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Jesus was Narrow Minded

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Argument? Evidence?
He had very little knowledge of geography or anthropology, no knowledge of other cultures, alternative value systems or lifestyles, no knowledge of science or other religious or philosophical systems.
He was preaching his own values, drawn from the narrow outlook of his own Jewish tradition and its conflict with Rome.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
He had very little knowledge of geography or anthropology, no knowledge of other cultures, alternative value systems or lifestyles, no knowledge of science or other religious or philosophical systems.
He was preaching his own values, drawn from the narrow outlook of his own Jewish tradition and its conflict with Rome.

I don't think those are persuasive grounds for contending that he was "narrow-minded".

A person cannot be held responsible for the socio-cultural milieu in which they were raised. Rather, we judge the narrow-mindedness or open-mindedness of a person relative to their native background and the mainstream views of others in their given society and time.

Jesus is, therefore, not culpable for his lack of insight into 'geography' or 'anthropology' or 'alternative lifestyles' as a poor Galilean who worked as a carpenter in a Roman client state during the Second Temple era of Judaism. Nor do these factors make him closed-minded compared to his contemporaries.

If he was notably less tolerant or accepting than other Galilean or Judean Jews of the first century, then we could licitly call him narrow-minded. But, in fact, the opposite seems to have been the case, as the historical Jesus scholar E.P. Sanders explained his famous study, The Historical Figure of Jesus:


We must note one of the most interesting aspects of Jesus' ministry: he called 'sinners', and apparently he associated with them and befriended them while they were still sinners. In Matthew 1 I . 1 8f. , quoted just above, Jesus' critics accused him of this behaviour.

Jesus' did shun the company of even the worst elements of society. On the contrary, he courted it. Jesus was not given to censure but to encouragement; he was not judgemental but compassionate and lenient; he was not puritanical but joyous and celebratory...

Jesus was conscious of his differences from John, and he commented on them more than once. The prostitutes repented when John preached - not when Jesus preached. John was ascetic; Jesus ate and drank. And Jesus was a friend of tax collectors and sinners - not of former tax collectors and sinners, which is what Zacchaeus was after he met Jesus, but of tax collectors and sinners. Jesus, I think, was a good deal more radical than John.

Jesus thought that John's call to repent should have been effective, but in fact it was only partially successful. His own style was in any case different; he did not repeat the Baptist's tactics. On the contrary, he ate and drank with the wicked and told them that God especially loved them, and that the kingdom was at hand. Did he hope that they would change their ways? Probably he did. But 'change now or be destroyed' was not his message, it was John's. Jesus' was, 'God loves you'.

Jesus told the tax collectors that God loved them, and he told other people that the tax collectors would enter the kingdom of God before righteous people did.

(p.233)

I don't think that you are likely to find evidence of any other Jewish preacher of this period being so tolerant of lifestyles and of people who diverged from conventional notions of respectability and holiness.

In fact, his tolerance for the 'sinful' and ostracised 'lowlifes' of his society is likely one of the main factors that got him killed.
 
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Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
You asking me? 'Cause I'd be happy to oblige.

Sure, although I would prefer that you reference historical Jesus scholarship in doing so - rather than quoting random passages without contextualization in the era, as many - both Christians and non-Christians - often do in such debates.

Those are my terms for discussing this topic (my invitation to treat, so to speak), or any other related to Jesus or indeed any religious scripture, whether it be the Qur'an or the Vedas. Anything can be read into anything without context and scholarly expertise to back it up, which is why I nearly always reference peer-reviewed studies.

To prove Jesus was narrow-minded, one would need to demonstrate, firstly, what a given verse or phrase means in the context of the period, and then, secondly, that it is evidently less tolerant or accepting than was the norm for Galilean or Judean preachers of that time (by referencing other near-contemporary literary works, for instance, the Talmud, Josephus, Philo or the Qumran texts) or indeed for people in the Roman Empire as a whole (i.e. Aristotelians, Platonists, Stoics, Pythagoreans etc.)
 
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Thief

Rogue Theologian
some catch phrases make it difficult to agree of a lenient and receiving frame of mind

wide is the way to destruction
narrow is the gate and few find it
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
some catch phrases make it difficult to agree of a lenient and receiving frame of mind

wide is the way to destruction
narrow is the gate and few find it

But what is the context here? Was Jesus unique in using an aphorism like this or are there parallels in contemporary Jewish or Greek literature? Does it have any of the connotations in first century Judaism that moderns read into it? Can we read it as literal or is their hyperbole involved?
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
Sure, although I would prefer that you reference historical Jesus scholarship in doing so - rather than quoting random passages without contextualization in the era, as many - both Christians and non-Christians - often do in such debates.

