Editing List of agnostics (section)

===Activists and authors===
* [[Saul Alinsky]] (1909–1972): American community organizer and writer; ''[[Rules for Radicals]]''.<ref>{{cite book|title=Radical: A Portrait of Saul Alinsky|year=2010|publisher=Nation Books|isbn=9781568586250|pages=108–109|author=Nicholas Von Hoffman<!--|access-date=4 August 2012-->|quote=He passed the word in the Back of the Yards that this Jewish agnostic was okay, which at least ensured that he would not be kicked out the door.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Social Mission of the U.S. Catholic Church: A Theological Perspective|year=2011|publisher=Georgetown University Press|isbn=9781589017436|author=Charles E. Curran<!--|access-date=4 August 2012-->|page=[https://archive.org/details/socialmissionofu0000curr/page/32 32]|quote=Saul D. Alinsky, an agnostic Jew, organized the Back of the Yards neighbourhood in Chicago in the late 1930s and started the Industrial Areas Foundation in 1940 to promote community organizations and to train community organizers.|url=https://archive.org/details/socialmissionofu0000curr/page/32}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Understanding Maritain: Philosopher and Friend |year=1987 |publisher=Mercer University Press |isbn=9780865542792 |author=Deal Wyatt Hudson |editor1=Deal Wyatt Hudson |editor2=Matthew J. Mancini<!-- |access-date=4 August 2012-->|page=40|quote=Saul Alinsky was an agnostic Jew for whom the religion of any kind held very little importance and just as little relation to the focus of his life's work: the struggle for economic and social justice, for human dignity and human rights, and the alleviation of the sufferings of the poor and downtrodden.}}</ref>
* [[Poul Anderson]] (1926–2001): American science fiction author.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Sandra Miesel|title=Against Time's Arrow: The High Crusade of Poul Anderson|date=1978|publisher=Borgo Press|isbn=978-0-89370-124-6|page=11}}</ref>
* [[Piers Anthony]] (born 1934): English-American writer of science fiction and fantasy.<ref>{{cite web|title=Piers Anthony Interview|url=http://www.roeszler.org/piersthread/piersinterview.htm#q10|access-date=13 May 2012|author=Piers Anthony|quote=I am agnostic because I feel each person should make up his mind about his religion.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130512121757/http://www.roeszler.org/piersthread/piersinterview.htm#q10|archive-date=12 May 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* [[Susan B. Anthony]] (1820–1906): American [[civil rights]] leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century [[women's rights]] movement to introduce [[History of women's suffrage in the United States|women's suffrage into the United States]]; co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] as President.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eNUYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA59 |page=59 |title=Our famous women: An authorized record of the lives and deeds of distinguished American women of our times |chapter=Susan B. Anthony |last=Stanton |first=Elizabeth Cady Stanton |author-link=Elizabeth Cady Stanton |publisher=A.D. Worthington |year=1885}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Parenting Beyond Belief – Abridged Ebook Edition: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids without Religion |year=2011 |publisher=AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn |isbn=9780814474266 |author=Dale McGowan |author-link=Dale McGowan<!-- |access-date=10 September 2012--> |page=[https://archive.org/details/parentingbeyondb0000unse/page/138 138] |quote="Serene agnostic" Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) was the first woman, in 1848, to call for woman suffrage, launching the women's movement. She was joined by sister agnostic Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906). |url=https://archive.org/details/parentingbeyondb0000unse/page/138 }}</ref>
* [[Hannah Arendt]] (1906–1975): German American writer and political theorist.<ref>.{{cite book |title=Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, and the Social Sciences |year=2010 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=9780804756501 |author=Peter Baehr<!-- |access-date=29 May 2012--> |page=66 |quote=Both Hannah Arendt and Aron were assimilated, agnostic Jews (so were Mannheim and Riesman), who became politically radicalized only with the rise of the Nazi movement;...}}</ref>
* [[Margaret Atwood]] (born 1939): Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor.<ref>{{cite video|title=Faith and Reason: Margaret Atwood|url=https://vimeo.com/61192027|access-date=24 February 2023|archive-date=24 February 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230224040403/https://vimeo.com/61192027|url-status=live}}</ref>
* [[Samuel Beckett]] (1906–1989): Irish [[Avant-garde#Examples|avant-garde]] novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet; awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1969.<ref>"They were both agnostics, though both set a high associative value on the language in which the traditional religions of their forebears had been expressed, and in conversation and writing were not averse to ironic reference to certain metaphysical concepts." Anthony Cronin, ''Samuel Beckett: the last modernist'' (1999), page 90</ref>
* [[Ambrose Bierce]] (1842 – c. 1914): American [[editorialist]], journalist, short story writer, [[fabulist]] and satirist; known for his short story "[[An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge]]" and his satirical lexicon ''[[The Devil's Dictionary]]''.<ref>"Contrary to McWilliams's claim, however, in the public arena Bierce was not merely an agnostic but a staunch unbeliever regarding the question of Jesus' divinity." Donald T. Blume, ''Ambrose Bierce's Civilians and soldiers in context: a critical study'', page 323.</ref>
