Atheism

=== Classical antiquity ===

[[File:Epikouros BM 1843.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|[[Epicurus]]]]
Western atheism has its roots in [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|pre-Socratic]] [[Greek philosophy]],<ref>{{harvnb|Baggini|2003|pp=73–74}}. "Atheism had its origins in Ancient Greece but did not emerge as an overt and avowed belief system until late in the Enlightenment."</ref><ref name="GraftonMostSettis" /> but atheism in the modern sense was extremely rare in ancient Greece.<ref name="Winiarczyk">{{cite book |last1=Winiarczyk |first1=Marek |title=Diagoras of Melos: A Contribution to the History of Ancient Atheism |date=2016|translator-last=Zbirohowski-Kościa|translator-first=Witold |publisher=Walther de Gruyter |location=Berlin |isbn=978-3-11-044765-1 |pages=61–68 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NryvDAAAQBAJ&q=Diagoras+of+Melos}}</ref><ref name="GraftonMostSettis" /> Pre-Socratic [[Atomism|Atomists]] such as [[Democritus]] attempted to explain the world in a purely [[materialism|materialistic]] way and interpreted religion as a human reaction to natural phenomena,<ref name="Burkert1985">{{cite book |last=Burkert |first=Walter |author-link=Walter Burkert |date=1985 |title=Greek Religion |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-36281-9 |pages=311–317}}</ref> but did not explicitly deny the gods' existence.<ref name="Burkert1985" /><ref name=Vassa>Vassallo, C. (2018). Atomism and the Worship of Gods: On Democritus' 'Rational' Attitude towards Theology. ''Philosophie antique'', 18 105-125.</ref>

[[Anaxagoras]], whom [[Irenaeus]] calls "the atheist",<ref>[[Irenaeus]]. ''[[Against Heresies]]'' II 14, 2 (D. 171) = 59 B 113 DK.</ref> was accused of impiety and condemned for stating that "the sun is a type of incandescent stone", an affirmation with which he tried to deny the divinity of the celestial bodies.<ref>[[Flavius Josephus]]. ''[[Against Apion]]'' II, 265 = 59 A 19 DK; [[Plutarch]]. ''On superstition'' 10 p. 169 F – 170 A; [[Diogenes Laërtius]], II 12-14; [[Olympiodorus the Younger]]. ''Commentary on Aristotle's Meteorology'' p. 17, 19 Stüve = 59 B 19 DK.</ref> In the late fifth century BCE, the Greek lyric poet [[Diagoras of Melos]] was sentenced to death in [[Athens]] under the charge of being a "godless person" (ἄθεος) after he made fun of the [[Eleusinian Mysteries]], but he fled the city to escape punishment.<ref name="Winiarczyk" /><ref name="Burkert1985" /> In post-classical antiquity, philosophers such as [[Cicero]] and [[Sextus Empiricus]] described Diagoras as an "atheist" who categorically denied the existence of the gods,<ref name=CIC>''...&nbsp;nullos esse omnino Diagoras et Theodorus Cyrenaicus&nbsp;...'' Cicero, Marcus Tullius: ''De natura deorum''. Comments and English text by Richard D. McKirahan. Thomas Library, Bryn Mawr College, 1997, p. 3. {{ISBN|0-929524-89-6}}</ref><ref name=SextEmp>Sext. Emp. ''Pyr''. hyp. 3.218 cf. ''Math''. 10.50–53.</ref> but in modern scholarship Marek Winiarczyk has defended the view that Diagoras was not an atheist in the modern sense, in a view that has proved influential.<ref name="Winiarczyk" /> On the other hand, the verdict has been challenged by [[Tim Whitmarsh]], who argues that Diagoras rejected the gods on the basis of the [[problem of evil]], and this argument was in turn alluded to in Euripides' fragmentary play ''[[Bellerophon (play)|Bellerophon]]''.<ref name=Whit>Whitmarsh, T. (2016). Diagoras, Bellerophon and the Siege of Olympus. ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'', 136 182-186.</ref> [[Sisyphus fragment|A fragment]] from a lost Attic drama that featured [[Sisyphus]], which has been attributed to both [[Critias]] and [[Euripides]], claims that a clever man invented "the fear of the gods" in order to frighten people into behaving morally.<ref name=Davi>Davies, M. (1989). Sisyphus and the Invention of Religion (Critias ''TrGF'' 1 (43) F 19 = B 25 DK). ''BICS'' 32, 16-32.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Kahn |first=Charles |date=1997 |title=Greek Religion and Philosophy in the Sisyphus Fragment |journal=Phronesis |volume=42 |issue=3 |pages=247–262 |jstor=4182561 |doi=10.1163/15685289760518153}}</ref><ref name="Winiarczyk" />

