Editing Virginia Woolf (section)

=== Humanist views ===
Virginia Woolf was born into a non-religious family and is regarded, along with fellow members of the Bloomsbury group [[E. M. Forster]] and [[G. E. Moore]], as a [[humanism|humanist]]. Both her parents were prominent [[agnostic atheism|agnostic atheists]] although a significant influence was her aunt [[Caroline Stephen]]. [[Caroline Stephen]] was a convert to Quakerism, the Religious Society of Friends, and was a strong English exponent for its peace testimony in 1890.<ref name=":0" /> Her father, [[Leslie Stephen]], had become famous in polite society for his writings which expressed and publicised reasons to doubt the veracity of religion and abhorred military service. Stephen was also President of the [[West London Ethical Society]], an early [[secular humanism|humanist]] organisation, and helped to found the [[Humanists UK|Union of Ethical Societies]] in 1896. Woolf's mother, [[Julia Stephen]], wrote the book ''Agnostic Women'' (1880), which argued that agnosticism (defined here as something more like atheism) could be a highly moral approach to life.

Woolf was a critic of Christianity. In a letter to [[Ethel Smyth]], she gave a scathing denunciation of the religion, seeing it as self-righteous "egotism" and stating "my Jew [Leonard] has more religion in one toenail—more human love, in one hair".{{sfn|Woolf|1932–1935|p=321}} Woolf stated in her private letters that she thought of herself as an atheist.{{sfn|Streufert|1988}}

{{blockquote|She thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.|Woolf characterises Clarissa Dalloway, the title character of ''[[Mrs Dalloway]]''{{sfn|Woolf|1925|p=76}}}}