This is a question thats been bugging me for a while; what was Lovecraft's religion? Was he a freemason like his Grandfather? Was he an atheist? Or was he one of those people that didn't really give it much thought? Like I said before, I've been wondering about this for a while, so any answers would be greatly appreciated.

Pretty sure he was atheist.

Yeah, I've seen it mentioned in a number of places that he espoused the atheist mentality, which shows itself pretty vividly in his works from my experience. The one thing that could possibly inferred to the contrary based on his writings is that he might have believed that if there were a God, surely it would think very little of humanity.

he founded a philosophy known as "cosmicism" or something like that, it was an agnostic belief that believed that the human race was to small for the gods to notice and we as humans are trapped in faith and we cannot escape and we are dommed; if the gods destroyed us, it would be like if you stepped on an ant. you wouldn't have a snigle thought or emotion running through your body. And while he was a cosmisc he said that major religion was still useful among the masses. and then he said,"Take away his christian gods and saints, and he will worship something else.." basically his religion is a religion for Nihilists, but that creates a problem:nihilists believe we are stuck here and with no fait whatsoever and humanity is meanignless. thats kinda what lovecraft thought but i am getting a headache from tyring to explaine this so i will update later.

i guess that he had some problems with god ..on his words he always talkwith a little bit of sarcasm or dispise against him..i dont know..that's a way of believe in god anyway. And if he was really an atheist...on the deepest corner of his heart ..the panic and the sorrow for that idea... consumed his soul...

Here's the wiki for Ol' H.P. It's pretty good and seems accurate. Doesn't meantion his religion though.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraft

Interrestingly one of the people who have shown Lovecrafts Atheism most is his most prominent scholar ST Joshi who himself is a loud voice for Atheism.

Well, Lovecraft describes himself as a mechanicist materialist, so he was in fact an atheist, however, in his literary production and his letters appears manifested some kind religious necesity repressed.Ironically he hated many atheist concepts, this is evident when you read "The silver key" as he describes as people without religion the most horrible of all bcs he didnt have any rule to show armony in their lifes and works, also must mention that it appears to be that Azathoth (in Cthulhu Mythos he/it is the lord of the universe) reflected his vision of God:"Outside the ordered universe is that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes."This description appears in the Dream-Quest of unknown Kadath, it has been postulated by Donald Tyson, the writer of "Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred" that Azathoth plays a flute that keeps the universe existing, as Azathoth is blind and idiot he doesnt care about what he does with the universe, he is just there, as any other impersonal force of the universe. I am sure that Lovecraft would have been agree with this vision of god, however, he also wrote about Nodens, The Lord of Great Abyss, he didnt invented this god, it is part of celtic religion, however, Lovecraft used this deity to create counter against the Great Old Ones, sometimes he helps humans in their quest against the servants of the Great Old Ones and it looks like he is the main antagonist of Nyarlathotep, the Crawlin Chaos, the Messenger, Soul and Will of the Outer Gods (Azathoth & company), this Nyarlathotep is the nearest being to the christian-muslim-jewish vision of the Devil in Cthulhu Mythos, he enjoys to produce suffering, madness, and pain (dont ask about my nickname it simply sounds cool), also he is the keeper of the Kadath's gods, its say that the mankind gods were created by the human dreams, something similar to WH40K (i am not making propaganda, just doing a reference) they have few power, but they can request the help of Nyarlathotep.Hope this has help to clear your doubts

Lovecraft was not merely an atheist, but pretty much opposite.And Nyarly, stop there. Lovecraft was not religious.Yes, he used elements of deites from classic cultures. But these are elements, and all beings are just represented from one side. All writers use elements from different religions, and Lovecraft as a well-learned man he studied many religions, which inspried him when creating his own deites. And for his "repressed faith", yes there is the temptation of joining or even making one faith so the world would be explained to one.EDIT: Azethoth is the most powerfull Elder God, and not God himself. He is not Lovecraft's version of God, as Lovecraft's version of God would be something even bigger and more powerfull then Azethoth.