To prove he is narrow-minded, one would need to demonstrate firstly what a given verse or phrase means in the context of the period, and then secondly that it less tolerant or accepting than was the norm for Galilean or Judean preachers of that time (by referencing other works, for instance, like the Talmud; Josephus, Philo or the Qumran texts).
I don't have to reference anything but understood/accepted "facts" about Jesus, honestly. Items which, if you are a theist of any stripes, you basically have no choice but to accept as true.

  1. Jesus believed in God and strongly advocated believing in God. There's a bit of narrow-mindedness right off the bat. He rejected every other possibility for how the universe or the world or man was formed, regardless the evidence - which I would argue he did not even have in order to be as open-minded on the topic as he certainly could have been.
  2. Jesus was against harming even your enemies. This is an extremely narrow-minded stance to take. There are situational scenarios I could describe to you that I bet you would be hard-pressed to refrain from agreeing that harm need be done to an enemy. I know I, myself, am not so closed-minded that I would put the harm of someone extremely antagonizing or harming me off the table as an option. In certain situations it could very well be entirely too risky to do so.
  3. Jesus accepted that his horrific fate was the only way to "save" mankind. This is narrow-minded to an incredible degree. The "only" way when God is so close at hand? Seriously? No appeals? No thoughts or discussions about "might there exist another way?" Just tacit acceptance?
  4. Related to the above - Jesus believed that mankind needed to be saved. Why? Is it even possible that mankind is doing alright given our nature? If not, why not? Are we sure things are as terrible as Christian theology claims? Or is it possible that we are doing about average (or better) with what one might expect from a community-minded group of creatures with above-average intelligence? Did he ever actually ask any questions like this, do you think? Or did he simply accept the dogma of "the fall" of mankind and assume that we were all just awful? Isn't believing that all human beings are sinners a bit narrow-minded? I think so.

Now, I know that from within belief held by Christians, it could be claimed that Jesus simply "knew" the above things, and therefore there was no need to question - but even that is having a mind closed to other possibilities, when forced to admit that other minds around you may not be afforded the same caliber of evidence that you have. For example, I currently understand the Earth to be spherical (oblate spheroid). However there are those that still believe the Earth is flat. If they came to me with sufficient evidence that proved their claims to be more true than the current preponderance of evidence suggests, then I could change my mind. When I debunk their claims, it is me pointing to the evidence that contradicts those claims... not me saying simply "I know the Earth is round, because I know." until I am blue in the face. And this is where Jesus' "knowledge" differs. He has no sufficient evidence to back up any of the above. No ability to demonstrate or provide evidence for God. No evidence that shows that harming enemies never results in better circumstances, or that not harming enemies results in the best of circumstances. No evidence to display that his fate was the only way to save mankind, nor any way to demonstrate the troubles mankind faced to begin with. Only assertions about "God's will" - which also can't be properly evidenced. He can, truly, only say "I know because I know." And that's simply not good enough.

Finally, if anything, Jesus should have been more open-minded about the idea of providing actual, verifiable evidence of his claims. Instead he only ever told people what they needed to believe. If that's not closed-mindedness, I don't know what is.
 
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Thief

Rogue Theologian
But what is the context here? Was Jesus unique in using an aphorism like this or are there parallels in contemporary Jewish or Greek literature? Does it have any of the connotations in first century Judaism that moderns read into it? Can we read it as literal or is their hyperbole involved?
it was noted in scripture....He taught with parable
and did not otherwise teach the crowd

His immediate followers were given some insight to the teachings

but the event of the Last Supper gave clear indication..
His followers did not really understand Him

I would offer.....His ministry displayed a focused mind and heart
holding in place and moving to intention.....a collection of motivations

To follow Him your deeds would bear resemblance
but how far can you go with that?
to follow Him your words would carry as did His
and echo in the mind and heart of they who listen
but how far will your voice carry?

much like cutting fabric for a garment
trimmed and sewn too tight......it's not yours
someone else will wear it
trimmed too loose and the wearing of it
makes the appearance you have someone else's coat
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
I don't have to reference anything but understood/accepted "facts" about Jesus, honestly. Items which, if you are a theist of any stripes, you basically have no choice but to accept as true.

