In 1689 the Polish thinker Kazimierz Lyszczynski denied the existence of God is his De non existential dei. Lyszczynski maintained that God is a creation of man and that humans created the concept of God to oppress others. In 1674 Matthias Knutzen, who had a large following across Europe, produced writings in support of atheism. In the 1700s the likes of David Hume and Voltaire presented arguments and ideas that would provide the necessary intellectual seeds for atheism to take root.
