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Archaeology / Atheism

18:33 / 08.08.07

Been wondering about / researching atheism in the Middle East; I believe there's a primordial form of what we call "atheism" to be unearthed there--I know that's pretty general, but I was wondering if anyone here on Barbelith had any thoughts about that?

(Folks tend to base they're conception of "atheism" on the European model, which is simply a reaction to religion. I believe there _may_ be a form of a similar idea that could inform an understanding of that ontological position... just a thought.)

19:09 / 08.08.07

in your research on atheism in the middle east, have you come upon anything that points towards this older atheism? i feel like i'm missing some piece of evidence that the original post alludes to...

if not, why the interest in this particular [hypothetical] atheism? i'm not trying to be snarky, just curious about what direction you're approaching this from.

19:37 / 08.08.07

well I read this article yesterday which mentions it as an enemy of the hero (YMMV).

"In the eighteenth incarnation (of Lord Krishna), the Lord appeared as King Rama. In order to perform some pleasing work for the demigods, He exhibited superhuman powers by controlling the Indian Ocean and then killing the atheist King Ravana, who was on the other side of the sea" - Srimad Bhagavatam

20:36 / 08.08.07

I think it depends on how you frame both atheism and theistic models. Part of my background has absolutely nothing to do with 'gods' really, just different sorts of people. But we were on the wrong hemisphere to get much Yahweh/Jesusing up until just a few hundred years ago, so it only becomes atheist if its about not believing in God, or gods, and not atheism if it only counts to be opposed to The One True Judeo-Christian-Muslim FatherSonSpirit and His crew of able-bodied prophets, apostles, and Maries. I score a 'yes' on both fronts, as do my ancestors, following the right lines, for a helluva ways back.

But, maybe you're just interested in the Middle Eeast-to-Europe-and-Forward-March route.

It's a question then, as well, of buying into the right branch, so if something like Moses being (likely) Tuthmosis, or the debate on whether Gabriel's horn less vestigial in the bringing of Jesus into the world than previously believed sways you, you righteous fictional Christian you, to the wrong camp, your old buddies get to point and pronounce thee athiest. The Abelites were pronounced athiests, after all, and they ostensibly believed in the Christian God, regardless of attempts to force His hand. Presumably that sort of backbiting and fingerpointing denunciation has been going one for a time.

*

02:29 / 09.08.07

It's been speculated that the Harappan civilization had no religion as we would think of it, because there's no sign of a centralized system of worship. There is no evidence of kings, of armies, or of priests. Obviously this is problematic in the extreme, since absence of a temple does not mean absence of a faith. There are statuettes that may represent gods.

09:07 / 09.08.07

There's a very interesting post here by Alas which posits that atheism itself can be seen as a extension of protestantism. I think if you want to think about atheism is to understand the specific contexts it exists in in our society and what it is reacting to (see Lurid's comment in the linked thread re. Dawkins reacting to creationists) - something which drives me mad about debating with atheists is they assume that "God" is a given, and always means the same thing across a variety of cultures. A better question might be to what extent is atheism possible in other cultures?

I believe there's a primordial form of what we call "atheism" to be unearthed there

Why do you believe this? What is your evidence and sources?

12:16 / 09.08.07

There's a very interesting post here by Alas which posits that atheism itself can be seen as a extension of protestantism.

Don't know what Diagoras of Melos would have thought about that.

Or any of a few dozen other early Greek, Hebrew, Indian, etc. atheists.

15:44 / 09.08.07

I was nervous about posting here because I don't know why I believe there is an older and more primordial form of atheism. Thanks all for your replies, very helpful. And yeah, it's great that you weren't snarky. I talk to a fair amount of hard scientists about this regularly; all our conversations are the same and too tedious to transcribe here.

Basically I think that Arab atheism, such as it is now, is a false cognate to the European variety.

As for the older form, something about the darkness that's being destroyed by Ahura Mazda -- I don't know yet. I'm at the beginning of following a hunch, just looking, broadly, for clues.

Thanks for your understanding, and your very illuminating responses.

16:53 / 09.08.07

Note: Put wrong link in earlier. Have now modified it.

17:12 / 09.08.07

Delacroix, you might want to take a look at a nifty book called Doubt.

Lots of info on early atheists and atheism worldwide from the Carvaka school to Xenophanes.

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

02:02 / 10.08.07

oswald spengler postulated in decline of the west that atheism is a reaction of essentially spiritual people to what they see as a a lack of spirituality in religious institutions.

spengler developed a theory of the morphology of history, wherein he described the stages of development in the life of a civilisation or culture, from birth through death. he described the cultures as distinct according to their time and place, however, they all follow universal pattern of being. Just like we live 70ish years, so civilisations live about 400.

at any rate, as the culture passes its zenith, and is on the decline, the institutions become more and more rigid, intellectualised, and less connected to the day-to-day experience (sound familiar?). This may be the stage at which atheism develops in reaction to a growing detachment of religious institutions from their constituents. Atheism may be early first signs of the culture to follow.

It may be that Islam has reached this stage, but I only have a superficial understanding of the history of Islam.

maybe Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun 1377 CE, also a relativistic view of history, holds better insight into Islamic civilisation.

(I've been meaning to get a hold of a copy, however our libraries are closed due to strike.)

if you give spengler's theory any credence, then atheism, in different forms, has been with us since the decline of the first civilisation.

does that help any, or only confuse things further?

11:08 / 10.08.07

Ev G, thanks for the link to Carvaka. I knew such a school existed within Hindu but had no information to offer.

13:39 / 10.08.07

The Muqaddimah is an amazing book; I'm reading an abridgement of it now. The coincidence between reason and theology is a necessary one, because the Koran isn't a miracle, according to him, except in that it was proven true by the unification of the tribes under Muhammed: but the miracles of prophets (distinct form saints) are knowable by the ANNOUNCEMENT that such-and-such an impossibility is about to take place and then the subsequent DEMONSTRATION, by Allah, of his power.

More or less.

I guess what I'm sensing is that the development of atheism in Europe, over which so much is made, was just their discovery of a principle that was already intuitive to the Arabs, and so deeply ingrained within their literature and culture that it's impossible to sense their argument against it: it's so implicit.

So irrelevant is Reason to theology that I wonder if, when atheism developed in Europe, it wasn't just Compassion disguised as Reason, to escape persecution.