I am sorry to be the one that has to burst your bubble here, but the Necronomicon is unfortunately a made-up book, there was no original written in the dark ages or whatever, it was merely a literary device which was supposed to seem believable, Hell I also bought the 'simon-Necronomicon' just for fun, Lovecraft himself has said he made it up, as he also made up the character Alhazred, a name he invented when he was a kid playing at being a Sultan. It is a pretty established fact that Lovecraft himself considered himself an atheist, and the characters that most resemble his own views in his books also tend to be the academic and scientific types like R Carter, and his writting about gods and metaphysics does not imply that he himself subscribed to these views but that he understood the mechanics of superstition well enough to make his fiction plausable.for the sake of further reading here is a list of atheist authorshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atheists_%28authors%29

I think sonofamortician nailed it - but I'd still like to run with the ball for a bit.Let's summarise some monsters.Azathoth: Lord of Chaos, omnipotent being which controls the events of the universe and creates/destroys world (by playing a flute) but which is ignorant of this and has no idea what it's doing.Nyarlathotep: Servant of Azathoth, apparently a re-envisaging of the traditional Devil.Cthulhu: Powerful squid/dragon thing. Name translated from an old God.Yog-sothoth: Appears to be a sort of consciousness that permeates the entire universe. (I'm basing this on the Silver Key encounter and the comment that he is the gate and the key and the threshold, though I'm not sure if that quote's accurate.) At any rate, it's damn powerful and apparently omnipresent, omniscient and possibly omnipotent.Dagon: Fish god, name taken from bible. (Or, if not the bible, then the same place Milton got his Dagon.)There are others like Shub-Niggurath but I don't know much about him/her/it (apart from the fact it's a black goat with a thousand young, or is affiliated with same.) Clearly, there are religious or theist overtones here. You've got Yog-sothoth and Azathoth who stand in for Gods - or Lovecraft's own ideas for Gods. You've also got him lifting gods right out of other pantheons (Dagon and Cthulhu) and re-inventing old ones (Nyarly). However, it is my opinion that he did not do this because he believed in these gods, but merely to give his work a smattering of authenticity and a bit of a chill-factor: Nyarlathotep is rendered rather more intimidating when you realise he is the entity mankind has feared for millenia as Satan. And to discover that he is merely a servant - well, it adds a whole new level to the Mythos.The Gods Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth are, in my view, experiments rather than beliefs. Azathoth is blind and ignorant, but he wields immense power: he can move worlds, but he is purposeless. This mirrors the laws of nature, and man is powerless to avert both the laws of physics and Azathoth's will. Yog-Sothoth, by comparison, is sentient and seems to be rather intelligent. This, I believe, is a re-inventing of the concept of "God": rather than have him as a bearded guy in the sky, Lovecraft updates the concept to make it more interesting, intriguing and believable, in the same way he re-invents monsters. (No longer the ghouls and vampires of old: now we have gelatinous entities, sentient clouds of gas and half-plant time-travellers.) But just because he re-invents God does not mean that he believes in God. After all, if you can't muck around with ideas when writing a story, when on earth *can* you muck around? (Also, it is interesting to compare Yog-Sothoth to Edgar Allen Poe's concept of God in "Mesmeric Revelation"; Yog-Sothoth may be Lovecraft's expansion and characterisation of a God first portrayed by Poe.)

That's some damn fine running. I like how you've put it.

Before writing the previous article, I took an skeptical look at the wikipedia. The Necronomicon is fictional, but not the books I wrote about.Don't want to burst your bubble either, but I never said Lovecraft wrote the Nec. He only quoted it in some of his books.

Perhaps a case of self fulfilling prophecy, or life imitating art, either way it is fun to suspend your disbelief.

Terry Pratchett spoofed that unspeakable book, btw. His version was the Necrotelecomnicon.The phone book of the dead...

That Terry Prachett kills me.

In another letter from HPL to Robert E. Howard:"All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist."It depends on how one defines the various terms (theist, agnostic, atheist, etc).In modern colloquial terms, HPL would have been an Atheist (in that he lacks a belief in any sort of god(s)). In modern technical terms, he would be a "weak atheist" (he issues only a statement of ignorance regarding god(s), without making a positive assertion against such a belief), or agnostic, depending on which definition you're going off of.His stance seems to be "I don't believe in god(s)" rather than "there is no god" (the difference between "weak" and "strong" atheism). He does leave it open, though, professing his ignorance on the subject, so his "statement of faith" is something like "I don't believe in god(s), but there's really no way to know for sure, whether or not." He seemed open to the possibility, providing sufficient evidence.Thus, I'm more inclined to classify him as an agnostic.

Speaking of S.T. Joshi, is his annotated Lovecraft fiction trilogy Penguin Classics Howards complete fiction works, or do I have to go spend MORE of my hard-earned money?