Unironically there’s evidence to suggest that modern atheism is a byproduct of Christianity and if Europe remained pagan, atheism wouldn’t exist (at least in a recognizable form).
>>18601850Talk about it, nigger. Don't leave us hanging.
>>18601850youre right for the wrong reasonsAtheism exists in the west because both their versions of Christianity are heretical and false
>>18601861In paganism, the entirely world was seen as sacred, there was no stark division between creator and creation because pagan religions were basically pantheist. Christianity desacralized nature by separating the creator from creation, which inevitably laid the groundwork for atheistic materialism. A scientific revolution might have still occurred in pagan Europe, but a pantheist worldview would prevent the development of atheistic materialism.Paganism was also pluralistic and orthopraxic as they cared more about the right practice than the right belief (they weren’t necessarily tolerant, but cases of religious persecution were done for political or social reasons, not theological ones). Skeptics existed in the ancient world sure, but they never went as far as to deny the existence of the gods or reject all religious practices as even Epicurus didn’t actually deny the existence of the gods (instead he argued they were non-interventionist beings who neither demanded worship nor answered prayer). When a Greek traveled to Egypt, they didn’t try to convert the Egyptians but instead translated the Egyptian gods into their own framework of gods (e.g. Thoth is just Hermes). Christianity however believes in an exclusivist framework of “only my god is real, all other gods are false gods or demons.” Because of this, Christianity created a culture of doctrinal correctness regarding metaphysics and atheists inherited that mentality, they simply took it to its logical conclusion by applying the “false god” label to the Christian god himself.Modern atheists also inherit many of their social views from Christianity, particularly the Christian concept of Imago Dei (the belief all men were created equal under god). Pagan societies meanwhile were far more hierarchal and accepted the belief that some men were simply better than others. Atheists kept the morality of Christianity, they simply got rid of the metaphysics.
>>18601850Atheism in ancient greece was>Yeah I believe the gods are real. I just don't actively worship any.
>>18601850Modern European atheists act just like pagans. They are superstitious and obsessed with rituals.
>>18601850Yes, that is correct.Atheis, is a byproduct of Christianity and its tolerance towards other's beliefs, even the ones that hate itAtheists always take this protection for granted but in reality, their beliefs will get them killed outside of Christian protectionAtheism is ILLEGAL in pagan societies as that is seen as treason and a blasphemy against the gods. Christians routinely got killed under the accusations of atheism, especially during times of plague and famineAtheists only exists for as long as Christianity tolerates and protects them
>>18601914Christianity desacralized nature because nature isn't "sacred" unless you're infantile or retarded, in the sense that there is no Goddess living in the swamp or the riverYou cannot function as a civilized society with such beliefs. What happens if you decide you want to drain the swamp or dam the river? Are the pagan priests going to stop you? Does the Goddess disappear?>A scientific revolution might have still occurred in pagan Europe, but a pantheist worldview would prevent the development of atheistic materialism.So your argument is that we wouldn't be "materialist", i.e., obsessed with wealth, worldly pleasure, and opulence if we were pagan. You would have to completely ignore ancient Rome and the Norsemen and every other gold-obsessed materialist pagan society to believe this.If we were still pagan, would we still believe gold coins pour out of the eyes of the Goddesses when they're sad, or would we leave that part out?Materialism as you mean it is entirely uncoupled from religion. You can be a Puritan and strip your Church of all worldly materialist icons and gold, or you can be the Borgias and fill the Vatican with chests of emeralds and diamonds and prostitutes.> When a Greek traveled to Egypt, they didn’t try to convert the Egyptians but instead translated the Egyptian gods into their own framework of gods (e.g. Thoth is just Hermes). Christianity however believes in an exclusivist framework of “only my god is real, all other gods are false gods or demons.” Because of this, Christianity created a culture of doctrinal correctness regarding metaphysics and atheists inherited that mentality, they simply took it to its logical conclusion by applying the “false god” label to the Christian god himself.Yes, Christians believe in right and wrong, good and evil, while pagans don't believe anything, it's ok to be gay and do crime and be pagan. This is another way pagans are identical to modern atheists.
>>18601935Pagans probably had to kill atheists because the atheists wanted to build a bridge over a river but the faggot pagan priests insisted there was a djinn living in the river who wouldn't like it.