* [[Jorge Luis Borges]] (1899–1986): [[Argentina|Argentine]] writer.<ref>{{cite news |author=I. Shenker |date=6 April 1971 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/31/reviews/borges-insight.html |title=Borges, a Blind Writer With Insight |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=19 February 2017 |archive-date=21 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180121024320/http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/31/reviews/borges-insight.html |url-status=live }} "Being an agnostic means all things are possible, even God, even the Holy Trinity. This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen. Being an agnostic makes me live in a larger more fantastic kind of world, almost uncanny. It makes me more tolerant."</ref>
* [[Henry Cadbury]] (1883–1974): American biblical scholar and [[Quaker]] who contributed to the [[New Revised Standard Version]] of the Bible.<ref>Henry Cadbury, [http://www.universalistfriends.org/UF035.html#Cadbury "My Personal Religion"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601161210/https://universalistfriends.org/UF035.html#Cadbury |date=1 June 2021 }}, republished on the Quaker Universalist Fellowship website.</ref><ref>Henry Cadbury stated in a 1936 lecture to [[Harvard Divinity School]] students: "Most students... wish to know whether I believe in the existence of God on immortality, and if so why. They regard it impossible to leave these matters unsettled – or at least extremely detrimental to religion not to have the basis of such conviction. Now for my pa, rt I do not find it impossible to leave them op..... I can describe myself as no ardent theist or atheist."</ref>
* [[Thomas Carlyle]] (1795–1881): Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.<ref>"I have recently argued that this linguistic indeterminacy, or as J. Hillis Miller terms it, ''undecidability'', places Carlyle as a perhaps unwilling and yet important contributor to the upsurge of aanti-religiousus agnosticism that would set in motion the demise of orthodox belief both prophesied and dreaded by Nietzsche." Paul E. Kerry, Marylu Hill, ''Thomas Carlyle Resartus: Reappraising Carlye's Contribution to the Philosophy of History, Political Theory, and Cultural Criticism'' (2010), page 69.</ref>
* [[Ariel Dorfman]] (born 1942): Argentine/Chilean novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist.<ref>{{cite book |title=Ariel Dorfman: An Aesthetics of Hope |year=2009 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-4604-3 |author=Sophia A. McClennen<!-- |access-date=22 April 2012--> |page=[https://archive.org/details/arieldorfmanaest0000mccl/page/94 94] |quote=Dorfman is a confirmed agnostic and it would be a mistake to ascribe too close an affinity between him and Jeremiah. |url=https://archive.org/details/arieldorfmanaest0000mccl/page/94 }}</ref>
* [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] (1859–1930): Scottish physician and writer; known for his stories about the detective [[Sherlock Holmes]]; a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Life and Times of Arthur Conan Doyle |year=2011 |publisher=BookCaps Study Guides |isbn=9781621070276 |author=Golgotha Pres<!-- |access-date=18 July 2012--> |quote=In time, he would reject the Catholic religion and become an agnostic.}}</ref>
* [[W.E.B. Du Bois]] (1868–1963): American [[sociology|sociologist]], historian, [[Civil and political rights|civil rights]] activist, [[Pan-Africanism|Pan-Africanist]], author and editor; co-founder of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP) in 1909.<ref>"To be clear, in all the annals of American and African American history, one will probably not find another agnostic as preoccupied with and as familiar with so much biblical, religious, and spiritual rhetoric as WEB Du Bois." Brian Johnson, ''W.E.B. Du Bois: Toward Agnosticism, 1868–1934'', page 3.</ref>
* [[Bart D. Ehrman]] (born 1955): American [[New Testament]] scholar and "a happy agnostic".<ref>{{cite news |title=Q&A: Bart Ehrman: Misquoting Jesus |url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6301707.html |access-date=31 May 2007 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070613055841/http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6301707.html |archive-date= 13 June 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=V.Bernet |title=Agnostic's questions have biblical answers |newspaper=Kansas City Star |date=23 April 2008 |quote=In the church of his youth in Lawrence, Kansas, with nearly every pew at capacity last week, Bart D. Ehrman, chairman of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, announced that he was an agnostic. He joked that atheists think agnostics are wimpy atheists and that agnostics think atheists are arrogant agnostics.}}</ref>
* [[Edward FitzGerald (poet)|Edward FitzGerald]] (1809–1883): English poet and writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of ''[[The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam]]''<ref>{{cite book |title=Allegories Of One'n Mind: Melancholy In Victorian Poetry |year=2005 |publisher=Ohio State University Press |isbn=978-0-8142-1008-6 |author=David G. Riede<!-- |access-date=9 May 2012--> |page=188 |quote=Unlike Tennyson and the Brownings, however, Fitzgerald was an agnostic, and consequently he lacked the strong sense of conscience and duty that might have disciplined and given shape to his anomic imagination.}}</ref>
* [[Betty Friedan]] (1921–2006): American writer, activist and [[Feminism|feminist]]; a leading figure in the women's movement in the United States; her 1963 book, ''[[The Feminine Mystique]]'', is often credited with sparking the [[Second-wave feminism|"second wave" of American feminism]] in the 20th century.<ref>
"To be sure, when she wrote her groundbreaking book, Friedan considered herself an "agnostic" Jew, unaffiliated with any religious branch or institution." Kirsten Fermaglich, ''American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and Liberal America, 1957–1965'' (2007), page 59.</ref>
