meeting dates

[LMC]

It was a nice to link the last meeting date with martyr bhagat singh bhagat singh , it is good to make an impact and state what we stand for by the way did you know it was also b'day of Daniel Dennett

, for the next meet may i propose the date 0 which gives optimal gap from our previous meet june 21, It's a global and annual day to stand up together as one and provide support for those who struggle to be non-religious in their communities.
for more details visit, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=300231402267


here i present a list of possible dates that can be used when deciding our meeting dates i have posted it here instead of facebook so that i can edit it again n again , i will keep adding and refining this list

[LMC]

Famous b'days

Famous Scientists
Stephen Hawking January 8
L.D. Landau January 22
Charles Darwin February 12
Galileo February 15
Albert Einstein March 14
Richard dawkins March 26
Max Planck April 23
Kip Thorne June 1
James Clerk Maxwell June 13
Blaise Pascal June 19
Hans Bethe July 2
John Wheeler July 9
Roger Penrose August 8
Schrodinger August 12
Pierre de Fermat August 17
Stephen J. Gould September 10
Enrico Fermi September 29
Neils Bohr October 7
Christopher Wren October 20
Carl Sagan November 9th
Johannes Kepler December 27

[LMC]

Famous atheists

Nina Hartley
Mar 11, 1959




Audrey Kitching
Jul 26, 1985




Jesse Ventura
Jul 15, 1951




Nikkala Stott
Feb 1, 1982




Mark Twain
Nov 30, 1835




Katharine Hepburn
May 12, 1907




Whoopi Goldberg
Nov 13, 1955




Donald Sutherland
Jul 17, 1935




Asia Argento
Sep 20, 1975




Mobutu Sese Seko
Oct 14, 1930




James Watson
Apr 16, 1970




Jack Nicholson
Apr 22, 1937




Pat Tillman
Nov 6, 1976




Peter Steele
Jan 4, 1962




Steve Wozniak
Aug 11, 1950




Kim Il Sung
Apr 15, 1912




Percy Bysshe Shelley
Aug 4, 1792




Diane Keaton
Jan 5, 1946




Lysander Spooner
Jan 19, 1808




Philip Zimbardo
Mar 23, 1933




Julia Sweeney
Oct 10, 1959




Eddie Vedder
Dec 23, 1964




Vincent van Gogh
Mar 30, 1853




Robin Quivers
Aug 8, 1952




Mira Sorvino
Sep 28, 1967




Adam Clayton
Mar 13, 1960




Carl Sagan
Nov 9, 1934




John Stagliano
Nov 29, 1950




George Soros
Aug 12, 1930




Linus Torvalds
Dec 28, 1969




Oliver Sacks
Jul 9, 1933




Steven Soderbergh
Jan 14, 1963




Sarah Vowell
Dec 27, 1969




Wilhelm Wundt
Aug 16, 1832




Margaret Sanger
Sep 14, 1879







B. F. Skinner
Mar 20, 1904




Gore Vidal
Oct 3, 1925




Ayn Rand
Feb 2, 1905




Doug Stanhope
Mar 25, 1967




Frank Zappa
Dec 21, 1940
musicians



Arundhati Roy
Nov 24, 1961




Michael Smith
Mar 27, 1942




Adam Carolla
May 27, 1964




Alan Turing
Jun 23, 1912




Lynne Stewart
Oct 8, 1939




Randy Weaver
Jan 3, 1948




Dan Savage
Oct 7, 1964




Clive Sinclair
Jul 30, 1940




Bruce Sterling
Apr 16, 1963




Oliver Stone
Sep 15, 1946




Teller
Feb 14, 1948




Kurt Vonnegut
Nov 11, 1922




Giuseppe Zangara
Sep 7, 1900




Algernon Charles Swinburne
Apr 5, 1837




David Cross
Apr 4, 1964




John Sayles
Sep 28, 1950




John Searle
Jul 31, 1932




Jose Saramago
Nov 16, 1922




Bjork Guomundsdottir
Nov 21, 1965
musicians



Michael Shermer
Sep 8, 1954




Carl Spitteler
Apr 24, 1845




Richard Stallman
Mar 16, 1953




Will Wright
Dec 17, 1980




Claude Simon
Oct 10, 1913




John E. Sulston
Mar 27, 1942




Leo Strauss
Sep 20, 1899




Todd Solondz
Oct 15, 1959




John Wilmot
Apr 1, 1647




Jean-Paul Sartre
Jun 21, 1905




Pete Stark
Nov 11, 1931




Joss Whedon
Jun 23, 1964




Captain Sensible
Apr 24, 1954




Andrei Vyshinsky
Dec 10, 1883




Leslie A. White
Jan 19, 1900




Edward O. Wilson
Jun 10, 1929




Gene Weingarten
Oct 2, 1951

[LMC]

Famous atheists(detailed-alphabetic) part 1


Douglas Adams (11 March)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams
Douglas Adams was an atheist British writer who wrote the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and several episodes

of Doctor Who. He described himself as a ‘radical atheist’ in order to distinguish himself from agnostics. In 1999, Adams explained that:
‘I really do not believe that there is a god – in fact I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to

suggest that there is one. It’s easier to say that I am a radical Atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and

