Shelley has traditionally been associated with radical atheism and freethought. This chapter places those movements in a wider context by tracing historical definitions of religion and atheism. It suggests that Shelley’s doctrine of Love moves beyond atheism and the radical enlightenment that influenced Shelley’s early verse. The entry concludes with a discussion of the Victorian Shelley, capable of being understood as a non-doctrinal spiritual guide whatever his private opinions were. This leads to some reflections about how scholars define and analyse religion in literary texts.