The Necessity Of Atheism, On Life, and On A Future State. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.The Necessity Of Atheism, On Life, and On A Future State

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. Towards the end of the pamphlet he writes: "the mind cannot believe in the existence of a God."

Shelley signed the pamphlet, "Thro' deficiency of proof, AN ATHEIST", which gives an idea of the empiricist nature of Shelley's beliefs. According to Berman, Shelley also believed himself to have "refuted all the possible types of arguments for God's existence," but Shelley himself encouraged readers to offer proofs if they possess them.

Opinion is divided upon the characterisation of Shelley's beliefs, at the time of the writing of Necessity. At the very beginning of his note on the line "There is no God" in Canto VII of Queen Mab, published just two years later and based on Necessity, Shelley qualifies his definition of atheism:

"There Is No God. This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken."

Shelley also quotes the Dutch pantheist Baruch Spinoza later in the Note, but there is no explicit statement of pantheistic views.