We are discussing 'Jesus' - as in the Galilean Jewish preacher crucified by the Romans, about whom there is a huge body of scholarly material. I didn't think we were talking about Christian religious understanding of Jesus, or have I mistaken the intent of the OP - which made no mention of this?

I am uncertain what 'standard' you are using against which to measure the relative 'open-mindedness' or 'closed-mindedness' of Jesus. Societal value-systems are constantly evolving and developing. In early 19th century Britain, it was "open-minded" - indeed radically so - to defend the notion that Jews, Catholics and atheists should have the right to stand as members of parliament. Today, non-discrimination towards religious minorities in a representative, democratic culture is simply taken for granted - it doesn't count as "open-minded", because its just the norm.

As such, if you don't define the 'standard' against which you are judging his 'inclusiveness' or 'exclusivity', can it be anything other than an arbitrary and vacuous exercise in personal opinion?

To properly answer this question, we need to situate Jesus in the context of his competitors and contemporaries - if we hope to figure out whether he advocated overcoming certain social barriers of his era, or if he in fact was reactionary for the time in which he lived.

Jesus believed in God and strongly advocated believing in God.

What Galilean Jew didn't? Why do you suppose that he had the opportunity, in an essentially theocratic religious environment, to suggest otherwise?

In his 2017 book Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist, the atheist professor Richard Dawkins said the following:


"...Of course Jesus was a theist, but that is the least interesting thing about him. He was a theist because, in his time, everybody was. Atheism was not an option [in Judea], even for so radical a thinker as Jesus.

What was interesting and remarkable about Jesus was not the obvious fact that he believed in the God of his Jewish religion, but that he rebelled against many aspects of Yahweh’s vengeful nastiness."


You are setting up an impossible standard of expectation here, by looking back at Jesus from the vantage point of modern secular theory.

Jesus was viewed by the religious elites as a Galilean hick, a man from the backwater of Nazareth who'd worked with his hands and spoke the language of the commonfolk (as one can tell from the nature of his parables, using images of farmers and women baking bread to convey spiritual and ethical messages).

He should be understood accordingly, not subjected to anachronistic readings filtered through the lens of modernity.


Jesus was against harming even your enemies.


How terrible! In a cultural context in which Romans vilified their enemies at the frontiers of the empire as sub-human barbarians, while Jews and Samaritans saw each other as implacable ethnic foes without even attempting to understand each other's point of view, Jesus advocated loving one's enemies and treating them with kindness, indeed refraining from starting a cycle of retaliatory violence.

How closed-minded of him! And indeed of Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, who adopted similar strategies? And the Jains who taught ahimsa centuries before Jesus!

Closed-minded the lot of them!

Jesus accepted that his horrific fate was the only way to "save" mankind.

Penitential, sacrificial understandings of Jesus's death as being salvific arose in early Christian circles after his lifetime, according to the vast majority of scholars, as a means of coming to terms with the tragedy of his brutal execution. At the time, Jews did not expect a suffering messiah who would be nailed for the sins of the world - this only made any sense after the fact.

As such, there is no clear evidence that he accepted that his horrible fate was a means of "saving" mankind, or that he had harboured any notion of 'salvation' in the traditional Christian meaning of the term, as a first century Jew.

Related to the above - Jesus believed that mankind needed to be saved.

No, the early Christians did. He himself preached the coming of a utopian Kingdom of God.

Finally, if anything, Jesus should have been more open-minded about the idea providing actual, verifiable evidence of his claims. Instead he only ever told people what they needed to believe. If that's not closed-mindedness, I don't know what is.

Did he?

As Dawkins notes, Jesus didn't just "blindly" read the Torah and "rely on [Jewish] scripture, tradition, other received wisdom, and authority" (to quote your earlier points). Rather, he encouraged people to depart from the outmoded way of thinking of their ancestors and a literal interpretation of scriptural precepts, and embrace "a better way of thinking about and treating people": Matthew 5:38 - 43: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times".

He encouraged his audience to stop thinking in terms of the "received wisdom" of their ancestors, as one scholar notes:


The Sermon on the Mount


Jesus was well aware that much of what he was going to say would be in fundamental contradiction to what the masses had been taught. He recognized that there would be a chasm, an incompatibility, between the prevailing orthodoxy (either popular, clerical, or both) that they had been raised in and that which he was advocating (Mt. 9:16, for example).


