The Necessity of Atheism

At that time most lecturers at Oxford were ordained by the Church of England (not till later in the century would this change) and were acquainted with the concept of blasphemy.

[1] The content provided ample grounds for authorities to effect his being rusticated for contumacy along with his refusing to deny authorship, together with his friend and fellow student, Thomas Jefferson Hogg.

A revised and expanded version of the text was included as one of the notes to Shelley's poem Queen Mab in 1813, and some reprints with the title The Necessity of Atheism are based on this rather than the 1811 pamphlet.

[2] The tract starts with the following rationale of the author's goals: As a love of truth is the only motive which actuates the Author of this little tract, he earnestly entreats that those of his readers who may discover any deficiency in his reasoning, or may be in possession of proofs which his mind could never obtain, would offer them, together with their objections to the Public, as briefly, as methodically, as plainly as he has taken the liberty of doing.Shelley made a number of claims in Necessity, including that one's beliefs are involuntary, and, therefore, that atheists do not choose to be so and should not be persecuted.

Shelley scholar Carlos Baker states that "the title of his college pamphlet should have been The Necessity of Agnosticism rather than The Necessity of Atheism,"[6] while historian David Berman argues that Shelley was an atheist, both because he characterised himself as such, and because "he denies the existence of God in both published works and private letters"[4] during the same period.