the Castro era. In 1962, the government of Fidel Castro seized and shut down more than 400 Catholic schools, charging that they spread dangerous beliefs among the people. In 1991, however, the Communist Party lifted its prohibition against religious believers seeking membership, and a year later the constitution was amended to characterize the state as secular instead of atheist.|page=22}}</ref> Under the rule of [[Fidel Castro]], Christian priests who spoke out against the injustices of the [[atheist state|atheist régime]] were arrested.<ref name="Arrest">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Frgm5QodnFoC&pg=PA348&dq=Cuba+militant+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D3OhUZDDNei7ygG4toA4&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Cuba%20militant%20atheism&f=false|year=2007|page=348|title =Comrades! A History of World Communism|author=Robert Service|publisher=Harvard University Press|quote=The Cuban clergy naturally felt hostile to the policies of militant atheism. Castro for his part arrested priests who refused to hold their tongues about his regime. He was less hard on the indigenous religious traditions unassociated in their origins with Christianity.}}</ref> In addition, militant atheism was an integral part of Cuba's school curriculum.<ref name="Curriculum">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BOtTuv4n-E8C&pg=PA294&dq=Cuba+militant+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9HGhUaHIBMLZyQGwtYHACA&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Cuba%20militant%20atheism&f=false|page=294|year=1 Jaunary 2012|title =New Worlds: A Religious History of Latin America|author=John Lynch|publisher=Yale University Press|quote=In February 1986 the Encuentro Nacional Eclesial Cubano, the first national conclave was attended by Cardinal Eduardo Pironio, representing the Vatican, and several United States and Latin American bishops. It expressed support 'for the socialist objectives of the Cuban revolution, though not for the programme of the Communist Party' and praised the social advances of the Cuban system, perpetuating the illusion that this was a social revolution gone wrong. A number of requests were made, at odds with the initial premises. First there should be respect for religious beliefs and an end to the militant atheism in Cuba's school curriculum. There should be greater access to the medial for Catholic groups.}}</ref> Moreover, 'religious believers were fired from their jobs and sent to labor camps for "re-education".'<ref name="NPR">{{cite book|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130108154|title =Cubans Flock To Evangelism To Fill Spiritual Vacuum|publisher=Nick Miroff|date=8 October 2010|quote=At the height of Cuba's militant atheism in the late 1960s and early '70s, religious believers were fired from their jobs and sent to labor camps for "re-education."|publisher=[[National Public Radio]]}}</ref> The effect of these factors led to a population that was "largely atheist".<ref name="Population">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BeESAQAAIAAJ&q=Cuba+militant+atheism&dq=Cuba+militant+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PbKhUZzEJorLyQHItIHQCw&ved=0CFoQ6AEwBw|title =CubaINFO, Volume 11|publisher=Cuban Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University|year=1999|quote=But Cubans continue to be largely atheist or followers of Afro-Cuban religions.}}</ref> In fact, people starting bestowing upon their children non-Christian names.<ref name="Naming">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5fbhSQKuMj0C&pg=PA141&dq=cuba+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NbehUbOXDMbkyQGhjYGgBQ&ved=0CGIQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=cuba%20atheism&f=false|title =Cuba's Primer - Castro's Earring Economy|author=Gonzalo Fernández|date=6 November 2009|quote=In Cuba, with the imposition of communistic-atheism, people started naming their children with non-Christian names. Many men and women, among the younger generation of Cubans, have creatively assigned names starting with the letter "Y". For instance, the names of two young Cuban baseball players are Yunei Escobar, with the Atlanta Braves, and Yuniesky Betancourt, with the Seattle Mariners. One Cuban boxer, now in the United States is named Yan Barthelemy. (All of them recently defected from Cuba).|page=141}}</ref> In 1992, however, the atheism of the state was officially renounced, and Cuba became a secular state.<ref name="Amend">Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i5PhTtgxc84C&pg=PA22&dq=Cuba+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KLahUeDkKYrWygGr1IGQDA&ved=0CFgQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Cuba%20atheism&f=false|title =Cuba: Foreign Policy & Government Guide, Volume 1|publisher=International Business Publications|date=1 May 2001|quote=Officially, Cuba has been an atheist state for most of the Castro era. In 1962, the government of Fidel Castro seized and shut down more than 400 Catholic schools, charging that they spread dangerous beliefs among the people. In 1991, however, the Communist Party lifted its prohibition against religious believers seeking membership, and a year later the constitution was amended to characterize the state as secular instead of atheist.|page=22}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1dTP7kzaC3EC&pg=PT110&dq=Cuba+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=drOhUcGyJujUyQGM2IHYDw&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAg|title =Cuba Like a local Michelin Guide 2012-2013|publisher=Michelin Travel & Lifestyle|date=1 April 2012|quote=In the 1990s, with the economic crisis and the questioning of political ideals, many people sought social and moral support from the Church and its charity work. The renewed vitality of Roman Catholicism forced authorities to adopt a more flexible stance. There were numerous signs of this detente. In 1992 Fidel Castro official renounced the atheism of the State and allowed foreign priests to come to Cuba.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GzOQHe4eNxEC&pg=PA316&dq=Cuba+atheism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=drOhUcGyJujUyQGM2IHYDw&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Cuba%20atheism&f=false|title =How the World Learns|author=Dennis Johnson, Joe Musser|publisher=David C Cook|date=1 January 2012|quote=...the ruling Communist party had changed the country's constitution. The revolutionists had referred to Cuba as an “atheist” nation when it changed the constitution, but more recently it was changed to a "secular nation"—a dramatic reversal of perception and attitude.|page=316}}</ref>