Indeed, he plainly told his audience that they already possessed the ability to make their own value judgments about his ministry, and that they shouldn't look for divine signs in the heavens to validate it:


Luke 12:57

“And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?"


That is a literal Greek translation of this verse:

GRK Δια τι δε και αφ' εαυτων δεν κρινετε το δικαιον

This is not an appeal to authority or sacred writ but to common sense, conscience and rational judgement. One commentator, for instance, transliterates the meaning of this injunction as follows: "Why, even without signs, do you not judge rightly of me and of my doctrine by the natural light of reason and of conscience?" (J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 755). How else can it be read?

And this is how the Church has long understood it, as you can see from this sermon by the American revivalist preacher and Protestant theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758):


Religious Affections


Thus Christ blames the Pharisees, that they did not, even of their own selves judge what was right, without needing miracles to prove it (Luke 12:57).
 
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Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
... no knowledge of other cultures, alternative value systems or lifestyles,...

I wouldn't say that. As much as any other person in 4 BCE Israel, he would have been exposed to merchants, traders, mercenaries, Roman soldiers. His home range was at the crossroads of 3 continents: Europe, Asia and Africa. He was learned enough to read from the Torah in the synagogue when most people couldn't read at all.

He was preaching his own values, drawn from the narrow outlook of his own Jewish tradition and its conflict with Rome.

His stated and recorded mission was to call the Children of Israel, the"lost sheep" back to their relationship with God. His conflict was actually with the Jewish leadership. They saw him as someone who might bring the wrath of Rome down on Israel ("Better one man should die than the whole nation perish" - Caiaphas, the high priest). When questioned about paying taxes to Rome, he said the "give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but give to God what is God's"... i.e. pay your taxes but perform your worship.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
some catch phrases make it difficult to agree of a lenient and receiving frame of mind

wide is the way to destruction
narrow is the gate and few find it

It's not untrue. It's easier to take the easy way out than to do something that may be more painful, spiritually or physically. In Hinduism we have the Rāmāyana in which Rāma suffers great personal loss in order to do what is right for his family and country. He could have refused to go into exile in the forest, his wife Sita would never have been kidnapped, she would never have been accused of being unfaithful while being held captive, he would never have banished her to keep tongues from wagging, with the upshot being that he knew all along she remained faithful to him. They could have lived in peace and splendor for a while if he never took the hard way. But eventually at the cost of their country falling into chaos and moral decay and being overrun by an evil force.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
What Galilean Jew didn't? Why do you suppose that he had the opportunity, in an essentially theocratic religious environment, to suggest otherwise?
Really? An appeal to numbers? Are you being serious? Like any rationally thinking human, Jesus "the Galilean Jewish preacher crucified by the Romans" had the same opportunity as I do to examine the evidence of the claims of God's existence and realize that there isn't enough evidence to stand behind the claims. He had every opportunity to admit this to himself, if no one else. And instead, what did he do? Evangelize, evangelize, evangelize - without regard to the evidentiary support he, or anyone else, had. This is undeniable whether you are claiming a supernatural Jesus, or just claiming he was a man and that historical accounts are anywhere near accurate. Fact.

In his 2017 book Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist, the atheist professor Richard Dawkins said the following:
"...Of course Jesus was a theist, but that is the least interesting thing about him. He was a theist because, in his time, everybody was. Atheism was not an option [in Judea], even for so radical a thinker as Jesus.

And I disagree with Dawkins on this point. Of course Jesus had an option to think for himself. We all do. But he didn't pursue it at all. And you argue that this disproves that he was closed-minded on that point how? Furthermore, do you think the above quote from Dawkins is him claiming that Jesus wasn't closed-minded on the topic? I don't see that mentioned anywhere. This does nothing to strengthen your position - that Jesus was not closed-minded. If anything it still reinforces that Jesus didn't open his mind to other possibilities - which he, like anyone else, had every opportunity to do simply by thinking, questioning and maintaining an open mind.

You are setting up an impossible standard of expectation here, by looking back at Jesus from the vantage point of modern secular theory.
Nope, sorry, I don't grant you this point. Not by a long shot. Who then, was the first person to say "You know, this God stuff has no evidence, could be crap."? Your claim is that it was a person rooted in modernity? Is that it? What about all the times anyone ever looked at the claims of another god and rejected those? They were practicing the same form of thought... but their biases had them not making the same considerations over their own god. And so their rationality was only ever partial. Their mind's openness only ever partial.

