List of atheists in film, radio, television and theater

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an incomplete, non-exhaustive list of notable people in film, television and theater who are identified as atheist.

Film, radio, television and theater[edit]

Douglas Adams
Woody Allen
Robert Altman
Michelangelo Antonioni
Kevin Bacon
Bernardo Bertolucci
Mel Brooks
Luis Buñuel
Richard Burton
James Cameron
Guillermo del Toro
Stanley Donen
Clint Eastwood
Sergei Eisenstein
Ricky Gervais
Richard E. Grant
John Huston
Katharine Hepburn
Werner Herzog
Jamie Hyneman
Eddie Izzard
Penn Jillette
Keira Knightley
Stanley Kubrick
Burt Lancaster
Hugh Laurie
Seth MacFarlane
John Malkovich
Ian McKellen
Helen Mirren
Marilyn Monroe
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Roman Polanski
Daniel Radcliffe
Satyajit Ray
Alain Resnais
Roberto Rossellini
Quentin Tarantino
Béla Tarr
Teller
François Truffaut
Orson Welles

Notes and references[edit]

  1. ^ "I am a radical Atheist..." Adams in an interview by American Atheists [1].
  2. ^ "She was a socialist, a romantic communist, and could charm with her charisma, spontaneity, and quick informed intelligence. She was a fervent atheist and advocate of humanism and common sense, accepting her stance without subjecting it to analysis." Sally Adams: 'Adams, Mary Grace Agnes (1898–1984)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [2] (accessed April 29, 2008).
  3. ^ In a letter by Adams dated August 10, 1993: "I've spent a life-time attacking religious beliefs and have not wavered from a view of the universe that many would regard as bleak. Namely, that it is a meaningless place devoid of deity [sic]"[3].
  4. ^ "The Big Bang". Infidel Man. Blogspot.
  5. ^ Interviewer: "Has researching subjects such as exorcism and possession forced you to challenge your belief system?" Ahearne: "No I'm a devout atheist and endlessly fascinated with the issue of faith in the impossible. It's true I bought a cross when we were shooting in Rome and I'm still wearing it. And it's true some of the actors had unnerving stories to tell during the shoot. My unfaith remains unshaken however. I need big miracles to make me believe. So far I've just been teased by the paranormal." Interview with writer, Joe Ahearne, BBC Press Office, October 31, 2008 (accessed November 28, 2008).
  6. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20131029203026/http://idiva.com/photogallery-entertainment/10-self-proclaimed-celebrity-atheists/21972/4
  7. ^ August 2014, Mark Blake13 (August 13, 2014). "Heavy Load: Mikael Akerfeldt". Classic Rock Magazine. Retrieved August 5, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ "I do not believe in God. There is too much science now that refutes the existence of a supreme creator, at least for me, and the miracles of old are easily explained today." Allen Smith, Warren (2002). Celebrities in Hell: A Guide to Hollywood's Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Free Thinkers, and More. Barricade Books Inc. p. 130. ISBN 1-56980-214-9.
  9. ^ "One of the many reasons Allen made the documentary was to explore his own atheism. Unlike most non-believers, he claims, in all seriousness, to have once seen God. It was at Glastonbury during the 1980s, and (as is the case with most of the splendid anecdotes that litter his conversation), it involved enough mind-altering substances to stun a baby elephant. [...] Like any considered atheist, particularly one who will burn in Hell, he lives according to a moral code that refuses to romanticise things like love, or devotion." Guy Adams, Serious documentary maker? Is Keith Allen having a laugh?, The Independent June 21, 2007 (accessed April 25, 2008).
  10. ^ "Woody Allen Quotes". The Quotations Page.
  11. ^ "Still, it's worth noting that by the age of 20 this whistle-blower had resisted two of the most powerful institutions – church and army, both. He is an atheist, "And I have been against all of these wars ever since." " Suzie Mackenzie interviewing Altman, 'Still up to mischief', The Guardian, May 1, 2004, Pg. 30.
  12. ^ "Though the crusaders in this film are actually Christian, Amenabar – who when pushed during the conversation Sunday said he was personally an atheist – said he had no particular present group in mind when making 'Agora.' " Brian Brooks, "Amenabar: Not anti-Christian, but Crusading Against Fundamentalism with 'Agora' ", IndieWire, May 18, 2009 (accessed December 25, 2021).
  13. ^ "Of course, Anderson has never avoided controversy, but this show promises to be his most contentious yet. As an out-and-proud atheist, he's asking, "If the world truly does have an intelligent design, why is everything so f——ed?"—Lallo, Michael (April 5, 2007), Wil to Succeed, The Age, Fairfax Media. Retrieved April 28, 2022.
  14. ^ Prothero, Donald R (August 27, 2014). "The Thinking Atheist Confesses". ESkeptic. The Skeptics Society. Retrieved October 14, 2014.
  15. ^ Itzkoff, Dave. "Feeding the Comedy Beast Without Serving Leftovers", The New York Times, June 3, 2010.
  16. ^ "Aziz Ansari Biography". AskMen.com. Archived from the original on September 8, 2017. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  17. ^ "I could do a Tamil film: Aziz Ansari". The Times of India. September 18, 2011. Archived from the original on July 28, 2013.
  18. ^ "HBO: Real Time with Bill Maher: Ep 242 March 23, 2012". HBO. Archived from the original on March 29, 2012. Retrieved April 21, 2012.
  19. ^ Tassone, 43.
  20. ^ "I don't believe in God. My sense of awe, wonder and utter insignificance comes from reading the New Scientist, rather than the Bible." Jane Asher interviewed by Allan Burnett, 'A Piece of My Mind', Sunday Herald, January 25, 2009, Magazine, Pg. 4.
  21. ^ "I think there is a puritanical wind that is blowing. I have never seen such a lack of separation between church and state in America, I don't believe in God, but if I did I would say that sex is a Godgiven right. Otherwise it's the end of our species." Wendy Ide interviewing Bacon, 'The Outsider Wants In', The Times (London), December 1, 2005, Features, Pg. 20 [4]
  22. ^ "What has stayed with me is the need for and love of ritual, the language of the authorised version of the Bible, the liturgy of the Anglican services, the beauty of its places of worship, the music and painting created to celebrate Christianity's central mystery. I think I remain to this day an unbelieving Anglican. None of this is rational, or particularly logical. It is how religion happens: a heap of childhood influence, a questing mind as the search begins, a failure to find new or surprising answers, a sound respect for the minds that once shaped doctrine and then the settling for a quiet and untroubled agnosticism. It is merely a timid temperament that inhibits me from declaring a bold, defiant atheism.
    Mine has been an outlook evolved from its time, growing from a particular period of history of absolutes and certainties. Everything shifted for devoutly held faith when schools began teaching comparative religion. From then on, the game was up. If each religion, it was now taught, has its own legitimacy, its own beliefs and concept of the divine, what is to say whether one is any better than another?" Joan Bakewell, 'Portrait: Just 70', The Guardian (London), February 20, 2004, G2: Guardian Features Pages, Pg. 7.
  23. ^ Hohenadel, Kristin (March 4, 2001). "'Don't Call Me Actor,' says a Nominee for Best, Um...". The New York Times. pp. 2A.3. I don't believe in God,
  24. ^ THE ONION: Is there a God? PAUL BARMAN: Obviously not. O: Why obviously not? PB: Isn't believing in God like wearing chain mail? O: In that it protects you from being lanced? PB: [Laughs.] In that you just don't do it anymore.[The Onion A.V. Club, Sept. 6, 2000]
  25. ^ "Pelin Batu: Kendimi Bildim Bileli Ateistim". Aktif Haber. November 18, 2012. Archived from the original on November 21, 2012.
  26. ^ Andréa Beltrão tem 45 anos de vida, 30 de carreira, pouquíssimas rugas e uma grande família, dentro e fora de casa. Marie Claire, 2009. "A atriz, que há sete anos arranca gargalhadas como a cabeleireira Marilda de A grande família, é uma ateia convicta. 'Sou cética mesmo. Não acredito em nada. Só em mim e nas pessoas que amo', diz."
  27. ^ Allen Smith, Warren (2002). Celebrities in Hell: A Guide to Hollywood's Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Free Thinkers, and More. Barricade Books Inc. p. 130. ISBN 1-56980-214-9.
  28. ^ "Interview to Mymovies". Mymovies.it. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved August 2, 2011.
  29. ^ "I was brought up Catholic. I'm lapsed. From the age of three I was with the nuns. Now I'm an atheist. I think religion does a lot for us but I can't quite believe it, alas... It's just a personal choice. I love the idea of heaven though. Who doesn't? It's lovely." Paul Bettany, Bettany the Non-Believer Archived September 15, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Movie & Entertainment News, WENN.com, May 10, 2006 (accessed June 10, 2008).
  30. ^ Boyle was on Room 101 and one of his choices was 'celebrity atheists'. Explaining his choice, he said, "I am an atheist, but I don't like celebrity atheists." Frankie Boyle vs Celebrity Atheists – Room 101
  31. ^ Brady had a Catholic upbringing bu.t now considers herself an atheist. Allen Smith, Warren (2002). Celebrities in Hell: A Guide to Hollywood's Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Free Thinkers, and More. Barricade Books Inc. p. 130. ISBN 1-56980-214-9.
  32. ^ "Every religion has a mythology". Sidmennt, the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association. August 16, 2006. Archived from the original on February 12, 2014. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
  33. ^ Neal Brennan [@NealBrennan] (July 11, 2011). "God is unbelievable! (I'm an atheist)" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  34. ^ "Does the prospect of his own inevitable death frighten him? 'I don't think it does. I don't fret about it. I think it was partly to do with seeing my father go. It didn't frighten him. Upset him a bit but not ... I think if you are an atheist, what's there to be frightened of? ... But I don't want to die yet.' " Nigel Farndale, 'The Heartbreak Kid: Jim Broadbent', The Sunday Telegraph, September 23, 2007, Section 7, Pg.8.