===Politics===
====History====
Sociologist [[Rodney Stark]] describes [[Thomas Hobbes]] and the other originators of the 'social "scientific" study of religion' as "militant opponents of religion" whose "militant atheism...was motivated partly by politics".<ref>[[Rodney Stark]] "Atheism, Faith and the Social Scientific Study of Religion" ''Journal of Contemporary Religion'' Vol 14 No 1 1999, pp. 41–62.
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The 19th century political activist [[Charles Bradlaugh]] has been called a militant atheist by several authors,<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qVrUTUelE6YC&pg=PA566 |page=566 |title=Dictionary of nineteenth-century journalism in Great Britain and Ireland |author=Laurel Brake, Marysa Demoor |publisher=Academia Press|year=2009 |quote=A well-set Sunday weekly* selling for 1 d, the ''Secular Review's'' stance was representative of a relatively moderate style of Secularism, sympathetic to socialism and aligned against the individualism and militant atheism of Charles Bradlaugh and his ''National Reformer''. In its discussion of religion, philosophy, ethics, science and history, and in reviewing Secularism and 'what purports to be so, and is not', the title's stated domain of inquiry was 'this world, without implying disregard or denial of another' (Holyoake 1876).}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mnURdbCeLOMC&pg=PT190 |page=190 |title=Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity|author=Craig Ott; Harold A. Netland |year=2006 |publisher=Baker Academic|quote=She was a close friend and coworker of Charles Bradlaugh, the militant atheist and first president of the National Secular Society (set up in 1866), and helped to edit his journal, the National Reformer.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ge5hxcscTkYC&pg=PA286 |page=286 |title=History, Humanity and Evolution: Essays for John C. Greene |author=James Richard Moore |year=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=Though at first allied with the militant atheist Charles Bradlaugh (1833–91) and his National Secular Society (NSS), the elder Watts refused in 1877 to defend Bradlaugh's right to republish Knowlton's Fruits of Philosophy, a pamphlet on on birth control.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jn-kcJc47m4C&pg=PA129 |page=129 |year=2011 |title=Religion and Modern Society: Citizenship, Secularisation and the State|author=Bryan S. Turner|publisher=Cambridge University Press|quote=Secularism, when under the inspiration of militant atheists such as Charles Bradlaugh, Member of Parliament for Northhampton in Great Britain, assumed a more strident, uncompromising and critical relationship to religious belief.}}
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and is often credited as the first militant atheist in the history of Western civilization.<ref>Multiple references:
{{cite web |url=http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/madalyn_ohair/agnostic.html|title=Agnostics|author=Madalyn Murray O'Hair|publisher=American Atheist Online Services|quote=Charles Bradlaugh was the first militant Atheist in the history of Western civilization. He was elected to the British parliament six times, and each time that body refused to seat him because he was an Atheist – and because he would not swear his allegiance to queen and country, so help him "God." Everyone in England knew Bradlaugh and his fight, and he raised the issue of Atheism to every person in public life as he sought allies.|accessdate = 2011-03-05}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hB9lXQKaUIQC&pg=PA335 |page=335 |title=Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits|author=Ian Hill Nish, Hugh Cortazzi|publisher=Psychology Press |year=2003 |quote=At South Place, Robert Young also came to know Charles Bradlaugh (1833–91), the first militant Atheist.}}</ref>
The term has also been applied to other 19th century political thinkers such as [[Ludwig Feuerbach|Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach]],<ref>The Debate Between Feuerbach and Stirner: An Introduction, in ''The Philosophical Forum'' '''8''', numbers 2–4, (1976) – available on the web [http://www.logoslibrary.eu/pls/wordtc/new_wordtheque.w6_start.doc?code=56879&lang=EN here]
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Annie Besant,<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rGiSfU7PJhcC&pg=PA155 |page=155 |title=Theosophist Magazine Collection 1920–1955|author=Annie Wood Besant |year=2003 |publisher=Kessinger Publishing|quote=Madame Blavatsky, a Russian, suspected of being a spy, converted Anglo-Indians to a passionate belief in her Theosophy mission, even when the Jingo fever was the hottest, and in her declining years she succeeded in winning over to the new-old religion Annie Besant, who had for years fought in the forefront of the van of militant atheism.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3lobX1DC_i0C&pg=PA127 |page=127 |year=2001 |title=Globalization and educational rights: an intercivilizational analysis|author=Joel H. Spring|publisher=Psychology Press|quote=Annie Besant had an important influence on Nehru's family and on social reform in India. Born in 1847, she was known in England as 'Red Annie' because of her activities as a militant atheist, socialist, and trade union organizer.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KV-ZFdDd16QC&pg=PA139 |page=139 |year=2003 |title=Deviating voices: women and orthodox religious tradition|author=S. W. Jackman, Sydney Wayne Jackman|publisher=James Clarke & Co.|quote=The final chapter of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's life was to be shared with the individual who probably became her most famous disciple, namely, Annie Besant, who had had two children while married to an Anglican clergyman, but was now a militant atheist and radical.}}</ref>
and [[Schopenhauer]].<ref name="Schopenhauer">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qdHD7LnOseYC |title=Schopenhauer, religion and morality: the humble path to ethics|author=Gerard Mannion|publisher=Ashgate Publishing|quote=This work challenges the textbook assessment of Schopenhauer as militant atheist and absolute pessimist.|page=i |year=2003}}</ref> [[Christopher Ferrara]] in his book ''Liberty: The God that Failed'' implied that [[John Locke]], like his contemporary Thomas Hobbes, also was ultimately motivated by militant atheism.

A significant militant atheist movement known as the Holbachians,<ref name="HolbachMA2">{{cite book|author=Jean-François Marmontel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L6uMB4zwIn0C&pg=PR35 |page=xxxv |year=1895 |title=Marmontel's  Moral Tales|publisher=Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.|quote=It certainly stopped altogether short of the militant atheism of the Holbachian coterie; and it may be doubtful whether, except in the ardour of the novitiate, it reached Voltaire's dislike of positive creeds.}}</ref> disciples of militant atheist [[Baron d'Holbach]],<ref name="HolbachO">{{cite book|author=Gerald Robert McDermott |year=2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4-W7O854xgC&pg=PA27 |page=27 |title=Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods: Christian Theology, Enlightenment Religion, and Non-Christian Faiths|publisher=Oxford University Press|quote=The Holbachians were disciples of Baron d'Holbach, a militant atheist who opposed both Christianity and deism (because it was theistic).}}
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opposed [[Judaism]], [[Christianity]] and [[Deism]].<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Gerald Robert McDermott |year=2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4-W7O854xgC&pg=PA27 |page=27 |title=Jonathan Edwards Confronts the Gods: Christian Theology, Enlightenment Religion, and Non-Christian Faiths|publisher=Oxford University Press|quote=The Holbachians were disciples of Baron d'Holbach, a militant atheist who opposed both Christianity and deism (because it was theistic).}}
::{{cite book|author=Hyam Maccoby |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h6Wo5CIgk84C&pg=PA59 |page=59 |title=Antisemitism and Modernity: Innovation and Continuity|publisher=Psychology Press|quote=The Holbachians formed a considerable atheistic movement, which specialized in attacking Judaism as a means of denigrating its offshoot Christianity.}}</ref>

The Polish religious leader Stefan Wyszyński decided during his imprisonment (1953–1956) "to defend the faith of the nation against militant atheism by means of the power of the [[Virgin Mary]]."<ref name="VirginMary">{{cite book|author=George Weigel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6kFfjei_XCEC&pg=PA114 |page=114 |title=The Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism |year=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press|date=1992|quote=As his former colleague and biographer Andrzej Micewiski puts it, Cardinal Wyszyński decided, during his imprisonment, "to defend the faith of the nation against militant atheism by means of the power of the Virgin Mary." Crushed under two totalitarianisms since 1939, "the national and the Church would be that the country be freed from unwanted, imposed political submission," through the intercession of the Holy Mother.}}</ref>

