Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World Contributor(s): Whitmarsh, Tim (Author) |
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ISBN: 0307948773 ISBN-13: 9780307948779 Publisher: Vintage OUR PRICE: $17.10 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2016 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Ancient - General - Philosophy | History & Surveys - General - Religion | Atheism |
Dewey: 211.809 |
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 5.2" W x 7.9" (0.60 lbs) 304 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - Ancient (To 499 A.D.) |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: How new is atheism? Although adherents and opponents alike today present it as an invention of the European Enlightenment, when the forces of science and secularism broadly challenged those of faith, disbelief in the gods, in fact, originated in a far more remote past. In Battling the Gods, Tim Whitmarsh journeys into the ancient Mediterranean, a world almost unimaginably different from our own, to recover the stories and voices of those who first refused the divinities. Whitmarsh provides a bracing antidote to our assumptions about the roots of freethinking. By shining a light on atheism's first thousand years, Battling the Gods offers a timely reminder that nonbelief has a wealth of tradition of its own, and, indeed, its own heroes. |