Etienne Vermeersch (2 May 1934, Sint-Michiels, Bruges – 18 January 2019, Ghent) was a Belgian moral philosopher, skeptic, opinion maker and debater. He is one of the founding fathers of the abortion and euthanasia law in Belgium. He is also former Vice-Rector of Ghent University. Vermeersch became an atheist after five years with the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Later he became a philosophical materialist. In the 1990s there was some commotion in the Belgian media when Vermeersch wrote a rational-scientific article entitled "Why the Christian God cannot exist".