In 1952 philosopher Herbert W. Schneider, when writing on Religion in 20th Century America, wrote of the "few remaining militant atheists" in the [[United States]].<ref name="Schneider">Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=Herbert Wallace Schneider |year=1964 |page=31 |title=Religion in 20th Century America|publisher=Athenæum|quote=For behind the theoretical formulations lie several important legal decisions and group conflicts, all of which tended to weaken the position of the few remaining militant atheists or freethinkers and of the many anticlericals...}}
::{{cite book|author=Will Herberg|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-STjdtc075gC&pg=PA65 |page=65 |year=1983 |title=Protestant, Catholic, Jew: an essay in American religious sociology|publisher=University of Chicago Press|quote=Herbert W. Schneider speaks of the 'dwindling band of radical secularists' and the 'few remaining militant atheists and freethinkers' (Herbert Wallace Schneider, ''Religion in 20th Century America'' [Harvard, 1952], pp. 32, 31, 65).}}
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====Italian Socialist movement====
[[Benito Mussolini]] was a militant atheist in his early life.<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kne26UnE1wQC&pg=PA408 |page=408 |year=2004 |title=Fascism: Post-war fascisms|publisher=Taylor & Francis|quote=Mussolini did not have any philosophy: he only had rhetoric. He was a militant atheist at the beginning and alter signed the Convention with the Church and welcomed the bishops who blessed the Fascist pennants. In his early anticerlical years, according to a likely legend, he once asked God, in order to prove His existence, to strike him down on the spot.}}
::{{cite book|author=United States. Directorate for Armed Forces Information and Education|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yh8OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA172 |page=172 |year=1962 |title=Ideas in Conflict: Writing about the Great Issues of Civilization|publisher=Wadsworth Publishing|quote=He became a militant atheist at an early age and throughout his life, flouted the conventions of Christain morality.}}
::{{cite book|author=William Henry Chamberlin|page=123 |title=The World's Iron Age|publisher=The Macmillan Company|quote=Fascism, according to the former militant atheist Mussolini, 'respects the God of the ascetics, of the saints, of the heroes and also God as prayed to by the primitive heart of the people.'|year=1941}}
::{{cite book|author=Maxine Block, E. Mary Trow |page=626 |title=Current Biography: Who's News and Why, 1942|year=1942 |publisher=H. W. Wilson Company|quote=It was also pointed out that Mussolini had been a militant atheist and that the accord with the Pope was one the latter would one day regret, although the Catholic Church had supported the crusade for nationalism and "against Bolshevism.}}
::{{cite book|author=Alfred Mitchell Bingham|page=145 |title=Man's estate: adventures in economic discovery|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|quote=Mussolini was a militant atheist, a militant republican, and a militant Marxist, before he became a fascist. |year=1942}}</ref>
Like other socialists of the Romagna, Mussolini adopted the militant atheism of the Italian Socialist movement.<ref name="Mussolini4">{{cite book|author=Jasper Godwin Ridley|page=24 |year=2000 |title=Mussolini: a biography|publisher=Cooper Square Press|quote=Mussolini, like all the Socialists of the Romagna, had adopted the militant atheism of the Italian Socialist movement.}}
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In his later life, however, Mussolini signed a Concordat with the Church in order to consort with the [[bishops]] who blessed the Fascist banners.<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kne26UnE1wQC&pg=PA408 |page=408 |year=2004 |title=Fascism: Post-war fascisms|publisher=Taylor & Francis|quote=Mussolini did not have any philosophy: he only had rhetoric. He was a militant atheist at the beginning and alter signed the Convention with the Church and welcomed the bishops who blessed the Fascist pennants. In his early anticlerical years, according to a likely legend, he once asked God, in order to prove His existence, to strike him down on the spot.}}
::{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XkLsB1NExjEC&pg=PT86 |page=71 |year=2002 |title=Five Moral Pieces|publisher=Mariner Books|quote=He started out as a militant atheist, only to sign the Concordat with the Church and to consort with the bishops who blessed the Fascist banners.}}</ref>

==New Atheism==

''See also:''  [[New Atheism]] and  [[Causes of the New Atheism movement]]

In ''The [[New Atheism|New Atheist]] Novel'', Arthur Bradley and Andrew Tate  state that militant atheism is one of the elements "that make up the New Atheist creed."<ref name="Novel">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B0qZM_JgRcwC&pg=PA11&dq=new+atheism+militant+atheism&hl=en&ei=T2IfTor_GcXc0QGcx4WXAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=new%20atheism%20militant%20atheism&f=false|title=New Atheist Novel: Fiction, Philosophy and Polemic after 9/11|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|quote=As we will see, all four have expressed support - whether enthusiastically or more guardedly - for the New Atheism in one form or another: McEwan and Amis have written and spoken admirably of Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris on many occasions; Pullman has published an appreciative essay on Dawkins whereas Rushdie has made public comments in support of Hitchens. However, the New Atheist novel is much more than simply a fictionalization of the peculiar cluster of beliefs - militant atheism, evolutionary biology, neuroscience and even political Neo-Conservatism - that make up the New Atheist creed.|accessdate = 2011-03-05}}</ref> Ian H. Hutchinson, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], has stated that the New Atheism movement constitutes militant atheism because demonstrates an "attack on religion" and a "lack of respect at all for religion."<ref name="New Atheism">{{cite web|url=http://biologos.org/blog/ian-hutchinson-on-the-new-atheists|title =Ian Hutchinson on the New Atheists|publisher=BioLogos Foundation|quote=Ian Hutchinson tells us in this video discussion that New Atheism -- a term used to describe recent intellectual attacks against religion -- is actually a misnomer. It is better, he says, to call the movement “Militant Atheism”. In fact, the arguments made by New Atheists are not new at all, but rather extensions of intellectual threads which have existed since the late 19th century. The only unique quality of this movement is the degree of criticism and edge with which its members write and speak about religion. According to Hutchinson, the books written by New Atheists in the past decade simply restate many of the same arguments which have emanated from atheist thinkers for decades. The militant edge of these arguments is what makes “New” Atheism unique and elevates it to a level of popularity within a subset of the population. It is because these Militant Atheists show no respect at all for religion, says Hutchinson, that they are receiving status as a new movement.|author=Ian H. Hutchinson|accessdate = 29 September 2011}}</ref> Prof. Hutchinson also states that the arguments employed by the New Atheism movement are extensions of intellectual threads which have existed since the late 19th century.<ref name="New Atheism"/> As such, recently, the term ''militant atheist'' has been used to describe New Atheist leaders such as [[Richard Dawkins]], [[Christopher Hitchens]], [[Sam Harris]], [[Daniel Dennett]] and Victor Stenger.<ref>Multiple references:
*{{cite book|author=Elaine A. Heath|title=Mystic Way of Evangelism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-DGMXJ1JgdMC&pg=PT81 |page=81 |publisher=Baker Academic|quote=Richard Dawkins's Foundation for Reason and Science is out to debunk religion, which Dawkins calls "the God delusion." His book of the same title is a best seller, and Dawkins is not alone. Sam Harris, Daniel C. Dennett, Victor J. Stenger, and Christopher Hitchens are only a handful of militant atheists who are convinced Christianity is toxic to human life.|year=2008}}
*{{cite book|author=Marcelo Gleiser|title=A Tear at the Edge of Creation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mJTJO3vZkSoC&pg=PA17 |page=17 |publisher=Simon & Schuster|quote=Scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, philosopher Daniel Dennett, and British journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens, a group sometimes referred to as "the Four Horsemen," have taken the offensive, deeming religious belief a form of "delusion," a dangerous kind of collective madness that has wreaked havoc upon the world for millennia. Their rhetoric is the emblem of a militant radical atheism, a view I believe is as inflammatory and intolerant as that of the religious fundamentalists they criticize.|year=2010}}
*{{cite journal|title=Militant atheism, pragmatism, and the God-shaped hole |journal=International Journal for Philosophy of Religion |date= |first=Andrew |last=Fiala |volume=65 |issue=3 |pages=139–151 |id= |url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/qp43432050116373/}}
*{{cite book|author=Charles Colson, Ellen Santilli Vaughn|title=God and Government|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3vAW2y_-pjUC&pg=PA198 |page=198 |publisher=Zondervan|quote=But Nietzsche's atheism was the most radical the world had yet seen. While the old atheism had acknowledged the need for religion, the new atheism was political activist, and jealous. One scholar observed that 'atheism has become militant&nbsp;...inisisting it must be believed. Atheism has felt the need to impose its views, to forbid competing versions.'|year=2007}}
*{{cite book|author=Michael Babcock|title=Unchristian America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1WzhoEor0rwC&pg=PA102 |page=102 |publisher=Tyndale House|quote=The change in tone is most evident in the writings of the so-called New Atheists – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens – men who have been trying to accelerate a process that's been under way for centuries.|year=2008}}</ref> In an interview with Thomas Bass, which was published in the book ''Reinventing the Future: Conversations With the World's Leading Scientists'', Richard Dawkins identified with the ideology, stating: 
{{cquote|I am a fairly militant atheist, with a fair degree of active hostility toward religion. I certainly was hostile toward it at school, from the age of about sixteen onwards. I mellowed a bit in my twenties and thirties. But I'm getting more militant again now. —Richard Dawkins<ref>{{cite book|last=Bass|first=Thomas A.|title=Reinventing the future: Conversations with the World's Leading Scientists |year=1994|publisher=Addison Wesley|isbn=978-0-201-62642-1|url=https://books.google.com/?id=yRZYc-LPz1oC&pg=PA118&dq=%E2%80%9Ca+fairly+militant+atheist,+with+a+fair+degree+of+active+hostility+toward+religion%E2%80%9D#v=onepage&q=fairly%20militant%20atheist&f=false|page=118|quote=I am a fairly militant atheist, with a fair degree of active hostility toward religion. I certainly was hostile toward it at school, from the age of about sixteen onwards. I mellowed a bit in my twenties and thirties. But I'm getting more militant again now.}}</ref>}}