  35. ^ " Nor does organised religion emerge with honour, and Brock says he has been an atheist for many years. "My father was an intelligent and articulate advocate for old-fashioned notions of kindness and liberalism, but in the end I just did not feel that loving him was a justification for believing in a whole theocratic system. Religion in certain circles has become increasingly exclusive and aggressive. Fundamentalist attitudes pervade, and that, in its most extreme form, means you can kill anybody you want to because they're an unbeliever." " A very British charmer, The Daily Telegraph August 18, 2006 (accessed April 22, 2008).
  36. ^ "Yeah, that's right. I'm an atheist defending moderate Christians. Wanna make something of it?" [5]. The Guardian August 23, 2008
  37. ^ "If I believed in God, I would thank God every night for giving me [his late wife] Anne Bancroft." Mel Brooks, interviewed by Terry Gross on the National Public Radio program Fresh Air, 2021, on the occasion of his 2021 autobiography, All About Mel: My Remarkable Life in Show Business; interview repeated on NPR, 23 November 2022.
  38. ^ "Father Julian... and I often talk about faith and the existence of God, but... he's forever coming up against the stone wall of my atheism..." Luis Buñuel (1982, 1985). My Last Breath: p.254.
  39. ^ Luis Bunuel (March 26, 2013). My Last Sigh: The Autobiography of Luis Bunuel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 254. ISBN 9780345803719. [Father Julian] and I often talk about faith and the existence of God, but since he's forever coming up against the stone wall of my atheism...
  40. ^ Richard Burton (2012). Chris Williams (ed.). The Richard Burton Diaries. Yale University Press. p. 252. ISBN 9780300192315. I wish I could believe in a God of some kind but I simply cannot.
  41. ^ Suicide Girls (March 30, 2011). "Interviews > Kari Byron". Retrieved March 30, 2011.
  42. ^ Kari Byron [@KariByron] (August 7, 2011). "Went to Moss Beach Distillery hoping to be haunted by the Blue Lady. Still an atheist. Damn it" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  43. ^ "Born in Dublin in 1949, Caffrey enjoyed acting in school plays but subsequently went to a seminary for two years with a view to becoming a priest (he later played one in Coronation Street). He came out an atheist and studied English at University College, Dublin, before teaching at a primary school for a year." Anthony Hayward, 'Peter Caffrey; Padraig in 'Ballykissangel' ', The Independent (London), January 4, 2008, Obituaries, Pg. 42.
  44. ^ Rebecca Winters Keegan. The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron. p. 8. I've sworn off agnosticism, which I now call cowardly atheism.
  45. ^ Described as a "devout atheist" in Richard Carleton 1943–2006 – The death of a legendary journalist Archived June 4, 2008, at the Wayback Machine – The Bulletin, May 16, 2006.
  46. ^ "Carolla talks about atheism". Archived from the original on September 26, 2007.
  47. ^ Adam Carolla on Atheism. February 5, 2008 – via YouTube.
  48. ^ Jimmy Carr on Richard Dawkins Archived December 23, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, December 28, 2008
  49. ^ "So me, the completely unsuperstitious atheist, goes and posts on a message board that 'no, I don't believe in bad luck on Friday the 13th'." "Asia Carrera's official website, bulletin for July 13, 2006". Archived from the original on August 13, 2007. (archived August 29, 2007)
  50. ^ "I want Christians and other believers to watch The Ledge and see that atheists have a valid point of view," says Chapman. "There are a lot of us, we are thinking people, we care about many of the same issues as believers, and yet we are rarely heard and widely hated. I hope atheists who are still in the closet will take heart from the film and think, 'I am not alone.'" Press release for The Ledge Archived June 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine (accessed July 11, 2011).
  51. ^ Unhand my patio heater, archbishop, February 26, 2009
  52. ^ "In my opinion, if the human race is going to survive, [religion] is something we definitely need to get over—and we're far from over it, and so therefore, I'm far from over it." [6]
  53. ^ Solway, Diane (December 2, 2013). "George Clooney: Spot the Star". W. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  54. ^ "Where do you go when you die? The same place you were before you were born; nowhere! It's over!" Billy Connolly Live: Was It Something I Said?, 2007
  55. ^ "Jim Cornette fired back at Hulk Hogan/TNA". Archived from the original on October 24, 2011.
  56. ^ cite [7] "I'm an atheist. I don't have a religion"
  57. ^ cite [8] "I've been an atheist since age 11"
  58. ^ Reviewing The Letters of Noel Coward edited by Barry Day, Simon Callow noted: "His unashamed patriotism galvanised the nation. One wonders whether these admirers would have laughed so heartily or wept so freely if they had thought that they were being entertained and moved by a homosexual atheist of the most militant kind. A letter to his mother on the early death of his brother out-Dawkinses Dawkins: "I'm saying several acid prayers to a fat contented God the Father in a dirty night gown who hates you and me and every living creature in the world." " The Guardian, December 15, 2007, Review pages, Pg. 7.
  59. ^ "Echte Helden sind schüchtern" – Interview with Daniel Craig. Die Zeit, January 12, 2012. Retrieved June 15, 2016. "ZEIT: In Verblendung gibt es, wie schon in anderen Filmen von David Fincher, Bezüge zur Bibel. Sind Sie gläubig? Craig: Ich bin Atheist."
  60. ^ "Cronenberg's parents were atheists who encouraged him to experiment spiritually, convinced that sooner or later he'd find his own path to godlessness. And he did. This lack of belief, which became a belief system in itself, informs so much of his work: the primacy of the body, the finality of death, the lack of consolation. "It was apparent to me that religion was an invented thing," he says, "a wish-fulfilment thing, a fantasy thing. It was much more real, dangerous, to accept that mortality was the end for you as an individual. As an atheist, I don't believe in an afterlife, so if you're thinking of murder, if your subject is murder, then that's a physical act of absolute destruction because you're ending something, a body, that is unique. That person never existed before, will never exist again, will not be karmically recycled, will not go to heaven, therefore I take it seriously." " Simon Hattenstone interviewing Cronenberg, 'Gentleman's relish', The Guardian, October 6, 2007 (accessed June 9, 2008).
  61. ^ "I don't believe in life after death. I'm a staunch atheist and I know when I die that will be it, I'll just blink out of existence. It's not an incredibly comforting thought but I'm completely at peace with that idea and it just makes me appreciate this life all the more. It's almost a panic to get as much done and to have as much experience as possible." Mackenzie Crook interviewed by Teddy Jamieson, The Herald (Glasgow), April 19, 2008, Magazine, Pg. 12.
  62. ^ Thompson, Stephen (September 15, 1999). "David Cross". The A.V. Club. Retrieved December 25, 2021. He's coming at me with all this, saying that I'm a self-loathing Jew, and I said I was raised Jewish but I don't believe in God, I'm not Jewish, and I don't hold those beliefs
  63. ^ "The argument continued in the next episode, when atheist Adrianne, commenting on the apartment's cleanliness, said, 'The Christians think they're better than everybody and they're holier than thou. But I clean up their messes all the time.'" God and Woman at America's Next Top Model Archived February 11, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, John Bowman]
  64. ^ https://www.indiatvnews.com/entertainment/bollywood-rustom-actress-ileana-d-cruz-confesses-of-being-an-atheist-342238
  65. ^ https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/item/14909-rodney-dangerfield- Dangerfield said he was an atheist during an interview with Howard Stern in May 2004. Stern asked Dangerfield if he believed in an afterlife. Dangerfield answered he was a "logical" atheist and added, "We're apes––do apes go anyplace?"
  66. ^ "Paul Daniels".
  67. ^ "Entertainer John Davidson, a Preacher's Kid, Explains Why He No Longer Believes in God". Friendly Atheist.
  68. ^ "Why do people believe all this stuff, Stephen? (...) Bronze age mythology and they believe it all! (...) Why do they believe it all? Can't they just go: 'all that was mad. I thought it was true for a minute'" [9]. Retrieved August 16, 2008
  69. ^ "As writer and executive producer of Doctor Who, Davies often plays with religious imagery (from a cross-shaped space station to robot angels with halos), but he's a fervent believer in [Richard] Dawkins. "He has brought atheism proudly out of the closet!" " Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord, The Independent, April 6, 2008 (accessed April 7, 2008)
  70. ^ "A fervently Roman Catholic child – he talks of his "dogged piety" and of "years wasted in useless prayer" – Davies has now embraced atheism with a born-again zeal." Wendy Ide, 'A regret-filled love letter to a changing city', The Times (London), May 20, 2008, Features, Pg. 23.
  71. ^ Interviewed by American Atheist "AA: You're a second generation Atheist. While in college, did you have a skeptical attitude toward the paranormal? Was it something you thought about at the time? DAVIS: I was always skeptical of ghosts, or aliens, or whatever it might be." American Atheist Interview with William B. Davis (accessed April 14, 2008)
  72. ^ "Clarence Darrow Award › John de Lancie 2018". Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  73. ^ "A conversation with Guillermo del Toro". Archived from the original on March 13, 2010. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
  74. ^ "Gentleman, frankly I'm an atheist,..."Enough Rope Archived May 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine', July 25, 2005.
  75. ^ Winston, Kimberly (February 24, 2016). "Johnny Depp goes to Washington for atheist gathering". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
  76. ^ "I have given up belief in a God." Allen Smith, Warren (2002). Celebrities in Hell: A Guide to Hollywood's Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Free Thinkers, and More. Barricade Books Inc. p. 130. ISBN 1-56980-214-9.
  77. ^ "Roseanne Barr: 'Phyllis Diller was a genius'". Hollywood.com. August 22, 2012. Retrieved August 25, 2012. Barr admits Diller never believed in God and she often joked about heaven.
  78. ^ Stephen M. Silverman, Dancing on the Ceiling: Stanley Donen and His Movies, Alfred A. Knopf: New York (1996), page 312.
