Marx and Engels publish the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848. Its author's settled materialism, religion as the opium of the people in Marx's phrase of 1844, carries atheism into the program of states in the century that follows, with consequences the tradition's own historians record on both sides.
Tagged: Atheism Secular and Non-Theistic
The Event
- Date
- 1848 (exact)
- Era
- Secular Modernity; Standard periodization of secular and non-religious history
- Location
- London; today United Kingdom
- Traditions
- Secular
- Streams
- Atheism
- Key figures
- Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
- Key texts
- Manifesto of the Communist Party
How the Tradition Tells It
The record states the Manifesto and the materialism of its authors; the varied settlements between Marxist states and religion, from suppression to accommodation, stand in the scholarship rather than in this entry's scope.
Primary Sources
- The tradition's own record of the event.
Secondary Sources
- Gottlieb, Anthony. The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy. New York: Liveright, 2016.
- Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004.
- Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
- Zuckerman, Phil, ed. Atheism and Secularity. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.
Provenance: HIST-1314; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-28.
Related on This Site
No image; the post explains why
Art Entry
AI-Generated Religious Art
Image generators now produce Christs, Buddhas, and temple scenes on demand. The traditions are answering; some with welcome, some with prohibitions that reach the new medium directly. This page shows no generated image, because any single example would misrepresent the argument.
Art Tradition
Non-Theistic and Secular
Art without transcendence: humanist meaning-making, museums as secular temples, and protest art.
Artist
Doris Salcedo
The Colombian sculptor of political violence's traces; her Fragmentos floor in Bogotá is a counter-monument hammered from surrendered weapons by women victims of the conflict.
Artist
Käthe Kollwitz
The German artist of grief: her Pietà, enlarged in Berlin's Neue Wache, is Germany's central memorial to the victims of war; a mother holding her dead son, made by a mother who lost hers.
History Event
American Atheists founded
1963
History Event
Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity
1841
History Event
New Atheism
2004-2006
History Event
Nietzsche's Gay Science
1882
Art Tradition
Non-Theistic and Secular
Art without transcendence: humanist meaning-making, museums as secular temples, and protest art.
Artist
Doris Salcedo
The Colombian sculptor of political violence's traces; her Fragmentos floor in Bogotá is a counter-monument hammered from surrendered weapons by women victims of the conflict.
Artist
Käthe Kollwitz
The German artist of grief: her Pietà, enlarged in Berlin's Neue Wache, is Germany's central memorial to the victims of war; a mother holding her dead son, made by a mother who lost hers.
History Event
American Atheists founded
1963
History Event
Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity
1841
History Event
New Atheism
2004-2006
History Event
Nietzsche's Gay Science
1882