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Herodotus

Plutarch

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The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn

"When Alexander the Great bridged the gulf dividing Occident and Orient, the Greeks had attained to a state of maturity in the development of their national art and literature. Greek culture and civilization, passing beyond the boundaries of their national domain, crossed this bridge and spread over the Asiatic world. To perpetuate his name, the great Macedonian king founded a city, and selected for this purpose, with extraordinary prescience, a spot on the banks of the Nile, which, on account of its geographical position, was destined to become a centre, not only of international commerce and an entrepot between Asia and Europe, but also a centre of intellectual culture. The policy of Alexander to remove the barriers between the Greeks and the Asiatics, and to pave the way for the union of the races,

It was in Alexandria, founded in 332 BC where many keyastronomers either worked or studied over a period of nearly five centuries. The origin of many important discoveries and ideas that shape our thoughts about the stars can be traced to Alexandria and to the Great Library that flourished there.

The Alexandrian Library was one of the first libraries to aspire towards universality, to have a copy of every work ever written. Its huge collection, estimated at 400,000 volumes (or scrolls), enabled scholarship to flourish in many fields and aided the preservation and dissemination of many important works, such as Homer's epics and the Jewish Old Testament. The Library was begun in the third century B.C. in the kingdom of the Ptolemies in Egypt. The first Ptolemy king, Soter, is generally credited with having instigated the Library, encouraged by a student of the Aristotlean school, Demetrius of Phaleron. Soter's successors, especially his son Ptolemy II (Philadelphus) and grandson Ptolemy III (Eugertes), were also enthusiastic patrons of the Library. The demise of the Library is a sad story in which Julius Caesar and monotheism loom large.

The third and second centuries BC witnessed, in the Greek world, a scientific and technological explosion. Greek culture had reached great heights in art, literature and philosophy already in the earlier classical era, but it was in the age of Archimedes and Euclid that science as we know it was born, and gave rise to sophisticated technology that would not be seen again until the 18th century. This scientific revolution was also accompanied by great changes and a new kind of awareness in many other fields, including art and medicine.

Herodotus: the West's first historian

"If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it."

Herodotus [484 BC–ca. 425 BC]

"The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.

After this man the priests enumerated to me from a papyrus roll the names of other kings, three hundred and thirty in number; and in all these generations of men eighteen were Ethiopians, one was a woman, a native Egyptian, and the rest were men and of Egyptian race: and the name of the woman who reigned was the same as that of the Babylonian queen, namely Nitocris. Histories II, 99f Project Gutenberg

"The destiny of man is in his own soul.

I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.

"Force has no place where there is need of skill.

It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.

"Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

"Remember that with her clothes a woman puts off her modesty. "

Plutarch

Mestrius Plutarchus (Greek: Πλούταρχος; c. 46 AD - 120 AD), better known in English as Plutarch, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist.[1] Plutarch was born to a prominent family in Chaeronea, Boeotia [Greece], a town about twenty miles east of Delphi. His oeuvre consists of the Parallel Lives and the Moralia.

The remainder of Plutarch's surviving work is collected under the title of the Moralia (loosely translated as Customs and Mores). It is an eclectic collection of seventy-eight essays and transcribed speeches, which includes On Fraternal Affection - a discourse on honour and affection of siblings toward each other, On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great - an important adjunct to his Life of the great king, On the Worship of Isis and Osiris (a crucial source of information on Egyptian religious rites)^[9], along with more philosophical treatises, such as On the Decline of the Oracles, On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance, On Peace of Mind and lighter fare, such as Odysseus and Gryllus, a humorous dialogue between Homer's Odysseus and one of Circe's enchanted pigs. The Moralia was composed first, while writing the Lives occupied much of the last two decades of Plutarch's own life.

On the Malice of Herodotus

In On the Malice of Herodotus Plutarch criticizes the historian Herodotus for all manners of prejudice and misrepresentation. It has been called the “first instance in literature of the slashing review.”^[10] The 19th century English historian George Grote considered this essay a serious attack upon the works of Herodotus, and speaks of the "honourable frankness which Plutarch calls his malignity."^[11] Plutarch makes some palpable hits, catching Herodotus out in various errors, but it is also probable that it was merely a rhetorical exercise, in which Plutarch plays devil's advocate to see what could be said against so favourite and well-known a writer.^[3] According to Plutarch scholar R. H. Barrow, Herodotus’ real failing in Plutarch’s eyes was to advance any criticism at all of those states that saved Greece from Persia. “Plutarch,” he concluded, “is fanatically biased in favor of the Greek cities; they can do no wrong.”^[12]

The founder of Epicureanism was Epicurus. For him, the supreme goal in life was `pleasure' by which he meant `the absence of pain'. Epicurus advocated the virtue of ataraxia, i.e. impassiveness. He advocated the quiet life, withdrawal from the public, the cultivation of serenity. The community, he asserted, had no rights or claims over the individual, nor had the gods (who were to be treated with indifference rather than fear). Each person had to preserve his or her own peace of mind if fulfilment was to be achieved. Epicureanism was governed by Democritus' philosophy of `atomism', i.e. the theory that everything is a `fortuitous concourse of atoms'. The soul dissolves at death, and hence there is no afterlife for a man or woman to dread. What mattered in the end was this life.