How terrible! In a cultural context in which Romans vilified their enemies at the frontiers of the empire as sub-human barbarians, while Jews and Samaritans saw each other as implacable ethnic foes without even attempting to understand each other's point of view, Jesus advocated loving one's enemies and treating them with kindness, indeed refraining from starting a cycle of retaliatory violence.
My point was NOT that Jesus should have refrained from talking of peace between men. It was to ridicule his baseless and ridiculous assertion that this is an absolute paradigm.

How closed-minded of him! And indeed of Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, who adopted similar strategies? And the Jains who taught ahimsa centuries before Jesus!

Closed-minded the lot of them!
If they too spoke in terms of absolutes then yes... "Closed-minded the lot of them!" You seem to think you're hitting me with "gotchas." Just FYI - you can give that up at any time.

Penitential, sacrificial understandings of Jesus's death as being salvific arose in early Christian circles after his lifetime, according to the vast majority of scholars, as a means of coming to terms with the tragedy of his brutal execution.

As such, there is no clear evidence that he accepted that his horrible fate was a means of "saving" mankind, or that he had harboured any notion of 'salvation' in the traditional Christian meaning of the term, as a first century Jew.
I stand corrected then. This was not as "factual" as I would have expected of his life and stance. Can you inform me what was meant by his statement that "No man comes to the father except by me." within the context of your understanding?

No, the early Christians did. He himself preached the coming of a utopian Kingdom of God.
Again, thank you for the correction and clarification. However, I'd just like to point out again that Jesus had no rational basis to conclude that there was a "coming of a utopian Kingdom of God", and in fact, according to the record, made statements that this coming would happen within the lifetimes of some of those present at the time of the telling. That did not happen. So not only did he have no rational basis within which to conclude this - no evidentiary support whatsoever - he also turned out to be completely wrong. He certainly could have been more open to the possibility that something for which he had absolutely no evidence was possibly not going to happen. And certainly could have been more open to the idea that it wouldn't happen at his beck and call.

Did he?

As Dawkins notes, Jesus didn't just "blindly" read the Torah and "rely on [Jewish] scripture, tradition, other received wisdom, and authority" (to quote your earlier points). Rather, he encouraged people to depart from the outmoded way of thinking of their ancestors and a literal interpretation of scriptural precepts, and embrace "a better way of thinking about and treating people": Matthew 5:38 - 43: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times".

He encouraged his audience to stop thinking in terms of the "received wisdom" of their ancestors... Indeed, he plainly told his audience that they already possessed the ability to make their own value judgments about his ministry
Again, I see your point here, but he did not take it far enough... to any conclusion worth actually having. He still stopped short of the most honest position. That position being "I don't know." What is more open minded than admitting you don't know the truth? Not proclamations that the Abrahamic God is real and reachable only through yourself, that's for sure.
 
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Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Really? An appeal to numbers? Are you being serious? Like any rationally thinking human.

Contemporary understandings of rationality, agency, individualism and so on, did not exist in the form we know them today, or in some cases at all, prior to the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution.

On that basis, every pre-enlightenment thinker - including the more socially progressive ones - would have been intolerant and closed-minded.

Are we really going to condemn the first 4 millennia of recorded human history in this way? Thank god no professional intellectual historians do.

Jesus "the Galilean Jewish preacher crucified by the Romans" had the same opportunity as I do to examine the evidence of the claims of God's existence and realize that there isn't enough evidence to stand behind the claims.

Utterly untrue.

You have the hindsight of modern philosophy, the standard model in physics and the sweeping away of superstitious thought by the advent of rationalism. Jesus, and his contemporaries, didn't.

He, it is arguable and indeed there are a great many scholarly works arguing so, was a 'radical' thinker for his time and context, just as many women's rights activists arguing that they should have the vote were in 1914 but wouldn't seem at all revolutionary or progressive today, because its just the norm.

Who then, was the first person to say "You know, this God stuff has no evidence, could be crap."?

Even the most radical thinkers of the ancient Greco-Roman world, such as the Epicureans and atomists, did not actually deny the existence of the gods.

Thales - probably the most innovate of the pre-Socratics - is famous for having argued that:


  1. The magnet has a soul. (De Anima 405a19)
  2. All things are full of gods. (De Anima 411a7)

The ancients did not think as we did. Classical civilization and ancient Israel are not the contemporary West, even though they are both essential foundations of it. Thales was what he was, a bold pre-socratic philosopher who challenged conventional understanding in his day, just like Jesus challenged the conventional understanding of Second Temple Jews.