  79. ^ "I'm an atheist but I wouldn't mind being visited by a ghost, I'd be open to the experience." Tudors beauty: Nude scenes were harrowing (interview with Natalie Dormer
  80. ^ "Well, if humans are to develop as a species, we have to stand on our own two feet. If we do not do that, then we are destined to repeat the errors of history, we are destined to repeat the problems ... hhhh [sigh] ... we see emerging, the Zeitgeist that's blowing through on either sides of the divide at the moment. This is destined to repeat itself, unless we can evolve towards a secular, moral compass, that enables us to respect each other, and respect our ideas, and respect the accidental, biological genius of humankind, that has come about largely not through design, but through accident, and not to piss it up against the wall by demeaning ourselves into imagining that there is some divine master plan that gives the earth and gives the world 'sense'..., if we can accept that all we have is each other, that's all we have, then we may respect each other a little more. Impossible, utterly impossible, but you can only try, you can only try." The Songlines Conversations: John Doyle show transcript, July 9, 2006
  81. ^ "French Director Bruno Dumont on Outside Satan: "No God but Cinema"". huffingtonpost.com. November 21, 2011. Retrieved March 25, 2014.
  82. ^ Gene Siskel (January 7, 1973). "Clint: The Cynical King who Outdrew the Duke". Chicago Tribune. Eastwood: "No, I don't believe in God"
  83. ^ "I'm an atheist. My mother is very religious, a churchgoer. She would often encourage me to go to church as well, but never forced it upon me, which I thought was quite decent of her. [...] There was no defining moment in which I decided there was no god for me, it was more of a growing process. I do feel that whatever religious beliefs I had as a child were foisted upon me. It's like when you ask where Grandma went when she died, and you'd be told that she went to heaven. I wouldn't necessarily view that as a bad thing, but it was stuff like that which I think hindered my intellectual development. Now that I've grown, I prefer a different interpretation." Christopher Eccleston, The Heaven and Earth Show, BBC1, April 3, 2005, 10:30.
  84. ^ "Earlier this year David Edgar wrote an unforgettable account of the death of his wife, Eve Cook, for a BBC radio talk during Easter week. An avowed atheist, Edgar said that he was trying to express 'that most human need to tell the dead what we would want to say – but know we couldn't say – if they were still alive'." Sean French, 'Dust to dustjacket', The Guardian, April 30, 1999, Pg. 18.
  85. ^ Mike O'Mahony (2008). Sergei Eisenstein. Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781861894496. For example, as a scientific materialist and self-confessed atheist, Eisenstein was a harsh critic of religion and spirituality, and yet religious rituals and biblical references permeate his works to such an extent that he was frequently criticized for excessive religious zeal by the Soviet censors.
  86. ^ Al LaValley (2001). Eisenstein at 100. Rutgers University Press. p. 70. ISBN 9780813529714. As a committed Marxist, Eisenstein outwardly turned his back on his Orthodox upbringing, and took pains in his memoirs to stress his atheism.
  87. ^ Sergei Eisenstein (1996). Richard Taylor (ed.). Beyond the stars: the memoirs of Sergei Eisenstein, Volume 5. BFI Publishing. p. 414. ISBN 9780851704609. My atheism is like that of Anatole France -- inseparable from adoration of the visible forms of a cult.
  88. ^ "The comedian [...] said Britons should be taught the essentials of Christianity, if only for cultural reasons. But he also said that "lack of faith" should be taught in schools. "I think the concept that faith in itself is a good thing should be questioned from day one, which it isn't," he said. "There's a presumption that if you're a religious leader you are in some way already halfway up to the moral high ground and your opinion has more relevance than anyone else's." BBC 'too scared to allow jokes about Islam', April 2, 2008. (Accessed April 3, 2008)
  89. ^ "Elton described himself as an atheist but said he was in favour of God defined as "the mystery of the universe". His children attend a Church of England school and he said he attended church occasionally." BBC 'scared' of Islam jokes, says Elton, The Guardian, April 2, 2008 (accessed April 3, 2008)
  90. ^ "I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was . . . nothingness.""Freethought of the Day". ffrf.com. Archived from the original on September 15, 2008.
  91. ^ "God Dies: An Essay by Frances Farmer". www.historylink.org.
  92. ^ "For Lent, when I was younger, I gave up Happy Days. Now I'm an atheist.""Positive Atheism's Big List of Quotations". Archived from the original on September 27, 2008. Retrieved August 21, 2008.
  93. ^ McKinley, Jesse (January 2, 2005). "Fierstein As Tevye: Sounds Crazy, No?". The New York Times. p. 2.5. I mean, I don't believe in God, I don't believe in heaven or hell, but I pray three or four times a day.
  94. ^ Interviewer: "At what point did you realize you were an atheist?" Flemming: "I kind of realized it gradually. At first it was like, OK, clearly fundamentalist Christianity is wrong, but Christianity is probably right. Then the more I actually thought about it, the more I deduced my way to atheism." Finding My Religion, SF Gate (San Francisco Chronicle), February 13, 2006 (accessed April 14, 2008).
  95. ^ Celebrity Atheist List Archived September 1, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, excerpt from Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect, aired October 10, 2000
  96. ^ Fonda: "I'm an atheist..." Ben Foster and Peter Fonda Talk Westerns and 3:10 to Yuma Archived June 7, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Rebecca Murray, About.com [Accessed June 17, 2010]
  97. ^ "The more significant was Granada's Adam Smith the following year, with Keir as a bereaved Church of Scotland minister seeking the meaning of life. Though written by Trevor Griffiths under a nom-de-plume, it owed much of its character to Sir Denis Forman, by this time Granada's chairman and himself a son of the manse – Adam was his father's first name. Sir Denis is also a convinced atheist, and the series, which at first went out on Sunday evenings as a religious offering, became so doubting that it had to be switched to an ordinary outlet." Philip Purser, 'Obituary: Andrew Keir', The Guardian, October 7, 1997, Pg. 14.
  98. ^ "Jodie Foster: Unbreakable". Entertainment Weekly. September 7, 2007. Archived from the original on March 5, 2008. Retrieved December 29, 2007. EW: Are you religious? JF: No, I'm an atheist. But I absolutely love religions and the rituals. Even though I don't believe in God.
  99. ^ "The Omen is one of my favorites. Even though I'm an atheist now, I was brought up Catholic and can remember thinking that it could actually be real!""Night of the Laughing Dead: An Interview With Shaun Of The Dead Writer/Actor Simon Pegg And Co-Star Nick Frost". dvdverdict.com. Archived from the original on December 21, 2008.
  100. ^ "I knew I couldn't believe in God, because I was fundamentally Hellenic in my outlook." Fry, Stephen (2004) [1997]. Moab is my washpot. Arrow books. p. 382. ISBN 978-0-09-945704-6.
  101. ^ "Sometimes belief means credulity, sometimes an expression of faith and hope which even the most sceptical atheist such as myself cannot but find inspiring." Stephen Fry, The Spectator Lecture at the Royal Geographical Society, reprinted as 'Would I live in America? In a heartbeat', The Spectator, May 9, 2009, Pg. 28.
  102. ^ "Bob Geldof – Freedom From Religion Foundation". Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  103. ^ Catherine Shoard (October 17, 2008). "Beyond the cringe". The Guardian. London. Retrieved November 7, 2008.
  104. ^ Ricky Gervais (December 19, 2010). "A Holiday Message From Ricky Gervais: Why I'm an Atheist". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved December 25, 2010.
  105. ^ "I never saw Russell lose it on set...". TotalFilm.com. February 8, 2006. I'm an atheist...
  106. ^ "394: Bait and Switch – This American Life". Archived from the original on October 4, 2012. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
  107. ^ "This book is called "Allah knows best" because it is my dark suspicion we are on the verge of the new Middle Ages of Mecca; and because I feel, as a professional atheist, very unsafe in a climate that is dominated by ambitious mayors who are happily busy "keeping things together". Since September 11, the knives are sharpened and the fifth column of goatfuckers marches ahead unhindered." Theo van Gogh, 'What they have said about Islam', in 'Netherlands braced for Muslim anger as politician releases 'anti-Islam' film', The Independent (London), January 25, 2008, Pg. 32.
  108. ^ "Syracuse Newspaper – Syracuse New Times". Archived from the original on June 30, 2012.
  109. ^ " "I'm agnostic. I don't believe there is a God around, but if anybody else wants to believe and that does them good and keeps them right, then go for it. I would love to have that faith that some people have. I like the whole moral education and sense of community and friendship that churches have, but there's just too much badness in the world. I can't accept that whole thing of a benign God." Dan, who admits to being a workaholic, even wrote a play about his lack of faith. " Gail Edgar interviewing Gordon, 'I found a lump and thought, that's it the party's over', The Belfast Telegraph, October 26, 2008 (accessed March 25, 2009).
  110. ^ "FAQ Religion". Angelagossow.com. Archived from the original on December 27, 2012. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  111. ^ "I don't waste any time thinking about the beyond, reincarnation or whether or not we are transported to another realm. I try to live life from moment to moment. What happens next doesn't occupy a single atom of thought... I took a comparative religion course when I was at university to get an overview, but it had no impact whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, Darwin has come up with the best theory of how, when and why we are here – nothing else has convinced me otherwise.""Coming Out as Atheist: Richard E. Grant". secularism.org.uk.
  112. ^ Richard E. Grant acknowledged his atheism in a December 13, 2018 NPR Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross.
  113. ^ Interview on the Graceful Atheist (Spotify podcast), 25 July 2019: https://anchor.fm/gracefulatheist/episodes/Alice-Greczyn-Dare-to-Doubt-e4m7t3; Interview on Ask an Atheist (YouTube channel), 19 February 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZvrgMy2gd0; Dare to Doubt: https://www.daretodoubt.org/home
  114. ^ God is, to me, pretty much an idea. God is, to me, pretty much a myth created over time to deny the idea that we're all responsible for our own actions.
  115. ^ "Is there a God?". The A.V. Club. September 6, 2000.
  116. ^ "My films show that I am a true atheist, although I always had the highest marks in Religious Education" "Grußwort des Präsidenten der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin anlässlich zur Eröffnung der Thyssen-Vorlesung von Peter Greenaway, 09.02.2007". Archived from the original on June 4, 2008. Retrieved May 27, 2008. retrieved January 15, 2008
  117. ^ She calls herself a "militant atheist," and she said while accepting her Emmy, "A lot of people come up here and they thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. He didn't help me a bit. So all I can say is suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now."
  118. ^ "The Comedy". Archived from the original on July 27, 2014. Retrieved November 24, 2014.