that it’s an opinion I hold seriously.’
In his final book, The Salmon of Doubt, published in 2002, Adams addresses people who believe that God must exist because the world so fits our needs. He

compares them to an intelligent puddle of water that fills a hole in the ground. The puddle is certain that the hole must have been designed specifically

for it because it fits so well. The puddle exists under the sun until it has entirely evaporated.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (13 Novembe)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an atheist Somali-Dutch feminist, writer and politician. A prominent critic of Islam, she wrote the screenplay for Theo Van Gogh’s

movie Submission, which led to Van Gogh being murdered and death threats against Ali. She has written The Son factory, The Caged Virgin and Infidel. In

The Caged Virgin, she wrote of her atheism:
‘ September 11 was a turning point, but it was not until six months later, After I had read The Atheist Manifesto by Hermann Philipse, that I dared to

admit to others that I no longer believed. I had been given book in 1998 by my boyfriend Michael but didn’t want to read it at the time. I thought: an

atheist manifesto is a declaration of the devil. I could feel any resistance. But recently I felt ready. The time had come. I saw that God was an

invention and that subjection to His will meant nothing more than subjecting yourself to the willpower of the strongest.’
Natalie Angier (February 16)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Angier
Natalie Angier is an atheist American Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer with the New York Times, who has written four books including The Canon: A

Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. In 2001, Angier wrote:
‘So, I’ll out myself. I’m an Atheist. I don’t believe in God, Gods, Godlets or any sort of higher power beyond the universe itself, which seems quite high

and powerful enough to me. I don’t believe in life after death, channeled chat rooms with the dead, reincarnation, telekinesis or any miracles but the

miracle of life and consciousness, which again strike me as miracles in nearly obscene abundance. I believe that the universe abides by the laws of

physics, some of which are known, others of which will surely be discovered, but even if they aren’t, that will simply be a result, as my colleague George

Johnson put it, of our brains having evolved for life on this one little planet and thus being inevitably limited. I’m convinced that the world as we see

it was shaped by the again genuinely miraculous, let’s even say transcendent, hand of evolution through natural selection.’
Carmen Argibay (15 June)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Argibay
Carmen Argibay is an atheist member of the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice. She was awarded the 2007 Gruber International Justice Prize for promoting

gender equality and eliminating corruption. When Catholic activists opposed her nomination to the Supreme Court, Argibay responded:
‘I believe that saying up front who one is or what one thinks is an indication of honesty, which is the first step towards impartiality. My beliefs, or

lack thereof, should not interfere in the judicial decisions I take.’
Isaac Asimov (January 2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an atheist Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry, whose prolific output of over 130 books covered science fiction,

mysteries, popular science, history and memoirs. In 1982, Asimov said:
‘I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually

unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an

agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God

doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.’
In 1994, Asimov speculated that:
‘If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of

their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul,

foul, foul.’
B
Bjork (21 Novembe)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rk
Bjork is an atheist Icelandic singer and actress whose first solo album, Debut, was named Album of the Year by NME. In 1994, she said:
‘I’ve got my own religion. Iceland sets a world-record. The UN asked people from all over the world a series of questions. Iceland stuck out on one thing.

