Author |
Whitmarsh, Tim, author.
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Publication |
New York, NY : Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.
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Description |
1 online resource. |
Call # |
eBOOK |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Summary |
An impassioned and learned account of atheism's origins in antiquity. Long before the Enlightenment sowed the seeds of disbelief in a deeply Christian Europe, atheism was a matter of serious public debate in the Greek world. But history is written by those who prevail, and the Age of Faith mostly suppressed the lively free-thinking voices of antiquity. Whitmarsh brings to life the fascinating musings of Diagoras of Melos; Democritus, the first materialist; and especially Epicurus and his followers. Whitmarsh also shows how the early Christians both were called atheists (for rejecting the pagan gods) and came to use the rhetoric oppressing atheism to spread their own faith. Battling the Gods reveals how atheism and doubt, far from being modern phenomena, have intrigued the human imagination for millennia. From the Hardcover edition. |
Contents |
Archaic Greece: new horizons : Polytheistic Greece ; Good books ; Battling the gods ; The material cosmos -- Classical Athens: atheism and oppression : Cause and effect ; "Concerning the gods, I cannot know" ; Playing the gods ; Atheism on trial ; Plato and the atheists -- The Hellenistic era: godlike kings and godless philosophers : Gods and kings ; Philosophical atheism ; Epicurus Theomakhos -- Rome: the new world order : With gods on our side ; Virtual networks ; Imagine ; Christians, heretics, and other atheists. |
Note |
Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed March 27, 2017). |
Subject |
Atheism -- Greece -- History.
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Greece -- Religion.
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Christianity and atheism.
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RELIGION / Comparative Religion.
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RELIGION / Essays.
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RELIGION / Reference.
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Atheism. (OCoLC)fst00819974
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Christianity and atheism. (OCoLC)fst00859658
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Religion. (OCoLC)fst01093763
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Greece. (OCoLC)fst01208380 |
Genre |
Electronic books. |
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History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
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Addl. Author |
OverDrive, Inc., distributor.
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Related To |
Original 9780307948779 0307948773 (OCoLC)936347324 |
ISBN |
9780307958334 (electronic bk.) |
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0307958337 (electronic bk.) |
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9780571279326 |
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0571279325 |
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