Admin webmdave Posted June 24, 2008 Admin Share Posted June 24, 2008 The Cambridge Companion to Atheism - Michael Martin - Upload a Document to Scribd Read this document on Scribd: The Cambridge Companion to Atheism - Michael Martin the cambridge companion to ATHEISM In The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, eighteen of the world’s leading scholars present original essays on various aspects of atheism: its history, both ancient and modern, defense, and implications. The topic is examined in terms of its implications for a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, religion, feminism, postmodernism, sociology, and psychology. In its defense, both classical and contemporary theistic arguments are criticized, and the argument from evil and impossibility arguments, along with a nonreligious basis for morality, are defended. These essays give a broad understanding of atheism and a lucid introduction to this controversial topic. Michael Martin is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Boston University. He is the author of more than 150 articles and reviews as well as several books, including Atheism, Morality and Meaning; The Impossibility of God (with Ricki Monnier) and Atheism: A Philosophical Justiï¬cation. Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 cambridge companions to philosophy volumes in the series of cambridge companions: ABELARD Edited by jeffrey e. brower and kevin guilfoy ADORNO Edited by tom hunn AQUINAS Edited by norman kretzmann and eleonore stump HANNAH ARENDT Edited by dana villa ARISTOTLE Edited by jonathan barnes AUGUSTINE Edited by eleonore stump and norman kretzmann BACON Edited by markku peltonen SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Edited by claudia card DARWIN Edited by jonathan hodge and gregory radick DESCARTES Edited by john cottingham DUNS SCOTUS Edited by thomas williams EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY Edited by a. a. long FEMINISM IN PHILOSOPHY Edited by miranda fricker and jennifer hornsby FOUCAULT Second Edition Edited by gary gutting FREUD Edited by jerome neu GADAMER Edited by robert j. dostal GALILEO Edited by peter machamer GERMAN IDEALISM Edited by karl ameriks GREEK AND ROMAN PHILOSOPHY Edited by david sedley HABERMAS Edited by stephen k. white HEGEL Edited by frederick beiser HEIDEGGER Edited by charles guignon HOBBES Edited by tom sorell HUME Edited by david fate norton HUSSERL Edited by barry smith and david woodruff smith WILLIAM JAMES Edited by ruth anna putnam KANT Edited by paul guyer KIERKEGAARD Edited by alastair hannay and gordon marino LEIBNIZ Edited by nicholas jolley Continued after the Index Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 The Cambridge Companion to ATHEISM Edited by Michael Martin Boston University Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Ëœ Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521842709 c Cambridge University Press 2007 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2007 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data The Cambridge companion to atheism / edited by Michael Martin. p. cm. – (Cambridge companions to philosophy) Includes bibliographical references. isbn 0-521-84270-0 (hardback) – isbn 0-521-60367-6 (pbk.) 1. Atheism. I. Martin, Michael, 1932 Feb. 3– II. Title. III. Series. bl2747.3.c36 2007 211 .8–dc22 2006005949 isbn-13 978-0-521-84270-9 hardback isbn-10 0-521-84270-0 hardback isbn-13 978-0-521-60367-6 paperback isbn-10 0-521-60367-6 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 contents Contributors Preface Glossary page ix xiii xv 1 General Introduction Part I Background 1 Atheism in Antiquity jan n. bremmer Atheism in Modern History gavin hyman Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns phil zuckerman 11 2 27 3 47 Part II The Case against Theism 4 Theistic Critiques of Atheism william lane craig The Failure of Classical Theistic Arguments richard m. gale Some Contemporary Theistic Arguments keith parsons Naturalism and Physicalism evan fales Atheism and Evolution daniel c. dennett The Autonomy of Ethics david o. brink 69 5 86 6 102 7 118 8 135 9 149 vii Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 viii contents 10 The Argument from Evil andrea m. weisberger Kalam Cosmological Arguments for Atheism quentin smith Impossibility Arguments patrick grim 166 11 182 12 199 Part III Implications 13 Atheism and Religion michael martin Feminism and Atheism christine overall Atheism and the Freedom of Religion steven g. gey Atheism, A/theology, and the Postmodern Condition john d. caputo Anthropological Theories of Religion stewart e. guthrie Atheists: A Psychological Proï¬le benjamin beit-hallahmi 217 14 233 15 250 16 267 17 283 18 300 Index 319 Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 contributors More extensive biographical material about the contributors can usually be obtained from the Web page of their respective academic departments or, if available, from the contributor’s own personal Web page or on the Secular Web. benjamin beit-hallahmi is Professor of Psychology, University of Haifa, and author of Prologomena to the Psychology of Religion (1989) and The Psychology of Religious Behaviour (1997). jan n. bremmer is Professor of the General History of Religion and the Comparative Science of Religion, the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and the author of Greek Religion (1999) and The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife (2002). david o. brink is Professor of Philosophy, University of California at San Diego, and the author of Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (1989) and Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T. H. Green (2003). john d. caputo is Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Humanities, Syracuse University, and author of On Religion (2001) and The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (2006). william lane craig is Research Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, and author of The Kalam Cosmological Argument (1979) and God, Time, and Eternity (2001). daniel c. dennett is Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, University Professor, Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University, and author of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995) and Freedom Evolves (2003). ix Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 x contributors evan fales is Associate Professor of Philosophy, the University of Iowa, and author of Causation and Universals (1990) and A Defense of the Given: Studies in Epistemology and Cognitive Theory (1996). richard m. gale is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh, and author of On the Nature and Existence of God (1991) and The Divided Self of William James (1999). steven g. gey is David and Deborah Fonvielle and Donald and Janet Hinkle Professor, College of Law, Florida State University, and author of Cases and Material on Religion and the State (2001). patrick grim is Professor of Philosophy, SUNY at Stony Brook, and author of The Incomplete Universe (1991) and The Philosophical Computer (with Gary Mar and Paul St. Denis, 1998) and editor of The Philosopher’s Annual. stewart e. guthrie is Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, Fordham University, and author of A Japanese New Religion: Rissho Kosei-Kai in a Mountain Hamlet (1988) and Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion (1993). gavin hyman is Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Lancaster, and author of The Predicament of Postmodern Theology: Radical Orthodoxy or Nihilist Textualism? (2001) and editor of New Directions in Philosophical Theology: Essays in Honour of Don Cupitt (2004). michael martin