When we were asked what we believe, 90% said, ‘ourselves.’ I think I’m in that group. If I get into trouble, there’s no God or Allah to sort me out. I

have to do it myself.’
In 1995, Bjork said:
‘I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about

reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just

like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.’
Dave Barry (July 3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Barry
Dave Barry is an atheist American humorist who has written almost forty books and two films. He is also an internationally syndicated columnist. In 2001

he said:
‘I decided I was an atheist early on. My Dad was all right with that. We argued about it all the time, but it was good-natured. He was the most open-

minded human being I’ve ever known.’
Simone de Beauvoir (January 9)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir was an atheist French existentialist philosopher and author of more than twenty books, including the major feminist work The Second

Sex. In 1958, describing how she became an atheist while reading Balzac when aged fourteen, she wrote:
‘I no longer believe in God, I told myself, with no great surprise… That was proof: if I had believed in Him, I should not have allowed myself to offend

Him so light-heartedly. I had always thought that the world was a small price to pay for eternity; but it was worth more than that, because I loved the

world, and it was suddenly God whose price was small: from now on His name would have to be a cover for nothing more than a mirage… I was not denying Him

in order to rid myself of a troublesome person: on the contrary, I realized that He was playing no further part in my life and so I concluded that he had

ceased to exist for me.’
Richard Branson (18 July)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson
Richard Branson is an atheist British entrepreneur whose Virgin group includes more than 350 companies. He is also involved in humanitarian projects and

holds world records in long-distance ballooning. Writing in his autobiography about one of these balloon trips, he said:
‘I do not believe in God, but as I sat there in the damaged capsule, hopelessly vulnerable to the slightest shift in weather or mechanical fault, I could

not believe my eyes.’
Bill Bryson (December 8)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson
Bill Bryson is an atheist American writer of travel, language and science books, including Notes from a Small Island, The Mother Tongue and A Short

History of Nearly Everything. In 2005, he said:
‘I’m not a spiritual person, and the things I’ve done haven’t made me one, but the one thing I did appreciate when I was writing A Short History was that

conventional science and a belief in god are absolutely not incompatible. You can be a scientist and believe in god: the two can go hand in hand. What

certainly struck me during my research was that the very fundamental creationist views – the literal biblical interpretation of how the world was created

– is much, much less exciting than real science. If you believe in god, it’s much more fantastic to believe that he created this universe billions of

years ago and set in motion this long train of activities that eventually resulted in us. I think that’s so much more satisfying, more thrilling, than the

idea that it was all done in seven days.’
Gabriel Byrne (May 12)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Byrne
Gabriel Byrne is an atheist Irish actor who has starred in almost forty films, including The Usual Suspects, Miller’s Crossing, Stigmata and Into the

West. In 2007, he said:
‘I spent five years in a seminary and I suppose it was assumed that you had a vocation. I have realised subsequently that I didn’t have one at all. I

don’t believe in God. But I did believe at the time in this notion that you were being called.’

[LMC]

C
George Carlin (May 12)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Carlin
George Carlin is an American comedian, actor and writer. In a 1997 routine, he said:
‘Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man – living in the sky – who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And

the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire

and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ‘til the

end of time! [Pause] But He loves you.’
Carlin said that he worships the sun, because he can see it, and now prays to Joe Pesci, because he seems like someone who can get things done, adding:
‘I noticed that of all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers that I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same fifty

percent rate. Half the time I get what I want. Half the time I don’t. Same as God: fifty-fifty.’
D
Richard Dawkins (26 March)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is an atheist British evolutionary biologist and writer who holds the Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of

Oxford. He has written nine books about evolution and atheism, including The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Unweaving the Rainbow and The God