[[Paul Davies]], an English physicist, defines a form of Christian atheism as being anti-militant-atheism, defining militant atheism  as Dawkins' and Hitchens' position "to convince people that God doesn't exist as the most important intellectual task in our society."<ref name="ChristianAtheism">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VOlJcGbNbx4C&pg=PA97 |page=97 |author=Brian Mountford|title=Christian Atheist: Belonging Without Believing|publisher=John Hunt Publishing|quote=Paul 'There's a third description of Christian Atheism you might call 'anti-militant-atheism.' That's to say, an atheism with different priorities from Dawkins or Hitchens; a position that doesn't regard trying to convince people that God doesn't exist as the most important intellectual task in our society. Under the cateogry of anti-militant-atheism you would be saying that religious belief doesn't hold up anything important enough to justify Dawkins in refuting it. So to people like Dawkins and Hitchens one is inclined to say, get a life. Their militant atheism is unattractive and extreme, in such a way that I might be tempted to soften it by taking a halfway position.'}}</ref>
The same phenomenon takes place in works published by the academic journal titled "Studies: an Irish Quarterly Review,"<ref name="Quarterly">{{cite book|page=106 |title=Studies: an Irish quarterly review|publisher=Talbot Press|quote=The leader of militant atheism in this part of the world is Richard Dawkins, a zoologist by training, who holds a chair founded for him at Oxford University.|year=2007 |volume=96}}</ref>
and "The Literary Review,"<ref name="Literary">{{cite book|author=Gillian Greenwood|title=The Literary Review|issues=329–339|publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University|quote=Yet there is something wrong with Dawkins. He has an obsessive hatred of God or, as he would put it, the idea of God and those who propagate the idea. His life is dominated by his militant atheism.}}</ref>
as well as in academic literature, such as the Rowman & Littlefield published ''The Secularization Debate'',<ref name="RandL">{{cite book|author=William H. Swatos, Daniel V. A. Olson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2P_RJqdUYBAC&pg=PA57 |page=57 |title=The Secularization Debate|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2000 |quote=But, aren't some scientists militant atheists who write books to discredit religion – Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan for example? Of course. But, it also is worth note that most of those, like Dawkins and Sagan, are marginal to the scientific community for lack of significant scientific work. And possibly even more important is the fact that theologians (cf., Cupitt 1997) and professors of religious studies (cf., Mack 1996) are a far more prolific source of popular works of atheism.}}</ref>
and the Sydney University Press published ''Politics and Religion in the New Century,'' for example.<ref name="Sydney">{{cite book|author=Philip Andrew Quadrio, Carrol Besseling|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Zz88rvBJXUC&pg=PA32 |page=32 |title=Politics and Religion in the New Century: Philosophical Reflections |year=2009 |publisher=Sydney University Press|quote=There is, therefore, a particular irony in the most recent spate of militant atheist attacks on the irrationality of religious belief (Dennett 2006; Dawkins 2006; Hitchens 2007; Harris 2004, 2007) which are, at the same time, the most conspicuous examples of slavish commitment to crude, popular ethnic stereotypes, combined with an almost delusional misrepresentation of the facts of recent history. These militant atheists use the rhetoric of critical rationality to wage ideological warfare, not just against religion, but against Muslims.}}</ref>

These individuals have been labelled as militant atheists by other atheists such as Andrew Fiala, Professor of Philosophy at [[California State University]], who in a paper published in the academic journal "International Journal for Philosophy of Religion" states that the 'claim that all religion is poisonous is linked to the final problem with the new breed of militant atheists: intolerance toward religion. It is this characteristic that leads me to call these new atheists “militant".'<ref name=Fiala>
{{cite journal|title=Militant atheism, pragmatism, and the God-shaped hole |journal=International Journal for Philosophy of Religion |date= |first=Andrew |last=Fiala |volume=65 |issue=3 |pages=139–151 |id= |url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/qp43432050116373/}}</ref>
Fiala believes that much of their critique of religion is based upon the claim that atheism is true and that the claims of religion are false. He writes that "such an approach is often dogmatic in its assertion of cognitive superiority".<ref name=Fiala/> [[Michael Ruse]], a prominent atheist and biologist at Florida State University, has denounced militant atheism because of its attempt to conflate atheism and [[Darwinism]].<ref>Multiple references:
::{{cite book|author=[[Michael Ruse]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HmZSGfHprh8C&pg=PA132 |page=132 |year=1999 |title =Mystery of mysteries: is evolution a social construction?|publisher=Harvard University Press|quote=On reading Dawkins's more recent writings, where he has appointed himself the spokesman for militant atheism as well as militant Darwinism, one might be tempted to link the two.}}
::{{cite book|author=[[Michael Ruse]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XQqBP5trqCIC&pg=PA515 |page=515 |year=2009 |title=Philosophy after Darwin: classic and contemporary readings |publisher=Princeton University Press|quote=To be sure, there are militant Darwinian atheists such as Richard Dawkins. But I see no reason to accept the claim of people like Dawkins that Darwinian science dictates atheism.}}</ref>
In addition, Bruce Sheiman, an [[Atheist 3.0]] leader, has stated that "when militant atheists portray religion, they critique every political and organizational misdeed that can be attributed to it" but "portray science in idealized terms, untainted by commercial interests, political intrusions, and ethical conundrums."<ref name="Sheiman">Sheiman 2009 [https://books.google.com/books?id=GvFUvFuUFWYC&pg=PT172 p. 172]. "Militant atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris go to great lengths in their books to relegate religion to the lowest cultural status while placing reason and science well above it. The portray science in idealized terms, untainted by commercial interests, political intrusions, and ethical conundrums. But when militant atheists portray religion, they critique every political and organizational misdeed that can be attributed to it. Militant atheists speak of organized religion, but not, correspondingly, of ''organized science''. To be fair, militant atheists need to view religion in the same sanitized way as they view science – or understand science through the same lens of doubt and skepticism as they view religion.</ref>
Richard Dawkins has, in turn, compared Ruse to "[[Neville Chamberlain]], the British prime minister best known for his appeasement policy toward [[Nazi Germany]]."<ref name="Chamberlain">{{cite web|url=http://archives.adventistreview.org/article/1235/archives/issue-2007-1518/1518-news-feature-1|author=Mark A. Kellner|title =Is Aggressive Atheism Ascending?|publisher=Adventist Review|quote=In his book, Dawkins likens philosopher Michael Ruse, a Florida State University philosophy professor who has worked on the creationism/evolution debate in public schools, to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister best known for his appeasement policy toward Nazi Germany. Ruse, in turn, accuses "militant atheism" of not extending the same professional and academic courtesy to religion that it demands from others. Atheism's new dogmatic streak is not that different from the religious extremists it calls to task, Ruse said.|accessdate = 2011-03-05}}
</ref>
Other articles in the popular media make reference to outspoken atheists as militant atheists.<ref>Multiple references:
*M. Paulli, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/mar/28/news.michellepauli Spoils split at 'Nibbie' awards]
*[http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-end-of-faith-by-sam-harris-745110.html Johann Harri in] [[The Independent]]
*[http://www.slate.com/id/2137743/ The Belief Trap: The evolutionary explanation of religion gets stuck.] By Judith Shulevitz, ''Slate'', 8 March 2006.
</ref>

