Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World by Tim Whitmarsh
Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World by Tim Whitmarsh PDF, ePub eBook D0wnl0ad
How new is atheism? Although adherents and opponents alike today present it as an invention of the European Enlightenment, when the forces of science and secularism broadly challenged those of faith, disbelief in the gods, in fact, originated in a far more remote past. In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh journeys into the ancient Mediterranean, a world almost unimaginably different from our own, to recover the stories and voices of those who first refused the divinities.
Homer’s epic poems of human striving, journeying, and passion were ancient Greece’s only “sacred texts,” but no ancient Greek thought twice about questioning or mocking his stories of the gods. Priests were functionaries rather than sources of moral or cosmological wisdom. The absence of centralized religious authority made for an extraordinary variety of perspectives on sacred matters, from the devotional to the atheos, or “godless.” Whitmarsh explores this kaleidoscopic range of ideas about the gods, focusing on the colorful individuals who challenged their existence. Among these were some of the greatest ancient poets and philosophers and writers, as well as the less well known: Diagoras of Melos, perhaps the first self-professed atheist; Democritus, the first materialist; Socrates, executed for rejecting the gods of the Athenian state; Epicurus and his followers, who thought gods could not intervene in human affairs; the brilliantly mischievous satirist Lucian of Samosata.
Before the revolutions of late antiquity, which saw the scriptural religions of Christianity and Islam enforced by imperial might, there were few constraints on belief. Everything changed, however, in the millennium between the appearance of the Homeric poems and Christianity’s establishment as Rome’s state religion in the fourth century AD. As successive Greco-Roman empires grew in size and complexity, and power was increasingly concentrated in central capitals, states sought to impose collective religious adherence, first to cults devoted to individual rulers, and ultimately to monotheism. In this new world, there was no room for outright disbelief: the label “atheist” was used now to demonize anyone who merely disagreed with the orthodoxy—and so it would remain for centuries.
As the twenty-first century shapes up into a time of mass information, but also, paradoxically, of collective amnesia concerning the tangled histories of religions, Whitmarsh provides a bracing antidote to our assumptions about the roots of freethinking. By shining a light on atheism’s first thousand years, Battling the Gods offers a timely reminder that nonbelief has a wealth of tradition of its own, and, indeed, its own heroes.
From reader reviews:
Lisa McCann:
In other case, little persons like to read book Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World. You can choose the best book if you appreciate reading a book. As long as we know about how is important a new book Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World. You can add know-how and of course you can around the world by a book. Absolutely right, due to the fact from book you can know everything! From your country till foreign or abroad you will find yourself known. About simple matter until wonderful thing you can know that. In this era, we can open a book or even searching by internet gadget. It is called e-book. You can utilize it when you feel uninterested to go to the library. Let's learn.
Bobby Kile:
What do you concerning book? It is not important to you? Or just adding material when you want something to explain what your own problem? How about your spare time? Or are you busy man? If you don't have spare time to perform others business, it is make you feel bored faster. And you have spare time? What did you do? All people has many questions above. They should answer that question mainly because just their can do this. It said that about publication. Book is familiar on every person. Yes, it is suitable. Because start from on jardín de infancia until university need this specific Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World to read.
Jeffrey Ramsey:
The experience that you get from Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World could be the more deep you looking the information that hide within the words the more you get considering reading it. It doesn't mean that this book is hard to comprehend but Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World giving you excitement feeling of reading. The article author conveys their point in particular way that can be understood by anyone who read that because the author of this guide is well-known enough. This kind of book also makes your personal vocabulary increase well. That makes it easy to understand then can go together with you, both in printed or e-book style are available. We propose you for having this particular Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World instantly.
Read Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World by Tim Whitmarsh for online ebook
Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World by Tim Whitmarsh Free PDF d0wnl0ad, audio books, books to read, good books to read, cheap books, good books, online books, books online, book reviews epub, read books online, books to read online, online library, greatbooks to read, PDF best books to read, top books to read Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World by Tim Whitmarsh books to read online.
No comments:
Post a Comment