Delusion. In 1986, he wrote:
‘An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: ‘I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn’t a good

explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.’ I can’t help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would

have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an

intellectually fulfilled atheist.’
In 1996, Dawkins said of belief in God:‘By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.’ In 1999, he said: ‘I don’t

think God is an explanation at all. It’s simply re-describing the problem.’
Daniel Dennett (March 28)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett
Daniel Dennett is an atheist American philosopher who is the Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in Boston. He has written

fifteen books, including Consciousness Explained, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. In 1995, he wrote:
‘The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight – that God is, like Santa Claus,

a myth of childhood, not anything [that] a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something

less concrete or abandoned altogether.’
And Dennett wrote about faith:
‘I certainly grant the existence of the phenomenom of faith; what I want to see is a reasoned ground for taking faith as a way of getting to the truth,

and not, say, just as a way people comfort themselves and each other (a worthy function that I do take seriously).’
Marlene Dietrich (27 December)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlene_Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was an atheist German-born American actress, singer and entertainer who starred in nearly sixty films. In her autobiography, she wrote of

her tours to battlefronts as an entertainer for American troops:
‘Back in my early childhood I learnt that God doesn’t fight on any army’s side. So there was little point in praying. Nonetheless, before every battle,

prayers were read, all kinds of incantations were incited, staged by all sorts of preachers. We attended these ceremonies and I saw how all the soldiers

stood in place, as though they couldn’t believe their ears. I couldn’t believe it either, but I counted for nothing… Since then, I have given up belief in

God, in a ‘light’ that leads us, or anything of that sort. Goethe said, if God created this world, he should review his plan.’
Amanda Donohoe (29 June)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Donohoe
Amanda Donohue is an atheist American actress best known for playing CJ Lamb in the TV show LA Law. Her film roles include Ken Russel’s Lair of the White

Worm, in which she played a pagan priestess who had to spit at a crucifix. In 199, she said of that scene:
‘I’m an atheist, so it was actually a joy. Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality

throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.’
Roddy Doyle (8 May)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roddy_Doyle
Roddy Doyle is an atheist Irish writer whose novels include A Star Called Henry, The Woman Who Walked into Doors and the Booker Prize-winning Paddy Clarke

Ha Ha Ha. His Barrytown Trilogy of novels, The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van, have been made into films. In a review of Ireland’s 1990 World Cup

performance, he wrote:
‘Italy next, the quarter-final in Rome. The Republic squad met the Pope. I am an atheist and I think that the current pope is a bit of a bollix – I don’t

like the man at all – but I couldn’t fight down the lump in my throat as the lads in their tracksuits lined up to meet him.’
In 2002, he said: ‘I feel very comfortable being an atheist. It used to be a problem. You had to justify yourself. It’s a long time since it felt abnormal

not to be Catholic.’ In 2004, he welcomed the widening ‘rift between Church and state’ in Ireland, saying: ‘It has happened, it is happening, and for me

that’s a great thing. As an atheist, I feel very comfortable in Ireland now.’
F
Jodie Foster (November 19)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodie_Foster
Jodie Foster is an atheist American actress, director and producer who won Oscars for her roles in The Accused and Silence of the Lambs. In 1997, when she

played radio astronomer Eleanor Arroway in the film Contact, Foster said:
‘I absolutely believe what Ellie believes; that there is no direct evidence, so how could you ask me to believe in God when there’s absolutely no evidence

that I can see? I do believe in the beauty and the awe-inspiring mystery of the science that’s out there that we haven’t discovered yet, that there are

scientific explanations for phenomena that we call mystical because we don’t know any better.’
In 2007, when asked if she was religious, Foster answered:
‘No, I’m an atheist. But I absolutely love religions and the rituals, even though I don’t believe in God. We celebrate pretty much every religion in our

family with the kids. They love it, and when they say, ‘Are we Jewish?’ or ‘Are we Catholic?’ I say, ‘Well, I’m not, but you can choose when you’re 18.

But isn’t this fun that we do Seders and the Advent calendar?’

