A claim often made in ignorance by fundamentalist theists is that atheism is a new idea, or that it's never been popular or important.
Of course, as with much of the rest of their assertions, this is formed by inspection of the fluff in their navel and is contradicted by evidence and reality.
In the real world, non-belief is an ancient tradition found all across the world wherever religious authorities didn't have the authority to torture and murder the heathen.
So this thread's aim is to cite excerpts from the past exposing the depth of non-theistic thinking back through human history.
There are thousands of such texts, and I couldn't hope to be comprehensive, but what I show will be sufficient to put an end to any similar claim in the future.
To start:
The first quote here is by Lucretius, written about 2050 years ago, was an Epicurean response to the god question. It's far too long to reproduce entirely, so a short piece and a link:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0131%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D1
De Rerum Natura
Often transliterated as:
Next up, an even more compelling example, a complete poem in a play addressing the nature of belief in gods, written by an unknown author (probably Euripides) but placed in the mouth of a character in Plato's plays.
https://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/302/critias.htm
Or to summarize: Man invented fear of the gods for mortals, so the wicked would have something to fear
We can find examples all over the world from recorded history. 2 of the primary schools of Hindu thought are explicitly atheist, and one other is agnostic.
The 10th chapter of the Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) in the Rig Veda:
The Samkhyakarika is an explicitly atheistic school of religious thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhyakarika
Paramārtha, in the 6th century, translated the work into Chinese, giving us a surviving record:
Funny how people around the world had already address the KCA, even though some theists think it's still noteworthy today. The uncaused causer, still blinding theists to their own inconsistencies.
The Carvaka school was also expressly atheistic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka
Sarvasiddhanta Samgraha, Verse 8
Vidyaranya, from the south of India in the 14th century wrote:
Kazimierz Lyszczynski, a 17th century Polish philosopher charged by the Catholic Church for heresy and executed because he wouldn't conform to the utterly pathetic idea of the Christian narrative, wrote this in De non existentia Dei:
Thomas Paine in the 18th century wrote much about the absurdity of Christianity and of organized religion
Let's keep collecting them here.
What's important to establish, and something that some theists think they can simply assert is false, is that atheism and non-belief in divine entities has as long a pedigree as belief.
Atheism has existed exactly as long as there has been religion, not a moment more, not a moment less. I have no doubt there are just as many atheists who would disagree with this (on account of the assumption of implicit atheism) as there are theists who pretend to themselves that atheism is a modern phenomenon.
Of course, as with much of the rest of their assertions, this is formed by inspection of the fluff in their navel and is contradicted by evidence and reality.
In the real world, non-belief is an ancient tradition found all across the world wherever religious authorities didn't have the authority to torture and murder the heathen.
So this thread's aim is to cite excerpts from the past exposing the depth of non-theistic thinking back through human history.
There are thousands of such texts, and I couldn't hope to be comprehensive, but what I show will be sufficient to put an end to any similar claim in the future.
To start:
The first quote here is by Lucretius, written about 2050 years ago, was an Epicurean response to the god question. It's far too long to reproduce entirely, so a short piece and a link:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0131%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D1
De Rerum Natura
Often transliterated as:
Next up, an even more compelling example, a complete poem in a play addressing the nature of belief in gods, written by an unknown author (probably Euripides) but placed in the mouth of a character in Plato's plays.
https://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/302/critias.htm
Or to summarize: Man invented fear of the gods for mortals, so the wicked would have something to fear
We can find examples all over the world from recorded history. 2 of the primary schools of Hindu thought are explicitly atheist, and one other is agnostic.
The 10th chapter of the Nasadiya Sukta (Creation Hymn) in the Rig Veda:
The Samkhyakarika is an explicitly atheistic school of religious thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhyakarika
Paramārtha, in the 6th century, translated the work into Chinese, giving us a surviving record:
Funny how people around the world had already address the KCA, even though some theists think it's still noteworthy today. The uncaused causer, still blinding theists to their own inconsistencies.
The Carvaka school was also expressly atheistic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka
Sarvasiddhanta Samgraha, Verse 8
Vidyaranya, from the south of India in the 14th century wrote:
Kazimierz Lyszczynski, a 17th century Polish philosopher charged by the Catholic Church for heresy and executed because he wouldn't conform to the utterly pathetic idea of the Christian narrative, wrote this in De non existentia Dei:
Thomas Paine in the 18th century wrote much about the absurdity of Christianity and of organized religion
Let's keep collecting them here.
What's important to establish, and something that some theists think they can simply assert is false, is that atheism and non-belief in divine entities has as long a pedigree as belief.
Atheism has existed exactly as long as there has been religion, not a moment more, not a moment less. I have no doubt there are just as many atheists who would disagree with this (on account of the assumption of implicit atheism) as there are theists who pretend to themselves that atheism is a modern phenomenon.