is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Boston University, and author of Atheism: A Philosophical Justiï¬cation (1990) and The Case against Christianity (1991). christine overall is a Professor of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, and author of Thinking Like a Woman: Personal Life and Political Ideas (2001) and Aging, Death, and Human Longevity: A Philosophical Inquiry (2003). keith parsons is Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Houston, Clear Lake, and author of God and the Burden of Proof (1990) and Drawing Out Leviathan (2001). quentin smith is Professor of Philosophy, Western Michigan University, and coauthor of Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (with Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 contributors xi William Lane Craig, 1993) and Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of Language (1997). andrea m. weisberger was Chair of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Jacksonville University and author of Suffering Belief: Evil and the Anglo-American Defense of Theism (1999) and various articles in professional journals on philosophy, religion, and the sciences. phil zuckerman is Associate Professor of Sociology, Pitzer College, and author of Strife in the Sanctuary: Religious Schism in a Jewish Community (1999) and Invitation to the Sociology of Religion (2003). Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 preface It has been a distinct honor to edit The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. To help bring to fruition a volume of original essays published by one of world’s great university presses on one of the world’s most controversial topics was an unforgettable and thrilling experience. I am grateful to Andy Beck, my editor at Cambridge University Press, who offered me the job as editor and who was patient and willing to answer my questions. I am deeply beholden to the seventeen other contributors to this volume whose essays provide novel insights to various aspects of atheism. It was a pleasure to work with them. My wife, Jane Roland Martin, provided warm encouragement and wise advice. In addition, many nonbelieving friends and colleagues provided their support and help. In particular, I would like to thank my friend and fellow collaborator on other books on atheism, Dr. Ricki Monnier, whose encyclopedic knowledge on things atheistic was an enormous help and inspiration. I am also grateful to Dr. Tyler Wunder for his comments on chapter 6 and Dr. Wiebke Denecke for her comments on chapter 13. xiii Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 glossary For further definitions of the terms found in the volume, see Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), and Bill Cooke (ed.), Dictionary of Atheism, Skepticism, and Humanism (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2005). a posteriori argument: an argument based on experience. See also teleological argument a priori argument: an argument not based on experience. See also impossibility argument; ontological argument Anselmian conception of God: the view attributed to St. Anselm that God is a being such that no greater being can be conceived anthropomorphism: the ascription of human traits to God apostasy: disaffection, defection, alienation, disengagement, or disaffiliation from a religious group argument from design. See teleological argument argument from evil: an argument that purports to show that the existence of evil is either incompatible with the existence of God or makes God’s existence improbable. See also problem of evil argument from indexicals: a type of impossibility argument that maintains that, although allegedly all-knowing, God cannot have certain knowledge expressed in indexicals. See also indexical argument from miracles: an argument that purports to show that the existence of God is the most plausible explanation of miracles. See also miracle argument from religious experience: an argument that purports to show that the existence of God or other supernatural beings provides the best explaination of religious experience. See also mystical experience; religious experience autonomy of ethics: the view that ethics is not based on theology. Cf. divine command theory. See also ethical naturalism Big Bang cosmology: a theory that holds that the universe originated approximately 15 billion years ago from the violent explosion of a very small agglomeration of matter of extremely high density and temperature. See also Kalam cosmological argument for atheism; Kalam cosmological argument for God xv Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 xvi glossary cancellation agnosticism: the view that the arguments for and against belief in God are equally strong and cancel each other out. Cf. skeptical agnosticism clairvoyance: the power to see objects or events that cannot be perceived by the senses. See also paranormal phenomena cosmological argument: an argument that seeks to give a causal explanation of why some universe exists deism: the view that God created the world and then had no further interaction with it; also, a view of God based on reason and not revelation. Cf. pantheism; theism devas: the finite and impermanent gods described by some Eastern religions divine command theory: the theory that ethical propositions are based on what God commands. Cf. autonomy of ethics; ethical naturalism. See also voluntarism eliminative materialism: the view that despite appearances, there are no mental entities or processes. Cf. reductive materialism empiricism: the theory that all knowledge is based on experience. Cf. rationalism epicureanism: a leading Hellenistic philosophical school that advocated an atomistic metaphysics and a hedonistic ethics epistemological naturalism: the thesis that the supernatural lies beyond the scope of what we can know, hence theology is rejected as a source of knowledge epistemology: the theory of knowledge ethical naturalism: the theory that the ethical properties of situations depend on the nature of those situations. Cf. divine command theory. See also autonomy of ethics Euthyphro problem: a dilemma posed in the Platonic dialogue The Euthyphro and used as a critique of religiously based ethics. See also autonomy of ethics; divine command theory; voluntarism ï¬ne-tuning argument: a teleological argument based on the alleged improbability that the fundamental physical constants in the universe are compatible with life. See also teleological argument free-will defense: the response to the argument from evil that evil is the result of free will and cannot be blamed on God. See also argument from evil; theodicy impossibility argument: an a priori argument against the existence of God that purports to show that the concept of God is inconsistent. See also argument from indexicals; paradox of the stone indexical: a type of expression whose meaning varies with the context; e.g., “I,†“here,†“now.