  119. ^ "'90210's' Shenae Grimes sometimes begs for spare change on the street – Zap2it". Blog.zap2it.com. April 2, 2011. Archived from the original on July 6, 2013. Retrieved June 16, 2013.
  120. ^ "[Kamal Haasan] is a self-professed rationalist, atheist, activist, and a follower of Periyar.""Kamal Haasan turns 51 on Monday, November 7". bollywoodsargam.com. Archived from the original on July 20, 2012.
  121. ^ Kamal Haasan @ AVENUES '10 4.avi. October 30, 2010 – via YouTube.
  122. ^ Kamal Haasan's Rationalism. November 12, 2010 – via YouTube.
  123. ^ During Dan Rather's AXStv interview Haggis says he's an atheist. Intimate interview with Paul Haggis Published on May 27, 2015
  124. ^ Wright, Lawrence (February 12, 2011). "The Apostate". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 13, 2011.
  125. ^ "I've never believed in God. If I've made a mistake and there is a God, I'll say: 'Sorry, Guv'nor, I never believed in you but I'm glad you're here. Can I come in?' If it's just The Big Sleep, that will be OK too – I've always enjoyed a nice kip." Brian Hall, quoted in Chris Hughes, 'Fawlty Towers Chef Dies of Cancer at 59', The Mirror (UK), September 18, 1997, Pg. 19.
  126. ^ Reviewing When the Wind Changed: The Life and Death of Tony Hancock by Cliff Goodwin, Michael Mellow wrote: "No diary is left unopened to reconstruct the complex life of a man whose public appearance was 'shabbily endearing' but who was privately a superstitious but philosophical atheist, prone to violence and depression. This is exhaustive, but never exhausting, with plenty of light relief in the form of transcribed interviews and sketches." The Observer, November 19, 2000, Review Pages, Pg. 14.
  127. ^ Reviewing Hare's collection Obedience, Struggle and Revolt, Nicholas Blincoe noted: "Hare's willingness to engage openly with traditions and institutions he respects can be heard in his speeches about Osborne and Williams, and in a speech to the Anglican Church, delivered at Westminster Abbey [...] the address to the Church is openly atheist." 'Turning his back on revolution', The Daily Telegraph, August 6, 2005, Books section, Pg. 004.
  128. ^ "I believe strongly in the heritage of Jews as educators. I feel very proud of the fact that if it weren't for the Jews, half the world would still be illiterate. I would like to know about Jewish religion as history, but as an atheist, I see no reason to practice any religion... because it is organized superstition... the opiate of the masses." Allen Smith, Warren (2002). Celebrities in Hell: A Guide to Hollywood's Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Free Thinkers, and More. Barricade Books Inc. p. 130. ISBN 1-56980-214-9.
  129. ^ "But this Austin high school dropout (who went on to get a diploma through a home-study program) soon reveals herself to be a well-read young woman who despises television and declared herself an atheist after losing her best friend in a car crash." Amber Heard will be heard
  130. ^ Amber Heard in conversation with Richard Dawkins, October 16th, 2019: [10]
  131. ^ "It's perfectly clear to me that religion is a myth. It's something we have invented to explain the inexplicable." [11]
  132. ^ Hepburn stated "I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for people" in the October 1991 issue of Ladies' Home Journal[12]
  133. ^ Andrew O'Hehir (November 11, 2011). "How should gruesome killers be punished?". Salon. Archived from the original on November 13, 2011. Retrieved June 26, 2021. Herzog is an avowed atheist, but in a certain sense his films, especially in recent years, have become highly spiritual in focus. Thanks to its subject and its characters "Into the Abyss" is suffused with a Christian religiosity that the director treats with great respect.
  134. ^ "My parents are Jewish, but I don't really care about it. I'm pretty well atheist, I guess.""'Jesus sucks,' TV duo's banner tells Toronto". National Post.[permanent dead link]
  135. ^ " Perhaps it is having to listen to Thought for the Day on the Today programme every morning, but John Humphrys, an atheist, appears to be having doubts about his doubts. "I know that I don't believe in God," he says. "I might, however, wake up tomorrow morning and find a shimmering figure in the corner of my bedroom calling me to Jesus." Tim Walker, 'Doubting John', The Daily Telegraph (London), January 31, 2009, News, Mandrake, Pg. 10.
  136. ^ "I don't believe in God, but I don't believe either that the whole thing is just a bizarre accident. Or at least, if it is, something has to explain our spirituality, which clearly does exist." Humphrys interviewed by Kay Parris, On death and doubting Archived July 29, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, Reform, February 2009 (accessed March 25, 2009).
  137. ^ "That character had such a weird internal life." What help could Huston give you? "Not much. I was on my own there. I think Huston was baffled by the script, which was very Catholic, whereas he was a devout atheist." Brad Dourif interviewed by Ryan Gilbey, 'How Weird is Brad?', The Independent (London), December 20, 2002, Features, Pg. 12.
  138. ^ On December 12, 2006, in an interview on Skepticality, the official podcast of Skeptic, Hyneman said, "[A]ctually I'm pretty adamant about, you know, the whole God thing and it seems that skeptics are by and large atheists or something approaching that, which I strongly identify with. So it turned out to be a good thing and I have become enthusiastically part of it."
  139. ^ "Eric Idle – Celebrity Atheist List". www.celebatheists.com.
  140. ^ "I was warming the material up in New York, where one night, literally on stage, I realised I didn't believe in God at all...I just didn't think there was anyone upstairs." from Armstrong, Stephen (February 8, 2009). "Eddie Izzard: Hollywood to House of Commons?". The Times. London. Retrieved August 2, 2010.
  141. ^ "I don't believe in a god." — Izzard to NPR interviewer Steve Inskeep, April 28, 2014.
  142. ^ Talking to Richard Dawkins, James said: "... and it leaves you feeling good, which I suppose is something that religions have always tried to do. Let me get into that now, because, I'm an atheist myself, but it's not something that I would make a point of, because to me it seems perfectly obvious. But it didn't seem obvious to the man who was in charge of the Kogarah Presbyterian Church when I was in the Bible class, and when he found out that I had become an atheist he thought I was condemning myself and my family to the flames, he reacted very badly, but it just did seem to me very clear." Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Clive James Archived September 18, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Edinburgh Book Festival, August 2008.
  143. ^ "To those familiar with his other films, Jarman reinforces his atheism and contempt for traditional Christianity, thereby re-emphasizing the point he just made – that "paradise" is "terrestrial" and is the fruit of human love." William Pencak, The Films of Derek Jarman, page 159.
  144. ^ Interview with Penn Jillette. in which he mentions his and Teller's atheism.
  145. ^ "However, while Buñuel's attacks on religion are primarily confined to Catholicism, Jodorowsky not only violates but de-centres Western religious traditions by creating a hybrid amalgamation of Western, non-Western and occult beliefs. A self-described "atheist mystic", he has claimed to hate religion (for it "is killing the planet"), but he loves mysticism and occult practices like alchemy." David Church, Senses of Cinema, February 13, 2007. [13]
  146. ^ Howard Stern: Are you the type of guy that believes in karma and things like that? Billy Joel: Yes ... well, not in the religious or spiritual sense, I just, you know, that's how things seem to work out. Stern: Are you religious, do you believe in a God? Joel: No. Stern: You don't. Joel: I'm an atheist. [Joel interview on "The Howard Stern Show," November 16, 2010]
  147. ^ On the introduction by his children of a swearbox to his household, Joly wrote: "Our biggest area of contention at home is blasphemy. Jackson follows me round the house waiting for me to say "oh Jesus" or "for God's sake", two of my favourite expressions. I tried to get a ruling excluding these from punishment, on the grounds that I'm an atheist and don't consider them to be swear words." Dom Joly: It's 50p a swear word... and the pot stands at £75, The Independent, April 20, 2008 (accessed April 21, 2008).
  148. ^ "Sarah became an atheist, her writing fired by the cruelties carried out in the name of God. "God, the bastard," was one of her favourite Beckett quotes. "I think she looked at the world around her, and thought it was unsustainable to think there is an all-powerful, all-caring God who made the world as it is," says Simon [Kane, her brother]." Simon Hattenstone, 'A Sad Hurrah', The Guardian, July 1, 2000, Pg. 26.
  149. ^ "28.Do you have a religion and if so what is it? I am an Atheist. I know the film's really Christian and everything but it doesn't really affect me. Oh and you know I'm related to Charles Darwin." [14]
  150. ^ "I love to call myself an atheist. By atheist, I don't mean I would stand up and start delivering speeches on the non-existence of God. I am the kind of person who doesn't like wasting time on visiting religious places or performing rituals. They don't help me in any way." Rajeev Khandelwal, 'I Am', The Times of India, June 10, 2008 (accessed June 10, 2008).
  151. ^ "Once I stayed up for three weeks in a row because I felt I was called upon to write a new religion for women. I was reading all these books, including the Bible... and I'm an atheist." Allen Smith, Warren (2002). Celebrities in Hell: A Guide to Hollywood's Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Free Thinkers, and More. Barricade Books Inc. p. 130. ISBN 1-56980-214-9.
  152. ^ "My biggest fear is death, because I don't think I'm going anywhere. And since I don't think that, and I don't have a belief ... I'm married to someone who has the belief, so she knows she's going somewhere." [15]
  153. ^ "Although Hitchens's title refers to God, his real energy is in the subtitle: "religion poisons everything." Disproving the existence of God (at least to his own satisfaction and, frankly, to mine) is just the beginning for Hitchens..."—Kinsley, Michael (May 13, 2007). "In God, Distrust". The New York Times. Retrieved May 17, 2007.
  154. ^ "Kawalerowicz, a professed atheist, had no interest in demonology per se, only as a symbol of repressed sexuality and of the power of authority, be it the Roman Catholic Church or – though it is never spelt out – Communism." 'Obituary of Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Polish director of 'Mother Joan of the Angels' who fell out with his fellow film-makers over the Solidarity movement', The Daily Telegraph, January 1, 2008, Pg. 23.
  155. ^ http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/kiera-knightley#page5 Archived June 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Interview Magazine.
