000			04661cam a2200445 i 4500
001			ocn906294429
003			OCoLC
005			20251028093404.0
008			150227s2015 nyu b 001 0 eng
010			_a 2015005799
035			_a(Sirsi) i9780307958327
040			_aDLC _beng _erda _cDLC _dYDX _dYDXCP _dBDX _dBTCTA _dOCLCF _dAZT _dPWL _dBKL _dON8 _dABG _dMEU _dHQP _dZLM _dCOO _dPUL _dUBY _dR2A _dOCLCQ _dCHVBK _dVF$
019			_a903634609
020			_a9780307958327 _q(alk. paper)
020			_a0307958329 _q(alk. paper)
020			_z9780307958334
035			_a(OCoLC)906294429 _z(OCoLC)903634609
042			_apcc
043			_ae-gr---
050	0	0	_aBL 2747.3 _b.W45 2015
049			_aVF$A
100	1		_aWhitmarsh, Tim, _eauthor.
245	1	0	_aBattling the gods : _batheism in the ancient world / _cTim Whitmarsh.
250			_aFirst edition.
264		1	_aNew York : _bAlfred A. Knopf, _c2015.
300			_aix, 290 pages ; _c25 cm
336			_atext _btxt _2rdacontent
337			_aunmediated _bn _2rdamedia
338			_avolume _bnc _2rdacarrier
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
505	0		_aArchaic Greece : new horizons -- Polytheistic Greece ; Good books ; Battling the gods ; The material cosmos -- Classical Athens : atheism and oppression. Cause and effect ; "Concerning the gods, I cannot know" ; Playing the gods ; Atheism on trial ; Plato and the atheists -- The Hellenistic era : godlike kings and godless philosophers. Gods and kings ; Philosophical atheism ; Epicurus Theomakhos -- Rome : the new world order. With gods on our side ; Virtual networks ; Imagine ; Christians, heretics, and other atheists.
520			_a"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"-- _cAmazon.com.
520			_a"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."--Publisher's description.
546			_aText in English.
650		0	_aAtheism _zGreece _xHistory.
651		0	_aGreece _xReligion.
650		0	_aChristianity and atheism.
994			_aC0 _bVF$
999			_c136374 _d136374