* [[Frederick James Furnivall]] (1825–1910): English second editor of the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''.<ref>{{cite book |author=S.Winchester |author-link=Simon Winchester |title=[[The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary]] |year=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-860702-1 |quote=[...] Furnivall was a deeply committed socialist and (until his later agnosticism set in), a somewhat enthusiastic Christian [...]}}</ref>
* [[John Galsworthy]] (1867–1933): English novelist and playwright; ''[[The Forsyte Saga]]'' (1906–1921) and its sequels, ''A Modern Comedy'' and ''End of the Chapter''; won the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1932<ref>{{cite book |title=Academic Dictionary Of Philosophy |year=2005 |publisher=Gyan Books |isbn=9788182052246 |author=Ramesh Chopra<!-- |access-date=26 May 2012--> |page=142 |quote=His agnosticism is best seen in his 'Moods, Songs, and Doggerels'.}}</ref>
* [[Neil Gaiman]] (born 1960): English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, [[graphic novel]]s, audio theatre and films including the comic book series ''[[The Sandman (Vertigo)|The Sandman]]'' and novels ''[[Stardust (Gaiman novel)|Stardust]]'', ''[[American Gods]]'', ''[[Coraline]]'', and ''[[The Graveyard Book]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=Neil Gaiman interviewed by Steve Whitaker |publisher=FA No. 109 |pages=24–29 |author=Neil Gaiman<!-- |access-date=14 April 2012--> |date=January 1989 |quote=I think we can say that God exists in the DC Universe. I would not stand up and beat the drum for the existence of God in this universe. I don't know, I think there's probably a 50/50 chance. It doesn't matters to me.}}</ref>
* [[Maxim Gorky]] (1868–1936): Russian and Soviet author who brought [[Socialist Realism]] to literature.<ref>"...Gorky – a religious agnostic praised as a social realist by the communist regime during the demise of imperial Russia..." James Redmond, ''Drama and Philosophy'', p. 161.</ref><ref>"Gorky had long rejected all organized religions. Yet he was not a materialist, and thus he could not be satisfied with Marx's ideas on religion. When asked to express his views about religion in a questionnaire sent by the French journal Mercure de France on April 15, 1907, Gorky replied that he was opposed to the existing religions of Moses, Christ, and Mohammed. He defined religious feeling as an awareness of a harmonious link that joins man to the universe and as an aspiration for synthesis, inherent in every individual." Tova Yedlin, ''Maxim Gorky: A Political Biography'', p. 86.</ref>
* [[Thomas Hardy]] (1840–1928): English novelist and poet; while his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Complete Critical Guide to Thomas Hardy |year=2003 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415234917 |author=Geoffrey Harvey<!-- |access-date=26 May 2012--> |page=23 |quote=Although Hardy's agnosticism was less forceful than Stephen's, significantly it was Hardy whom he chose to witness his renunciation of Holy Orders on 23 March 1875.}}</ref>
* [[Sadegh Hedayat]] (1903–1951): Iranian author and writer.<ref>{{cite book |title=[[Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy|Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy]] |year=2006 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=9780791467992 |pages=166–167 |author=Seyyed Hossein Nasr<!-- |access-date=4 September 2012--> |quote=Also Iran's most famous modern writer, Sadegh Hedayat, who was an agnostic and antireligious activist, did much to introduce the nescepticalal view of Khayyam among modernized Persians to the extent that some by mistake think of him as the founder of Khayyam studies in Iran.}}</ref>
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]] (1907–1988): American science fiction writer.<ref>{{cite book|title=Robert Heinlein Interview: And Other Heinleiniana |year=1999 |publisher=Pulpless. Com|isbn=9781584450153 |page=62 |author=J. Neil Schulman<!-- |access-date=23 June 2013--> |chapter=Job: A Comedy of Justice Reviewed by J. Neil Schulman |quote=Lewis converted me from atheism to Christianity – Rand converted me back to atheism, with Heinlein standing on the sidelines rooting for agnosticism.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith |year=2010 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |isbn=9780754693604 |page=57 |author=Carole M. Cusack<!-- |access-date=23 June 2013--> |quote=Heinlein, like Robert Anton Wilson, was a lifelong agnostic, believing that to affirm that there is no God was as silly and unsupported as to affirm that there was a God.}}</ref>
* [[Joseph Heller]] (1923–1999): American satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright; ''[[Catch-22]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=Conversations With Joseph Heller|year=1993|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=9780878056354|author1=Joseph Heller |author2=Adam J. Sorkin |editor=Adam J. Sorkin<!--|access-date=8 June 2012-->|page=75|quote=Mandel: You are expressing an agnostic attitude toward reality and I am glad to see you so healthy. Heller: I realize that even if I received convincing physical evidence that there is a God and a heaven and hell, it wouldn't affect me one bit. I think the experience of life is more important than the experience of eternity. Life is short. Eternity never runs out.}}</ref>
* [[Alexander Herzen]] (1812–1870): Russian writer and thinker; the "father of Russian socialism"; one of the main fathers of agrarian populism.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Herzen Reader |year=2012 |publisher=Northwestern University Press |isbn=9780810128477 |page=367 |author1=Alexander Herzen |author2=Kathleen Parthé |author3=Robert Neil Harris<!-- |access-date=17 May 2013--> |quote=Zernov writes: "Herzen was the only leader of the intelligentsia who was more an agnostic than a dogmatic atheist and for this reason he remained on the fringe of the movement."}}</ref>