†See also argument from indexicals intelligent design theory: a theory that does not reject Darwin’s theory completely but maintains that evolution needs to be explained in terms of the working out of some intelligent design Kalam cosmological argument for atheism: an argument that purports to show that according to the latest scientific cosmology, the origin of Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 glossary xvii the universe is incompatible with the existence of God. Cf. Kalam cosmological argument for god Kalam cosmological argument for God: an argument that maintains that the most plausible explanation for the universe coming into being is that God brought it into existence. Cf. Leibniz cosmological argument knowledge by acquaintance: knowledge based on direct experience. Cf. propositional knowledge Leibniz cosmological argument: an argument attributed to Leibniz that the whole series of contingent beings that make up the universe requires an external cause that is not contingent but necessary and that this cause is God logical positivism: a philosophical movement in Anglo-American philosophy in the 1930s and ’40s advocating the rejection of metaphysics because it is unverifiable and hence meaningless. Both belief in God and disbelief in God are thought to be meaningless. See also metaphysics; negative atheism metaphysics: the philosophical investigation of the nature, composition, and structure of ultimate reality miracle: an event that is not explainable by laws of nature known or unknown. See also argument from miracles modus ponens: the argument form: If A, then B; A therefore B modus tollens: the argument form: If A, then B; not-B therefore not-A mystical experience: religious experience that transcends ordinary sense perception and purports to be a direct experience of ultimate reality naturalism: the view that everything that exists is composed of natural entities and processes that can in principle be studied by science naturalized epistemology: an approach that views human beings as natural entities and uses the methods of science to study epistemological processes; sometimes considered a branch of cognitive science negative atheism: absence of belief in any god or gods. More narrowly conceived, it is the absence of belief in the theistic God. Cf. positive atheism. See also logical positivism neo-Darwinian theory: a synthesis of Darwin’s theory and genetic theory Occam’s razor: a methodological principle advocating simplicity in theory construction omnibenevolence: the property attributed to God of being all good omnipotence: the property attributed to God of being all powerful omniscience: the property attributed to God of being all knowing ontological argument: an a priori argument that maintains that God’s existence is true by definition ontology. See metaphysics out-of-body experiences: the experience of floating free of one’s body; used by believers as evidence of an immaterial soul pantheism: the view that God is identical with nature. Cf. deism; theism Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 xviii glossary paradox of the stone: if God can make a stone that he cannot lift, he is not all-powerful; but if he cannot make such a stone, he is also not all-powerful. See also impossibility argument paranormal phenomena: phenomena such an ESP, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis that at the present time are unexplainable in terms of science physicalism: the claim that minds are not distinct from matter and hence cannot exist apart from it. See also reductive materialism; supervenience theory polytheism: the view that there are many gods positive atheism: disbelief in any God or gods. More narrowly conceived, it is disbelief in the theistic God. Cf. negative atheism postmodernism: a complex set of reactions to modern philosophy and its assumption that typically opposes foundationalism, fixed binary categories that describe rigorously separable regions, and essentialism and affirms a radical and irreducible pluralism problem of evil: the problem of why there appears to be gratuitous evil although God is all-powerful and all-good. See also argument from evil procedural knowledge: knowing how to do something. Cf. knowledge by acquaintance; propositional knowledge propositional knowledge: factual knowledge that something is, was, or will be the case. Cf. knowledge by acquaintance; procedural knowledge psychokinesis: the ability to affect physical objects without physical contact by using powers of the mind rationalism: the theory that reason is the primary source of knowledge. Cf. empiricism reductive materialism: the theory that mental states and processes are identical with brain states and processes. Cf. eliminative materialism; supervenience theory religious experience: a wide variety of experiences, such as hearing voices and having visions, of supernatural beings such as God, angels, and Satan skeptical agnosticism: the rejection of both belief and disbelief in God because there are no good arguments for or against such belief. Cf. cancellation agnosticism Sophists: a group of itinerant teachers of rhetoric and philosophy in ancient Greece supervenience theory: the theory that when a certain physical state obtains, so does a certain mental state. Cf. eliminative materialism; reductive materialism teleological argument: an argument for the existence of God based on the apparent design and order in the universe. Also called the argument from design. See also fine-tuning argument. Cf. cosmological argument Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 glossary xix theism: belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, personal God who created the universe, takes an active interest in the world, and has given a special revelation to humans. Cf. deism theodicy: a theory attempting to explain the problem of evil and answer the argument from evil. See also argument from evil; free-will defense veriï¬cationism: the theory that the meaning of a statement consists in its method(s) of verification; usually associated with logical positivism voluntarism: the view that something’s being good depends on God’s will. See also Euthyphro problem Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 General Introduction The purpose of this volume is to provide general readers and advanced students with an introduction to atheism: its history, present social context, legal implications, supporting arguments, implications for morality, and relation to other perspectives. This general introduction will set the stage for the chapters that follow. atheism, agnosticism, and theism The concept of atheism was developed historically in the context of Western monotheistic religions, and it still has its clearest application in this area. Applied, for example, to premodern non-Western contexts, the concept may be misleading. Moreover, even in the modern Western context “atheism†has meant different things depending on changing conceptions of God. Nevertheless, it will be assumed in this volume that, if applied cautiously outside its clearest historical context, the concept of atheism can be illuminating for contemporary Western readers. If you look up “atheism†in a dictionary, you will find it defined as the belief that there is no God. Certainly, many people understand “atheism†in this way. Yet this is not what the term means if one considers it from the point of view of its Greek roots. In Greek “a†means “without†or “not,†and “theos†means “god.