So, no - there is no justification for importing contemporary ideas onto pre-modern people and expecting them to conform to them.

I stand corrected then. This was not as "factual" as I would have expected of his life and stance. Can you inform me what was meant by his statement that "No man comes to the father except by me." within the context of your understanding?

It stems from the unique theological stance of the Johannine author of the fourth gospel which was defending the idea of Jesus's deity from criticism by other Jews and exclusion from the synagogues over including another figure in the worship owed to the One God of Israel.

No one involved in textual criticism regards this saying as going back to Jesus.

As such, we cannot hold him accountable for something he is overwhelmingly unlikely to have taught - but which rather clearly stems from the editorial, sectarian stance of a spokesman for a persecuted early Christian community writing in a different era from Jesus and in response to a different set of circumstances (synagogue exclusion, which didn't happen during Jesus's lifetime and the question of divine incarnation).

Again, thank you for the correction and clarification. However, I'd just like to point out again that Jesus had no rational basis to conclude that there was a "coming of a utopian Kingdom of God", and in fact, according to the record, made statements that this coming would happen within the lifetimes of some of those present at the time of the telling. That did not happen.

Indeed not, but again you are importing anachronistic understandings of rationality.

Eschatological beliefs were normative in his society, as normative as the idea that the planets orbit the sun in our modern heliocentric understanding. There was no way of proving miracles or divine interventions as being without basis, at this time, so a person with average or even exceptional intelligence had little or no basis upon which to reject the idea that the world could operate in this way.

There was no empiricism in the study of the physical world yet, and Jesus was a poor Jew not even educated in the limited and frequently inaccurate Greek speculative 'science' that did exist, nor would he have had any access to the works of Hero of Alexandria or other Hellenistic thinkers involved in such study, and in such a socially stratified society a colonial subject on the fringes of Roman civilisation, he would never had any opportunity to be taught such methods that would have enabled him to think in this way. That, I'm afraid, is just a fact.

And it certainly isn't a valid argument for deeming him 'narrow-minded' in his own culture
 
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A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
So, no - there is no justification for importing contemporary ideas onto pre-modern people and expecting them to conform to them.
I honestly had a feeling this was exactly what would happen. You ignored my point about the people of this time (the people of ANY time) making judgment claims about other gods they were most certainly informed of, and concluding that there was no reason to believe in them. This is the bullet that kills your argument. As stated, they had the capacity to make decisions based on evidence or lack thereof... but their biases toward their notion of "the one religion" had them stuck just like anyone who is of the same mindset in modernity.

In the end, if you want to honestly claim that there were absolutely no atheists during those early times, be my guest. I am of the strong opinion that such a notion is complete and utter crap.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
I honestly had a feeling this was exactly what would happen. You ignored my point about the people of this time (the people of ANY time) making judgment claims about other gods they were most certainly informed of, and concluding that there was no reason to believe in them. This is the bullet that kills your argument. As stated, they had the capacity to make decisions based on evidence or lack thereof... but their biases toward their notion of "the one religion" had them stuck just like anyone who is of the same mindset in modernity.

In the end, if you want to honestly claim that there were absolutely no atheists during those early times, be my guest. I am of the strong opinion that such a notion is complete and utter crap.

Even Lucretius in his Atomist On the Nature of Things, which is much respected by modern atheists, does not deny that the gods exist. He does teach that we need not be concerned that the Gods, Fate, or Fortune deprive us of control over our own lives. But he does't deny that the gods exist.

He held to the Epicurean motto: ‘God holds no fears, death no worries. Good is easily attainable, evil easily endurable.’ And this is the function Lucretius too gives them, especially in the proems to books 1, 3, 5 and 6. The gods live a supremely tranquil life in their heavenly realm and we need not concern ourselves with worshipping them as many are won't to do.

And he is the ancient thinker who most approaches 'modern' atheism. But he doesn't get there.

Again, we can only speak of 'proto-atheism' relative to the prevailing intellectual thought of the time in which he lived, which made him a radical thinker. But if we judge him by the standards of modern atheism, then he fails the test and must be viewed as a type of polytheist today.

If you wish to foist these contemporary paradigms upon ancient people, fine. But it is an extremely flawed methodology and one that doesn't have currency among the vast majority of scholars for good reason.
 
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