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Many atheists have experienced persecution, mainly from Christians and Muslims^{[citation needed]}. Persecution may refer to unwarranted arrest, imprisonment, beating, torture, or execution. It also may refer to the confiscation or destruction of property.

During the late Roman Empire, atheism — a capital crime — was a common legal prosecution against Christians by henotheists.^{[citation needed]} Christians rejected the Roman gods, and henotheists rejected the exclusivity of Christian monotheism.

In the European Middle Ages people were persecuted for heresy, especially in countries where the Inquisition was active. Medieval impiety and godlessness were closer to weak atheism than avowed strong atheism, and hardly any expression of strong atheism is known from this period. Medieval beliefs that most closely approach strong atheism were probably held by some members of the pantheistic Brethren of the Free Spirit. A man called Löffler, who was burned in Bern in 1375 for confessing adherence to this movement, is reported to have taunted his executioners that they would not have enough wood to burn "Chance, which rules the world."^{[citation needed]}

Among those imprisoned for atheism was Denis Diderot (1713–1784), one of the Enlightenment's most prominent philosophes, and editor-in-chief of the Encyclopédie, which sought to challenge religious (particularly Catholic) dogma: "Reason is to the estimation of the philosophe what grace is to the Christian", he wrote. "Grace determines the Christian's action; reason the philosophe's". ^[1]

Once appointed to the Chancellorship of Germany, Hitler banned freethought organizations and launched an “anti-godless” movement. In a 1933 speech he declared: “We have . . . undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”^[2]

• Discrimination against atheists