Emma Goldman: “The Philosophy of Atheism”

Audience

The original audience for “The Philosophy of Atheism” was a gathering occasioned by the Congress of Religious Philosophies that was part of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. At that time, Goldman shared the stage with representatives of a variety of denominations and religious traditions, and she spoke to a popular audience disposed to support interfaith and ecumenical activities. When the present version of the essay was published a year later in Mother Earth, the audience expanded to include a readership interested in progressive and radical ideas, attentive not only to politics but also to literature and the arts.

Goldman’s essay found a receptive audience among activists rethinking anarchism and feminism in the late 1960s, and it continues to be of interest to activists across a broad range of social justice movements, especially those who are interested in nonviolence and alternatives to electoral politics. Goldman’s atheism continues to be of particular interest to those who see organized religion as a barrier to social progress and wish to avoid approaching atheism as a belief system that functions as one denomination among others. This makes the essay of interest, too, to readers who do not so much wish to dismiss faith as to practice it outside established institutions.