[LMC]

G
Bob Geldof ( 5 October)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Geldof
Bob Geldof is an atheist Irish singer, songwriter, actor, entrepreneur and activist. He founded the Boomtown Rats, starred in the Pink Floyd film The

Wall, founded a television broadcasting company that made him a multimillionaire, and has raised money, consciousness and political action for

humanitarian work in Africa through Band Aid, Live Aid and associated projects.
In 2006, when asked if he was a saint or a sinner, Geldof replied:
‘Being an atheist, I can’t be either.’
Ricky Gervais (25 June)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Gervais
Ricky Gervais is an atheist British comedy writer, director and actor. He played all of these three roles in the award-winning TV shows The Office and

Extras. In 2005, he said:
‘Being an atheist makes someone a clearer-thinking, fairer person… Atheists are not doing things to be rewarded in heaven; they’re doing things because

they’re right, because they live by a moral code.’
He added that, although he doesn’t believe in God, he thinks that God would like him.
Rachel Griffiths (18 December)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Griffiths
Rachel Griffiths is an atheist Australian actress who starred in the films Muriel’s Wedding and the American TV shows Six Feet Under and Brothers and

Sisters. In 2000, when asked about her religion, she said:
‘I was raised Christian. I’m an atheist, with a slight Buddhist leaning. I’ve got a very strong sense of morality. It’s just a different morality than the

loud voices of the Christian morality…I can’t tell you how many films I’ve turned down because there was an absence of morality. And I don’t mean that

from any sort of Judeo-Christian-Muslim point of view. I’m not saying they’re wrong and can’t be made. But, fundamentally, I’m such a humanist that I

can’t bear to make films that make us feel humanity is more dark than it is light.’
H

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris_(author)
Sam Harris is an atheist American writer who has written The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason and Letter to a Christian Nation. In

2005, he wrote:
‘Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious… It is worth noting that no one ever needs to

identify himself as a non-astrologer or a non-alchemist. Consequently, we do not have words for people who deny the validity of these pseudo-disciplines.

Likewise, atheism is a term that should not even exist. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious

dogma.’
In 2006, Harris wrote:
‘The President of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his

hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.’
Nina Hartley (March 11)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Hartley
Nina Hartley is an atheist American porn actress and director, who has also appeared in the Hollywood film Boogie Nights and defended the porn industry on

the Oprah Winfrey show. When asked on her website if she believed in God, Hartley said:
‘No, I don’t believe in God. I was raised with no religion, but a lot of morals. I definitely think that sex is natural and healthy, and that people have

the absolute right to pursue their sexual preferences with other consenting adults without government or church intervention. I can do what I do to share

my enjoyment of sex with all my viewers out there. If I can help any person or persons have a great sex session, then I’ve done a good job! I believe that

society changes and that we can take what is good from the world’s religions and leave behind what isn’t so good, and forge a new say. I’m one of the

forgers, I like to think!’
Katharine Hepburn (May 12)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn was an atheist American actress who won Oscars for her roles in Morning Glory, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, the Lion in Winter and On

Golden Pond. In 1985, Anne Edwards, in her biography of Hepburn, wrote: ‘God was a concept too vast for her mind to consider, but she believed in the

lessons of Jesus Christ despite her feeling, shared with Marx, that religion was a sop for the masses’. However in 1991, Hepburn herself said:
‘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.’
Christopher Hitchens (born 1949)
Website | Wikipedia Entry
Christopher Hitchens is an atheist British American writer and public speaker. He is a columnist at Vanity Fair and has written or co-written over twenty

books including God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. In The Portable Atheist, he wrote that:
‘The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise

and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are

sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.’

[LMC]

J
Neil Jordan (25 February)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Jordan
Neil Jordan is an atheist Irish filmmaker and novelist, who won an Oscar for The Crying Game and whose other films include The Company of Wolves, Michael

Collins and Breakfast on Pluto. In 1999, talking about people who linked his work to Catholicism, Jordan said:
‘It’s not anything about Catholicism. I was brought up a Catholic and was quite religious at one stage in my life, when I was young. But it left me with

no scars whatever; it just sort of vanished… We do have this need for mysticism. That is in my movies. And I always like to do stories about gods and

monsters and imaginary beings of all kinds, because God is the greatest imaginary being of all time. Along with Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity,

the invention of God is probably the greatest creation of human thought.’
K
Wendy Kaminer (born 1950)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Kaminer
Wendy Kaminer is an atheist American lawyer and feminist writer whose books include A Fearful Freedom: Women’s Flight from Equality and Free for All:

