9 Books Censored or Destroyed for Challenging Religion

9 Books Censored or Destroyed for Challenging Religion

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Evidence suggests that Theophrastus was read almost entirely behind half-open doors.

4. Shocked Whispers – Theophrastus redivivus (17th c.)

Sometime in the 1650s, just as the scientific revolution was breaking into a run, copies of an anonymous book of forceful arguments against belief in God started circulating around Europe.

Theophrastus redivivus begins by declaring that every great philosopher in every age has been an atheist (whether they could openly admit it or not), that all religions are fictions, and that anyone claiming to have proof of the existence of a god is lying or mentally ill. That’s on page 1.

Passed secretly from hand to hand and house to house, the first book-length work of atheist thought in Europe touched off a century of whispered discussions and arguments about the existence of God.


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