Figures in the 21st century in the USA and the UK who have been described as militant atheists include Michael Newdow.<ref>''The New American'' Vol. 18, No. 15, 29 July 2002.
</ref>
The Argentinian Supreme Court Judge Carmen Argibay also describes herself as a "militant atheist",<ref>Multiple references:
*{{cite book|page=77 |year=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KVvhAAAAMAAJ&q=Carmen+Argibay++militant+atheist&dq=Carmen+Argibay++militant+atheist&hl=en&ei=4HwPTuSMC9S10AHQzOW_Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA|title=The Tablet|publisher=Tablet Pub. Co.|quote=As soon as her appointment was announced, Carmen Argibay told journalists she was a 'militant atheist' and in favour of relaxing the strict abortion laws. Her declarations were met with a barrage of criticism from Catholic media.}}
*{{cite book |year=2004 |page=20 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9vAtAAAAYAAJ&q=Carmen+Argibay++militant+atheist&dq=Carmen+Argibay++militant+atheist&hl=en&ei=4HwPTuSMC9S10AHQzOW_Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ|title=The Catholic world report |volume=14 |publisher=Ignatius Press|quote=Argentine President Nestor Kirchner has proposed Carmen Argibay, who has described herself as a "militant atheist" and proponent of legal abortion, to be a member of the Supreme Court.}}</ref>
and the journalist and campaigner Paul Foot has been labelled a militant atheist.<ref name="Foot">{{cite web|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/jul/25/1|title=The epistles of Saint Paul|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|quote= Paul Foot, militant atheist, revolutionary socialist and a man who couldn't listen to a pious sentiment without barking out a guffaw, would have agreed.|accessdate = 2011-03-05}}
</ref>
Moreover, comedian [[Kathy Griffin]] identifies herself as a militant atheist.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://outsmartmagazine.com/this_issue/?storyid=1129229903 | title=Foul-Mouthed and Funny | work=OutSmart | author=Blase DiStefano | date=June 2007 | accessdate=2007-07-01 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20070927190140/http://outsmartmagazine.com/this_issue/?storyid=1129229903 |archivedate = 2007-09-27}}</ref>

===Media===
[[File:Richard dawkins lecture.jpg|thumb|200px|upright|[[Richard Dawkins]] lecturing on his book ''The God Delusion''; 2006.]]

''See also:'' [[Causes of the New Atheism movement#The rise and decline of New Atheism and the role of the media|New Atheism and the media]]

Journalist Charles Moore in the ''[[Daily Telegraph]]'', authored an article entitled "Militant atheists: too clever for their own good",<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/04/07/do0701.xml "Militant atheists: too clever for their own good"]
</ref>
which discussed Richard Dawkins, and mentioned Christopher Hitchens and A. C. Grayling; the author felt that the atheist movement may be acquiring the characteristics of "intolerance, dogmatism, righteousness, moral contempt for one's opponents."<ref name="Moore">
{{cite book|author=Charles Moore|title=Militant atheists: too clever for their own good|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3638990/Militant-atheists-too-clever-for-their-own-good.html|publisher=The Telegraph|quote=I feel that atheism may be acquiring precisely those characteristics that atheists so dislike about religion intolerance, dogmatism, righteousness, moral contempt for one's opponents. Dawkins also tells us that "there are very few atheists in prison". He suggests that "atheism is correlated with higher education, intelligence or reflectiveness, which might counteract criminal impulses". What begins to emerge – and it lurked strongly behind the anti-religion side of the Intelligence Squared debate – is the idea that atheism is an elite state, a superior order of being, a plane of enlightenment denied to thickoes.|accessdate=10 March 2011}}
</ref>
Moore also interpreted Dawkins as promoting the idea that atheism is "a superior order of being".<ref name="Moore" />
In the same newspaper, Raj Persaud categorised [[Richard Dawkins]] as a militant atheist, and said he was "famously virulent views on religion, attacking it as a 'virus of the mind' and an 'infantile regression'."<ref name="Persaud">
{{cite book|author=Raj Persaud|title=Holy visions elude scientists|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3306312/Holy-visions-elude-scientists.html|quote=So the BBC Science series Horizon took up the challenge by putting his hat to the ultimate test: could he get arch-sceptic and militant atheist Prof Richard Dawkins to start believing in God by electrically massaging his temporal lobes? Prof Dawkins, author of A Devil's Chaplain, was the ideal candidate for the latest test of whether science can now explain away religion, given his famously virulent views on religion, attacking it as a "virus of the mind" and an "infantile regression".|accessdate=10 March 2011}}
</ref>