>>18601937That is rich when the Ganges is the holiest river for Hindus, and yet it is treated like a sewage drain.>If we were still pagan, would we still believe gold coins pour out of the eyes of the Goddesses when they're sad, or would we leave that part out?Scientific method was created by the Franciscans to discourage people from practicing magicChristianity established entire Orders that promotes a natural philosophy and aims to provide medical assistance using nothing but prayers and materials (ie Order of Lazarus and Knights Hospitallers)The word Hospital itself came from the Hospitallers which was named after their founding place. After the Muslims kicked them out, they returned to Europe and spread their medical expertise.To call a place a Hospital is to imply that it is under the direct and indirect influence of the HospitallersPagan belief in magic would have kept humans locked under the belief that gladiator sweat is a panacea
>>18601935>Atheism is ILLEGAL in pagan societies as that is seen as treason and a blasphemy against the godsAnd that was a good thing, nobody who denies the gods should be considered a sane human being. Even Plato argued such on his Republic.
>>18601950Hospitals already existed in Ancient Greece, look up the Asclepieia and a certain man by the name of Hippocrates. Porphyry was right, you do have a tendency to claim credit for shit you had no real involvement in.
does anybody actually believe that atheists weren't always a thing? like of fucking course some people in the past lied about being religious; it was often social suicide to not support the state-sanctioned faith, if not outright illegal. it still is in many places.
>>18601950>That is rich when the Ganges is the holiest river for Hindus, and yet it is treated like a sewage drain.So your argument for paganism is that it would be cool and chill because no one would actually respect it and they'd shit in the rivers they think are inhabited by a God?
>>18601850The God is not desperate for worshippers like the pagan gods are who are worship whores and accept anyone as long as they keep feeding them sacrifices and offerings. They're just hungry. But if God were hungry he would need to tell you because the whole world is his and everything in it.
>>18601850Tbqh every single -ism since the enlightenment and renaissance is just a heresy of Christianity. Normies who don’t know ball are just confused because enlightenment people laid hard into the superficial pagan LARP. There’s a direct line from all modern western ideologies and beliefs back to medieval scholasticism.
>>18602098Nope, you only think that because you are a troglodyte who views the gods from the lens of a Marvel consoomer (including of course Jeebus himself).Deities are supreme immortal entities existing in higher planes. Humans attach themselves to the deities that have created them, and draw down power from them, freely shared. But just because humans lose connection with these deities and fail to draw power from them any longer, does not influence these deities the least bit.The gods are doing just as well today as they were in the past. It is humans that are doing worse. Followers of the all too human cult of Jeebus may beat their chests in triumph but all that has been achieved is a slump to base ignorance. Much ancient wisdom has been lost and destroyed, which could have been used to help everyone today. Oh well. Each man for himself now.
>>18601964*Modern HospitalsThe concept of a centralized medical facility came as a result of the Hospitallers providing medical aid to pilgrims, refugees, and orphansP.SAsclepieia maybe a hospital but not a modern one by the fact that they relied on magical treatments like sleeping on sacred rooms, invocation through performances, and of course, trinkets and dream readingsModern medicine was a result of Christians imposing a ban on magic
>>18601850>atheism doesn't exist outside of Europe. What history books do you read?>>18602160Asclepieia was also focused on the wealthy and powerful. Different ethic of treatment.
>>18602116"All too human" = Nietzschean babble for excusing sodomy, degeneracy, faggotry, and consoomerism. In a pagan paradise all these would be celebrated as no better or worse than any other lifestyle. "What's your problem with gays man, they just want to be left alone. You're probably a closet homo projecting". This is the numinous ancient wisdom of the pagans we've lost. Marvel movies can feature the pagan gods as heroes and make a billion dollars selling to ZOGGED audiences because the pagan gods are inoffensive, because they are inclusive and universalist. Thor would strike a bigoted frost giant with his hammer but he'd never strike a trans black woman.
>>18601850>>18601861>>18601914>>18601937>>18601950Different Anon wandering into this thread: pic related, Keith Thomas, "Religion And The Decline Of Magic" covers this exact historical topic of how the Protestant Reformation movement directly lead to something resembling Agnosticism/Atheism. I can't summarize the entire process (It's a 1300 page book. I read it a couple summers ago, it's actually really, really, good), but the basic premise was: translations of the Bible, lead to growing Christian literacy, which lead to people becoming naturally curious, skeptical, and entering into a kind of vaguely scientific culture of determining what God was and wasn't directly responsible for, which in turn lead to "well if God doesn't personally do these things, what causes them?", and so on and so forth.