Defending Liberty in America Today. In 1996 she wrote:
‘Like heterosexuality, faith in immaterial realities is popularly considered essential to individual morality,’ and: ‘When the inner child finds a

guardian angel, publishers are in heaven.’
Kaminer has also said about her atheism:
‘I don’t spend much time thinking about whether God exists. I don’t consider that a relevant question. It’s unanswerable and irrelevant to my life, so I

put it in the category of things I can’t worry about.’
L
Tom Lehrer ( April 9)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
Tom Lehrer is an atheist American mathematician and musical satirist, who wrote and performed in the 1950s and 1960s. His songs include the Elements song,

the Vatican Rag, National Brotherhood Week, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park and We Will All Go Together When We Go. In 1996, when asked if he was a fan of

organized religion or a spiritual person, Lehrer replied:
To say that I am not a fan of organized religion is putting it mildly. My feeling about even disorganized religion is summed up in James Taylor’s immortal

line in “Sweet Baby James”: “Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep.” I have no desire to promote secular insomnia. As for being spiritual, not

in the New Age sense, certainly. I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough

(don’t get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn’t enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?…
In the same interview, when asked if he was an atheist, he said:
No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has The Truth. To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can

get pretty arrogant.
However, by 2000, he had told Cosmik Debris magazine:
I used to think atheists were arrogant, but now I am one and I like it.
M
Alexander McQueen (17 March)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_McQueen
Alexander McQueen was an atheist British fashion designer who had boutiques in London, Paris, New York, Milan, Tokyo, Beijing and fifteen other cities. In

1996, he was asked who he would like to dress more than anyone else in the world, and he answered:
‘Oh my God no, because I’m an atheist and an anti-royalist, so why would I put anyone on a pedestal?’
Butterfly McQueen (January 7)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_McQueen
Butterfly McQueen was an atheist American actress and dancer whose roles in a dozen films ranged from maid Prissy in Gone With The Wind to Ma Pennywick in

The Mosquito Coast. In 1989, McQueen said of her atheism:
‘As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion… They say the streets are beautiful in Heaven. Well, I’m trying to make the

streets beautiful here… When it’s clean and beautiful, I believe America is heaven. And some people are hell.’
John Malkovich (December 9)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Malkovich
John Malkovich is an atheist American actor, producer and director whose films include Places in the Heart, Dangerous Liaisons and In the Line of Fire. In

2000, when directing a play about Sigmund Freud, Malkovich said of Freud that:
‘I also particularly like him because he was an atheist, and I grew tired of religion some time not long after birth. I believe in people, I believe in

humans, I believe in a car, but I don’t believe something I can’t have absolutely no evidence of for millenniums. And it’s funny – people think analysis

or psychiatry is mad, and they go to church.’
Tim Minchin (7 October)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Minchin
Tim Minchin is an atheist Australian comedian, actor, composer, songwriter and pianist whose songs include the politically incisive Peace Anthem for

Palestine, the inanimate love song Inflatable You, the environmental mega-anthem Take Your Canvas Bags and the self-deprecatory career-crisis confession

that is Rock N Roll Nerd.
Minchin is also responsible for probably the most comprehensive atheist-related song lyric in the history of song lyrics:
‘And if anyone can show me one example in the history of the world of a single spiritual person who has been able to show either empirically or logically

the existence of a higher power with any consciousness or interest in the human race or ability to punish or reward humans for their moral choices or that

there is any reason other than fear to believe in any version of an afterlife, I will give you my piano, one of my legs and my wife.’
Cillian Murphy (25 May)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cillian_Murphy
Cillian Murphy is an atheist Irish film and stage actor who won an IFTA best actor award for his role in the Neil Jordan film Breakfast on Pluto. In 2007,

when playing a scientist in the film Sunshine, Murphy was advised by the film’s scientific consultant, Dr Brian Cox, a professor of physics who worked at

CERN (the Centre for European Nuclear Research) in Geneva. Afterwards Murphy said:
‘Sunshine is a film that highlights the fragility of the planet and how briefly we are on it, but how much we contribute to its future. It got me thinking

about life and religion, science versus religion, and all that. I was verging on being an agnostic and this film confirmed any of the atheistic beliefs I

had.’

