a rather interesting (and early) account of atheism during pagan religious times:
"SISYPHOS: There was a time when human life was without order
and bestial and subject to brute force,
when there was neither any reward for the noble
nor any punishment for the base.
And then, I think, men established
punitive laws, so that Justice would be soveregin
<. . .> and have Hubris as her subject.
Whoever did wrong was punished.
Next, now that the laws kept people from
openly committing violent deeds
but they still did them secretly, at that time I think
<. . .> some man of shrewd and clever intelligence
hit upon the idea of inventing the gods for mortals, so
the base would have something to fear even when
they acted or spoke or thought secretly.
So, building on this, he taught that the Divine
was a supernatural being thriving with unending life,
with the power of intellect listening, watching, contemplating,
and attending to these acts and possessing a divine nature,
one who would hear everything said among mortals
and be able to see everything that was done.
If you plan something base, even without breathing a word of it,
it will not escape the notice of the gods; for understanding
<. . .> is theirs. Giving these explanations,
he taught a most agreeable lesson,
confounding the truth with a false story.
He said that the gods dwelled in the place
that would most astonish men when talked about,
the place he realized mortals derive their fears from,
and their life of suffering draws its delights–
from the circling firmament above, where he discerned
there were the flashes of lightning and terrible crashes
of thunder and the starry brightness of heaven,
a beautiful tapestry of the wise creator Time.
From there the gleaming falling star blazes,
and the wet rainstorm pours out onto the earth.
He hedged men in with such terrible
fears, and with his story he nearly gave
the divinity a home in the fitting location
and doused lawlessness with these fears of his.
<. . .>
In this way, I think, someone first convinced
mortals to believe that a race of gods existed."
Critias was Plato’s uncle…
en.wikipedia.org/wi
ki/Critias
Source (of the excerpt): Trzaskoma, Smith, and Brunet. “Critias, Sisyphos, fragment” Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation. Hackett Publishing Company, 2004.
i quite enjoy reading the greek atheists’ writings on religion…
what other really old accounts of atheism are out there?
-OKComp