There has been some question regarding how the people that appear on on this list made the cut. I believe these questions have as their basis a belief that we have been too lenient. Au contrair! We actually started with a list of over seven hundred famous Atheists compiled by a gentleman named McCabe. Frankly, it did not seem that he had done his research very well, or was prone to place people on the list because he respected them for other reasons.

So, we dropped about five hundred of McCabe's personal favorites from the list. Oh, and by the way, it would be instructive to read the title of the pages: Infidels, Freethinkers, Humanists, and Unbelievers. That covers a lot more territory than does "atheists." And, we should be careful to consider the period during which the subject lived. It took a lot less Infidelity to be an Infidel during the Spanish Inquisition than it does today, although it took a lot more courage.

Finally, in order to make the cut, the party in question had to have said or done something that would make them fit into one of the categories: Infidels, Freethinkers, Humanists, or Unbelievers. Those who feel that George Washington or John Adams do not make the cut should probably retake high school American History. It took a serious set of mental cojones (or ovaries, as applicable) to take on the greatest military power of the period in order to gain ones liberty.