The editor of ''Quadrant Magazine'', a literary and cultural journal, also refers to Dawkins in these terms, and suggests that Dawkins' views are an extreme example of [[intolerance]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070331203253/http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/article_view.php?article_id=3276|title= Science versus Religion | work= Quadrant Magazine | date= February 2007 | accessdate=2012-06-13 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20070331203253/http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/article_view.php?article_id=3276 |archivedate = 2007-03-31}}</ref> In addition, several journalists have characterised New Atheists as being [[Islamophobia|Islamophobic]].<ref>Multiple references:
*{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/sam-harris-muslim-animus|title=Sam Harris, the New Atheists, and anti-Muslim animus|last=Greenwald|first=Glenn|date=3 April 2013|publisher=[[Guardian (UK)|The Guardian]]|language=English|accessdate=11 February 2015|quote=That said, what I did say in my emails with Harris - and what I unequivocally affirm again now - is not that Harris is a "racist", but rather that he and others like him spout and promote Islamophobia under the guise of rational atheism.}}
*{{cite web|url=https://www.salon.com/2013/03/30/dawkins_harris_hitchens_new_atheists_flirt_with_islamophobia/|title=Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens: New Atheists flirt with Islamophobia|last=Lean|first=Nathan|date=30 March 2013|publisher=Salon|language=English|accessdate=11 February 2015|quote=That said, what I did say in my emails with Harris - and what I unequivocally affirm again now - is not that Harris is a "racist", but rather that he and others like him spout and promote Islamophobia under the guise of rational atheism.}}
*{{cite web|url=http://www.vice.com/read/new-atheism-needs-to-get-out-of-its-old-rut|title=New Atheism's Nasty Streak of Islamophobia | VICE | United States|last=Cheadle|first=Harry|date=7 April 2013|publisher=Vice|language=English|accessdate=11 February 2015|quote=I was thinking about atheism and religion this week after reading a couple pieces about how the New Atheists had a nasty streak of Islamophobia in them—one in Salon by Nathan Lean and another in Al Jazeera by Murtaza Hussain. Both of them note that Dawkins and Harris, especially, have no problem saying publicly that Islam is a source of terrible evil and that it’s right and proper that the West go to war with Islam.}}</ref> On 10 February 2015, Craig Stephen Hicks, a supporter of Atheists for Equality, "shot dead three Muslim students execution-style near to the University of North Carolina campus on Tuesday after posting anti-religious sentiments online".<ref>Multiple references:
*{{cite web|url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/chapel-hill-shooting-gunman-craig-hicks-militant-atheist-who-fantasised-that-religion-would-1487502|title=Chapel Hill Shooting: Gunman Craig Hicks a 'militant atheist' who fantasised that religion would 'go away'|last=Mezzofiore|first=Gianluca|date=11 February 2015|publisher=International Business Times|language=English|accessdate=11 February 2015|quote=Craig Stephen Hicks, the 46-year-old man who turned himself in after allegedly gunning down three American Muslim students at Chapel Hill, near the University of North Carolina, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, according to local reports. A Facebook page with his name from Durham and carrying atheist slogans has triggered speculation that the attack is religion-motivated. The suspected shooter recently posted a Facebook photo of "my loaded 38 revolver". He also described religion as a "pyramid scam" in other posts. The cover picture for the Facebook profile, which could not be independently verified by IBTimes UK, also reads: "Anti-theism/Of course I want religion to go away".}}
*{{cite web|url=https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2948803/Man-arrested-3-shot-death-North-Carolina.html|title=Three Muslim students shot dead execution-style 'by neighbor who had ranted against religion' in fight over parking at UNC Chapel Hill|last=Carter|first=Claire|coauthors=Lydia Warren|date=11 February 2015|publisher=[[Daily Mail]]|language=English|accessdate=11 February 2015|quote=A man allegedly shot dead three Muslim students execution-style near to the University of North Carolina campus on Tuesday after posting anti-religious sentiments online. Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, shot dentistry student Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his new wife Yusor Mohammad, 21, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, in their heads over an ongoing parking dispute at their quiet condominium complex in Chapel Hill around 5pm, police said. But the women's father, Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha, said even though parking might have triggered the killings, Hicks had long targeted the family because of their religion and culture. 'It was execution style, a bullet in every head,' Abu-Salha told the News Observer. 'This was not a dispute over a parking space, this was a hate crime. ... There have also been questions over whether Hicks' anti-religious stance - which he freely shared on social media - had also been a factor in the murders. On a Facebook page in his name, Hicks shared a number of anti-religion posts, describing himself as a supporter of 'Atheists for Equality'. A banner about 'anti-theism' is prominent on his page. Hicks posted a photo from United Atheists of America on February 8, which has the title 'why radical Christians and radical Muslims are so opposed to each others' influence when they agree about so many ideological issues'. On the page he is listed as married and having studied to become a paralegal at Durham Technical Community College. Records show his wife works at UNC Hospital. Most of the pictures he has posted in recent months criticize a number of religions, including Christianity. Other recent pictures he has published include one of a loaded revolver. In one post allegedly written by Hicks and shared by CNN, he wrote: 'When it comes to insults, your religion started this, not me. If your religion kept its big mouth shut, so would I.'}}
*{{cite web|url=https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/us/chapel-hill-shooting/|title=3 students shot to death in apartment near UNC Chapel Hill - CNN.com|last=Ahmed|first=Saeed|date=11 February 2015|work=[[CNN]]|publisher=[[CNN]]|language=English|accessdate=11 February 2015|quote=Hicks is being held on three counts of first-degree murder. In one post widely shared online, Hicks, who claimed he is an atheist, allegedly wrote: "When it comes to insults, your religion started this, not me. If your religion kept its big mouth shut, so would I."}}</ref>

British writer [[Theo Hobson]] in ''[[The Guardian]]'' claims that "criticisms levelled at religion by militant atheists are often crude and short-sighted".<ref name="Hobson">
{{cite book|author=[[Theo Hobson]]|title=Atheism is pretentious and cowardly|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jun/06/atheismispretentiousandcow|quote=God knocking is on the increase but the criticisms levelled at religion by militant atheists are often crude and short-sighted.|accessdate=10 March 2011}}
</ref>
Dawkins has responded to criticisms that he is hostile towards religion, saying "such hostility as I or other atheists occasionally voice toward religion is limited to words" and "It is all too easy to confuse fundamentalism with passion. I may well appear passionate when I defend evolution against a fundamentalist creationist, but this is not because of a rival fundamentalism of my own."<ref>http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Why-I-Am-Hostile-Toward-Religion.aspx
</ref>

==Criticism of the position==
[[Melanie Phillips]], a British author, suggests that militant atheism "in junking religion, has destroyed our sense of anything beyond our material selves and the here and now" and "paved the way for the onslaught on bedrock moral values ... and intimidation and bullying to drive this agenda into public policy".<ref name="Phillips">{{Cite web|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081017213056/http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2447021/the-culture-war-for-the-white-house.thtml|author=[[Melanie Phillips]]|title=The culture war for the White House|publisher=The Spectator|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20081017213056/http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2447021/the-culture-war-for-the-white-house.thtml|quote=I see this financial breakdown, moreover, as being not merely a moral crisis but the monetary expression of the broader degradation of our values – the erosion of duty and responsibility to others in favour of instant gratification, unlimited demands repackaged as ‘rights’ and the loss of self-discipline. And the root cause of that erosion is ‘militant atheism’ which, in junking religion, has destroyed our sense of anything beyond our material selves and the here and now and, through such hyper-individualism, paved the way for the onslaught on bedrock moral values expressed through such things as family breakdown and mass fatherlessness, educational collapse, widespread incivility, unprecedented levels of near psychopathic violent crime, epidemic drunkenness and drug abuse, the repudiation of all authority, the moral inversion of victim culture, the destruction of truth and objectivity and a corresponding rise in credulousness in the face of lies and propaganda – and intimidation and bullying to drive this agenda into public policy.|date=16 October 2008|accessdate=2007-12-31|archivedate = 2008-10-17}}</ref>

Decca Aitkenhead a writer for the ''[[New Statesman]]'', writes that the atheist movement has been accused of "adopting a tone so militant as to alienate potential supporters, and fortify the religious [[Lobbying|lobby]]."<ref name=Lobby>{{cite web|author=Decca Aitkenhead|title=AC Grayling: 'How can you be a militant atheist? It's like sleeping furiously'|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/03/grayling-good-book-atheism-philosophy|quote=Even if this is true, however, the atheist movement has been accused of shooting itself in the foot by adopting a tone so militant as to alienate potential supporters, and fortify the religious lobby.|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|date=3 April 2011 21.00 BST|accessdate=2011-06-28}}</ref>
[[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|left|220px|1931 phototograph of the destruction of the original Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, under the militant atheism of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtGDoq0wyZU video]).]]
John F. Pollard, a British Christian historian, writes that "militant atheism must be resisted by the [[Church militant]]."<ref name=ChurchMilitant>{{cite book|author=Peter C. Kent; John Francis Pollard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ISPZAAAAMAAJ&q=Pope+Militant+Atheism+Church+Militant&dq=Pope+Militant+Atheism+Church+Militant&hl=en&ei=v28oTuGPB6Gw0AGH88TwCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ|title=Papal Diplomacy in the Modern Age|page=17 |quote=Militant atheism must be resisted by the Church militant.|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|year=1994}}</ref>

Simon Blackburn writes that "many professional philosophers, including ones such as myself who have no religious beliefs at all, are slightly embarrassed, or even annoyed, by the voluble disputes between militant atheists and [[Christian apologetics|religious apologists]]".<ref name="Blackburn">{{Cite web|url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=405647|author=Simon Blackburn|title=Divine Irony|publisher=Times Higher Education (THE)|quote=I suspect that many professional philosophers, including ones such as myself who have no religious beliefs at all, are slightly embarrassed, or even annoyed, by the voluble disputes between militant atheists and religious apologists... The annoyance comes partly because of the strong sense of deja vu. But it is not just that old tunes are being replayed, but that they are being replayed badly. The classic performance was given by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion|date=5 March 2009|accessdate=2007-12-31}}
</ref>
Though he presents no specific criticism of militant atheism,<!-- section title is Criticism (of Militant atheism). Blackburn does not criticize either side, he merely SUGGESTS that he is annoyed by both sides. Onus is on those wanting to include this paragraph to present what Blackburn's criticism is of militant atheism.--> for him, both sides of the debate were presented better by David Hume in his ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion'', which he then explicates.<ref name="Blackburn"/>