[LMC]

N
Taslima Nasrin (25 August)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taslima_Nasrin
Taslima Nasrin is an atheist Bengali-Bangladeshi doctor, poet, writer and feminist who lives in exile in India after death threats by Islamic

fundamentalists. She has written almost thirty books in various genres, and her work highlights the treatment of women in Islamic countries. In 1998, she

said:
‘I don’t agree with those who think that the conflict is simply between two religions, namely Christianity and Islam…. To me, the key conflict is between

irrational blind faith and rational, logical minds.’
Nasrin has also said about religion:
‘I believe that if the silent majority were to protest against those who believe in irrational blind faith – who want to go backwards instead of forward,

who are for tradition not innovation, who oppose individualism and plurality of thought – then the world would become a truly civilized world in which to

live.’
Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru was an atheist politician who served as the first Prime Minister of Independent India from 1947 to 1964. In his autobiography, which he

wrote while in prison in 1936, Nehru said that he did not believe in a god of any kind. He said of religion:
‘The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organized religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled us with horror, and I have frequently

condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it.’
Nehru also said that:
‘I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth, and ignorance. I want nothing to do with any

order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are capable of becoming happier and more civilized, on this earth, capable of

becoming true man, master of his fate and captain of his soul. To attain this I would put priests to work, also, and turn the temples into schools.’
Randy Newman (November 28)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Newman
Randy Newman is an atheist American singer-songwriter, pianist and composer best known for satirical pop songs such as Short people and Political Science,

and film scores such as Toy Story, Parenthood and Pleasantville. His 1972 hit God’s Song includes the lyrics:
‘And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy

to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind… You really need me… That’s why I love mankind.’
When Newman was a child, a local parent uninvited him from a dance, explaining: ‘I’m sorry, Randy, my daughter had no right to invite you because no Jews

are allowed.’ Newman had to ask his dad what a Jew was. He then studied comparative religion and became a devout atheist ‘except when I’m sick’.
O
Madalyn Murray O’Hair (April 13)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madalyn_Murray_O'Hair
Madalyn Murray O’Hair was an atheist American activist who won a case in the US Supreme Court challenging the practice of prayers being said in schools.

She went on to found American Atheists. In 1989, she was asked whether she supported religious freedom, and she answered:
‘Oh, absolutely! I feel that everyone has a right to be insane. And that they can do this any place at all. If they want religious schools, build them! My

only problem with that is, do not ask for the land to be tax-free. Do not ask for a government grant to build them. Do not ask for money for teacher’s

salaries, or more books, or anything else. Just go ahead and do your thing, and do it yourself. Just exactly the same as if you were a nudist. Somebody

doesn’t get a tax break for being a Mason, or whatever they’re interested in.’
P
Penn Jillette (March 5, 1955)
Teller (February 14, 1948)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_&_Teller
Penn and Teller are atheist American entertainers who use comedy and illusion to debunk magic, pseudoscience and superstition. Their most recent such

television series is Penn & Teller: Bullshit! In 2005, Penn said:
‘I believe that there is no God. Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and

Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more… Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven

except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around…

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that

make this life the best life I will ever have.’
Penn added, about the challenge of proving there is no God, that:
‘You can’t prove that there isn’t an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I

mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word ‘elephant’ includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?’
R
James Randi (August 7)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi
James Randi is an atheist Canadian-American stage magician and writer, and debunker of pseudoscience and paranormal claims. He has written twelve books,

and his James Randi Educational Foundation offers $1,000,000 to anyone who can demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or

event, under test conditions agreed to by both parties. In 2005, he said:
‘There are two sorts of atheists. One sort claims that there is no deity, the other claims that there is no evidence that proves the existence of a deity;

I belong to the latter group, because if I were to claim that no god exists, I would have to produce evidence to establish that claim, and I cannot.