  156. ^ "Arguably the world's most influential theatre critic, Jan Kott was a man of glittering contradictions – Don Juan and globetrotter, atheist and Jew, anarchist and Communist – and a controversially brilliant polemicist. Fascinated by the dark side of the psyche, he adhered consistently to his own brand of enlightened rationalism, studying Jacques Maritain and the Thomists, and empathising with André Breton and Surrealism." Nina Taylor-Terlecka, 'Obituary: Jan Kott, The Independent (London), January 9, 2002, Pg. 6.
  157. ^ "The whole idea of god is absurd. If anything, 2001 shows that what some people call "god" is simply an acceptable term for their ignorance. What they don't understand, they call "god"... Everything we know about the universe reveals that there is no god. I chose to do Dr. [Arthur C.] Clarke's story as a film because it highlights a critical factor necessary for human evolution; that is, beyond our present condition. This film is a rejection of the notion that there is a god; isn't that obvious?" Smith, Warren (2010). Celebrities in Hell. ChelCbooks, pg. 68
  158. ^ "A self-described atheist, Lancaster had turned down the role in the remake of Ben-Hur (1959) played by Charlton Heston, but followed in Heston's footsteps when he played the title role in Moses the Lawgiver [...]. When a reporter asked him if he was following in Heston's sandal-clad steps, Lancaster replied, "If Charlton was trapped in Biblical films, it was his own fault – he accepted the limitation." Though Lancaster claimed he was an atheist, some of his friends doubted him." Biography for Burt Lancaster, The Internet Movie Database (accessed June 9, 2008).
  159. ^ a b Elsa Lanchester, Charles Laughton and I, (Harcourt, Brace, 1938)
  160. ^ Famed filmmaker John Landis brought the world "An American Werewolf in Paris" and Michael Jackson's "Thriller," but nothing scares him more than people. In this video the avowed atheist, tells CNN's Nima Elbagir why he thinks "we make stuff up" about monsters, religion, and the devil. [16]
  161. ^ Tom Gunning, British Film Institute (2000). The films of Fritz Lang: allegories of vision and modernity. British Film Institute. p. 7. ISBN 9780851707426. Lang, however, immediately cautions Prokosh, 'Jerry, don't forget, the gods have not created men, man has created the gods.' This is more than a simple statement of Feuerbach-like humanism or atheism.
  162. ^ Patrick Mcgilligan (1998). Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast. St. Martin's Press. p. 477. ISBN 9780312194543. In the final years of his life, Lang had written, in German, a 20- to 30-page short story called "The Wandering Jew." It was "a kind of fable about a Wandering Jew," according to Pierre Rissient. After Lang's death, Rissient asked Latte [Fritz Lang's third wife] if he might arrange for its publication. "No," she replied, "because Fritz would want to be known as an atheist."
  163. ^ Mark Kermode (2013). Hatchet Job: Love Movies, Hate Critics. Pan Macmillan. pp. 25–26. ISBN 9781447230526. The Austrian-born film-maker Fritz Lang once commented that, although he was an atheist, he supported religious education because 'if you do not teach religion, how can you teach ethics?'
  164. ^ "I don't believe in God, but I have this idea that if there were a God, or destiny of some kind looking down on us, that if he saw you taking anything for granted he'd take it away. So he'll be like: 'You think this is going pretty well?' Then he'll go and send down some big disaster." Stargazing: Heather's angry, Jane is ill, Hugh is anxious, Kansas City Star, Wed, October 31, 2007 (accessed November 1, 2007). Archived November 3, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  165. ^ "I was brought up an atheist and have always remained so. But at no time was I led to believe that morality was unimportant or that good and bad did not exist. I believe passionately in the need to distinguish between right and wrong and am somewhat confounded by being told I need God, Jesus or a clergyman to help me to do so. More: I'm offended. And one is constantly being told how offensive is a lack of faith to believers." Nigella Lawson, 'We atheists know right from wrong', The Times, June 26, 1996, Features section.
  166. ^ "I don't believe at all in God and I'm very relieved that I don't." [Huffington Post, June 20, 2012]
  167. ^ Little, John (1996). The Warrior Within – The philosophies of Bruce Lee to better understand the world around you and achieve a rewarding life. Contemporary Books. pp. 128. ISBN 0-8092-3194-8.
  168. ^ a b "YouTube". www.youtube.com.
  169. ^ Little, John (1996). The Warrior Within – The philosophies of Bruce Lee to better understand the world around you and achieve a rewarding life. Contemporary Books. p. 122. ISBN 0-8092-3194-8.
  170. ^ The Seattle Times article confirming that Leykis hosts a radio segment called Ask the Atheist [17].
  171. ^ Richard Saunders (February 3, 2013). "Episode 224". skepticzone.tv (Podcast). The Skeptic Zone. Event occurs at 4:50.
  172. ^ [1/5] Whos Got Gods Millions? HQ. July 9, 2009 – via YouTube.
  173. ^ "Rebecca Lord Archived August 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine (interview), La Cochonne (website), 2004. (in French)
  174. ^ "Jane Lynch: 'I'm kind of an Atheist'". TMZ. May 28, 2013.
  175. ^ "An atheist himself, Macdonald describes Touching the Void as a religious film in a post-religious age. 'It is about realising there is nothing but the void. Uncaring nature. Emptiness.' " Nigel Farndale interviewing Kevin Macdonald, The Sunday Telegraph, January 7, 2007, Section 7, Pg. 18.
  176. ^ Voss, Brandon (February 28, 2008). "Big Gay Following: Seth MacFarlane". The Advocate. Planet Out, Incorporated. Retrieved February 3, 2008. ...I'm an atheist...
  177. ^ On a November 1, 2009 airing of Imus in the Morning when asked by Don Imus about rumors of marriage, Maher: "I said, well, tell them the truth, neither me nor my girl believe in God or marriage, so there is not going to be a big church wedding." When asked whether he thought Christopher Hitchens was a 7 on Dawkins' scale of 1–7 (1 being absolutely certain there is a God and 7 being absolutely certain there isn't, a scale on which Dawkins considers himself 6.9), Maher answered with: "He may be, I think we are all just talking semantics at some point, we are all atheists which means we don't believe in the deity, we don't believe in a magic spaceman, and that we think people who do, have a neurological disorder and they need help."
  178. ^ "I'm an atheist". PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT: Interview with Bill Maher, 3 March 2012
  179. ^ "I'm an atheist." John Malkovich The Age interview (Australia), April 25, 2003, Magazine.
  180. ^ "4thought.tv". Channel 4. Archived from the original on November 10, 2013.
  181. ^ Farber, Stephen (December 31, 2006). "A Night in Hollywood, a Day in Ukraine". The New York Times. Retrieved December 31, 2006. I've always felt very Jewish but very ambivalent about being Jewish. I'm an atheist.
  182. ^ ROLLING STONE: Do you believe in God? MANSON: No, not at all. [Rolling Stone, September 1998]
  183. ^ So you believed in God back then? "I did, yeah" And do you now? "No, I think it's awful", Doctor Who Magazine, August 19, 2010.
  184. ^ "I don't want a church service or anything or any mourners. I don't believe in God – that's a load of nonsense because people can't accept that there is no life after death. [...] "Religion and God is just all a big fairy tale made up to try to control people. If you actually look at all the big problems and wars and terrible things that have happened in the world they have been down to people believing in God and thinking their way is the only way. I blame these religious schools for brainwashing people into believing their way is the only way. All schools should be mixed and that way you get rid of the ignorance and prejudice from a young age." McCririck interviewed by Paul Martin, The Mirror (Éire Edition), March 7, 2009, Pg. 16.
  185. ^ " Time for some quick-fire questions, I say. Are you religious? "No, I'm an atheist." Is religion a positive or negative force in the world? "I hate that as a glib question. It's much more complicated than that. " When did you last think about mortality? "This morning." " Teddy Jamieson interviewing McDiarmid, 'Return of the emperor', The Herald (Glasgow), January 3, 2009, Arts Books Cinema, Pg. 2.
  186. ^ "I was brought up a Christian, low church, and I like the community of churchgoing. That's rather been replaced for me by the community of people I work with. I like a sense of family, of people working together. But I'm an atheist. So God, if She exists, isn't really a part of my life." – from a January 19, 1996 profile by Tim Appelo found in Mr. Showbiz.
  187. ^ "Father Ted star reveals she is a confirmed atheist". The Irish Post. March 22, 2020.
  188. ^ "As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion." A lifelong atheist, she donated her body to medical science and remembered the Freedom From Religion Foundation in her will.
  189. ^ "No, I don't believe in God" "Series 1, Episode 2". The Ricky Gervais Show. December 12, 2005.
  190. ^ "I've been reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. It's his polemic against religion and even for an avowed atheist like myself, it's quite strong." Merchant, Stephen (May 2007), "Office Boy", Q
  191. ^ "As I was saying before, it was so hard for me to be a Catholic. It wound my spring almost to the breaking point. The spring is still uncoiling from those early years. I'm a thoroughly virulent atheist."September 2004 Interview in The Believer
  192. ^ "Sometimes I feel like a farmer during a war, someone who doesn't know very much about it and carries on digging, hoping for rain. But just the last few days I've had this terrible feeling of... doom. It's a, er, biblical, kind of Old Testament feeling. I'm an atheist, but I was suddenly thinking of those stories of the flood and punishment. Because we've become unbelievably greedy and destructive." Helen Mirren interviewed by Simon Garfield, The Independent (London), November 25, 1990, The Sunday Review Pages, Pg 27.
  193. ^ " No kosher food, but he [Warren Mitchell] feels Jewish. "I can't define it, I just am." It is not spiritual. "I am an atheist, thank God," he quips. " The pride of prejudice Archived March 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Scotland on Sunday, October 10, 2004 (accessed April 22, 2008).
  194. ^ Jeffrey Meyers (2012). "Marriage and England". The Genius and the Goddess: Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe. University of Illinois Press. p. 157. ISBN 9780252078545. Marilyn called herself a "Jewish atheist".
  195. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tflh4yK36DM#t=3m45s - When Julianne Moore was asked what she would like to hear God say after reaching heaven, she replied, "Well, I guess you were wrong, I do exist."
  196. ^ Stephen Galloway (January 28, 2015). "Julianne Moore Believes in Therapy, Not God (And Definitely Gun Control)". The Hollywood Reporter.