â€1 From this standpoint, an atheist is someone without a belief in God; he or she need not be someone who believes that God does not exist.2 Still, there is a popular dictionary meaning of “atheism†according to which an atheist is not simply one who holds no belief in the existence of a God or gods but is one who believes that there is no God or gods. This dictionary use of the term should not be overlooked. To avoid confusion, let us call it positive atheism and let us call the type of atheism derived from the original Greek roots negative atheism. No general definition of “God†will be attempted here,3 but it will prove useful to distinguish a number of different concepts of God that have figured in the traditional controversies and debates about religion. In modern times “theism†has usually come to mean a belief in 1 Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 2 general introduction a personal God who takes an active interest in the world and who has given a special revelation to humans. So understood, theism stands in contrast to deism, the belief in a God that is based not on revelation but on evidence from nature. The God assumed by deists is usually considered to be remote from the world and not intimately involved with its concerns. Theism is also to be contrasted with polytheism, the belief in more than one God, and with pantheism, the belief that God is identical with nature. Negative atheism in the broad sense4 is then the absence of belief in any god or Gods, not just the absence of belief in a personal theistic God, and negative atheism in the narrow sense is the absence of belief in a theistic God. Positive atheism in the broad sense is, in turn, disbelief in all gods, with positive atheism in the narrow sense being the disbelief in a theistic God. For positive atheism in the narrow sense to be successfully defended, two tasks must be accomplished. First, the reasons for believing in a theistic God must be refuted; in other words, negative atheism in the narrow sense must be established. Second, reasons for disbelieving in the theistic God must be given. These categories should not be allowed to mask the complexity and variety of positions that atheists can hold, for a given individual can take different atheistic positions with respect to different concepts of God. Thus, a person might maintain that there is good reason to suppose that anthropomorphic gods such as Zeus do not exist and therefore be a positive atheist with respect to Zeus and similar gods. However, he or she could, for example, be only a negative atheist with respect to Paul Tillich’s God.5 In addition, people can and often do hold different atheistic positions with respect to different conceptions of a theistic God. For example, someone could be a positive atheist with respect to Aquinas’ God and only a negative atheist with respect to St. Teresa’s God. Agnosticism, the position of neither believing nor disbelieving that God exists, is often contrasted with atheism. However, this common opposition of agnosticism to atheism is misleading. Agnosticism and positive atheism are indeed incompatible: if atheism is true, agnosticism is false and conversely. But agnosticism is compatible with negative atheism in that agnosticism entails negative atheism. Since agnostics do not believe in God, they are by definition negative atheists. This is not to say that negative atheism entails agnosticism. A negative atheist might disbelieve in God but need not. Elsewhere I have evaluated the main arguments for agnosticism.6 Here I will explore what is at issue between positive atheism and agnosticism. An agnostic, one might suppose, is skeptical that good grounds exist, whereas an atheist is not. However, this is not the only way the Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 General Introduction 3 difference between these positions can be construed. An agnostic might think that there are good grounds for disbelieving that God exists but also believe that there are equally good grounds for believing that God exists. These opposing reasons would offset one another, leaving no overall positive reason to believe or disbelieve. Let us call the view that there are no good reasons for believing that God exists and none for believing that God does not exist skeptical agnosticism and the view that that are equally good reasons for believing both theism and atheism that offset one another cancellation agnosticism. Arguments that are intended to establish both negative and positive atheism refute both skeptical and cancellation agnosticism. Showing that negative atheism is justified undermines cancellation agnosticism, for it assumes that both atheism and theism have good grounds that cancel each other out, and negative atheism entails that there are no good grounds for theistic belief. Moreover, arguments showing that there are good grounds for the nonexistence of God undermine skeptical agnosticism since skeptical agnosticism assumes that there are no good grounds for either atheism or theism. background, the case against theism, and implications Atheism has a long and distinguished history as several of the background chapters in this volume attest. Jan Bremmer in “Atheism in Antiquity†argues, on the one hand, that the Greeks discovered theoretical atheism, which some scholars maintain is one of the most important events in the history of religion. On the other hand, Bremmer maintains, “Greeks and Romans, pagans and Christians, soon discovered the utility of the term ‘atheist’ as a means to label opponents. The invention of atheism would open a new road to intellectual freedom, but also enabled people to label opponents in a new way. Progress rarely comes without a cost.†Gavin Hyman in “Atheism in Modern History†outlines the development of atheistic thought in the Western world, arguing that atheism and modernity are so linked that modernity seems almost necessarily to culminate in atheism. He concluded that we can be sure of one thing: “the fate of atheism would seem to be inescapably bound up with the fate of modernity.†And Paul Zuckerman in “Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns†brings together a vast amount of data on the number and distribution of atheists throughout the world. Among other things, he shows that atheists make up a signification portion of the world’s population, that nonbelief tends to be associated with social health, and that the pattern and distribution of atheists in the world calls into question the now fashionable theory that belief in God is innate. Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 4 general introduction Needless to say, many contemporary philosophers have defended theism against the criticisms of atheists.7 In this volume William Lane Craig in “Theistic Critiques of Atheism†presents the theistic position. Readers must decide for themselves whether his defense of theism succeeds or whether atheism has been successfully defended by the arguments put forward in other chapters in this volume.8 Several chapters in this book contribute to the task of defending negative atheism. Richard Gale in “The Failure of Classical Theistic Arguments†brings up objections to such classical arguments for the existence of God as the ontological argument. Keith Parsons in “Some Contemporary Theistic Arguments†criticizes the arguments for God defended by two leading contemporary Christian philosophers, Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne. Daniel Dennett offers criticisms of creationism and intelligent design theories, both of which are often associated with theism. Evan Fales in “Naturalism and Physicalism†raises objections to supernaturalism, of which theism is a special case, and David Brink in “The Autonomy of Ethics†argues that ethics is independent of belief in God, although theists often claim that ethics is dependent on God.9 Other chapters contribute to the task of defending positive atheism. In “The Argument from Evil,†Andrea Weisberger defends the traditional argument from evil – the attempt to show that the large amount of evil in the world makes the existence of the theistic God either false or improbable. Quentin Smith in “Kalam Cosmological Argument for Atheism†maintains that cosmology has atheistic implications. Patrick Grim in “Impossibility Arguments†attempts to show that the concept of God is inconsistent.10 It should be noted, however, that many other arguments also contribute to the second task that are not considered in this volume.11 Elsewhere, for example, Ted Drange has defended positive atheism by attempting to show that the large amount of nonbelief in the world makes the existence of a theistic God improbable.12 John Schellenberg13 has attempted to demonstrate that the belief in the existence of nontheistic religions makes a theistic God’s existence improbable. In addition, Schellenberg has argued that the existence of reasonable nonbelief is itself grounds for supposing that God does not exist.14 Several chapters in this volume draw out some of atheism’s important and exciting implications. Atheism has been accused of being antireligious, but Michael Martin in “Atheism and Religion†shows that although atheism is not a religion, there are atheistic religions. Christine Overall in “Feminism and Atheism†concludes, “Being a feminist also requires that one be an atheist.