Philosophical critique of religion

In this entry, philosophical critique of religion is taken to be normative epistemological, ethical, and political criticism of religious worldviews, institutions, hierarchies, practices, and canons. The entry begins with a broad-brush history of philosophical critique of religion, noting activity in the ancient Mediterranean, ancient India, ancient China, and the medieval Islamic world, but focusing primarily on the development of religious criticism in Western Europe during the second millennium. The entry then takes up a range of topics that have provoked religious criticism across the full sweep of the world's religions, starting with epistemological and metaphysical concerns, and then moving to ethical, social, and political matters. The entry is rounded out with brief discussion of some particularly prominent critics of religion: Hume, Feuerbach, Marx and Engels, Nietzsche, Freud, and Atran.