* [[Aldous Huxley]] (1894–1963): English writer of novels, such as ''[[Brave New World]]'', and wide-ranging essays.<ref>{{cite book |title=Aldous Huxley |year=2003 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-0-7910-7040-6 |editor=Harold Bloom<!--|access-date=14 April 2012--> |page=[https://archive.org/details/aldoushuxley0000unse_q3w4/page/27 27] |quote=As late as 1962 he wrote to Reid Gardner, "I remain an agnostic who aspires to be a gnostic" (Letters 935). |url=https://archive.org/details/aldoushuxley0000unse_q3w4/page/27 }}</ref>
* [[A.J. Jacobs]] (born 1968): American author.<ref>During an interview on his book ''The Year of Living Biblically'' with George Stroumboulopoulos on the CBC Program 'The Hour' Jacobs states "I'm still an agnostic, I don't know whether there's a god."[http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1770] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080422195749/http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1770|date=22 April 2008}}</ref>
* [[James Joyce]] (1882–1941): Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the [[modernist]] avant-garde [[Art movement|movement]] of the early 20th century; best known for his novel ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]''.<ref >" Neither Joyce's agnosticism nor his sexual libertinism were known to his mentors at Belvedere and he remained to the end a Prefect of the Sodality of Mary." Bruce Stewart, ''James Joyce'' (2007), p. 14.</ref>
* [[Franz Kafka]] (1883–1924): Czech-born Jewish writer.<ref>"Kafka did not look at writing as a "gift" in the traditional sense. If anything, he considered both his talent for writing and what he produced as a writer curses for some unknown sin. Since Kafka was agnostic or even an atheist, it is best to assume his sense of sin and curse were metaphors." [http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/kafka.shtml Franz Kafka – The Absurdity of Everything] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308143154/http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/kafka.shtml |date=8 March 2012 }}, Tamer i.com.</ref><ref>"Kafka was also alienated from his heritage by his parents' perfunctory religious practice and minimal social formality in the Jewish community, though his style and influences were sometimes attributed to Jewisfolklorere. Kafka eventually declared himself a socialist atheistand, Spinoza, Darwin and Nietzsche e some of his influences." C. D. Merriman, [http://www.online-literature.com/franz-kafka/ Franz Kafka] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201106232753/http://www.online-literature.com/franz-kafka/ |date=6 November 2020 }}.</ref>
* [[John Keats]] (1795–1821): English [[Romanticism|Romantic]] poet.<ref>"Keats shared Hunt's dislike of institutionalized Christianity, parsons, and the Christian belief in man's innate corruption, but, as an unassertive agnostic, held well short of Shelley's avowed atheism." John Barnard, ''John Keats'', pp. 38–39.</ref>
* [[Janusz Korczak]] (1878 or 1879–1942): Polish Jewish educator, children's author and [[Pediatrics|pediatrician]]. After spending many years working as director of an orphanage in Warsaw, Korczak refused freedom and remained with the orphans as they were sent to [[Treblinka extermination camp]] during the [[Grossaktion Warsaw]] of 1942.<ref>{{cite book |title=Ghetto diary |year=1978 |publisher=Holocaust Library |author=Janusz Korczak<!-- |access-date=20 April 2012--> |quote=You know I am an agnostic, but I understood: Pedagogy, tolerance, and all that.}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Korczak's Children: Flawed Faces in a Warsaw Ghetto |url=http://newspapers.bc.edu/cgi-bin/bostonsh?a=d&d=bcheights19830307.2.63 |newspaper=The Heights |date=7 March 1983 |author=Chris Mullen |page=24 |quote=An assimilated Jew, he changed his name from Henryk Goldschmidt and was an agnostic who did not believe in forcing religion on children. |access-date=25 August 2013 |archive-date=25 August 2013 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130825032356/http://newspapers.bc.edu/cgi-bin/bostonsh?a=d&d=bcheights19830307.2.63 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Month, Volume 39 |year=1968 |publisher=Simpkin, Marshall, and Company<!-- |access-date=20 April 2012--> |page=350 |quote=WheDrr. Janusz Korczak, a Jewish philanthropist and agnostic, voluntarily chooses to follow the Jewish orphans under his care to the Nazi extermination camp in Treblinka.}}</ref>
* [[Stanisław Lem]] (1921–2006): Polish science fiction novelist and essayist.<ref name="SP-19960115">{{cite web |last=Noack |first=Hans-Joachim |title=Jeder Irrwitz ist denkbar Science-fiction-Autor Lem über Nutzen und Risiken der AntimaterieEnglgl: Each madness is conceivable Science-fiction author Lem about the benefits and risks of anti-matter) |url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-8871192.html |date=15 January 1996 |work=[[Der Spiegel]] |access-date=6 March 2014 |archive-date=18 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118210604/https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-8871192.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
* [[H. P. Lovecraft]] (1890–1937): American writer of strange fiction and [[Horror fiction|horror]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KaklDwAAQBAJ&q=Lovecraft+agnostic+inauthor:%22S.+T.+Joshi%22&pg=PA62|title=H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West|last=Joshi|first=S. T.|date=2016-05-28|publisher=Wildside Press LLC|page=62|isbn=978-1-4794-2754-3|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d37VNU0J_S4C&q=agnostic|title=As f: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality|last=Saler|first=Michael|date=2012-01-09|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|page=138|isbn=978-0-19-534316-8|language=en}}</ref>
* [[Lucretius]] (99 BC–55 BC): Roman poet and philosopher.<ref>"Lucretius did not deny the existence of gods either, but he felt that human ideas about gods combined with the fear of death make human beings unhappy. He followed the same materialist lines as Epicurus, and by denying that the gods had any way of influencing our world he said that humankind not needed to fear the supernatural." [https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/atheism/history/ancient.shtml Ancient Atheists] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410154451/http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/atheism/history/ancient.shtml |date=10 April 2021 }}. BBC.</ref>