  197. ^ Moran says in the video of his live show Monster: "To me religion seems like a bunch of people talking to their imaginary friend." Quoted in the IMDB entry for Monster.
  198. ^ "Craggy Island would soak up the irony. From beyond the grave, Dermot Morgan, a staunch atheist who savaged the Catholic Church, is delivering a final kick to the priests who gave him a hero's send-off." Rory Carroll, 'Catholic critic Father Ted still causing controversy', The Guardian, April 23, 1998, Pg. 4.
  199. ^ "Father Ted is dead". spiritofgenovia.com. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved May 5, 2011.
  200. ^ Interviewer: "You said that your experiences on Sunshine, and particularly the time you spent with the scientists turned you from an agnostic to an atheist – what changed your perception?" Murphy: "I did a lot of reading, I spoke to those guys a lot, and I was always an agnostic, which I think is a very safe place to be in terms of your faith or lack of... It just seems to me to be irrational that there's an omnipotent, omnipresent being who was there at the beginning, and will be there forever, it's not logical, it doesn't help me as a person..." April 2007 interview in Total Film (Accessed November 20, 2007)
  201. ^ "The Miracle Maker didn't have songs or animals (give or take the fishes with the loaves), wasn't playschool Plasticene, and told a serene, grave and majestic version of Christ's life. Animated with latex puppets (by a Moscow studio), this was the most credible Jesus I have ever seen. Why? Because I hadn't seen him before. He wasn't that actor I had seen last week in a Lynda La Plante, nor was he in a Bond movie before that. Yes, he had Ralph Fiennes' voice but few would recognise it. And when he fell to his knees in Gethsemane, I (diehard atheist) was there, this was Him, an unadulterated Messiah, unmodified by anything else creeping into my response. It was pure." Jonathan Myerson, 'How to bring poetry to motion', The Independent (London), April 10, 2001, Features, Pg. 12.
  202. ^ Akkineni Nageswara Rao.
  203. ^ "Thandie Newton: Embracing otherness, embracing myself". Ted.com. July 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
  204. ^ "On the March 21, 2001 broadcast of Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed Nichols about his then-new film Wit based on the Pulitzer-prize winning play of the same name. He identified himself as a 'negative atheist' and said (paraphrased by the contributor) "I never consider what comes after this life, I have no interest in heaven, hell, god, etc..." [18]
  205. ^ "Questioned about the spiritual content of the film, Noe told a press conference he was a hard-and-fast atheist, but was drawn by the challenge of representing a spiritual journey in images." Emma Charlton, 'Tokyo trips join Cannes line-up', Agence France Presse – English, May 23, 2009.
  206. ^ "I'm staunchly atheist, I simply don't believe in God. But I'm still Catholic, of course. Catholicism has a much broader reach than just the religion. I'm ethnically Catholic, it's the box you have to tick on the census form: 'Don't believe in God, but I do still hate Rangers.'" [19]. Retrieved August 11, 2008
  207. ^ Ryder, Caroline (September 2, 2013). "Elizabeth Olsen cover interview for Dazed&Confused". Retrieved August 8, 2019. When I was 13, I told my parents I didn't believe in God any more," she says. "I wanted to be an atheist because I believed that religion should be about community and having a place to go in prayer, not something that should determine women's freedoms.
  208. ^ Koski, Genevieve (August 31, 2011). "Interview: Patton Oswalt". The A.V. Club. Retrieved September 9, 2011.
  209. ^ Nicoletta Asciuto (November 18, 2011). "Something Sacred: Yasujiro Ozu's Cinema". The Bubble. Archived from the original on October 17, 2014. Retrieved September 12, 2012. Ozu's cinema was thus something nearly heavenly for Wenders, something sacred that must be neither confused nor mingled with religion though – Ozu himself was essentially an atheist and there was little, if any, religion in his films: even his tombstone bears no epigraph, save only for an ancient Chinese character signifying 'Nothingness', ('mu').
  210. ^ Daniel D'Addario, "Ellen Page on Freeheld and Why She Came Out: 'I Was Just Depressed'," Time, August 27, 2015.
  211. ^ "I don't believe in God, but I pray like everybody else. Silly, isn't it? I used to pray that I would do a good interview, that the children would be looked after. It's a way of reaffirming the subconscious desire that things are going to be all right. I don't see the incompatibility." Michael Parkinson, 'This much I know', The Observer, May 17, 2009
  212. ^ "Newly tolerant Parry is a "post-Deist" – "basically I'm an atheist but reluctant to admit it." Cassandra Jardine interviewing Bruce Parry, The Daily Telegraph, September 19, 2007, Features, Pg. 25.
  213. ^ "Islam as we are experiencing it in the west at the moment is having difficulties examining areas of criticism. All religions should face criticism. As an atheist, I believe it is a healthy society that does criticise religions. What happened to Salman Rushdie was absolutely shameful. It takes us back to the middle ages." Julia Pascal, interviewed for the article 'Sikh theatre row: Can censorship ever be justified?', The Guardian, December 22, 2004, Pg. 7.
  214. ^ At a press conference in 1966, Pasolini said, "If you know that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief."
  215. ^ Twitter Simon Pegg's Twitter Feed
  216. ^ "On The Burns and Allen Show, he [George Balzer] was paired with the more experienced scripter Sam Perrin. The two writers were a natural team, despite the fact that Balzer was a devout Catholic and Perrin a Jewish atheist." Dick Vosburgh, 'George Balzer: Veteran comedy writer', The Independent (London), November 4, 2006, Obituaries, Pg. 44.
  217. ^ "Both her parents came from Russian Jewish backgrounds, but Julia was brought up as an atheist and an avid reader in Brooklyn, before the family moved, first to Great Neck, Long Island, and then to Milwaukee." Obituary of Julia Phillips, The Daily Telegraph, January 4, 2002, Pg. 25.
  218. ^ Jonathan C. Criswell (2011). The Wit and Blasphemy of Atheists: 500 Greatest Quips and Quotes from Freethinkers, Non-Believers and the Happily Damned. Ulysses Press. p. 30. ISBN 9781569759011. I don't believe in god. I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in soul. I don't believe in anything. I think it's totally right for people to have their own beliefs if it makes them happy, but to me it's a pretty preposterous idea. – Joaquin Phoenix
  219. ^ "Does Pitt think suicide is selfish? 'I see why people think it is, and sometimes I do. And sometimes I don't think it's selfish. I'm probably an atheist, though I was raised a Catholic and that whole religion is based on the first suicide, in many ways.'" Roger Clarke interviewing Pitt, 'Film: Nearly Nirvana', The Independent (London), August 26, 2005, Features, Pg. 8–9.
  220. ^ "To begin with I'm an atheist (...)". Roman Polanski: Interviews, p. 17. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2005.
  221. ^ "When asked what directors she admires, Polley talks about Ingmar Bergman and Terrence Malick (she says his Thin Red Line "single-handedly brought me out of a deep depression. It shifted something in me. I'm an atheist, but it was the first time that it gave me faith in other people's faith")." Woman on the Verge Archived February 16, 2012, at the Wayback Machine by Mark Pupo, Toronto Life Magazine, October 2006.
  222. ^ "I wear a crucifix that cost a tenner. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in fancy jewellery either." Gail Porter, 'This much I know', The Observer, March 19, 2006, Observer Magazine, Pg. 10.
  223. ^ "I'm an atheist. The good news about atheists is that we have no mandate to convert anyone. So you'll never find me on your doorstep on a Saturday morning with a big smile, saying, 'Just stopped by to tell you there is no word. I brought along this little blank book I was hoping you could take a look at.' "[20] —Paula Poundstone, There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say, 2006.
  224. ^ "Religion makes me angry but I don't get overheated about it but I really dislike it and am a confirmed atheist and I believe most of the world's troubles are caused by people who have some abounding faith in some stupid superstition. It also makes me sad and depresses me immensely that people can be so stupid. Defending this, that and the other based on total myths and nonsense." Peter Purves, interviewed by 'Digger' Archived May 31, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  225. ^ "But once sincere believers begin to investigate the evidence and arguments on either side of this alleged controversy, they will very quickly face a life-altering choice: whether to remain honest, or whether to remain creationist, because it is no longer possible to be both." Hemant Mehta (November 29, 2016). "Aron Ra's New Book Tackles the Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism". Patheos. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
  226. ^ "I'm an atheist, but I'm very relaxed about it. I don't preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do."[21] by Anita Singh, The Daily Telegraph, July 2009.
  227. ^ "I stopped taking life for granted after my son's death: Prakash Raj - Times of India". articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. Retrieved January 17, 2022.
  228. ^ Sumit Mitra (February 15, 1983). "In India it is not possible to make a Costa-Gavras type of film: Satyajit Ray". India Today. India Today. Retrieved April 1, 2023. Interviewer: "Do you believe in God?" Ray: "No. I don't believe in religion either. At least not in organised religion. Nor have I felt the necessity for any personal religion."
  229. ^ "I'm not a believer, I call myself an atheist. It was man who invented God. I once wrote that there are 15 things I know about God, and one is that he is allergic to shellfish. There are far too many commandments and you really only need one: Do not hurt anybody." Carl Reiner interviewed by Tom Tugend, 'No Joke: Carl and Rob Reiner Honored by Israeli Film Festival Archived August 5, 2008, at the Wayback Machine', San Francisco Sentinel, June 17, 2008 (accessed June 17, 2008).
  230. ^ "We're not equal? How are we not equal?" Rob Reiner on Real Time with Bill Maher, in response to Maher's statement, "I would argue atheists are [not considered equal under the law]". Maher then stated, "For a group that is about 17 percent now... no representation in congress..." to which Reiner replied, "You're right about that- that we don't have that representation. I include myself in that same 17 percent...." "Real Time with Bill Maher". YouTube.
  231. ^ Philip Nord (December 3, 2020). "Heroes and Martyrs". After the Deportation - Memory Battles in Postwar France. Cambridge University Press. p. 92. ISBN 9781108478908. Retrieved July 7, 2021. Spiritualizing currents coursed through the Latin Quarter world Resnais frequented in the immediate postwar years. He himself had given up on organized religion, but that didn't mean he remained unmarked by the Catholic world he had grown up in. He described himself as a "mystical atheist", the kind of nonbeliever who was spellbound on hearing by chance the radio broadcast of a sermon delivered in accompaniment to morning Mass.