>>18602251I don't know, do you really buy that? Protestants were basically the last holdout of open, devout faith in the West. I don't want to wade into an argument over Evangelical Christianity and Zionism and all that, but as late as 2010 (!!!) belief in God in America was held by 92% of the population. You may dismiss this as insincere, but then what are we to make of the Catholic countries held to be more devout because everyone still goes to Mass as a matter of routine without ever picking up a Bible?Protestant countries repeatedly went through Great Awakenings for centuries after the reformation, countless great figures of science and exploration have been devout Protestants, not just Isaac Newton and James Clark Maxwell. The harbringer of mass atheism seems to me to just be modernity, tracing it back to the reformation sounds to me just like a way for a Catholic to reassure himself. A country like Italy where abortion and gay marriage are practically illegal doesn't seem to me like a religious nation. It seems like a modern secular nation with a 1.0 birthrate where the people just temperamentally happen to disagree with gay marriage and abortion.
>>18601914Greco-Roman conceptions of religion were envolving to be more akin to those of Judaism and Christianity than the opposite, though. I don't think the general syncretic paganism of 0 CE was pantheistic, and it certainly wasn't in 200 CE.
>>18602265You may want to take a second look at thatThe Big Bang was made by a Catholic Priest; Einstein hated it, calling it a creationist propagandaProtestants cannot tell the age of the Earth
>>18601850Greek philosophy already embraced Atheism, but yes, modern Atheism is a Protestant sect. They're Calvinists, to be specific.
>>18601914>there was no stark division between creator and creation because pagan religions were basically pantheistPlatonism, dvaita vedanta, and bathala worship in the phillipines. You can't generalize thousands of religions across millenia and different cultures.>Christianity desacralized nature by separating the creator from creation,If anything it's the opposite, the incarnation of the absolute was proto-orthodox christianity's main distinguishing factor from contemporary monotheistic pagan philosophies and its other christian competitors.>they cared more about the right practice than the right beliefRead literally any abhidhamma sutta attacking the other schools of ancient buddhism, or buddhists mocking hindus for their pointless worship of brahma, or any ancient greek dialogue. The intellectual elite were deeply invested in finding the truth, even if they didn't brutally murder each other over it, much like how our intellectual elite are today
>>18602281catholic theologians believed in a literal interpretation of genesis until they were humiliated by scientific developments into handwaving it away as mostly allegorical
>>18602335moldbuggery gone mainstream
Can I get some rule 34 of Zeus swan rape? My form of pagan worship exclusively takes the form of masturbation.
>>18601850Atheistic philosophy was already developed in India centuries before Christianity. White people are really clueless.
>>18602391Neoplatonism is pantheist you retard. Have you ever read Iamblichus?Also, India is irrelevant to this. We are talking about Europe
>>18602427I hate him so much bros
>>18602395This makes them seethe.
>>18601850Nah, there's ample evidence that in the final centuries of pagan dominance, many educated people stopped believing in the gods in a traditional sense and simply adhered to their religion out of custom and obligation. Now you could argue that's one reason it was ripe to replaced by something else, but supposing it wasn't replaced, it seems likely atheism would've become an acceptable idea considering the "gods" championed by philosophers were so far removed in both essence and function from those of the masses. Epicureans got especially close to being outright atheists similar to modern ones. One of Christianity's big achievements imo (and Jews had already been working on this) was so unite these hifalutin philosophical concepts from Platonism etc. to their personal deity Yahweh, so if anything Christianity might have prolonged the life of theism in the west by doing that
>>18603671Neoplatonism isn't pantheist retard. Have you ever read plotinus? The One is an unchanging, unthinking transcendent thing that is ontologically distinct from reality and separated through a hierarchy of emanations Also india, and every other part of the world is relevant to this, considering that you need to explain what specifically created the conditions for modern monistic atheism. If those conditions you listed existed in india, why were their atheists dualists that accepted the existence of souls and the supernatural
>>18601935>>18601941This but unironically. You cannot do scientific experiments if nature is sacred or has capricious demons that are going to fuck up your experiments. It is basically luck that Christianity had enough correct ontological underpinnings to lead cleanly to the correct view of metaphysics (secularism). Also Atheism/skepticism has existed in Greece/Rome before Christians got there.
>>18604008>>18601964
>>18604009>>18601950Here is the chain of science you can read Shapin Scientific Revolution to figure it out, handmaiden.the chain is necessitarian Aristotelianism -> voluntarist critique (contingency of creation) -> deduction loses authority as a route to knowledge of nature -> empirical/experimental method becomes not just useful but epistemically necessary -> Baconian induction
>>18604009Hospitals existed in the Mesolithic, idiot. Hunter Gatherers could do brain surgery, they'd drill a hole in the skull to relieve pressure then sow up the wound.If animism and superstition don't get in the way of science, then why even have them in the first place? If your belief that lightning is supernatural and the work of the gods doesn't in any way contradict the ability of scientists to create lightning with a spark gap, then what's even the point of the belief? Aren't you just an atheist?