Religious persons have by far the easier position; they say they believe in a deity because that’s their preference, and they’ve read it in a book. That’s

their right.’
Salman Rushdie (19 June)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is an atheist Indian-British novelist whose fifteen books include Midnight’s Children, which won the Booker Prize, and The Satanic Verses,

which resulted in the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini called for Rushdie to be killed for blasphemy against Islam. In 1985, Rushdie wrote:
‘God, Satan, Paradise, and Hell all vanished one day in my fifteenth year, when I quite abruptly lost my faith… afterwards, to prove my new-found atheism,

I bought myself a rather tasteless ham sandwich, and so partook for the first time of the forbidden flesh of the swine. No thunderbolt arrived to strike

me down… From that day to this I have thought of myself as a wholly secular person.’
In 1990, Rushdie said:
‘The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress,

change – into crimes.’
In 1996, he said:
‘If I were asked for a one-sentence sound-bite on religion, I would say I was against it.’
S
Captain Sensible ( 23 April)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Sensible
Captain Sensible is an atheist singer and musician with The Damned and Dead Men Walking, who also had a hit with Happy Talk. He has said of religion:
‘How many times have religions of the world been damaged by some discovery or other only to move the goalposts and carry on as before as though nothing

had happened? They gave Gallileo a hard time for saying the world was round… somehow God seems to have forgotten to tell his ‘flock’ about our planet

revolving round the sun and all that. Then there was the theory of evolution – the teaching about which in schools was fought against in a courtroom in

the USA and is still disbelieved by a majority of Americans, incredibly. There’s also no mention of dinosaurs in the bible either. Perhaps it’s not

inspired by an all-knowing being after all and is, after all, just a cracking good work of fiction? No – I’m afraid none of that faith thing holds any

water for me.’
Julia Sweeney (October 10)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Sweeney
Julia Sweeney is an atheist American comedian and actress who was a cast member of Saturday Night Live before creating three stage monologues, God Said

Ha!, In the Family Way, and Letting Go of God. In 2005, she said of becoming an atheist:
‘It was a long process. I just became a stronger agnostic, and then I started to realize that everyone who was saying they were agnostic really hadn’t

thought about it that much. Still, I went with agnosticism for a long, long time because I just hated to say I was an atheist – being an atheist seemed so

rigid. But the more I became comfortable with the word, and the more I read, it started to stick.’
T
Linus Torvalds (December 28)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds
Linus Torvalds is an atheist Finnish software engineer who developed the Linux operating system kernel. In 1999, when asked about his religion, he said:
‘I am an atheist. I find that people seem to think religion brings morals and appreciation of nature. I actually think it detracts from both. It gives

people the excuse to say, ‘Oh, nature was just created’, and so the act of creation is seen to be something miraculous. I appreciate the fact that, ‘Wow,

it’s incredible that something like this could have happened in the first place.’ I think we can have morals without getting religion into it, and a lot

of bad things have come from organized religion in particular. I actually fear organized religion because it usually leads to misuses of power.’

[LMC]

Mark Twain (November 30)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain
Mark Twain was an atheist American writer whose sixty books included The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In his last

book, Letters from the Earth, Twain wrote:
‘You have noticed that the human being is a curiosity. In times past he has had (and worn out and flung away) hundreds and hundreds of religions; today he

has hundreds and hundreds of religions, and launches not fewer than three new ones every year… One of his principle religions is called the Christian. A

sketch of it will interest you. It sets forth in detail in a book containing two million words, called the Old and New Testaments. Also it has another

name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever

fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.’

Z
Frank Zappa (December 21)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa
Frank Zappa was an atheist American musician who self-produced almost sixty albums with The Mothers of Invention or as a solo artist. In 1989, he said of

religion:
‘If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The

Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part

of the brain working.’
And in 1993 he said of Christianity:
‘The essence of Christianity is told to us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, all

the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth

shut and hadn’t asked any questions.’

[Aayushi]

Right, Thank you Lalit for putting up all the dates. But I think what we really need is a Sunday. We dont necessarily have to follow the same pattern everytime. Lets just stick to a convenient sunday!