†According to Steve Gey in “Atheism and the Freedom of Religion,†“the religious liberty of atheists has come a long way since the days in which serious political theorists could argue Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 General Introduction 5 that atheists should be put to death, denied the ability to give evidence in court, or prohibited from becoming a Member of Parliament. . . . [but] atheists will not enjoy the same religious liberty as religious adherents unless the government under which they live is comprehensively secularized.†John Caputo in “Atheism, A/theology, and the Postmodern Condition†reviews some of the important challenges postmodernism poses for theism and atheism and maintains that “postmodernism turns out to be not a particularly friendly environment for atheism, either, not if atheism is a metaphysical or an otherwise fixed and decisive denial of God.†An important, although not primary, part of the case for atheism is to show that religion can be explained as a natural phenomenon. Stewart Guthrie in “Anthropological Theories of Religion †reviews different types of naturalistic explanations of religion and advocates a cognitive explanation of religion in which animism and anthropomorphism are central notions. Finally, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi in “Atheists: A Psychological Profile†reviews the psychological data and concludes that atheists tend to be more intelligent and better educated than believers; less authoritarian, less suggestible, less dogmatic, and less prejudiced than believers; and more tolerant of others, law-abiding, compassionate, and conscientious. “In short, they are good to have as neighbors.†bibliographic note For introductions to atheism, see Douglas Krueger, What Is Atheism? (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1998), and Julian Baggini, Atheism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Excellent references to atheistic literature can be found in the bibliographies and end notes of the chapters in this volume. In addition, extensive bibliographies can be found in Nicholas Everett, The Non Existence of God (London: Routledge, 2004); Finngeir Hiorth, Atheism in the World (Oslo, Norway: Human-Etisk Forbund, 2003), Ethics for Atheists (Mumbia, India: Indian Secular Society, 1998), and Hiorth, Introduction to Atheism (Oslo, Norway: Human-Etisk Forbund, 2002); S. T. Joshi (ed.), Atheism (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2000); and Gordon Stein (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Unbelief, vols. 1 and 2 (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1985). For more on feminism and atheism, see Annie Laurie Gaylord (ed.), Women without Superstition: No God – No Masters (Madison, Wis.: Freedom from Religion Foundation, 1997), and Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So (Madison, Wis.: Freedom from Religion Foundation, 1981). Moreover, a Google search of the Secular Web (http://www.infidel.org) turns up over 700 items on atheism and related topics. Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 6 general introduction notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Gordon Stein, “The Meaning of Atheism and Agnosticism,†in Gordon Stein (ed.), An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1980), p. 3. This negative sense of “atheism†should be distinguished from the sense of “atheism†introduced by Paul Edwards. According to Edwards, an atheist is a person who rejects a belief in God. This rejection may be because the person believes that the statement “God exists†is false, but it may be for other reasons. The negative sense of “atheism†used here is broader than Edwards’s definition since on the present definition someone can be an atheist if he or she has no belief in God, although the lack of belief is not the result of rejection. See Paul Edwards, “Atheism,†in Paul Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan and Free Press, 1967), vol. 1, p. 175. However, the definition of “God†proposed by Beardsley and Beardsley has considerable merit. On their view, for a being to be a god it must meet four criteria: it must have supernatural powers; be free from so many of the natural limitations of inanimate objects, subhuman organisms, and humans that it cannot be classified as belonging to any of these groups; have some kind of mental life; and be regarded as superior to human beings. See Monroe Beardsley and Elizabeth Beardsley, Philosophical Thinking: An Introduction (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965), pp. 46–50. I owe the distinction between the broad and narrow senses of “atheism†to William L. Rowe, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,†American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979): 335–41. This seems to be the position of Kai Nielsen. He rejects a nonanthropomorphic God as meaningless and an anthropomorphic God as false. See, e.g., Kai Nielsen, “Introduction: How Is Atheism to Be Characterized?†in Karl Nielsen, ed., Philosophy and Atheism (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Press, 1985). Michael Martin, “Atheism v. Agnosticism,†Philosophers’ Magazine 19 (Summer 2002): 17–19; see also Michael Martin, “On an Argument for Agnosticism,†Aug. 27, 2001, http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ michael martin/martinag.html. For example, see Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) and God, Freedom and Evil (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977), and Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) and The Existence of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). For further critiques of Craig, see Stan Wallace (ed.), Does God Exist? (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2003); William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith (eds.), Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993); Erik J. Wielenberg, Values and Virtue in a Godless Universe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); and Jeffrey Jay Lowder, “Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb: A Reply to William Lane Craig,†in Robert Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder (eds.), The Empty Tomb (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2005). Also see the critical papers Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 General Introduction 7 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. on Craig at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/christianity/ craig.html. For arguments against theism that are not included in this volume see Michael Martin, Atheism: A Philosophical Justiï¬cation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990); Nicholas Everett, The Non Existence of God (London: Routledge, 2004); and Richard Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). See Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier (eds.), The Impossibility of God (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2004). See Martin, Atheism; Everett, The Non Existence of God. Theodore Drange, Nonbelief and Evil (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1998). J. L. Schellenberg, “Pluralism and Probability,†Religious Studies 33 (1997): 143–59. J. L. Schellenberg, Hiddenness and Human Reason (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993). Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Part I Background jan n. bremmer 1 Atheism in Antiquity In 1942 the French historian Louis Febvre published his epoch-making study of Rabelais, in which he noted the absence of atheism in the Middle Ages.1 Febvre explained this absence as a kind of blocage mental. In the life of society and the individual, Christianity was of overriding importance. Its festivals constituted the rhythm of the year; important transitions in the life of the individual – birth, marriage, and death – were completely integrated into religious life, as were everyday activities. Churches, whose bells would always remind the forgetful believer of their existence, often dominated the landscape. It was simply impossible to think Christianity away from medieval society.2 Subsequent research has modified Febvre’s findings to some extent,3 but his main findings still stand. Antiquity was not that different from the Middle Ages in this respect. The ancient Greeks and Romans also moved in a landscape where temples were everywhere, where gods adorned their coins, where the calendar went from religious festival to festival, and where religious rites accompanied all major transitions in life. Consequently, atheism never developed into a popular ideology with a recognizable following. All we have in antiquity is the exceptional individual who dared to voice his disbelief or bold philosophers who proposed intellectual theories about the coming into existence of the gods without, normally, putting their theories into practice or rejecting religious practice altogether. If we find atheism at all, it is usually a “soft†atheism or the imputation of atheism to others as a means to discredit them. Even if we may assume that mankind always has known its sceptics and unbelievers, the expression of that scepticism and unbelief is subject to historical circumstances. Some periods were more favorable to dissenters than other times, and later times may interpret as atheism what earlier times permitted as perhaps only just acceptable theories about the gods or the origin of religion. This means that we must be attentive to the different periods in which atheism more or less flourished, to the interpretations by later Greeks and Romans of their predecessors, and 11 Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 12 jan n. bremmer to the reasons why contemporaries impute atheism to people who differ from them in religious opinion. The Epicurean Philodemus (ca. 110–35 b.c.) classified the various kinds of atheists in antiquity as follows: (1) Those who say that it is unknown whether there are any gods or what they are like; (2) Those who say openly that the gods do not exist; (3) Those who clearly imply it.4 Although this classification is a fairly acceptable one, it stays at the level of ideas and neglects practicing atheists. More seriously, it does not mention atheism as a labeling device to slander your opponents, be they religious or philosophical ones. That is why we do not follow Philodemus but divide our evidence into three periods: (1) the classical period, (2) the Hellenistic period, which started to label earlier thinkers as atheists and developed a “soft†atheism that tried to save the existence of the gods, and (3) the Roman period when the Christians were called atheoi by the pagans and vice versa. Given its interest for the history of atheism, we will concentrate on the classical period. In all cases, we will use the term “atheism†rather loosely for those thinkers and people who denied the existence of the gods or put forward theories to explain the existence of the gods.5 It is not our intention to give an exhaustive listing of all people that have been called atheists in antiquity. This has already been done in a very competent manner and needs not to be redone.6 Atheism itself has also been studied repeatedly.7 Yet recent publications of new papyri and new editions of already published texts enable us to take a fresh look at the older Greek evidence and thus to sketch a better picture than was possible in most of the twentieth century. 1. the classical period Atheism in Greece became visible especially in Athens in the second half of the fifth century, although the first “atheist†was not from Athens. The first prominent philosopher that was later categorized as such was Protagoras (ca. 490–420 b.c.) from Abdera, a city in the northeast of Greece, where Democritus (ca. 460–400? b.c.), who could have developed into an atheist but apparently did not, was born. He was famous for what probably was the opening sentence of his work called “Concerning the Gods,†as in antiquity the titles of prose works often consisted of the opening words: “Concerning the gods I am unable to discover whether they exist or not, or what they are like in form; for there are many hindrances to knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Atheism in Antiquity 13 human life.â€8 It is clear from this quote that Protagoras was an agnostic rather than an atheist, as Cicero in his De natura deorum (I.1.2) and Galen in his De propriis placitis (2, ed. Boudon-Millot and Pietrobelli) still recognized. And indeed, during his life he was highly respected: Pericles, the leading Athenian politician in the middle of the fifth century, invited him to write the constitution of the panhellenic colony Thurii in Southern Italy (Heraclides Ponticus, fragment 150 Wehrli 2 ) and Plato even noted in his Meno (91e) that Protagoras had lived out his life in high repute. Yet his fame soon took a turn for the worse, and already in the Hellenistic period notices started to appear that he had been condemned to death and that his book with the famous opening words had been burned in the marketplace.9 Although these reports are probably fictitious, they developed into accusations of straightforward atheism in, at the latest, the second century a.d. in the writings of the empiricist Sextus Empiricus (Adversus Mathematicos 9.50–1, 56) and the Epicurean Diogenes of Oenoanda (fragment 16 Smith), who may have derived his accusation from Epicurus himself.10 Protagoras’ agnosticism can be explained only in the most general of terms. There is little known about his life and hardly anything about his intellectual formation. Yet we can say something about the intellectual climate he grew up in and the preconditions for his agnosticism. Protagoras belonged to the so-called sophistic movement, a loose term that denotes the critical intellectuals, in particular, the philosophers of the second half of the fifth century b.c. The sophists were connected to books by their contemporaries,11 and this points to literacy as an important condition for the development of critical philosophy. Its importance for philosophy becomes visible around 500 b.c. when Pythagoras (ca. 560–495 b.c.) was criticized by Xenophanes (B 7 DK: ca. 570–495 b.c.) in writing; and Heraclitus (B 129 DK: ca. 500 b.c.) even reproached him for having plundered many writings.12 The latter two influential philosophers also fiercely attacked the anthropomorphic gods of Homer and Hesiod, the authoritative Greek poets. Xenophanes even proclaimed “the one god, greatest among gods and humans†(fragment B 23 DK). In other words, he and his contemporaries tried to introduce new ideas of the divine rather than abolishing the idea of the divine altogether. The situation started to change with Anaxagoras (ca. 500–428 b.c.), who was the first philosopher known to have settled in Athens, at the time the center of intellectual life in Greece, probably in the middle of the 450s. According to the thirdcentury a.d. Diogenes Laertius (2.7 = fragment A 1 DK), “he said that the sun was a red-hot mass of metal.