People are attracted to paganism because it is indigenous and fun and anti-Christian. That's it.For every pagan whose paganism informs his morality and approach to life and society, there are ten hundred like >>18604009 whose paganism is a result of reading anti-Christian polemics written by pagans. If Christianity disappeared tomorrow, they would put up pagan art and symbolism, but besides that, they would be universalist atheists. Their morality would not extend beyond live and let live.
>point out that science predates christianity and that christians falsely claim credit>seething ensuesNo wonder christians destroyed so many historical records. The truth is poison to their religion.
>>18604056So pagan society would have everything awesome and nothing bad, and that's why christianity was bad.
>>18604130At this rate I won't be surprised to see you retards a year or two from now screeching at someone for telling you that christians didn't invent marriage, agriculture, or the written word.
>>18601850so, if things were different, then things would be different?
>>18604147if we were pagan everything would be awesome and nothing would be bad. we wouldn't have jewish morality and we'd be superstitious and animist again.
that cool thing? that's pagan. that bad thing? that's not pagan.
Atheism is a response to abrahamic oppression
>>18601850Actual belief in religion relies on the majority of people being malnourished, dehydrated and unhealthy. The pagan faiths would have stifled cooperation and the conditions that lead to a fed, hydrated and healthy society due to their callousness, so you’re right in a sense.
>>18604433
>>18602395Otherway aroundAncient people had no concept of literal and metaphorical writings. There is no such thing as fiction or non-fiction in ancient times.There is only semi-fiction - aka real events that were exaggerated and converted into plays as the only way to preserve ancient history is to convert them into oral tales of grandious adventures and tragediesLiteral interpretations of the bible and other historical writings was a recent invention borne from the fact that documentation of history has grown much more profound and there is now a distinction for what is fictional and is notP.SMajority of scientists are Christians who pursued it under the belief that they wanted to understand God.The idea of a scientific study independent of theological grounds was only proposed around the 1800's which is the same time that scientific field started swaying away from Philosophy. It was originally called "Natural Philosophy"The entire scientific method was invented through Cristian belief that the world follows specific, unchanging, fundamental Laws imposed by a God who loves us and wanted us to know him
>>18601850 I also believe that such a high rate of atheism could only exist in a post christian trascendental God world. We must return to nature worship
>>18605925>Literal interpretations of the bible and other historical writings was a recent inventionI hate this myth so much. Only a minority of theologians thought Genesis was allegorical, the vast majority of Christians were peasants who believed in a literal 7-day creation. No, biblical literalism was not invented by Protestants, it was something the vast majority of people already believed in, the reformation simply made a de-facto belief de-jure.
Ancient christians were Jewish and the fact they believed the Bible was literal makes them retards aka Christianity was always retarded. Greeks understood qhat myth was
>>18606029Haha noWe had saints advocating for a literal interpretation precisely because majority accepts it as allegoricalThe same goes to every myth and legends from the ancient world They didn't literally believed that the world was borne from the corpses of giants, a giant mud sprang from the god's spear, or a cow that licked the ice off. But they took it as flairs and prose for actual history about how their ancestors created through land either through war/ or by cultivating barren frozen lands and turning muddy marshes into something they could thrive onOne of the most arrogant things that you could do is assume that you are smarter than your ancestors who actually faced the world for what it is - the pains and challenges, thriving forward only through faith that it will get better for their children.They are, and have always been, every bit as curious and skeptical as you. Even more so as bad ideas could easily cost them their lives
>>18601850Atheism existed in ancient Greece, India and China. Modern atheism is a product of Neoplatonism plus the discovery of Newtonian mechanics.
