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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Atheism |
 | | Deor., I, 23), Democritus and Epicurus were styled in the same sense impious (without respect for the gods) on account of their trend of their new atomistic philosophy. |
 | | In this sense too, the early Christians were known to the pagans as atheists, because they denied the heathen gods; while, from time to time, various religious and philisophical systems have, for similar reasons, been deemed atheistic. |
 | | But even the last named admits that there may be a God, though so limited and so foreign to the deity of theists that his admission can hardly remove the system from the first category of theoretic atheism. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/02040a.htm (1931 words) |
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