Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World

Simms, Norman

doi:10.1558/pome.40840

Cited by 4 publications

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“…I have not had the scope to discuss many thinkers other than Euripides who may have discarded the ancient Greek religion. I have referred to overviews as Whitmarsh (2015) who presses far in his endeavour to investigate whether there have been more atheists than assumed. It goes without saying that Euripides and persons such as Prodicus, to mention a few, were members of an intellectual élite (Mayhew 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Handbook of Leaving Religion

Day

2023

Religion

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This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, which permits any non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Further information and the complete license text can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/4.0/ The terms of the CC license apply only to the original material. The use of material from other sources (indicated by a reference) such as diagrams, illustrations, photos and text samples may require further permission from the respective copyright holder.An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. More information about the initiative can be found at www .knowledgeunlatched.org.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Handbook of Leaving Religion

Day

2023

Religion

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“…Anaxagoras, DK59 A1, A35, A42; Archelaus, DK60 A12-15; Diogenes of Apollonia, DK64 A12-A14; Leucippus, DK67 B1; Democritus, DK68 A87; Critias, DK88 B25. For an illuminating study of Greek atheism, see Whitmarsh (2015).…”

Section: Cosmology and Godsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional and Cosmic Gods in Later Plato and the Early Academy

Bartninkas

2023

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This book sheds new light on Plato's cosmology in relation to Greek religion by examining the contested distinction between the traditional and cosmic gods. A close reading of the later dialogues shows that the two families of gods are routinely deployed to organise and structure Plato's accounts of the origins of the universe and of humanity and its social institutions, and to illuminate the moral and political ideals of philosophical utopias. Vilius Bartninkas argues that the presence of the two kinds of gods creates a dynamic, yet productive, tension in Plato's thinking which is unmistakable and which is not resolved until the works of his students. Thus the book closes by exploring how the cosmological and religious ideas of Plato's later dialogues resurfaced in the Early Academy and how the debates initiated there ultimately led to the collapse of this theological distinction.

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“…While research shows that people may extend their values to gods, it is less clear whether people extend physical characteristics to their gods. Certainly, many people anthropomorphize God (Nelsen et al, 1985) and the ancient gods of the Greek, Roman, and Norse pantheons were very much constructed in the image of humans (Whitmarsh, 2016;Witzel, 2013). However, there are also many individuals and some prominent monotheist religions that refuse to endow gods with a gender -despite historically and commonly using masculine pronouns to refer to their deities (Prothero, 2011).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

I don’t think it ought to be blasphemy: Transing God(s) and post-life gender

Cragun

Gull

2023

Social Compass

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A growing body of research has begun to explore the religious and spiritual lives of transgender and nonbinary individuals. Missing from prior sociological research on this topic is how individuals outside the gender binary conceptualize the gender of god(s) and their own genders in the afterlife. Using data from a targeted survey of members of transgender listservs and online activist groups, this study explores two specific religious/spiritual beliefs of transgender and nonbinary individuals in comparison to cisgender individuals: (1) their conception of God’s/gods’ gender(s) and (2) their conception of their own gender in the afterlife. Many trans and nonbinary participants report both their future gender and the gender of any god(s) in which they believe as nonbinary, but not exclusively.

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Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World

Abstract: Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), x + 292 pp., US $16.95 (paper).

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Handbook of Leaving Religion

Handbook of Leaving Religion

Traditional and Cosmic Gods in Later Plato and the Early Academy

I don’t think it ought to be blasphemy: Transing God(s) and post-life gender

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