Stone rocker, but why was your mention [that Socrates was probably an atheist] a drive-by shooting? Personally, I find the question of whether Socrates was a theist or an atheist intriguing. The Platonic Socrates talked about hearing and heeding dreams (Apology, Crito, Phaedo) and about obeying the Delphic oracle (Apology, Republic); he spilled wine to Zeus in the Symposium. Not only where Socrates stood by comparison with his fellow Athenians, but even what they understood him to be saying to them, remains indeterminate in the absence of a distinct picture of his fellow citizens' religion. Is any of the Greek character observable? No point treating it as something besides the voice of reason. Religion only came up en passant, and so I was forced to commit a journalist drive-by shooting. contains all the essential general information about the divine sign. Socrates’ views on religion were unorthodox to say the least. To poke fun at any particular custom or tradition that would be a faux pas in another light, proves little, and hardly invalidates more important matters such as the existence of god and related spiritual matters. I was just being a bit of a wise ass. Socrates almost certainly was an atheist. He is, of course, thoroughly abreast of this scholarly literature, and gives excellent annotations of alternative views, which enable one to disagree with him if one wishes. “My arguments cannot be proven, so no arguments can be proven”. was the “issue”? If so, that is a concept that would have been hard to discern by the average reader of any periodical. Is there a more timelessly comical term than “thinkery?” I suppose there is but nothing comes to mind immediately. The gods circling around Plato’s One. 3.34). One of the online commenters, somebody named “RPB2”, tries to refute the possibility that Socrates was atheist by quoting him (presumably from English translations). I had all this and more on my mind. Please try again. Actually, this idea is similar to the concept of the Demiurge, of the Platonic (and later) schools, and similar to the sub creator god Ptah of Egypt and Brahma of India. He stands out in one respect that is worth drawing attention to: He keeps himself apprised of contemporary research into Athenian religion and incorporates his research into his assessment of Socrates. But there is more to it (wink wink)” It also mimics the emotional need of the religious to create martyrs, which some atheists criticize in others. is absolutely exclusive, which is never the case when it comes to the intervention of traditional divinities" (35). You have to redefine the term “atheist” to somehow squeeze Socrates into it. You see, Andreas, you spent a lot of words in this blog post that did not clarify what you meant. However, Socrates was just as much a sensitive critic and rational reformer of both the religious tradition he inherited and the new cultic incursions he encountered. . To call Socrates a nonconformist, says Gocer, one needs much better historical information about what he would have been conforming to (123-125). Only Anaxagoras is recorded as not believing in the gods. ISSN: 1538 - 1617
I understand the need to cut something short due to the constraints of space, or the attention span of the reader, but I wonder… was your chosen sentence using the word “atheist” in the context of “godless” as the ancient Greeks saw it? Magnificent. Doesn't the divine message to a private client count as an exclusive intervention? McPherran finds that Socrates was not only a rational philosopher of the first rank, but a figure with a profoundly religious nature as well, believing in the existence of gods vastly superior to ourselves in power and wisdom and sharing other traditional religious commitments with his contemporaries. Socrates further asserts that he has been specially chosen by “the god” to persuade the people of Athens of their ignorance (23b) and that abandoning this mission would mean also abandoning his god (30a)…. Thus Socrates says in the Apology: For I do believe that there are gods and in a far higher sense than any of my accusers believe in them. And, when I do, I should remain the respectful student. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. In fact, he (or she–after all, there are no bylines in the Economist) is saying that Socrates may not have been an atheist, thereby abusing his (or her) First Amendment privelige as a journalist to promote religion by speculating, however cunningly disguised semantically, that Socrates may very well have been a man of faith. Sophia could be thought of as a goddess of wisdom, tyche (Roman fortuna) could not just mean luck but be the goddess of fortune, and so forth.