* [[Bernard Malamud]] (1914–1986): American author of novels and short stories; one of the great American Jewish authors of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite book |title=American Immigration Aesthetics: Bernard Malamud and Bharati Mukherjee As Immigrants |year=2011|publisher=AuthorHouse |isbn=978-1-4567-8243-6 |author=Markose Abraham<!-- |access-date=21 April 2012--> |page=146 |quote=An agnostic humanist, Malamud has unflinching faith in man's ability to choose and make "hin world" from the "usable past".}}</ref>
* [[H. L. Mencken]] (1880–1956): German-American journalist, satirist, social critic, [[cynicism (contemporary)|cynic]] and [[Freethought|freethinker]], known as the "Sage of Baltimore".<ref>"When asked what he would do if on his death he found himself facing the twelve apostles, the agnostic Mencken answered, "I would simply say, 'Gentlemen, I was mistaken." [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/monkeytrial/peopleevents/e_jazzage.html American Experience; Monkey Trial; People & Events: The Jazz Age] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170120161136/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/monkeytrial/peopleevents/e_jazzage.html |date=20 January 2017 }}, PBS, 1999–2001. Retrieved 28 July 2007.</ref>
* [[Thomas Mann]] (1875–1955): German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 [[Nobel Prize laureate]], known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual.<ref>{{cite book|title=The early reception of Thomas Mann's "Doktor Faustus": history and main problems |year=1966 |publisher=Indiana University |author=Catherine Patricia Riesenman<!-- |access-date=1 October 2012--> |page=158 |quote=Mann's "agnostic humanism" admits the existence of God as an incontestable fact but refuses a dogmatic definition of the nature of God (p. 77).}}</ref>
* [[Vladimir Nabokov]] (1899–1977): Russian novelist, poet and short story writer; known for his novel ''[[Lolita]]''.<ref>
"Nabokov is a self-affirmed agnostic in matters religious, political, and philosophical." Donald E. Morton, ''Vladimir Nabokov'' (1974), p. 8.</ref>
* [[Eugene O'Neill]] (1888–1953), American playwright; won the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1936.<ref>"O'Neill, an agnostic ann anarchist, maintained little hope in religion or politics and saw institutions not serving to preserve liberty but standing in the way of the birth of true freedom." John P. Diggins, ''Eugene O'Neill's America: desire under democracy'' (2007), p. 130.</ref>
* [[Larry Niven]] (born 1938): American [[science fiction author]]; ''[[Ringworld]]'' (1970).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.adherents.com/people/pn/Larry_Niven.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051119124307/http://www.adherents.com/people/pn/Larry_Niven.html |url-status=usurped |archive-date=19 November 2005 |title=The religion of Larry Niven, science fiction author |publisher=Adherents.com |date=28 July 2005 |access-date=27 September 2011}}</ref>
* [[Fernando Pessoa]] (1888–1935): Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in Portuguese.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa |year=2002 |publisher=Grove Press |isbn=9780802139146 |author1=Fernando Pessoa |author2=Richard Zenith<!-- |access-date=31 May 2012--> |quote=Whether or not they exist, we're slaves to the gods.}}</ref>
* [[Marcel Proust]] (1871–1922): French novelist, critic and essayist, known for his work ''[[In Search of Lost Time]]''.<ref>"Marcel Proust was the son of a Christian father and a Jewish mother. He was baptized (on 5 August 1871, at the church of Saint-Louis d'Antin) and later confirmed as a Catholic, but he nevepractiseded that faith and as an adult could best be described as a mystical atheist, someone imbued with spirituality who nonetheless did not believe in a personal God, much less in saviour." Edmund White, ''Marcel Proust: A Life'' (2009).</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Finch |first=Alison |title=The Oxford Companion to French Literature: Marcel Proust |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-866104-7 |quote=Proust's mother was Jewish; he and his younger brother were brought up as Catholics. He no doubt grew up with an awareness of the diversity of religious and cultural traditions; this awareness is part of what gives ''A la Recherche du temps perdu'' its breadth. The adult Proust seems to have been an atheist or agnostic (albeit one with a keen sense of awe and mystery); certain, ly his mature work shows, in religious and other areas, a scepticism by turns quizzical or delighted or anguished. Such scepticism has been part of the French literary tradition for centuries, but Proust was to foreground it in a particularly modern mode. |year=1959 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont0000harv_w6v3 }}</ref>
* [[Philip Pullman]] (born 1946): English children's author of the trilogy ''[[His Dark Materials]]''; has said that he is technically an agnostic,<ref name=agnostic01>{{cite web |url=http://www.pluggedin.com/upfront/2007/sympathyforthedevil.aspx |title=Sympathy for the Devil by Adam R. Holz |access-date=14 September 2013 |publisher=Plugged in Online |quote=I suppose technically, you'd have to put me down as an agnostic. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140221064101/http://www.pluggedin.com/upfront/2007/sympathyforthedevil.aspx |archive-date=21 February 2014 }}</ref> though he also calls himself an [[atheist]].<ref name=atheist01>{{cite magazine |url=https://newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/26/051226fa_fact |title=Far From Narnia |access-date=31 October 2007 |author=Miller, Laura |format=Life and Letters article |magazine=The New Yorker |quote=he is one of England's most outspoken atheists.... He added, "Although I call myself an atheist, I am a Church of England atheist, and a 1662 Book of Common Prayer atheist because that's the tradition I was brought up in and I cannot escape those early influences." |archive-date=10 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130510202004/http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/26/051226fa_fact |url-status=live }}</ref>
