Most Famous Atheists/Agnostics

Billy Connolly is a retired stand-up comedian, actor, and musician. Known for his observational and idiosyncratic comedy, Connolly is widely considered one of the most influential and greatest stand-up comedians of all time. He has also worked with the British charity, Comic Relief and has appeared in a documentary and a live stage show for the charity.

Although best known for her surreal and digressive stand-up comedies, Eddie Izzard is also a popular film and television actor. Born as Edward John Izzard, she began her career as a street performer, eventually making her first stage appearance at the age of twenty-five, quickly drawing larger and larger audience with her stream-of-consciousness delivery, achieving fame both home and abroad.

Nobel Prize-winning British biophysicist Francis Crick is best known for his ground-breaking work to determine the structure of the DNA, along with James Watson, Maurice Wilkins, and Rosalind Franklin. He taught at various institutes, such as the Salk Institute, and was also awarded the Order of Merit.

Known for co-writing The Office, British comedian Stephen Merchant was born to a nurse mother and a plumber father. He began his career with the radio and then stepped into stand-up comedy. Over the years, he has used his 6’7” frame to the best in his performances.

Luis Buñuel was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker with a brilliant career spanning almost half a century. He worked in France, Mexico, and Spain and directed films spanning various genres. His filmmaking technique was strongly influenced by mise-en-scène. He was hailed as a leader of avant-garde surrealism and is considered one of the top directors of the 20th century.  

Charlie Brooker is best known for creating the science-fiction series Black Mirror. He has also written for shows such as Brass Eye and hosted shows such as Screenwipe and Gameswipe. He is known for his signature style of sarcastic criticism of society. He is also a creative director of Zeppotron.

Jamie Hyneman is an American television host and special effects expert. He achieved popularity as the co-host of the popular TV series MythBusters. He is also credited with inventing an unmanned firefighting robotic vehicle called Sentry. Jamie Hyneman also co-designed Wavecam, an aerial cable robotic camera system used in entertainment and sports events.

Adam Savage is an American television personality, special effects designer, educator, fabricator, actor, and producer. Savage's model work has appeared in movies, such as The Matrix Reloaded and Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. He has also co-hosted popular TV shows, such as Unchained Reaction and MythBusters.

American engineer Robert Noyce, who co-invented the integrated circuit, later gained the nickname the Mayor of Silicon Valley. The co-founder of Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor, Noyce is also said to have given Silicon Valley its name with his invention that included a silicon microchip. He was also a swimming champion.

The son of a manual laborer, J. Michael Straczynski grew up to graduate in psychology and sociology. Best known for writing the Marvel Comics series The Amazing Spider-Man, he has written for both TV and films, apart from authoring his own books and creating the sci-fi TV show Babylon 5.

Jimmy Carr is one of the biggest selling live comedians of Britain. The award-winning performer is best known for shows such as 8 Out of 10 Cats and jokes about everything from politics to sex. He has gained fame for his signature deadpan delivery, his high-pitched laughter, and his dark humor.

Russell T Davies is a Welsh television producer and screenwriter who contributed immensely to the success of the popular science fiction television show Doctor Who. When Davies was working for the show, Doctor Who received five successive National Television Awards starting from 2005. He has also won prestigious awards, such as the British Academy Craft Award and the Cymru Award.

Edward Teller was one of the famous "Martians,” or eminent Hungarian scientists who had migrated to the U.S. A prominent chemical engineer and nuclear physicist, he was part of the team that created the world’s first atomic bomb and also designed the first hydrogen bomb, or thermonuclear bomb.

Peter Greenaway is a Welsh artist, film director, and screenwriter. He is best known for making films with common traits, such as the contrasts of nature and architecture, costume and nudity, sexual pleasure and painful death, and furniture and people. Some of his best-known films include The Pillow Book and Goltzius and the Pelican Company.

The son of a professor, A. Bartlett Giamatti grew up to follow in his father’s footsteps and be a professor of English and the president of Yale. However, his love for baseball also made him an MLB Commissioner. As the president of the National League, he removed Pete Rose for shoving an umpire.

An influential English ethical philosopher and economist of the Victorian era, Henry Sidgwick is perhaps best known for his utilitarian treatise The Methods of Ethics. He promoted higher education of women and co-founded Newnham College. He remained a member of the Metaphysical Society and co-founded and served as first president of the Society for Psychical Research.

Paul Ehrenfest was an Austrian-Dutch theoretical physicist. A close associate of Albert Einstein, whom he had met during his visit to Prague in 1912, Ehrenfest frequently hosted Einstein in Leiden where he was serving as a professor. Paul Ehrenfest is best remembered for his work in the field of statistical mechanics.

Konstantin Novoselov is a Russian-British physicist, currently serving as a professor at the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials, National University of Singapore. He is the Langworthy Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester as well. Along with Andre Geim, he jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.