{{Rquote|right|"Does then anyone say there are gods in heaven? There are not, there are not, if a man is willing not to give foolish credence to the ancient story. Consider for yourselves, don't form an opinion on the basis of my words!"|[[Bellerophon]] denying the existence of the gods, from [[Euripides]]' ''[[Bellerophon (play)|Bellerophon]]'' {{circa}} 5th century BCE, fr. 286 ''TrGF'' 1-5<ref name=Coll>Collard, C., and Cropp, M.J. (2008). Euripides, Fragments: Volume VII, Aegeus-Meleager. Cambridge, MA, 298-301.</ref>}}
[[Protagoras]] has sometimes been taken to be an atheist, but rather espoused agnostic views, commenting that "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 human life."<ref>{{cite book |last=Bremmer |first=Jan |title=Atheism in Antiquity |postscript=,}} in {{harvnb|Martin|2006|pp=12–13}}</ref><ref name="Garland2008">{{cite book |last1=Garland |first1=Robert |title=Ancient Greece: Everyday Life in the Birthplace of Western Civilization |date=2008 |publisher=Sterling |location=New York City |isbn=978-1-4549-0908-8 |page=209}}</ref> The Athenian public associated Socrates ({{circa|470–399 BCE}}) with the trends in pre-Socratic philosophy towards naturalistic inquiry and the rejection of divine explanations for phenomena.<ref name="Burkert1985" /><ref name="Bremmer" /> [[Aristophanes]]' comic play ''[[The Clouds]]'' (performed 423 BCE) portrays Socrates as teaching his students that the traditional Greek deities do not exist.<ref name="Burkert1985" /><ref name="Bremmer" /> Socrates was later tried and executed under the charge of not believing in the gods of the state and instead worshipping foreign gods.<ref name="Burkert1985" /><ref name="Bremmer" /> Socrates himself vehemently denied the charges of atheism at his trial<ref name="Burkert1985" /><ref name="Bremmer">{{cite book |last=Bremmer |first=Jan |title=Atheism in Antiquity |postscript=,}} in {{harvnb|Martin|2006|pp=14–19}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Thomas C. |last1=Brickhouse |last2=Smith |first2=Nicholas D. |title=Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates |year=2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-15681-3 |page=112}}</ref> From a survey of these 5th-century BCE philosophers, [[David Sedley]] has concluded that none of them openly defended radical atheism, but since Classical sources clearly attest to radical atheist ideas Athens probably had an "atheist underground".<ref name=Sedl>Sedley, D. (2013). The atheist underground. In Harte and M. Lane (edd.), ''Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy''. Cambridge, 329-48.</ref>

Religious skepticism continued into the [[Hellenistic period]], and from this period the most important Greek thinker in the development of atheism was the philosopher [[Epicurus]] ({{circa|300 BCE}}).<ref name="GraftonMostSettis" /> Drawing on the ideas of Democritus and the Atomists, he espoused a materialistic philosophy according to which the universe was governed by the laws of chance without the need for divine intervention (see [[scientific determinism]]).<ref name="EpicStanEncycl">{{cite web |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/ |title=Epicurus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) |website=Plato.stanford.edu |access-date=November 10, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120603100418/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/ |archive-date=June 3, 2012 |url-status=live }}</ref> Although Epicurus still maintained that the gods existed,<ref name="Hickson2014">{{cite book |last=Hickson |first=Michael W. |editor1-last=McBrayer |editor1-first=Justin P. |editor2-last=Howard-Snyder |editor2-first=Daniel |date=2014 |chapter=A Brief History of Problems of Evil |title=The Blackwell Companion to The Problem of Evil |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J0ScAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT26 |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=978-1-118-60797-8 |pages=26–27 |access-date=September 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161120231324/https://books.google.com/books?id=J0ScAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT26 |archive-date=November 20, 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="GraftonMostSettis" /><ref name="EpicStanEncycl" /> he believed that they were uninterested in human affairs.<ref name="EpicStanEncycl" /> The aim of the Epicureans was to attain ''[[ataraxia]]'' ("peace of mind") and one important way of doing this was by exposing fear of divine wrath as irrational. The Epicureans also denied the existence of an afterlife and the need to fear divine punishment after death.<ref name="EpicStanEncycl" />