* [[Alexander Pushkin]] (1799–1837): Russian author of the Romantic era, considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern [[Russian literature]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Realizing Metaphors: Alexander Pushkin and the Life of the Poet |year=1998 |publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press |isbn=978-0-299-15974-0 |author=David M. Bethea<!-- |access-date=11 April 2012--> |page=12 |quote=For Pushkin himself was agnostic, in the sense that, exquisitely perched between paganism and Orthodoxy, violence and civilization, east and west, he would have loved to believe, but he felt too attached to this world, too fascinated by it, to come to rest in any stance other than the simultaneously exhilarating and wearying stand-in-relation-to.}}</ref>
* [[Edward Said]] (1935–2003): [[Palestinian-American]] literary [[Literary theory|theorist]] and advocate for [[Palestinian people|Palestinian]] rights; university professor of English and Comparative Literature at [[Columbia University]]; a founding figure in [[postcolonialism]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation |year=2010 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-24546-4 |author1=Adel Iskander |author2=Hakem Rustom<!-- |access-date=26 April 2012-->|quote=Said was of Christian background, a confirmed agnostic, perhaps even an atheist, yet he had a rage for justice and a moral sensibility lacking in most believers. Said retained his ethical compass without God and persevered in an exile once forced and now chosen, affected by neither malice nor fear.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Newman's Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint |year=2010 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |isbn=9781441150844 |author=John Cornwell<!-- |access-date=3 November 2012--> |page=128|quote=A hundred and fifty years on, Edward Said, an agnostic of Palestinian origins, who strove to correct false Western impressions of 'Orientalism', would declare Newman's university discourses both true and 'incomparably eloquent'...}}</ref>
* [[Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.]] (1917–2007): American historian and [[Pulitzer Prize]]–winning writer.<ref>{{cite book |title=Do You Believe? |year=2007 |publisher=Vintage |author=Antonio Mond a|pages=141, 146 |quote=I am an agnostic...I began not to believe in the existence of God when I was in high school.}}</ref>
* [[Mary Shelley]] (1797–1851): English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel ''[[Frankenstein]]'' (1818).<ref>{{cite book|title=Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley: Writing Lives |year=2001 |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press |isbn=9780889209435 |author1=Helen M. Buss |author2=D. L. Macdonald |author3=Anne McWhir<!-- |access-date=26 May 2012--> |page=141 |quote=Its implicit antagonist-reader and protagonist-editor are his Roman Catholic wife Mary Jane, and his troubled agnostic daughter, Mary Shelley:...}}</ref>
* [[Edward Snowden]] (born 1983): American computer specialist, privacy activist and former CIA employee and NSA contractor; disclosed classified details of several top-secret United States and British government mass surveillance programs.<ref>{{cite news |title=For Snowden, a Life of Ambition, Despite the Drifting |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/us/for-snowden-a-life-of-ambition-despite-the-drifting.html?pagewanted=all |access-date=15 June 2013 |work=The New York Times |first1=John M. |last1=Broder |first2=Scott |last2=Shane |date=15 June 2013 |quote=Toward the end of 2003Mrr. Snowden wrote that he was joining the Army, listing Buddhism as his religion ("agnostic is strangely absent", he noted parenthetically about the military recruitment form). He tried to define a still-evolving belief system. "I feel that religion, adopted purely, is ultimately representative of blindly making someone else's beliefs your own." |archive-date=24 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224165416/https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/us/for-snowden-a-life-of-ambition-despite-the-drifting.html?pagewanted=all |url-status=live }}</ref>
* [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] (1815–1902): American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early [[women's rights movement|woman's movement]]. <!-- in her time the movement was referred to in the singular form. Please don't change it's not a typo --> Her [[Declaration of Sentiments]], presented at the [[Seneca Falls Convention]] held in 1848 in [[Seneca Falls (village), New York|Seneca Falls]], New York, is often credited with initiating the first organized woman's rights and [[woman's suffrage]] movements in the United States.<ref>{{cite book |title=Parenting Beyond Belief- Abridged Ebook Edition: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids without Religion |year=2011 |publisher=AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn |isbn=9780814474266 |author=Dale McGowan |author-link=Feminist Reformers<!--|access-date=10 September 2012--> |page=[https://archive.org/details/parentingbeyondb0000unse/page/138 138] |quote="Serene agnostic" Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) was the first woman, in 1848, to call for woman suffrage, launching the women's movement. She was joined by sister agnostic Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906). |url=https://archive.org/details/parentingbeyondb0000unse/page/138 }}</ref> Late in life she led the effort to write the ''[[Woman's Bible]]'' to correct the injustices she perceived against women in the Bible.
