Biff the unclean

I know, that's why I corrected you.

John A. Broussard

Meletus: I mean the latter - that you are a complete atheist.

The accusation couldn't be more direct than that.

Toto

Well, yes, but this was not the accusation at trial, and Socrates rejected this as absurd, and said that the worship of the sun and moon was the common creed of all mankind.

I think that many of these ancients could be characterized as Deists.

John A. Broussard

As you wrote:

"he [Meletus] has written this indictment in a spirit of mere wantonness and youthful bravado."

I have to admit I'm unfamiliar with the intricacies of trial procedings in ancient greece, and would be hard put to distinguish an indictment from an accusation at trial. That Socrates was probably a deist by our current day definition, I would very much accept. That many in his own day--including his accusers--considered him to be an atheist, I think is the only conclusion we can arrive at from the material (mostly Plato) available on his trial.

So we're back to a definition of atheist. Did Socrates reject the gods of his own day? Yes. Does that make him an atheist????????

Thanks for the info, by the way.

Eldarion Lathria

Another nontheist was Protagoras the Agnostic. "I do not know if the gods exist or not. There are too many barriers to knowledge, including the shortness of life and the obscurity of the subject."

Eldarion Lathria

bagong

Ancient Buddhist philosophers drew a firm distinction between "spirits" (devataas) and God the Supreme Being (in the earliest Buddhist literature referred to as Brahman, later more commonly as II'shvara). They accepted the former, with the caveat that they are of no relevance to the ultimate philosophical questions, and explicitly rejected the latter. In that respect they can be fairly described as "atheist".

The earliest Buddhist philosophers proudly called themselves anattavaadin ("no-soul-ists"), not abrahmavaadin (hypothetical Pali version of "atheist"), but given that orthodox Brahmaana philosophers stressed that Aatman & Brahman were one and the same, they might as well have. In any case, the term "anattavaadin" must have had the some shocking impact and negative connotations in 5th century BC India as "atheist" has historically had in the West.

This fascinating article gives quite a thorough & technical review of Buddhist arguments against theism from the earliest times up to Dharmakiirti (famous Buddhist logician, late 6th century AD)

Dharma

Again, just like one can not use the ruler to measure volume, one cannot use the same definition of theism to measure different cultural philosophical systems.

For the "Abrahamic" systems, God is :

1) Separate being
2) This tribal God actually belongs to the Jews (Actually to only the Cohanim priests who are the real chosen ones) ]
3) God is a He
4) God is One tribal diety, all other tribal dieties exist, but do not compare with this "God of Abraham"...i.e. God is NOT universal.
5) Mankind was created to be a slave of God (story of Adam)
6) Mankind is weak and is unceremoniously kicked out of heaven, lest he know too much.

Western religious traditions add to this:
1)God is universal
2)God is all powerful
3)God is no longer a tribal diety, but it has a new "chosen" priestly tribe called the "Christians" which is open to all.
4)God is directly associated with the church.
5)God has ONE diety, Christ who communicates between three spirits (father, son, holy Ghost).
6)heaven and hell.
7)no matter how good you are, you must be a Christian to be saved...good morals are not enough.
8)God is knowable but FOREVER separate.
9) Man is evil, he needs God to be saved.

then we have the Dharma systems of thought:
1)One universal self - called Brahma for Hindus and Tao for Chinese - Monism
2)This being is the highest self of all mankind - tat tvam asi, thou art that
3) To know your true self, one must be rooted in the Truth, or Dharma or Tao.
4) Mankind is fit to know this highest truth.
5) for this to happen you simply have to be moral a good human being -- he must save himself by himself , but he can ask the help of Buddhas, Gurus, etc. those who have already done this.
6) The true nature of mankind is that he is good, but mankind forgets his true nature because of his conflicting desires.
7) Unity with this true self is returning Man to his true "celestial" nature. Divine comes from the same root as "devas" which means "shining ones".

bagong

Buddhism explicitly rejects the self (both the supreme universal one, and the banal individual one), and thus qualifies as atheist in the Indian context (as well as the Western one). This was my whole point.

I should add that many contemporary Western atheists hold views that Buddhists would describe as uccheda-di.t.t.hi (lit. "anihilation-view" i.e. the belief that no further consequences of actions will be experienced after death). This view is considered the opposite extreme of the Aatman-theory, and thus also rejected.

There's a very important sutta (DN 2) that caricatures the beliefs of other Indian atheist sects from the Buddha's time that Buddhists consider uccheda-vaadin, and perhaps more closely match modern Western atheist beliefs.

For example, Ajita Kesambalin (who was probably a Caarvaaka mentioned earlier in the thread) says:

'A person is a composite of four primary elements. At death, the earth (in the body) returns to and merges with the (external) earth-substance. The fire returns to and merges with the external fire-substance. The liquid returns to and merges with the external liquid-substance. The wind returns to and merges with the external wind-substance. The sense-faculties scatter into space. Four men, with the bier as the fifth, carry the corpse. Its eulogies are sounded only as far as the charnel ground. The bones turn pigeon-colored. The offerings end in ashes. Generosity is taught by idiots. The words of those who speak of existence after death are false, empty chatter. With the break-up of the body, the wise and the foolish alike are annihilated, destroyed. They do not exist after death.'

And we get a classic statement of the agnostic position from a certain Sañjaya Belatthaputta:

'If you ask me if there exists another world [after death], if I thought that there exists another world, would I declare that to you? I don't think so. I don't think in that way. I don't think otherwise. I don't think not. I don't think not not. If you asked me if there isn't another world... both is and isn't... neither is nor isn't... if there are beings who transmigrate... if there aren't... both are and aren't... neither are nor aren't... if the Tathagata exists after death... doesn't... both... neither exists nor exists after death, would I declare that to you? I don't think so. I don't think in that way. I don't think otherwise. I don't think not. I don't think not not.'

Peter Kirby

It is fascinating. I recently acquired the book Vadanyaya, or "The Logic of Debate," by Dharmakirti. I had plans to summarize it, but the translation is relatively poor. The first few pages are interesting, though. For example, the Indian Buddhists have different words for "a debate where two persons present different views" and "a debate where one person has a view and the other person attempts rebuttal." How useful!

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

Dharma

Well I think according to western definitions of atheism Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism would fall losely into atheism, which was my point.

If atheism simply means a-theism without the western notions of God/gods as separate "super natural", all powerful beings.



The funny thing about the Indian definitions is:

all who are not initiated in the Vedas are Nastiks (including those who follow the Bible or Quran)so it would have the same meaning/implications perhaps as "pagan" or "heathen".