  232. ^ "[...] Semi-Detached [...] also shows Jones to be an emotional hoarder; a pragmatic atheist, who thinks little of the passage of time and scorns himself out of unhappiness, but who is still ashamed for misleading a girl 30 years earlier." Will Cohu, reviewing Semi-Detached by Griff Rhys Jones, The Daily Telegraph, November 18, 2006, Books, Pg. 30.
  233. ^ "I read the whole of the Chronicles of Narnia when I was little and I grew up an atheist. My problem, I realise, was that I just didn't believe in Aslan." Griff Rhys Jones, 'Darling how thoughtful: a voucher for buttock reshaping', The Sunday Telegraph, December 11, 2005, Features section, Pg.19.
  234. ^ Asked by interviewer Laura Deeley: "Do you find any solace in anything religious or spiritual?" Richardson replied: "My mother is an RE teacher and my dad is a canon. But, no, I'm not religious myself. I don't believe in God; more in a creative force." 'Try this for size', The Times (London), January 3, 2009, Body & Soul, Pg. 23.
  235. ^ "An atheist, despite his upbringing, he described himself as a humanist radical." Anne Pimlott Baker, 'Robertson, Fyfe (1902–1987)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed May 2, 2008).
  236. ^ "Strikingly, there is no religious or mystical dimension to the "Star Trek" universe at all, at least until much later in its development. (Roddenberry regarded himself as an "agnostic atheist," and banned any religious references from the show.)" Andrew O'Hehir, 'Why the original "Star Trek" still matters', Salon, May 13, 2009 (accessed May 26, 2009). See also 'Gene Roddenberry', Humanist Mar/Apr91, Vol. 51 Issue 2, p5-38.
  237. ^ "Richard became an atheist, and as a parent he resisted religious instruction for his children." [22] Richard Rodgers By WILLIAM G. HYLAND Yale University Press
  238. ^ Seth Rollins [@WWERollins] (January 14, 2017). "@eternallordzer0 an atheist? Yes" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  239. ^ Seth Rollins [@WWERollins] (January 15, 2017). "@rmdull72 @eternallordzer0 nope, not agnostic. 100% atheist. Disbeliever all the way" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  240. ^ "Ray Romano on Actors Studio interview". June 19, 2005. Retrieved June 8, 2012. James Lipton: "If Heaven exists, "Ray" What would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? Ray Romano: "My son, I saw what you did In the garage, and you're still welcomed here" (Laughter) "See you were wrong, I do exist."
  241. ^ "Demanding evidence will always be more rewarding than asserting truth." [23][permanent dead link]
  242. ^ "Linda went to Catholic school, but it didn't take. 'I was an atheist by third grade,' she told me, though there is a Haitian goddess she prays to, for President Obama." [Lawrence Downes, The New York Times, Dec. 27, 2013]
  243. ^ "YouTube". www.youtube.com.
  244. ^ "La visione della realtà post-bellica italiana nel cinema". Hortus - Rivista di architettura. Archived from the original on December 13, 2019. Retrieved September 5, 2019.
  245. ^ "Douglas Rushkoff :: Articles, Columns, Features and Essays". Rushkoff. Archived from the original on June 23, 2013. Retrieved May 30, 2013.
  246. ^ Interview with Penn Jillette in which he mentions his atheism. (Podcast episode dated 2007.03.01.)
  247. ^ "My father was a Catholic deacon, my mother was a lay minister and I thought about becoming a priest. I was in church every Sunday for the first 15 years of my life. Now I spend my Sundays on my bike, on my snowboard or on my husband. I haven't spent my post-Catholic decades in a sulk, wishing the church would come around on the issue of homosexuality so that I could start attending Mass again. I didn't abandon my faith. I saw through it. The conflict between my faith and my sexuality set that process in motion, but the conclusions I reached at the end of that process — there are no gods, religion is man-made, faith can be a force for good or evil — improved my life. I'm grateful that my sexuality prompted me to think critically about faith. Pushed out? No. I walked out." [Dan Savage, "What God Wants," The New York Times, April 11, 2013]
  248. ^ "Gilles Nuytens: What aspects of your personality do you share with this character and what aspects of him are completely unlike you? Alan Scarfe: I'd like to think I shared his compassion and intelligence. But the character was a Catholic priest and I am a life-long atheist." Interview with The Sci-Fi World
  249. ^ Ian Curtis (2006). "Appendix". Jesus: Myth Or Reality?. iUniverse. p. 293. ISBN 9780595397648. George C. Scott, American Actor (1927-1999). - During an interview on 60 Minutes, shortly before his death, Scott said he did not believe in God at all.
  250. ^ "Serkis has been an atheist since his teens [...]" Catherine Shoard, 'Beastie Boy', The Sunday Telegraph March 16, 2008, Section 7, pg.22.
  251. ^ "Yes, I am an atheist. [...] In terms of spirituality, I don't want to ram any of my belief systems down my children's throats. What we both say to them is "This is what some people believe, this is what other people believe," and again, allow them to make their own decisions. Absolutism in anything is death. I hope to keep things as open for them as possible, so they question things and examine things for themselves." Andy Serkis, 5-Minute Time Out: Andy Serkis Archived April 14, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, January 30, 2009 (accessed March 6, 2009).
  252. ^ "I'm just not interested in having quiet time to read my bible. I am a militant atheist." God and Woman at America's Next Top Model Archived February 11, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, John Bowman]
  253. ^ "Makkal Selvan, with love". Deccan Chronicle. January 1, 2017.
  254. ^ Paola Genone (August 31, 2011). "Léa Seydoux: "je suis une femme virile"". L'Express (in French). Retrieved March 1, 2014.
  255. ^ "His first chance came in 1944, when after a long period of feuding with Warner, Warner offered him a short. Siegel himself is a Jewish-born atheist. "I wondered what I could do which would most annoy Warner as a Jew; and decided on a present-day retelling of the story of the nativity. To my surprise he liked the idea, and it was a big success. So then I wondered what else I could do which would irritate him and tried something quite different, which was Hitler Lives." David Robinson, 'Don Siegel's stories', The Times, May 1, 1975; pg. 11; Issue 59384; col E.
  256. ^ In an interview with Elvis Mitchell aired November 16, 2005 on KCRW, Silverman says she is "almost positive there's no god" when speaking of reactions to her 'Jesus is Magic' catch-phrase that was printed on a t-shirt. In Kate Fillion in MacLean's (Canada's weekly news magazine), dated October 22, 2007, page 14 in reply to "Are you an observant Jew?" Silverman answered "Nope. I have no religion. I'm only Jewish ethnically. Culturally."
  257. ^ Debrett's People of Today (2009)
  258. ^ "Tarsem Singh on 'Immortals' and 'Mirror, Mirror': The outspoken atheist explains why he made a movie about faith, gives details about his Snow White movie Mirror, Mirror, describes his original ending to Immortals and explains all the crazy hats. [24] Archived May 14, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  259. ^ " Ian himself is the longest-serving member of the cast, and fans are often shocked when they meet him, expecting him to be an old fuddy duddy like his famous alter ego. "I can't argue with any of his morals on life," Ian says. "He believes in honesty, in not doing anybody any harm, and doing an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. "As far as those things go, I pretty much base him on my own values, but I swear, I drink booze and I'm an atheist, so I am different to Harold." "Gemma Quaid interviewing Smith, 'Blue skies over Erinsborough', Birmingham Post, February 9, 2008, Features, TV & Radio, Pg. 32.
  260. ^ "I recently read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which ignited my interest in a scientific, mathematical version of the world. No, I'm not religious. At all. I'm an atheist." [The Guardian: Matt Smith interview: lord of misrule by Euan Ferguson. 'Saturday 3 December 2011 15.15 EST' http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/dec/03/matt-smith-interview-lord-misrule]
  261. ^ " However, Snow is no fan of Christianity per se: "I'm an atheist," he says, "so I'm fairly harsh on the idea that Christianity is a self-evidently brilliant creed that everyone adopts as soon as they're told about it." " Matt Warman interviewing Snow, 'Dan Snow: How Britain nearly became the Irish Isles', The Daily Telegraph, May 22, 2009 (accessed May 26, 2009).
  262. ^ "Stellan Skarsgård: Bibeln och Koranen får inte styra skolan". Expressen. Archived from the original on May 25, 2009. Retrieved June 30, 2009.
  263. ^ Soderbergh said "I'm a hardcore atheist." State of Independence, by Scotland on January 23, 2005, (Accessed June 8, 2007).
  264. ^ Thompson, Stephen (September 6, 2000). "Is there a God?". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on September 1, 2006. Retrieved December 25, 2021. Well, me, I'm an atheist, so I don't really believe there is. But I suppose I could be proven wrong
  265. ^ Naumann, Ryann (September 5, 2022). "'I Don't Believe In God Anymore': Britney Spears Posts 2-Minute Recording Speaking To Son Jayden As Public Family Fight Intensifies". Radar Online. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  266. ^ Sweeney, Eamon, "Shock Tactics: Doug Stanhope", October 2, 2009, in The Independent, online at [25]: "I'm also a loud atheist".
  267. ^ "Like a lot of atheists, Starkey can seem a little obsessed with religion. [...] 'Personally, I find the inclusiveness and uncertainty of the Church of England as horrible as the brittle, iron-edged certainties of Islam and I would much rather the chairman of the National Secular Society held up the Coronation sword. But I can't see that happening. Although I am an atheist, unlike a Richard Dawkins, I understand the importance of religious motive and, broadly, I am sympathetic to it – except when it is fused with the political, which is what Henry does, and which modern Islam wants to do, and also what Tony Blair and George Bush flirt with.' " Nigel Farndale interviewing David Starkey, The Sunday Telegraph, November 5, 2006, Section 7, Pg. 18.