[[Paul Kurtz]], considered by many to be the founder of secular [[humanism]],<ref name="Humanism">{{cite book
|url=http://www.pointofinquiry.org/paul_kurtz_the_new_atheism_and_secular_humanism/
|title=The New Atheism and Secular Humanism|publisher=Center for Inquiry|quote=Paul Kurtz, considered by many the father of the secular humanist movement, is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
|date=19 October 2009}}
</ref>
has criticized militant atheists in that "they resist any effort to engage in inquiry or debate" and militant atheism as "becom[ing] mere [[dogma]]."<ref name="KurtzCriticism">Kurtz 1994 [https://books.google.com/books?id=e9OJSW5dkM8C&pg=PA250 p. 250] "Ranged against the true believer are the militant atheists, who adamantly reject the faith as false stupid, and reactionary. They consider all religious believers to be gullbile fools and claim that they are given to accepting gross exaggerations and untenable premises. Historic religious claims, they think, are totally implausbile, unbelievable, disreputable, and controvertible, for they go beyond the bounds of reason. Militant atheists can find no value at all to any religious beliefs or institutions. They resist any effort to engage in inquiry or debate. Madalyn Murray O'Hair is as arrogant in her rejection of religion as is the true believer in his or her profession of faith. This form of atheism thus becomes mere dogma.</ref>
Kurtz has criticized the militant atheism of the Soviet Union, which he stated "persecuted religious beleivers, confiscated church properties, executed or exiled tens of thousands of clerics, and prohibited believers to engage in religious instruction or publish religious materials" and praised [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]'s "dismantling such policies by permitting greater freedom of religious conscience...moving from militant atheism to tolerant humanism."<ref name="KurtzCriticism"/> Kurtz cited the commitment to "human freedom and democracy" as [[humanism|humanism's]] basic difference from the militant atheism of the Soviet Union, which consistently violated basic [[human rights]].<ref name="KurtzCriticism"/> Kurtz also stated that the "defense of religious liberty is as precious to the humanist as are the rights of the believers."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e9OJSW5dkM8C&pg=PA171 |page=171 |year=1994 |title =Toward a New Enlightenment: the philosophy of Paul Kurtz |author=Paul Kurtz, Vern L. Bullough, Tim Madigan|publisher=Transaction Books|quote=There have been fundamental and irreconcilable differences between humanists and atheists, particularly Marxist-Leninists. The defining characteristic of humanism is its commitment to human freedom and democracy; the kind of atheism practiced in the Soviet Union has consistently violated basic human rights.}}</ref>

==Criticism of the term==
[[File:Militant atheist image.jpg|thumb|350px|An internet [[meme]] image, depicting militant atheists, produced by [[Ken Ammi]] of [[True Freethinker]], in response to a [[cartoon]] created by [[John W. Loftus]], a militant atheist who criticized the term.]]
Catherine Fahringer of the [[Freedom From Religion Foundation]] suggested that the label ''militant'' was often routinely applied to ''atheist'' for no good reason – "very much as was the adjective 'damn' attached to the noun 'Yankee' during the Civil War."<ref>{{cite news | url= https://web.archive.org/web/20061002070519/http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/1997/october97/fahringer.html | author = Catherine Fahringer| title= The Militant Atheist | work= Freethought Today | publisher = The Freedom From Religion Foundation | date= October 1997 | accessdate=2013-06-13 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20061002070519/http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/1997/october97/fahringer.html|archivedate = 2006-10-02}}</ref> The Freedom From Religion Foundation, however, has been called a "militant atheist group" in ''The Washington Examiner''.<ref>Multiple references:
*{{cite web|author=Ken Klukowski|title=Court dismisses militant atheists' federal suit against Texas Gov. Rick Perry|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120208135436/https://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/07/court-dismisses-militant-atheists-federal-suit-against-texas-gov-rick-perry|quote=A militant atheist group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), filed a federal lawsuit to prevent Perry from being involved in the event.|publisher=The Washington Examiner|date=28 July 2011 5:25 PM|accessdate=31 July 2011|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20120208135436/https://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/07/court-dismisses-militant-atheists-federal-suit-against-texas-gov-rick-perry|archivedate = 2012-02-08}}
*{{cite web|author=Ken Klukowski|title=Court dismisses militant atheists' federal suit against Texas Gov. Rick Perry|url=http://www.frc.org/perspective/court-dismisses-militant-atheists-federal-suit-against-texas-gov-rick-perry|quote=A militant atheist group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), filed a federal lawsuit to prevent Perry from being involved in the event.|publisher=[[Family Research Council]]|date=28 July 2011 5:25 PM|accessdate=31 July 2011}}
</ref>

A.C. Grayling writes that the charges of militant atheism are pronounced by [[theism|theists]]; he states that "when the boot was on their foot they burned us at the stake. All we're doing is speaking very frankly and bluntly and they don't like it."<ref name=Grayling>{{cite web|author=Decca Aitkenhead|title=AC Grayling: 'How can you be a militant atheist? It's like sleeping furiously'|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/03/grayling-good-book-atheism-philosophy|quote=Well, firstly, I think the charges of militancy and fundamentalism of course come from our opponents, the theists. My rejoinder is to say when the boot was on their foot they burned us at the stake. All we're doing is speaking very frankly and bluntly and they don't like it," he laughs.|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|date=3 April 2011 21.00 BST|accessdate=2011-06-28}}
</ref>
Grayling also likens the appellation 'militant atheist' to that of 'militant non-stamp collector.'<ref name=Stamps>{{cite web|author=Decca Aitkenhead|title=AC Grayling: 'How can you be a militant atheist? It's like sleeping furiously'|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/03/grayling-good-book-atheism-philosophy|quote="And besides, really," he adds with a withering little laugh, "how can you be a militant atheist? How can you be militant non-stamp collector? This is really what it comes down to. You just don't collect stamps. So how can you be a fundamentalist non-stamp collector?|publisher=[[The Guardian]]|date=3 April 2011 21.00 BST|accessdate=2011-06-28}}
</ref>
Oliver Burkeman has suggested that it is not the case that Grayling is motivated by nothing but a dispassionate quest for the truth; rather Grayling is actively promoting a position, motivated by more than the disbelief in God, and that he is doing more than just not collecting stamps.<ref name=Burkeman>{{cite web|author=Oliver Burkeman|title=On "militant atheists"|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110411032716/http://www.oliverburkeman.com/2011/04/on-militant-atheists/|quote=Grayling’s argument is a close cousin of another one that’s annoyingly common in the otherwise sensible atheist/rationalist/skeptic/anti-pseudoscience movements: the implication that if you’re arguing from a position of scientific rationalism, you must be motivated by nothing but a dispassionate quest for the truth...What distinguishes the two sides isn’t that the rationalist one is dispassionate, but that it happens to be right. If you go around promoting your position that it’s best for people not to believe in gods, via public speaking or books or vigorous debates down the pub, you are a) actively promoting a position and b) doing so for some inner psychological reason other than the mere fact that there isn’t a god. You have an ulterior motive. That’s not a criticism: everyone always does. But you’re not just not collecting stamps.|date=5 April 2011|accessdate=12 July 2011|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20110411032716/http://www.oliverburkeman.com/2011/04/on-militant-atheists/|archivedate = 2011-04-11}}</ref>

==See also==

*[[Decline of militant atheism in the West]]
*[[Militant atheism definition]]
*[[Atheist death toll]]
*[[Atheism and violence]]
*[[Atheology]]