†We may not think this revolutionary, but for the Athenians the sun was a god, Helios, and Anaxagoras’ observation stripped the sun from its divine nature. Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 14 jan n. bremmer When did Anaxagoras pronounce this statement? Unfortunately, his chronology is not at all assured.13 Much of our evidence points to the years he came to Athens, but later accounts connect him with attempts to harm Pericles, and speak of a legal case caused by his “impiety.â€14 The trouble with these accounts is that mockery of the views of natural philosophers starts to appear in texts only in the 420s. In his Panoptai (fragment 167 Kassel/Austin), which must have appeared shortly before 423 b.c., the playwright Cratinus mocks the philosopher Hippon, who is later pictured as impious, because he had stated that the sky is a bakingcover.15 In 423 b.c., Aristophanes put on the Clouds and mocked the ˆ inhabitants of the “Reflectory†(phrontisterion) for espousing the same idea; Socrates even says: “I walk the air and contemplate the sun.â€16 In 421, another playwright of comedies, Eupolis, implicated even Protagoras in these ideas in his Flatterers of 421 b.c. by representing him as pontificating “about the heavens†(fragment 157 Kassel/Austin), and in 414 Aristophanes let the chorus of his Birds say that people have to pay attention to them so that “you may hear correctly from us all about the things on high†(690), which in the text seems connected with the briefly mentioned Prodicus (below).17 But it was not only the authors of comedy who took a jibe at the new philosophy. The tragedian Euripides, too, contributed to the general resentment by letting the chorus of an unknown play recite: “who, seeing this, does not teach beforehand that his soul is considered a god, and does not hurl far from him the crooked deceits of talkers about the heavens, whose mad tongues make random throws about what is hidden, devoid of understanding.â€18 It is this connection between atheism and speculating about the nature of the heavens that also comes to the fore in Plato’s Apology (18bc), where Socrates says that his accusers state: There is a wise man called Socrates who has theories about the heavens and has investigated everything below the earth, and can make the weaker argument defeat the stronger. It is these people, gentlemen of the jury, the disseminators of these rumours, who are my dangerous accusers, because those who hear them suppose that anyone who inquires into such matters must be an atheist.19 This testimony from an early dialogue of Plato is most valuable, as it shows that speculating about the heavens was indeed already connected with atheism by Socrates’ contemporaries. We move in a different direction with the sophist Prodicus of Keos (ca. 465–395 b.c.). Unfortunately, next to nothing is known about the title, content, and scope of the work in which he expounded his views. The best candidate is perhaps his Horai, or seasons personified,20 which Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Atheism in Antiquity 15 must have appeared around 420 b.c., as Prodicus’ theory was parodied in Aristophanes’ Birds of 414 b.c. and echoed by Euripides’ Bacchae of 406 b.c.21 Although Prodicus was also one of those philosophers with the reputation of speculating “about the heavens†(above), this was not his main claim to fame. In fact, his ideas were much more radical, as, according to Philodemus, he maintained “that the gods of popular belief do not exist nor do they know, but primitive man, [out of admiration, deified] the fruits of the earth and virtually everything that contributed to his existence.†The highly stylized character of the language suggests that this passage reflects rather closely Prodicus’ very words.22 But what did Prodicus actually mean? Renewed attention to the fragmentary papyri that are our best source for Prodicus’ ideas has shown that Prodicus proposed a two-stage theory of the origin of polytheism. First, primitive man started to call “gods†those elements of nature on which he was most dependent, such as sun and moon, rivers, and fruits. Subsequently, those humans who had been the main benefactors as inventors of the proper usage of the fruits of the earth, namely, bread and wine, Demeter and Dionysos, were likewise called “gods†and worshipped as such. Evidently, there had been a time without gods yet for Prodicus, even though man was already there. Comparison with other cultural theories of his time suggests that Prodicus located the beginning of religion in agriculture. Now the advent of Demeter and Dionysos with their gifts of bread and wine was part of Attic mythology. In fact, Athens prided itself as having given agriculture to the Greek world.23 Prodicus may well have heard about this claim on his island Keos, which was in easy reach of Attica, but he may also have been influenced by his frequent stays in Athens, where he did not forget his own interests while being ambassador of his island. The fact that he had appeared before the Athenian Council and had impressed them by his eloquence almost certainly guarantees that he had well prepared his case by studying Attic mythology.24 In addition to Prodicus, the only other fifth-century intellectuals in whose work clear atheistic statements can be found are Euripides and Critias. Unfortunately, ancient biographical evidence for Euripides’ atheism is based primarily on inferences from his poetry, which were elaborated, often with a degree of malice, by writers of the fourth century and after. Even the tradition of Euripides’ trial for atheism is probably either derived from comedy or invented in analogy of the trial of Socrates.25 On the other hand, these inferences had some material to work from.26 In the end, though, there is only one passage with a clear atheistic content, and it pays to quote it in full. In a fragment that has been handed down in Christian times from the Bellerophon, a tragedy Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 16 jan n. bremmer that was probably performed around 430 b.c., Bellerophon himself states early in the play: Does someone say there are indeed gods in heaven? There are not, there are not, if a man is willing not to rely foolishly on the antiquated reasoning. Consider for yourselves, do not base your opinion on words of mine. I say myself that tyranny kills very many men and deprives them of their possessions; and that tyrants break their oaths to ransack cities, and in doing this they are more prosperous under heaven than men who live quietly in reverence from day to day. I know too of small cities doing honour to the gods that are subject to larger, more impious ones, because they are overcome by a more numerous army. I think that, if a man were lazy and prayed to the gods and did not go gathering his livelihood with his hand, you would [here is a lacuna in the text] fortify religion, and ill-fortune.27 The statement is a radical expression of a feeling encountered more often in Euripides that the irreligious prosper, whereas the pious suffer.28 Consequently, the gods have no power and religion is imaginary. Such a radical stance must be one of those that elicited Aristophanes’ scorn,29 but at the end of the play the traditional order was re-established and Bellerophon’s atheistic declaration is more than outweighed by his pitiable lot. In other words, the statement is the expression of a character in the play, not the opinion of the playwright himself.30 There could be a second passage, but its authorship is highly debated. It used to be ascribed to the sophist Critias (ca. 450–403 b.c.), who was one of the most unscrupulous members of the Thirty Tyrants, a group of aristocrats that had seized power at the end of the Peloponnesian War and was remembered for its rule of terror. As such, the