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| The First Atheist by Nobody: 11:14pm On Jul 21, 2016 |
The First Atheist Whispering doubts in Ancient Greece and Rome Greece and Rome were hot beds for ancient philosophy. Ethics (which deals in the difference between right and wrong, good and evil), meaning and purpose, the nature of existence, beauty, logic, politics all these and more were fodder for thinkers in both cultures. But the voice of unorthodox religion, not to mention any hint of atheism, wasn’t welcomed and was even punished in Greece and Rome. The label atheos (meaning “godless one”) was tossed at just about anyone who held a religiously unorthodox opinion during this period even at those who actually did believe in gods. Socrates was no atheist, for example, but his suggestion that the gods of Athens weren’t the right ones was enough to put the hemlock in his hand. (Granted, his insistence on publicly embarrassing those in power may also have had something to do with it.) Socrates was by no means the first Greek to cast doubt on the religion of his time. Pre-Socratic philosophers explained the world in terms of natural laws that made things run without the need for divine intervention, an idea the powers-to-be considered deeply subversive. Democritus often called the father of modern science for his idea that the universe is made of atoms saw belief in gods as nothing more than a fearful response to the unknown. After we understand the natural causes for all we observe, he said, we’ll transcend that fear and have no further need of gods. He became a mentor to some other god-doubting philosophers, including Theodorus and Diagoras. Even a perfectly mainstream opinion had little chance of making it through the shredder of history earlier The fact that any whiff of atheism, the least orthodox opinion of all, made it all the way from the ancient Greco-Roman world to the present is frankly astonishing. But enough whispers confirm that a lively thread of religious doubt, up to and including complete atheism, was present and accounted for there at the roots of Western civilization. Meeting the “first atheists” Diagoras and Theodorus Diagoras of Melos is almost certainly the most famous atheist in fifth century BCE Greece. He’s often dubbed “the first atheist” news that would have surprised the earliest Jain and Buddhist atheists if they hadn’t already been dead by centuries. Diagoras didn’t write much about his atheism, but plenty of others on hand recorded his frequent jabs at the religious beliefs of his time. When a ship carrying Diagoras encountered a terrible storm, the crew shouted aloud that the gods were angry at them for giving passage to a godless man leading Diagoras to wonder aloud if each of the other ships fighting the storm had its own Diagoras aboard. When Athens slaughtered the inhabitants of his home island of Melos, one of the most vulnerable settlements in the Aegean Sea for no other purpose than to prove their military power to Sparta Diagoras publicly cited the lack of divine retribution against Athens’ immoral act as proof that no gods existed. The leaders of Athens responded by throwing him into a cell. Only a sizeable ransom by his teacher and fellow disbeliever Democritus saved Diagoras from execution. After such a close call, you’d think Diagoras would lie low. But not long after his release, he was described chopping up a wooden statue of Hercules and throwing it in his cooking fire. “Cooking my turnips will be his thirteenth labor!” he laughed to his horrified onlookers. When he revealed the secret rituals of the Greek Eleusinian mystery religion thereby taking a bit of the air out of the “mystery” part the Athenian authorities decided to be rid of him at last. They announced a reward one piece of silver for his death or two for his capture. Diagoras fled to Corinth, where he lived out his life and died, to everyone’s surprise, in bed. It’s in his book On the Gods that Diagoras’s atheism came through most clearly.Though the book was still around 500 years later to impress Diogenes Laertes, a biographer of philosophers, with its compelling arguments, the book finally vanished in the historical sinkhole of the early Middle Ages. Theodorus, known as “The Atheist” of Cyrene whose name ironically means “gift of the gods” was another Greek philosopher who went beyond challenging the gods of the moment into complete unbelief in the existence of any such beings. The goal of human life is to seek joy and avoid grief, he said, and joy is found most readily in knowledge, while grief stems primarily from ignorance including time wasted worrying about the whims of cranky, inscrutable deities. One of the strongest influences on Theodorus was Epicurus, one of the most important philosophers of all time. Though he wasn’t an atheist, I have to mention him here for his efforts to get any gods there might be out of the way of human happiness. If there are gods, he said, they have nothing to do with humans. As a result, we don’t have to fear them and can get on with the business of being happy. Epicurus was also responsible for one of the most thought-provoking statements about God ever made: the Epicurean Paradox. God is said to be all-powerful and all-good but Epicurus says he can’t be both. Here’s why:Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he’s not all-powerful.Is he able, but not willing? Then he’s not all-good.Is he both able and willing? Then why is there evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? For a brief moment, humanism stretched its wings. |
| Re: The First Atheist by Nobody: 11:21pm On Jul 21, 2016 |
Guessing why people invented gods Euhemerus One of the most interesting job descriptions in ancient Greece belonged to the court mythographer, whose job included gathering stories of the gods and demigods and bringing them to life in narratives, poems, sculptures, paintings, and other artistic media. A bit of cultural anthropology was in the mix, too, because mythographers traveled into the hinterlands to gather these tales and brought them back to the court. Euhemerus was a mythographer for the court of Cassander, King of Macedonia, about a hundred years after Protagoras. As you may imagine, his work gave him plenty of time to think about the gods, and he developed the earliest known explanation of how belief in gods actually began. Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Hermes, and all the rest of the Greek pantheon of gods were originally historical kings and heroes, he said. They were worshipped in their lifetimes, as kings and heroes tend to be. After they died, these cults of hero worship naturally took on supernatural dimensions, and boom! you have the gods of Olympus. “Euhemerism” came to describe any attempt to explain supernatural beliefs in natural terms. Even the early Christian fathers did it, including Clement of Alexandria, who patiently explained to a pagan believer that his gods were once just men like himself. It’s fun, and not too hard, to imagine the very next sentence out of the pagan’s mouth. |
| Re: The First Atheist by Nobody: 7:55am On Jul 22, 2016 |
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| Re: The First Atheist by Nobody: 8:02am On Jul 22, 2016 |
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| Re: The First Atheist by Nobody: 8:08am On Jul 22, 2016 |
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