'''Militant atheism and history:'''

*[[Atheism and communism]]
* [[Atheistic communism and torture]]
*[[State atheism]]
*[[League of Militant Atheists]]
*[[Tatar Union of the Militant Godless]]
*[[Atheism and Mass Murder]]

'''Militant atheist regimes, present and historical:'''

*[[Soviet atheism]]
*[[Religion and Atheism in North Korea]]
*[[Religion and Atheism in Vietnam]]
*[[Religion and Atheism in Laos]]

'''Topics related to militant atheism:'''

*[[Atheism and intolerance]]
*[[Atheism and hatred of God]]
*[[Atheism and mockery]]
*[[Evangelical atheism]]
*[[Atheism and the suppression of science]]

==Further reading==
*''Militant Atheism: the World-Wide Propaganda of Communism'' by Michel d' Herbigny. Publisher: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (1933) ASIN: B0008BM36U

*''New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism'' by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press (November 2002) ISBN 978-0271022185

*''Nietzsche and Soviet Culture: Ally and Adversary'' (Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature) various authors edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0521452816

*''What the God-seekers found in Nietzsche: The Reception of Nietzsches Übermensch by the Philosophers of the Russian Religious Renaissance''. (Studies in Slavic Literature & Poetics) by Nel Grillaert. Publisher: Rodopi (October 22, 2008) ISBN 978-9042024809

*''Stalin's Holy War Religion, Nationalism, and Alliance Politics, 1941–1945'' by Steven Merritt Miner. Copyright 2002 by the University of North Carolina Press ISBN 0-8078-2736-3

*''Nietzsche in Russia Publisher'' by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. Princeton Univ Pr ISBN 978-0691102092

*''Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical'' by Chris Matthew Sciabarra. Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press ISBN 0271014415

*''The Returns of History: Russian Nietzscheans After Modernity'' by Dragan Kujundzic. Publisher: State University of New York Press ISBN 978-0791432341

*''A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer'', vol 1: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies, by Dimitry V. Pospielovsky. Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 0312381328

*Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and Persecutions (History of Soviet Atheism in Theory and Practice and the Believers, Vol 2),Dimitry Pospielovsky, (November, 1987), Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 0312009054

*Soviet Studies on the Church and the Believer's Response to Atheism: A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory and Practice and the Believers, Vol 3, Dimitry Pospielovsky, (August, 1988), Palgrave Macmillan, hardcover: ISBN 0312012918, paperback edition: ISBN 0312012926

*''Great Soviet encyclopedia'', ed. A. M. Prokhorov (New York: Macmillan, London: Collier Macmillan, 1974–1983) 31 volumes, three volumes of indexes.

*''The Russian Church and the Soviet State'' by John Shelton Curtiss, 1917–1950 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953)

*''Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless'' by Daniel Peris Cornell University Press 1998 ISBN 9780801434853

*''Sacred causes : the clash of religion and politics from the Great War to the War on Terror'' by Michael Burleigh Paperback: 576 pages Publisher: Harper Perennial (March 11, 2008) ISBN 978-0060580964

*''Religious and anti-religious thought in Russia'' By George Louis Kline The Weil Lectures Published in 1968, University Press (Chicago)
*"Godless Communists": Atheism and Society in Soviet Russia 1917–1932. by William B. Husband DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. 2000. Pp. xviii, 241. $36.00.

*''A History of Russia''. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky and Mark D. Steinberg. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 800 pages. ISBN 0195153944

*Walter Kolarz, ''How Russia is Ruled'', London, Batchworth Press, 1953, pgs. 83-87, "The League of Militant Godless "

==External links==

*[http://www.apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=585&article=635 Militant atheism] by Eric Lyons, M.Min. and Kyle Butt, M.Div.
*[http://atheismexposed.tripod.com/ Militant atheism exposed]

'''Contemporary militant atheism:'''

*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mroUTpCWWxI Documentary on Militant Atheism in the Modern Era]
*[http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/militant-atheism-hurts-all-of-us/ Militant Atheism Hurts All of Us by Diane Weber Bederman - Times of Israel] 
*[http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/print.php?storyid=7083 Dr. Albert Mohler Jr. and Dinesh D'Souza discuss contemporary militant atheism in the Western World]
*[http://www.christianpost.com/news/militant-atheism-gives-rise-to-christian-apologetics-30073/ Militant Atheism Gives Rise to Christian Apologetics by Lillian Kwon - Christian Post]
*[http://www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/news.aspx?action=view&id=4167 New militant atheists want to 'destroy religious faith'] by Professor John Lennox, Oxford University
*[https://www.salon.com/2013/03/25/militant_atheism_has_become_a_religion/ Has militant atheism become a religion? by Frans De Waal - Salon]


'''Militant atheism and history:'''

*[http://ratiochristi.org/blog/post/militant-atheists-and-the-other-holocausts#.UfqaPtLVCSp Militant Atheists and the 'Other' Holocausts by Rick Schenker - Ratio Christi]
*[https://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/08/09/Fear-and-loathing-and-militant-atheism Fear and loathing and militant atheism by John Hayward - Breitbart]
*[https://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/09/15/author-and-former-militant-atheist-reveals-what-led-him-to-christianity/ Former ‘Militant Atheist’ Reveals What Totally Changed His Mind About Death, God and the Afterlife by Billy Hallowell - The Blaze]


'''Militant atheism in the Soviet Union:'''

*[http://www.roca.org/OA/36/36h.htm "Men Have Forgotten God" – The Templeon Address] by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn (translated). This is the speech by Solzhenitsyn at the Guild Hall following his receiving the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion award in 1983.
*[http://www.martyredintheussr.com/ Martyred in the USSR: Militant Atheism in the former Soviet Union] - Documentary Film by 12 Point Productions 
*[https://jamesbishopblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/atheism-under-the-ussr-and-contemporary-new-atheism/ State Atheism under the USSR, and Contemporary New Atheism by James Bishop - Historical Jesus Studies]
*[https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Walter-Rodgers/2011/0616/How-Russians-survived-militant-atheism-to-embrace-God How Russians survived militant atheism to embrace God by Walter Rodgers - CSM]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtGDoq0wyZU Documentary on Militant Atheism in the USSR]
*[https://www.wnd.com/2013/03/horrific-human-toll-of-militant-atheism-exposed/ Horrific Human Toll of 'Militant Atheism' Exposed: USSR's genocide against Christians largely ignored by Bob Unruh - World Net Daily]
*[http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/9/3.aspx ''Beware of Religion!: a rebirth of Militant Atheism in Moscow''.] by Dmitry Ageev, Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate. (Article comments on the destruction by "believers" of allegedly blasphemous artworks at an exhibition in Moscow, and discusses the implications of the exhibition.)
*[http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rcl/11-1_036.pdf Buddhism in the Soviet Union: Annihilation or Survival by Hans Bräker - Biblical Studies.org.uk]


'''Issues related to militant atheism:''' 

*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChPfl5aAk0g Militant Atheism and the Suppression of Science (K-Lin)]
*[http://www.cija.ca/interfaith-2/cause-of-death-militant-atheism/  Cause of Death: Militant Atheism by Diane Weber Bederman - The Exchange] 

{{Nb Atheism}}

==Notes and references==
{{reflist|2}}



{{DEFAULTSORT:Militant Atheism}}
[[Category:Atheism]]
[[Category:Communism]]
[[Category:Marxism]]
[[Category:Anti-Judaism]]
[[Category:Anti-Christianity]]
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[[Category:Marxist Terminology]]
[[Category:People's Republic of China]]
[[Category:French Revolution]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Soviet Union]]