cynical tone of the piece seemed to fit perfectly the image of its author in the historiographical tradition. On the other hand, Critias is mentioned only once as the author of this passage, whereas Euripides is mentioned twice. In fact, several recent studies have persuasively argued that it is completely out of character of the genre of the satyr play that a character would develop here a highly provocative theory for the very first time instead of parodying it, as indeed seems to be the case here – the more so when the passage does not reflect the opinion of just one philosopher but those of several. Moreover, a character that tries to persuade somebody that a crime without witnesses will remain unpunished fits a satyr play much better than a tragedy. Finally, the passage contains a number of words that occur only in Euripides’ work. Consequently, the passage could have belonged to either Euripides’ Sisyphus (415 b.c.) or, perhaps more attractively, his Autolykos A (date unknown).31 Yet the recent authoritative edition of Euripides’ fragments has not accepted these arguments and once again ascribes the fragment to Critias.32 This is probably correct, since the new Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Atheism in Antiquity 17 edition of Philodemus’ On Piety (519–41) shows that Epicurus already concluded that what Critias himself had said about the gods “made it impossible for them as generally conceived to existâ€; in fact, lines 539– 40 and 1185–1217 of On Piety exhibit vestigial echoes of the Sisyphus account. In other words, Critias’ reputation as an atheist predates the Hellenistic biographers.33 Given its interest for the history of atheism I will quote the piece in full: Once there was a time when the life of human beings was disordered, and similar to that of animals and ruled by force, when there was no reward for the virtuous nor any punishment for the wicked. And then I think that humans decided to ˆ establish laws as punishers so that Justice (Dike) might be ruler [lacuna] and keep Crime and Violence (Hybris) as slave. And they punished only those who kept doing wrong. Then, since the laws held open deeds of violence in check, they continued to commit them in secret; then, I believe, a wise and clever-minded man invented for mortals a fear of the gods, so that there might be a deterrent for the wicked, even if they act or say or think anything in secret. Hence from this ˆ source he explained the divine: there is a deity (daimon) who enjoys imperishable life, hearing and seeing with his mind, his thought and attention on all things, bearer of a divine nature. He will hear whatever is said among mortals and be able to see whatever is done. If you silently plot evil, this will not escape the gods. For they [lacuna] have knowledge. With these words he explained the most delightful part of the teaching and hid the truth with a false tale. He said the gods dwell there where he – by placing them there – could frighten human beings most, whence, as he knew, fears come to mortals and troubles for their wretched life; that is, from the vault on high, where they beheld the lightnings and fearful blows of thunder and heaven with its starry eyes, the beautiful, brilliantly decorated building of Time, the wise craftsman. Whence too the brilliant mass of the sun strides and the liquid rain falls on the earth. [4 interpolated lines] It was thus, I think, that someone first persuaded mortals to believe that there exists a race of gods.34 In this long passage, which most probably was pronounced by Sisyphus, the cleverest Greek in mythology, we see the first occurrence of the theory that religion (here: the gods) was invented to ensure good behavior of humans. It is unique in its time, but it is hardly imaginable that a playwright would put forward such a theory in a play meant to entertain his audience without any previous knowledge of it among its spectators. Now it is clear that several aspects of this passage must have been familiar to the audience. First, the picture of an animal-like situation at the beginning of humankind was a recurrent topos in descriptions and parodies of the primeval situation by contemporaries of Euripides.35 Second, the opposition between public assent to laws but private freedom from restraint can be paralleled in the work of the contemporary sophist Antiphon, who stated that justice would be most advantageous Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 18 jan n. bremmer to a man if “he were to regard the laws as great in the presence of witnesses, but nature as great when deprived of witnesses†(F 44(a), I, 13–23 Pendrick). Third, Democritus’ (A 75 DK) institutors of religion relied on human fear of celestial phenomena, and, fourth, Prodicus had also advanced a two-stage theory of the development of religion (above). Yet the theory espoused in our passage goes further and is more cynical than anything proposed in our surviving texts. Critias’ (or Euripides’) drama well illustrates a gradual change in mood regarding the gods in Athens in the later fifth century. There was worse to come. In 415 the Athenians undertook a major expedition to Sicily to conquer Syracuse, and our sources enable us to observe the nervous mood of the Athenian population at that time.36 It was at this precarious moment that the highly guarded secrecy of the Eleusinian Mysteries twice came under attack. One morning, shortly before the Athenian fleet was due to sail to Sicily, it was discovered that nearly all the images of the god Hermes in public places had been mutilated. Those denounced were also accused of having profaned the Eleusinian Mysteries.37 Whereas the mutilators had parodied the Mysteries (if they actually had done so) in private circumstances, around the same time Diagoras, a citizen of the island Melos, mocked the Mysteries openly after the Athenians had treated his home island badly.38 Consequently, as the eleventh-century Arab Mubashshir, whose account – directly or indirectly – seems to derive from the erudite Athenian Apollodorus (ca. 180–120 b.c.), notes: When he [viz., Dhiyaghuras al-mariq, or “Diagoras the heretic, or apostateâ€] persisted in his hypocrisy [or “dissimulationâ€], his unbelief and his atheism, the ruler, the wise men [or philosophers, hukama] and leaders of Attica sought to kill him. The ruler Charias the Archon [Khariyus al-Arkun (415–4)] set a price on his head [literally: “spent money,†badhal] and commanded that it should be proclaimed among the people: “He who apprehends Diagoras from Melos [Maylun] and kills him will be rewarded with a large sum [badra, traditionally a leather bag containing 1,000 or 10,000 dirhams].â€39 This is a pretty exact report of the events, since the Athenians promised one talent of silver to anyone who killed Diagoras, and two to anyone who caught him alive. Now Diagoras is already mocked in Hermippus’ comedy Moirai (fragment 43 Kassel-Austin), which was written before 430. In Aristophanes’ Clouds (830), which even in its revised version cannot be later than ca. 418 b.c., Socrates is called the “Melian†for espousing “atheistic†views. This must mean that Diagoras had been living safely in Athens for many years despite his irreligious views – a fact that also shines through in the Arab report. However, his mocking went too far, and Epicurus already mentions Diagoras together Cambridge Collections Online © Cambridge University Press, 2007 Atheism in Antiquity 19 with Critias and Prodicus as the arch-atheists.40 In that capacity Diagoras would remain notorious all through antiquity.41 More famous than Diagoras, if less for his atheism, was Socrates (469–399 b.c.). It is clear from Arispt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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