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→French Revolution and atheism
In November 2011, the [[Paris]] offices of [[Charlie Hebdo]] were fire-bombed by [[Muslim]] [[jihadism|jihad]] [[terrorist]]s and their website was [[hacker|hacked]]. On the 7th of January 2015, in the [[gun free zone]] of [[Paris]], three [[extremist]] [[Islamic]] terrorist [[French]]-born males armed with fully-automatic [[AK-47]]s [[murder]]ed, [[execution]]-style, 10 of the staff and 2 [[law enforcement|policeman]] and wounded other ten people. Well known [[socialist]] cartoonists Charb, Cabu, Honoré, Tignous and Wolinski were all killed.<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/world-expresses-shock-attack-charlie-hebdo-newspaper</ref>
In November 2011, the [[Paris]] offices of [[Charlie Hebdo]] were fire-bombed by [[Muslim]] [[jihadism|jihad]] [[terrorist]]s and their website was [[hacker|hacked]]. On the 7th of January 2015, in the [[gun free zone]] of [[Paris]], three [[extremist]] [[Islamic]] terrorist [[French]]-born males armed with fully-automatic [[AK-47]]s [[murder]]ed, [[execution]]-style, 10 of the staff and 2 [[law enforcement|policeman]] and wounded other ten people. Well known [[socialist]] cartoonists Charb, Cabu, Honoré, Tignous and Wolinski were all killed.<ref>http://cnsnews.com/news/article/world-expresses-shock-attack-charlie-hebdo-newspaper</ref>
== Clandestine French atheism in the 1600s and 1700s ==
The historian Jonathon Israel declared in an interview about French atheism in the 1600s and 1700s:
{{Cquote|At the same time, there was a semi-clandestine, philosophical underground, that I call the Radical Enlightenment. The French have been interested in this phenomenon since before World War II, but English and American scholars were not interested in it until quite recently. The age of [[Pierre Bayle|Bayle]] and of the [[Huguenot]] diaspora was also a time when [[Atheism|atheistic]] and near-atheistic texts — rejecting religious authority and revelation — were circulating. Perhaps the most famous example of these clandestine texts, which was circulating from the 1670s, though the first printed version was in 1719, was The Treatise of the Three Impostors or Le Traite des Trois Imposteurs. But there were dozens of others, some of which were circulating on only a very small scale and others of which were actually quite widely diffused in various European countries, often in manuscript form. If they did appear in print those printed versions were suppressed rather harshly by the authorities, so in many cases only small quantities circulated and very small numbers survive today.<ref>[http://fivebooks.com/interview/jonathan-israel-on-the-enlightenment/ Jonathan Israel on The Enlightenment]</ref>}}
== French Revolution and atheism ==
== French Revolution and atheism ==
[[File:Prise de la Bastille.jpg|thumbnail|left|200px|On July 14, 1789, the [[Bastille]] was stormed by a mob and its prisoners freed, which is regarded as the start of the [[French Revolution]]. ]]
[[File:Prise de la Bastille.jpg|thumbnail|left|200px|On July 14, 1789, the [[Bastille]] was stormed by a mob and its prisoners freed, which is regarded as the start of the [[French Revolution]]. ]]
The University of [[Cambridge]] reports the following historical relationship between atheism and the [[French Revolution]]:
The University of [[Cambridge]] reports the following historical relationship between atheism and the [[French Revolution]]:
{{cquote|Between 1700 and 1750 thousands of atheistic clandestine manuscripts circulated across [[Europe]] (although still only read by a very small minority)...
{{cquote|Between 1700 and 1750 thousands of atheistic clandestine manuscripts circulated across [[Europe]] (although still only read by a very small minority)...
Lampooning of the Bible, Christian doctrine, and clergy dates back almost 400 years to the “strong thinkers,” French learned skeptics in the 16th century. The primary target of anti-religious satire was France’s official religion, Catholicism, the Church’s ties to the state, and its control over education. And the ridiculing wit long directed against these targets would eventually play a central and crucial role in reducing the status and influence of religion in the French Republic...
Lampooning of the Bible, Christian doctrine, and clergy dates back almost 400 years to the “strong thinkers,” French learned skeptics in the 16th century. The primary target of anti-religious satire was France’s official religion, Catholicism, the Church’s ties to the state, and its control over education. And the ridiculing wit long directed against these targets would eventually play a central and crucial role in reducing the status and influence of religion in the French Republic...
The method of the forerunners of Charlie Hebdo—unrelenting and vicious satire of religion and clergy — proved so effective that France became a fully secular state, to such an extent that certain of its practices, laicité, would be regarded as unsettlingly alien and intolerant by most Americans.<ref>[http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/01/13/charlie-hebdo-and-frances-irreligious-tradition/ Charlie Hebdo and France’s Irreligious Tradition] by Kenneth R. Weinstein]</ref>}}
The method of the forerunners of Charlie Hebdo—unrelenting and vicious satire of religion and clergy — proved so effective that France became a fully secular state, to such an extent that certain of its practices, laicité, would be regarded as unsettlingly alien and intolerant by most Americans.<ref>[http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/01/13/charlie-hebdo-and-frances-irreligious-tradition/ Charlie Hebdo and France’s Irreligious Tradition] by Kenneth R. Weinstein]</ref>}}
== See also ==
== See also ==