[[Euhemerus]] ({{circa|300 BCE}}) published his view that the gods were only the deified rulers and founders of the past.<ref>Fragments of Euhemerus' work in Ennius' Latin translation have been preserved in [[Church Fathers|Patristic]] writings (e.g. by [[Lactantius]] and [[Eusebius of Caesarea]]), which all rely on earlier fragments in [[Diodorus Siculus|Diodorus]] 5,41–46 & 6.1. Testimonies, especially in the context of polemical criticism, are found e.g. in [[Callimachus]], ''Hymn to Zeus'' 8.</ref> Although not strictly an atheist, Euhemerus was later criticized by [[Plutarch]] for having "spread atheism over the whole inhabited earth by obliterating the gods".<ref>[[Plutarch]], ''Moralia—Isis and Osiris'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris*/B.html#23 23]</ref> In the 3rd century BCE, the [[Hellenistic]] philosophers [[Theodorus the Atheist|Theodorus Cyrenaicus]]<ref name=CIC /><ref>Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, ii</ref> and [[Strato of Lampsacus]]<ref>Cicero, ''Lucullus'', 121. in Reale, G., ''A History of Ancient Philosophy''. SUNY Press. (1985).</ref> were also reputed to deny the existence of the gods. The [[Pyrrhonism|Pyrrhonist]] philosopher [[Sextus Empiricus]] ({{circa|200 CE}})<ref>{{cite book |last1=Klauck |first1=Hans-Joseph |editor1-last=van der Watt |editor1-first=Jan G. |title=Identity, Ethics, and Ethos in the New Testament |date=2012 |isbn=978-3-11-018973-5 |page=417 |url=https://www.gos_in_the_Neoogle.com/books/edition/Identity_Ethics_and_Ethw_Tes/Xnmt2z8PonYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA417&printsec=frontcover |access-date=October 9, 2020 |chapter=Moving in and Moving Out |publisher=Walter de Gruyter }}{{Dead link|date=March 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> compiled a large number of ancient arguments against the existence of gods, recommending that one should [[epoche|suspend judgment]] regarding the matter.<ref>[[Sextus Empiricus]], ''Outlines of Pyrrhonism'' Book III, Chapter 3</ref> His relatively large volume of surviving works had a lasting influence on later philosophers.<ref name="gordonstein">Stein, Gordon (Ed.) (1980). "[http://www.positiveatheism.org/india/s1990c25.htm The History of Freethought and Atheism] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930024429/http://www.positiveatheism.org/india/s1990c25.htm |date=30 September 2007 }}". ''An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism''. New York: Prometheus. Retrieved 2007-APR-03.</ref>

The meaning of "atheist" changed over the course of classical antiquity.<ref name="Winiarczyk" /> [[Early Christianity|Early Christians]] were widely reviled as "atheists" because they did not believe in the existence of the Graeco-Roman deities.<ref name="CE1913">{{Cite CE1913|wstitle=Atheism}}</ref><ref name="Winiarczyk" /><ref name="Ferguson1993">{{cite book |last1=Ferguson |first1=Everett |title=Backgrounds of Early Christianity |date=1993 |publisher=William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company |location=Grand Rapids, Michigan |isbn=978-0-8028-0669-7 |pages=556–561 |edition=second}}</ref><ref name="Sherwin">{{cite journal |last1=Sherwin-White |first1=A.N. |title=Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted? – An Amendment |journal=Past and Present |volume=27 |date=April 1964 |issue=1 |pages=23–27 |jstor=649759|doi=10.1093/past/27.1.23 }}</ref> During the [[Roman Empire]], Christians were executed for their rejection of the [[List of Roman deities|Roman gods]] in general and the [[Imperial cult of ancient Rome]] in particular.<ref name="Sherwin" /><ref name="Maycock">Maycock, A.L. and Ronald Knox (2003). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=DmL8CljbqDwC Inquisition from Its Establishment to the Great Schism: An Introductory Study] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151030191702/https://books.google.com/books?id=DmL8CljbqDwC |date=October 30, 2015 }}''. {{ISBN|0-7661-7290-2}}.</ref> There was, however, a heavy struggle between Christians and pagans, in which each group accused the other of atheism, for not practicing the religion which they considered correct.<ref name="Duran">{{cite book |last1=Duran |first1=Martin |title=Wondering About God: Impiety, Agnosticism, and Atheism in Ancient Greece |date=2019 |publisher=Independently Published |location=Barcelona |isbn=978-1-08-061240-6 |pages=171–178}}</ref> When Christianity became the state religion of Rome under [[Theodosius I]] in 381, [[Christian heresy|heresy]] became a punishable offense.<ref name="Maycock" />
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