* [[Olaf Stapledon]] (1886–1950): English philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction.<ref>{{cite book|title=Olaf Stapledon |year=1982 |publisher=Twayne |isbn=9780805768268 |author=Patrick A. McCarthy<!-- |access-date=13 May 2012--> |quote=There may be a God or universal spirit apart from man, as Victor admits; but he maintains Stapledon's consistently agnostic position that we should "be true to our little insect intelligence... |url=https://archive.org/details/olafstapledon00mcca }}</ref>
* [[John Steinbeck]] (1902–1968): American writer known for novels such as ''[[The Grapes of Wrath]]'' and ''[[East of Eden (novel)|East of Eden]]''; won the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1962<ref>{{cite book|title=The true adventures of John Steinbeck, writer: a biography |year=1984 |publisher=Viking Press |isbn=9780670166855 |page=[https://archive.org/details/trueadventuresof00bens/page/248 248] |author=Jackson J. Benson<!--|access-date=9 April 2013--> |quote=Ricketts did not convert his friend to a religious point of view – Steinbeck remained an agnostic and, essentially, a materialist – but Ricketts's religious acceptance did tend to work on his friend... |url=https://archive.org/details/trueadventuresof00bens/page/248 }}</ref>
* [[Stendhal]] (1783–1842) ([[Pseudonym|a.k.a.]] Marie-Henri Beyle): French writer.<ref>"It must be extremely consoling, he admitted, to have faith in religion, yet even for an agnostic, like himself, life held many beautiful realities – the art of Raphael or Titian, the prose of Voltaire and the poetry of Byron in ''Don Juan''." F. C. Green, ''Stendhal'' (2011), p. 200.</ref>
* [[Boris Strugatsky]] (1925–2012): Soviet-Russian science fiction author who collaborated with his brother, Arkady Strugatsky, on various works; their novel ''Piknik na obochine'' was translated into English as ''[[Roadside Picnic]]'' in 1977 and was filmed by [[Andrei Tarkovsky]] under the title ''[[Stalker (1979 film)|Stalker]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Boris Strugatsky: "The seeds of culture do not die even in the soil, which seems to be frozen to the bottom," |url=http://www.sovsekretno.ru/magazines/article/3215 |publisher=Cobepwehho Cekpetho |access-date=14 December 2012 |author=Boris Strugatsky |author-link=Yuri Pankov |quote=I was an atheist, or as it is now for some reason, say, an agnostic. I (unfortunately or fortunately cannot bring myself to believe in the existence of a conscious self Omnipotence that controls my life and the life of humanity. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511104655/http://www.sovsekretno.ru/magazines/article/3215 |archive-date=11 May 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
* [[Charles Templeton]] (1915–2001): Canadian [[Evangelism|evangelist]]; author of ''A Farewell to God''.<ref>CBC News reports that Templeton "eventually abandoned the pulpit and became an agnostic". ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20020131034308/http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?category=Canada&story=%2Fnews%2F2001%2F06%2F07%2Ftempleton_010607 Journalist, evangelist Charles Templeton dies]''</ref>
* [[Thucydides]] (c. 460–c. 395): Greek historian and author from [[Alimos]]. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the 5th-century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history", because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis in terms of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.<ref>{{cite book |title=Thucydides |year=1925 |publisher=Taylor & Francis<!-- |access-date=11 July 2012--> |page=16 |chapter=The Modern Spirit |quote=Thucydidesn attitude towards the gods is that of a well-poised agnostic: If there be any, they do not concern themselves with human affairs.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Mythistory: The Making of a Modern Historiography |year=2003 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=9780226502625 |author=Joseph Mali<!-- |access-date=11 July 2012--> |page=19 |chapter=1 |quote=For Thucydides held to an agnostic conception of history: he did not believe in any supernatural or merely natural forces in it; rather, he conceived history — in overtly dramatic terms — to be a test of character, an ongoing attempt of men to assert themselves in, and over against the reality that they could not fully understand not change.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Ethics in Thucydides: The Ancient Simplicity |year=1998 |publisher=University Press of America |isbn=9780761810568 |author=Mary Frances Williams<!-- |access-date=11 July 2012--> |page=6 |quote=As scholars came to accept, around the turn of the century, arguments that proclaimed Thucydides' agnosticism or atheism, religion was considered to be either of no interest to the author or to be actively despised by him, and this likewise influenced the treatment of ethics in the 'History'.}}</ref>
* [[Ivan Turgenev]] (1818–1883): Russian novelist, short-story writer and playwright; author of ''[[A Sportsman's Sketches]]'' and of [[Fathers and Sons (novel)|''Fathers and Sons'']].<ref>"For example, Leonard Schapiro, Turgenev, His Life and Times (New York: Random, 1978) 214, writes about Turgenev's agnosticism as follows: "Turgenev was not a determined atheist; there is ample evidence which shows that he was an agnostic who would have been happy to embrace the consolations of religion, but was, except perhaps on some rare occasions, unable to do so"; and Edgar Lehrman, ''Turgenev's Letters'' (New York: Knopf, 1961) xi, presents still another interpretation for Turgenev's lack of religion, suggesting literature as a possible substitution: "Sometimes Turgenev's attitude toward literature makes us wonder whether, for him, literature was not a surrogate religion – something in which he could believe unhesitatingly, unreservedly, and enthusiastically, something that somehow would make man in general and Turgenev in particular, a little happier." - Harold Bloom, [https://books.google.com/books?id=xUrhwAEACAAJ ''Ivan Turgenev''], Chelsea House Publishers (2003), pp. 95–96. ISBN 9780791073995</ref>
