Think atheism is a modern phenomenon? Think again, says Cambridge professor Tim Whitman

[rug]

Think atheism is a modern phenomenon? Think again, says Professor Tim Whitmarsh, whose new book, Battling the Gods, shows that even the ancients doubted the existence of the divine. Emma Higginbotham meets him.

By EmmaHiggCN | Posted: March 31, 2016

There's something about discussing religion that raises people's hackles to porcupine-ish heights. Whether you're a believer or not, you're convinced that you're right. Right?

Take the recent Guardian article about Tim Whitmarsh's new book, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World, in which the Cambridge Classics professor explained that far from being a modern phenomenon, atheism was alive and kicking millennia ago.

The online readers were beside themselves and, after a whopping 3,245 below-the-line remarks and rants (which the genial academic opted not to read), the administrators closed the comments.

But the book isn't intended to be a proverbial red rag to a Christian bull. "It's not really written in a particularly aggressively atheistic vein," says Tim. "It's a work of history; it's not trying to tell people how to live their lives in the modern world."

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Think-atheism-modern-phenomenon-Think-says/story-29021960-detail/story.html

[stone space]

2. Internet atheism appears to be a rather new phenomina.

And one that bears little resemblance to the old-school atheism that I'm more familiar with from my youth back the stone age.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Well yes as "internet" is circa 1991, so "internet atheism" cannot pre-exist 1991.

Although we could discuss arpanet atheism and bring it back to the 70's, or usenet atheism and park it in the 80's.

Atheism today is more present because of the internet but people were aghast, as you are, at atheists in the 60s like Madalyn Murray. She was that era's model 'bad atheist'. The only good atheist seems to be one who admires and fawns over religious horseshit.

Here this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_de_Botton he'd be today's version of the good atheist.

[rug]

5. Better than Jon Ritzheimer.

[pokerfan]

8. I was a FidoNet atheist

[Fumesucker]

7. To an extent it's atheists who have been basically closeted for decades finally speaking up

I know my thoughts, my perspective upsets a lot of people so I pretty much keep it to myself and have now for five decades. Except online places like this where people come to specifically discuss the issue of religion or the lack of same I don't talk about my philosophy of life.

Hell, I've never knowingly met another atheist, I'm sure I have but neither of us happened to be talking about atheism so how would we know?

I've been waiting for the Atheist Witnesses to come and knock on my door but evidently the dogs scare them off.

[stone space]

9. I guess that I've never been closeted as an atheist.

The main difference between old-school atheism and the more new-fangled forms of atheism that I see on the internet were summarized on this post replying to another user in an OP of yours about a year ago.

Some of us old-school atheists still claim that there is no God.

Atheism is lack of belief. It's not a claim of anything.

The issue has become so muddled on the internet that sometimes I get the feeling that we are invisible.

Actual atheist atheists seem to have become a minority within internet atheism itself at times, with our own beliefs being overshadowed by agnostics, who at times seem to view us with embarrassment.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=192415

Some of the more new-fangled atheists seem to want to hide those of us more old-school atheists with a more militant bent in the closet out of embarrassment.

The main difference that I see between old-school atheism and the more newfangled type is that some internet agnostics have managed to rebrand atheism in their own name on the internet, to the point where agnosticism has become, for them, the very definition of atheism.

True atheists who deny the very existence of any god or gods are seen as an embarrassment to modern internet atheism.

Our beliefs that no god or gods exist relegate us to the status of a minority within a minority, I suppose, and therefore an group to be demonized by internet atheists.

I've seen so-called internet "atheists" actually blame militant atheists for church burnings right here in this forum.

That in itself says quite a lot to me about "internet atheism" as a modern phenomena.

[MisterP]

3. heck, much of the time back then "atheist" meant "monotheist"

a believer in an un-anthropomorphic supreme deity who moved matter like soul moves body, rather than smacking at it when pissy like the Olympians

[LeftishBrit]

6. Interesting

There have always been atheists, and critics of atheism.

As I've been probably mentioned before, the British Tory politician George Canning wrote a poem about 'The New Morality' in the 1790s. He considered that Morality had sadly declined under the influence of the French, and in particular strongly disliked the prominent atheist of that time, Lepaux:


'Last of the Anointed five behold, and least,
The Directorial Lama, Sovereign Priest,—
Lepaux: whom atheists worship; at whose nod
Bow their meek heads the men without a God...



"Courier's and Stars, Sedition's Evening Host,
"Thou Morning Chronicle, and Morning Post,
"Whether ye make the Rights of man your theme,
"Your Country Libel, and your God blaspheme,
"Or dirt on private worth and virtue throw,
"Still blasphemous or blackguard, praise Lepaux!


"And ye five other wandering Birds, that move
"In sweet accord of harmony and love,
"Coleridge and Southey, Lloyd, and Lambe and Co.
"Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux!


"Priestley and Wakefield, humble holy men,
"Give praises to his name with tongue and pen!
"Thelwall, and ye that lecture as ye go,
"And for your pains get pelted, praise Lepaux!
"Praise him each Jacobin, or fool, or knave,
"And your cropp'd heads in sign of worship wave!


"All creeping creatures, venomous and low,
"Paine, Williams, Godwin, Holcroft, praise Lepaux!
"——— and ——— with ——— join'd,
"And every other beast after his kind....
...


Guard we but our own hearts: with constant view
To ancient morals, ancient manners true,
True to their manlier virtues, such as nerved
Our father's breasts, and this proud Isle preserved
For many a rugged age:—and scorn the while,—
Each philosophic atheist's specious guile—
The soft seductions, the refinements nice,
Of gay morality, and easy vice:
So shall we brave the storm: our 'stablish'd power
Thy refuge, Europe, in some happier hour....'


Note that even then, people were accused of 'worshipping' prominent atheists or at least treating them as high priests. Note also that right-wingers of the time, like many of their modern counterparts, equated morality, religion, nationalism and 'manliness'.