>>18606056All 3 of those executed atheists, ladDiagoras of Melos was hunted down because he was accused of atheismSocrates too was accused of atheismAtheism is a result of Chrisitan tolerance
>>18606061>Socrates too was accused of atheismHe wasn’t really an atheist though. His last request before his execution was literally to sacrifice a rooster to Asclepius and he believed he was following the will of Apollo based on the Oracle of Delphi proclaiming him to be the wisest man in Athens. The actual reason he was executed was because several of his followers became the thirty tyrants who terrorized Athens (hence why he was charged with “corrupting the youth.” Athens declared a political amnesty after restoring democracy, meaning that the court could not legally charge Socrates for past treason, so vague charges like “corrupting the youth” allowed prosecutors to punish him for the results of his teachings without violating the amnesty). The idea that he “rejected pagan gods” is a myth, what he did reject was the traditional anthropomorphic depiction of the gods and the myths surrounding them, not the gods’ existence or worship which he viewed as legitimate. When Socrates claimed that true gods should not be humanlike or temperamental like the myths portray them as, he wasn’t using it as proof the gods weren’t real but rather as proof that Homer was slandering the gods. Funnily enough though, many of his critiques of traditional myths also apply to Christianity and later opponents of Christianity like Celsus, Porphyry of Tyre, and Emperor Julian used those exact same arguments in their critiques of Christianity. Socrates believed that the divine are perfect, transcendent beings and in this worldview, the idea of a god becoming a man of flesh and blood and allowing himself to be crucified and experience any sort of pain or suffering is downright degrading. Not to mention that the Hebrew Bible depicts God as a wrathful, jealous being prone to emotional outbursts which is incompatible with the Socratic belief that the divine must be changeless and beyond the need for emotion.
>>18606061Christians spent millennia slaughtering other Christians, let alone atheists. Christians killed millions of other Christians over their beliefs in the Wars of Religion such that rulers and intellectuals lost faith in it to classical philosophy and the new sciences.You would be more justified in saying that Christianity is a result of pagan tolerance.
>>18606078Were you under the belief that Pagans never attacked each other for their beliefs?
>>18606040Do you genuinely think that German or French peasants viewed Genesis as some kind of beautiful allegory? They didn’t, they were all dumb illiterate peasants and took everything they heard at face value. To them, the world was created in 7 days, Adam and Eve were real people, and a global flood really did occur. Even the “allegorical” interpretations held by people like Augustine didn’t extend beyond the meaning of days, he still believed that Adam and Eve were real people. Even today, the church’s official doctrine is that humanity descends from Adam and Eve.
>>18606089That is pride, my dearPeople never take anything they heard at face value. Never did.Everyone is curious, everyone is skeptical,And among all religions, Christianity is the only one that welcomes each and every question.Truth fears no question
>>18603671>neoplatonism is pantheist you retardhe was talking about classic platonism you fucking nigger chimp. classic and middle platonism are strongly dualistic. neoplatonism is just the result of raping original platonic though and perverting it. plotinous is burning in hell
>>18606094>People never take anything they heard at face value. Never did.Yet they did, they were dumb illiterate peasants who believed Adam and Eve were real. The idea of “past people were greater/wiser” is a myth because in reality, they were dumber and humanity will gradually become smarter over time.
>>18606098Adam and Eve were realThey were the first priest and nun. Their creation was the first time God made first contact with humans and his first task was for Adam to name the animals - aka he ordered them to do science (taxonomy)Eve corrupted the divine link and Adam allowed it, which severed it and it will not be restored until Jesus returns
>>18606098>The idea of “past people were greater/wiser” is a myth because in reality, they were dumber and humanity will gradually become smarter over time.This is laughableYou are saying that people who never experience hardships are smarter than people who actually had callous in their hands and faced the results of bad beliefs head onYour life is only great because THEY worked hard for you and if you will not listen to their wisdom, then woe to you and your children
>>18606120No, they were not. Adam and Eve are nothing more than fiction and were quite literally plagiarized from Canaanite mythology
>>18606124Physical endurance does not equal true intelligence, they were dumb, illiterate, and superstitious.
>>18606128All tales come from a real event, my dearNothing is "fictional" in the ancient world. Everything originated from a single truth>>18606132RightWhat is a woman
>>18606139There was no “lost primordial truth” all knowledge is derived from fragments of. In reality it’s humanity slowing learning shit via trial and error
>>18606151That's a different question, dummo!History is not a trial and error. It is excavation after the truth was buried through eons of romantization
>>18606155There was no “lost truth,” in reality everything was shit and gets less shitty over time.
>>18601850>>18601914>>18602251So how do East Asian atheistic societies and ancient skeptics (e.g. Epicurus as mentioned) fit into this picture?
>>18606156It's called HistoryYou are on /his/, you twat
>>18606158Epicurus wasn’t an atheist, he still believed the gods existed, he just thought they were non-interventionist. That’s basically just deism
>>18601914that is not evidence, please learn what evidence is
>>18601914>Modern atheists also inherit many of their social views from Christianity, particularly the Christian concept of Imago Dei (the belief all men were created equal under god).Except I don't believe that bullshit. I believe men are equal in this world not under a supernatural entity. The Bible is pro-slavery as a concept, I'm not.
>>18606094>People never take anything they heard at face value.This nigga baitin.