  268. ^ "The actress Juliet Stevenson was on the ITV1 Sunday programme last week, reading the poems of Philip Larkin. She revealed that she, like him, was an atheist.""Coming out as atheist – Billy Connolly, Juliet Stevenson and Peter O'Toole". secularism.org.uk.[permanent dead link]
  269. ^ Stewart and his wife, Sunny Ozell, are both atheists."Atheist Patrick Stewart". bramptonguardian.com.
  270. ^ Nightline, ABC News, March 25, 2011, Quote: "I am an atheist, I live my life like I'm an atheist."
  271. ^ Swanson, Carl. "Trey Parker and Matt Stone Talk About Why The Book of Mormon Isn't Actually Offensive, and the Future of South Park", New York, March 11, 2011
  272. ^ When asked what book he would choose to memorize, Straczynski said "Despite being an atheist, I would probably choose the Book of Job." Online chat with Straczynski, hosted by SciFi.com(Accessed June 8, 2007) Archived August 17, 2000, at the Wayback Machine
  273. ^ " He also says he is dead proud of his Jewishness. "Not in a religious way – I don't believe in God and all that. But I am Jewish, and very proud to be so, very proud of the culture." " Sam Wollaston interviewing Sugar, 'Sir Alan will see you now', The Guardian (London), March 25, 2009, Features pages, Pg. 8 (online version. Retrieved March 25, 2009).
  274. ^ "It's because I take God so seriously that I can't bring myself to believe in him. In that way, it's really a sign of respect." Julia Sweeney, quoted in Freedom from Religion Foundation "In Reason We Trust" note, Scientific American, vol. 316, no. 1 (January 2017), p. 19.
  275. ^ "Quentin Tarantino I'm an Atheist, Tarantino clarifies in Real Time with Bill Maher (6-26-2021)". YouTube. June 25, 2021. Retrieved June 26, 2021.
  276. ^ Martin Kudlac (July 18, 2016). "Notebook Interview - "Be More Radical Than Me!": A Conversation with Béla Tarr". MUBI. MUBI. Retrieved July 15, 2021. Notebook: "Are you a secular filmmaker?" Tarr: "I am just a simple atheist. I do not believe in God, okay. That's simple."
  277. ^ "Two works created during the last year complete the bill. In the Beginning is a joke that doesn't come off. The story, filtered through Taylor's profound atheism, is that of the book of Genesis." Luke Jennings, 'Sure touch of an old master', The Daily Telegraph, May 1, 2003, Pg. 21.
  278. ^ Interview with Penn Jillette in which he mentions his and Teller's atheism.
  279. ^ "Louis Theroux – Celebrity Atheist List". Celebatheists.com. April 2, 2011. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  280. ^ "Thompson is equally vociferous on matters of faith. [...] "I'm an atheist; I suppose you can call me a sort of libertarian anarchist. I regard religion with fear and suspicion. It's not enough to say that I don't believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing: I am offended by some of the things said in the Bible and the Koran, and I refute them." She knows she's being controversial, but she believes passionately in what she says, and passionately believes it needs saying. "I think that the Bible as a system of moral guidance in the 21st century is insufficient, to put it mildly," she continues, frowning a little. I feel quite strongly that we need a new moral lodestone if we can't rely on what is inside our own selves. Which I think, actually, is pretty reliable." " Jane Cornwell interviewing Thompson, 'Acting on outspoken beliefs', The Australian, October 15, 2008, Features, Pg. 19 (accessed February 11, 2009).
  281. ^ Eric Michael Mazur (2011). Encyclopedia of Religion and Film. ABC-CLIO. p. 438. ISBN 9780313330728. Yet Truffaut, an atheist, was not stumping for God with these conservative attacks.
  282. ^ David Sterritt (1999). The Films of Jean-Luc Godard: Seeing the Invisible. Cambridge University Press. p. 17. ISBN 9780521589710. One way of understanding Godard's approach is to contrast it with that of François Truffaut, one of his most respected New Wave colleagues. As a self-described atheist, Truffaut took special pleasure in the materiality of cinema, noting that no photographic image can be obtained without real, physical light making direct contact with a real, physical object in the immediate presence of the camera.
  283. ^ "I've never believed in God, but I did enjoy the theatrical side so I was always keen to be in Mum's little plays." Wendy Turner in the item 'Stars of Bethlehem: Nativity Springboard to Fame', Daily Mirror (UK), December 19, 2000 (byline: Richard Barber), Features, Pg. 12, 13.
  284. ^ When discussing his movie Heaven with Stephen Applebaum of The Independent, a movie written by Krzysztof Kieslowski as the first part of a trilogy that would never come to fruition as he passed, Tykwer said the film that is loaded with biblical allusion although not a religious one: "The way Kieslowski presented love, as a concept under which people can survive, is very much something I believe in. Love is not rational, and yet it is what makes us live. On that level I feel very much that I'm living a life that is devoted to love, and that is a very spiritual existence in a way. But I absolutely believe that the power to discover, or not to discover, love is within us. We don't need any god for that. You could say I'm a spiritual atheist."
  285. ^ " "I became an atheist through years of studying to be a Christian apologist." The Kevin Pollak Chat Show, January 1, 2010,
  286. ^ " "A lifelong atheist, he needed a belief, a philosophy, a cause," noted his first wife." Charles Spencer, 'Starstruck critic with a sting in his tail', The Daily Telegraph, September 29, 2001, Pg. 07.
  287. ^ "If Jaya Bachchan is in the film, I will go to hell. But then I am an atheist, and do not believe in god." Jaya Bachchan in Sarkar Raaj? Archived September 27, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, India Times, April 18, 2008 (accessed April 21, 2008)
  288. ^ Mr Vaughan-Thomas says he is the only Welshman brought up as a trained atheist: "I am totally irreligious, but I can understand why religious people are concerned about the disintegration of Christian ethics. [...] I am a sympathetic atheist and I go to services from time to time and enjoy the great sense of history." Trevor Fishlock, 'Regional notebook: A feeling for history in one man's abiding devotion to a landscape', The Times, January 8, 1973; pg. 3; Issue 58675; col C.
  289. ^ "But then, this auteur has no hauteur; nor, more importantly, is he Jewish. Rather, he is an atheist who had a bout of Pentacostalist fervour in his mid-20s that still inflects his work and thinking: he still reads widely about Christian history; he considers RoboCop to be a Christ-like story of resurrection." Stuart Jeffries interviewing Verhoeven, 'Of course there are nude scenes... I'm Dutch!', The Guardian, January 12, 2007, Film and Music Pages, Pg. 6.
  290. ^ "I am an atheist but I am sure a divine zone exists, where certain special machines like Fellini work." Paolo Villaggio, 'Tributes to a rare talent: Ciao, Federico', The Guardian (London), November 1, 1993, Features Pages, Pg. 3.
  291. ^ "Because I am a culturally Christian atheist the same way my atheist Reform friends are culturally Jewish, I look forward to Martin Luther King's Birthday — when the news momentarily replaces the rants of the faith-based spitfires with clips of what an actually Christlike Christian sounds like." [Sarah Vowell, "Radical Love Gets a Holiday," The New York Times, January 21, 2008]
  292. ^ "I will explore [theology] only in so much as people will tend to use it as a metaphor for the way they talk. As an atheist, I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time with it, unless there is a point about the way religion interacts with our humanity that I think needs to be made. You can't stop the Garden of Eden stuff. It keeps coming up because that is the mythos that I was brought up with, and it's very powerful in this place. But, I would say that I'm more interested in the philosophy than the theology of the thing." Whedon interviewed by Christina Radish, 'Joss Whedon on Developing 'Dollhouse' Archived May 2, 2011, at the Wayback Machine' Media Blvd Magazine, February 12, 2009 (accessed March 6, 2009).
  293. ^ As well as being apparently happily married to Richard Dawkins since 1992, Ward contributed an 'in the same spirit' footnote to Dawkins's The God Delusion, and jointly read that book with Dawkins for the audiobook version.
  294. ^ Peter Biskind. My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9780805097269. On one occasion, the archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church, dining at Ma Maison, asked to be introduced to Welles. ...Nevertheless, the orthodox pope invited the portly filmmaker to a high mass he was conducting at the Cathedral of Saint Sophia the following day, offering to dedicate the ceremony to him. Welles replied, "I am flattered by the invitation, but I must decline. I'm an atheist."
  295. ^ "A Year in Jail for Not Believing in God". Tumblr.
  296. ^ "In the 60s Tom Lehrer introduced me to the idea that you can be totally irreverent about anything. I realised nothing was sacred. I don't like authority. My atheism is very genuine. If God does exist, I don't think he's a very nice bloke." 'Pieces of me: Peter White: Radio presenter', The Guardian (London) July 26, 2006, G2 Features Pages, Pg. 16.
  297. ^ Rees, Adam (July 31, 2018). "Arch Enemy: Alissa White-Gluz's Guide To Life". Metal Hammer. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  298. ^ In his 2006 book Unintelligent Design: Why God isn't as smart as she thinks she is, Williams states: "Atheists like me don't think about God at all—unless provoked. We think about everything else that life's rich burden thrusts upon us. But God doesn't arise." (p.14; Allen & Unwin, Australia, ISBN 978-1-74114-923-4)
  299. ^ "LORD WILLIS (Lab.) said that although an atheist or humanist, he was not opposed to the teaching of religion in schools. What he objected to was the way in which it was presented. Except in rare instances, children were not taught about religion but about one religion and in a one-sided untruthful, dogmatic and prejudiced way." 'The Lords: contemporary approach to teaching religion in schools', The Times, November 16, 1967; pg. 5; Issue 57100; col A.
  300. ^ Zachary Stewart (August 7, 2013). "Atheism, 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, and Sheeple with Mara Wilson and Max Reuben". TheaterMania.
  301. ^ " Broadcaster Terry Wogan has spoken of the grief of losing his first daughter – and revealed that he has never believed in God. [...] He revealed how – despite a very Catholic upbringing in Ireland – he is actually an atheist. "I'm afraid I don't believe in God," he said. "My mother was devout and so is my wife. But I have the intellectual arrogance that makes it very hard to believe in him. I don't have the gift of faith. I remember at school I used to make up sins at confession – what we were told were sins by priests were not sins at all." " Larissa Nolan, 'I Have Never Believed in God: Wogan', The Sunday Independent (Ireland), May 8, 2005.