id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
en-wikipedia-org-7141		Atheism during the Age of Enlightenment - Wikipedia			.html	text/html	4417	486	62	Thomas Hobbes was widely viewed as an atheist for his materialist interpretation of scripture—Henry Hammond, a former friend, described him in a letter as a "Christian Atheist".[2] David Hume was accused of atheism for his writings on the "natural history of religion";[3] Pierre Bayle was accused of atheism for defending the possibility of an ethical atheist society in his Critical Dictionary; and Baruch Spinoza was frequently regarded as an atheist for his "pantheism". In the Reformation and Counter-Reformation eras, Europe was a "persecuting society" which did not tolerate religious minorities or atheism.[4] Even in France, where the Edict of Nantes had been issued in 1598, then revoked in 1685, there was very little support for religious toleration at the beginning of the eighteenth century.[5] States were concerned with maintaining religious uniformity for two reasons: first, they believed that their chosen confession was the way to God and other religions were heretical, and second, religious unity was necessary for social and political stability.[6] The advancement of toleration was the result of pragmatic political motives as well as the principles espoused by Enlightenment philosophes.	./cache/en-wikipedia-org-7141.html	./txt/en-wikipedia-org-7141.txt