* [[Mark Twain]] (1835–1910): American [[List of humorists|humorist]], satirist, lecturer and writer, most noted for his novels ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' and ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'';<ref>"In one of our walks about Hartford, when he was in the first fine flush of his agnosticism, he declared that Christianity had done nothing to improve morals and conditions..." [[William Dean Howells]], ''My Mark Twain'' [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3390/3390.txt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304083923/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3390/3390.txt|date=4 March 2016}}.</ref><ref>"[[William Dean Howells]] and [[Mark Twain]] had much in common. They were agnostic but compassionate of the plight of man in an indifferent world..." Darrel Abel (2002), ''Classic Authors of the Gilded Age'', iUniverse, {{ISBN|0-595-23497-6}}</ref> has also been identified a [[deist]].<ref>"At the most, Mark Twain was a mild agnostic, usually he seems to have been an amused Deist. Yet, at this late da, te hin daughter has refused to allow his comments on religion to be published." Kenneth Rexroth, "Humor in a Tough Age;" The Nation, 7 March 1959. [http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/essays/twain.htm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160324095737/http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/essays/twain.htm|date=24 March 2016}}</ref>
* [[Adam Bruno Ulam]] (1922–2000): Polish and American historian and [[political scientist]] at [[Harvard University]]; one of the world's foremost authorities on Russia and the [[Soviet Union]], and the author of twenty books and many articles.<ref>{{cite book |title=Understanding the Cold War: A Historical Reflections |year=2002 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=9781412840651 |page=24 |author=Adam Bruno Ulam |edition=2<!-- |access-date=15 July 2013--> |quote=While very religious when very young, by sixteen I had turned agnostic.}}</ref>
* [[Ibn Warraq]] (born 1946): known for his books critical of Islam.<ref>"Warraq, 60, describes himself now as an agnostic..." [https://web.archive.org/web/20070808075246/http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13052 Dissident voices], World Magazine, 16 June 2007, Vol. 22, No. 22.</ref>
* [[Hale White]] (1831–1913): British writer and civil servant.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Facts on File Companion to the British Novel: Beginnings through the 19th century |year=2006 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=9780816051335 |author1=Mary Virginia Brackett |author2=Victoria Gaydosik<!-- |access-date=30 June 2012--> |page=[https://archive.org/details/factsonfilecompa0000unse_j0e4/page/479 479] |quote=...White experienced an enormous spiritual change, moving from Unitarianism through theism, then becoming an agnostic, and finally finding more peace in resignation and acceptance of life without a deity. |url=https://archive.org/details/factsonfilecompa0000unse_j0e4/page/479 }}</ref>
* [[Robert Anton Wilson]] (1932–2007): American author and [[futurology|futurologist]]<ref>Wilson explains that he is agnostic about ''everything'' in [http://www.rawilson.com/trigger1.shtml the preface to his book Cosmic Trigger] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010626233012/http://rawilson.com/trigger1.shtml |date=26 June 2001 }}.</ref>
* [[Mary Wollstonecraft]] (1759–1797): English writer, philosopher, and advocate of [[women's rights]]. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a [[travel literature|travel narrative]], a history of the [[French Revolution]], a [[conduct book]], and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for ''[[A Vindication of the Rights of Woman]]'' (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason.<ref>{{cite book |title=Parenting Beyond Belief- Abridged Ebook Edition: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids without Religion |year=2011 |publisher=AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn |isbn=9780814474266 |author=Dale McGowan |author-link=Feminist Reformers<!-- |access-date=10 September 2012--> |page=[https://archive.org/details/parentingbeyondb0000unse/page/138 138] |quote=The first influential feminist book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, was written by deist-turned-agnostic Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) in 1792, urging that women be treated as "rational creatures". |url=https://archive.org/details/parentingbeyondb0000unse/page/138 }}</ref>
* [[David Yallop]] (1937–2018): English [[true crime]] author.<ref>The Herald, "Why did this "saint" fail to act on sinners within his flock?", Anne Simpson, 26 May 2007</ref>
* [[Émile Zola]] (1840–1902): French writer; prominent figure in the literary [[naturalism (literature)|school of naturalism]]; important contributor to the development of [[Naturalism (theatre)|theatrical naturalism]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Evenhuis |first=Anthony |title=Messiah Or Antichrist?: A Study of the Messianic Myth in the Work of Zola |year=1998 |publisher=University of Delaware Press |isbn=978-0-87413-634-0 |quote=Given Émile Zola's reputation as an agnostic and a radical thinker, he has often been avoided by scholars with a religious background.}}</ref>