If the `pleasure' principle motivated the Epicureans, then the same cannot be said for the Cynics. Cynics stressed the worthlessness of all conventional standards. Virtue, they maintained, consisted in one's capacity to reduce one's needs to a minimum. The most famous Cynic was Diogenes who is said to have lived in a barrel! Like the Stoics, Cynics were itinerant `street' preachers. They issued moralistic attacks on society which had a set form, the `diatribe'. This form is reflected in the New Testament writings (e.g. in the Pauline Epistles or the Letter of James). Links between early Christians and Cynics have recently been maintained, some scholars arguing that first-century marketplace audiences would have found little to distinguish between the message brought by Cynic preachers and that proclaimed by Christian missionaries. Some (e.g. F. G. Downing) have even claimed that Jesus was a Jewish Cynic, the often acerbic social teaching found in the Gospels bearing striking similarities to that promulgated by this philosophical school.

Milder in this respect were the Stoics, a movement founded by Zeno of Citium (c.336--263 bce). Other famous Stoics were Cleanthes, Chrysippus and Posidonius. Stoicism underwent many transformations and had a capacity to mix its philosophy with much mythology or superstition, a fact that accounted, some say, for its popularity. Stoicism saw the world as a unity or as a body whose soul, spirit, ordering principle, creative mind, intelligence -- call it what you like -- was God, the Logos (a supreme being also identified with Zeus). The divine Logos had many manifestations and could split into many creative spiritual forces. Man (the ancient world was not as gender-sensitive as we are today!), by virtue of his reason, participated in the divine Logos. Man can rise above his circumstances, the Stoics maintained, and be fulfilled, if he lives his life according to `reason'/logos, and this was interpreted as living according to nature, which reflected the divine Logos. All human life, especially as organized into society, should be governed by these laws of nature that reflect in turn the divine Intelligence. By virtue of logos, or indwelling `reason', all men were equal, an emphasis which proved attractive to the citizens of the Hellenistic world, given their predilection for cosmopolitanism. A high moral tone (if somewhat austere) was also adopted by the Stoics, and correspondences between their teaching and that of the New Testament writers have been detected in a number of passages (cf. e.g. Acts 17:28; Rom. 1:19--23, 11:36, 13:1-- 7; 1 Cor. 7:17--24, 8:6; Col. 3:18--4:1; Eph. 4:6; Jas 3:1--5).

If philosophy was the refuge of the upper and middle classes, then religion dominated the lower classes. Greek religion, the official religion of ancient Greece, was civil and corporate, communal not personal. Worship was demanded of the old gods (the gods of Homer and the Greek tragedians), the gods of Olympus, at stated times and on formal occasions at which set rites or ceremonies were performed. The purpose of these rites was to secure the favour of the gods on the community and the Empire. Not to participate was seen as an anti-social, even anti-patriotic act. Worship of these old gods declined, however, in the Hellenistic period, and for three main reasons: first, many were purely local deities associated with a particular locale (e.g. Artemis or Diana at Ephesus; Athena at Athens); second, attacks on their morals had been launched by Greek writers (e.g. Plato, Euripides, Xenophanes, Euhemerus) and, third, the mythology surrounding them was no longer meaningful and was often found unadaptable to new circumstances, especially by the middle classes.

The Sun God Helios:

the Colossus of Rhodes

A bust of the early Greek historian Herodotus, whom Plutarch criticized in On the Malice of Herodotus.

The Bible's Cain as Osirus

Cain as the oldest of Eve’s three children should correspond to Osiris, and many such correspondences exist. To begin with, like Osiris, Cain is an agricultural figure associated with fruit farming. Osiris wandered far and wide spreading his knowledge and teachings. Cain also wandered far and wide spreading his knowledge and teachings. In fact, Cain’s name is Semitic for “smith”, a craft figure, and Cain’s descendants, according to Genesis, are the founders of all the creative arts and sciences.

In Theban tradition, Osiris built Thebes, which was the first city. According to Genesis, Cain also built the first city. He built it in a land called Nod. Curiously, the bible refers to the city of Thebes by the name “No”, a rather close philological fit with “Nod”.

Finally, although we noted the anomaly of having Cain, the Osiris character, kill his brother instead of having the brother corresponding to Set do the killing, we do note that in both the Egyptian and biblical stories, we appear to have the story of the first murder and in each instance the killer buries the body and hides it from view, in the hope that no one will discover it. [more]

Mary_Magdalene

both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as a devoted disciple of Jesus. She is considered by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches to be a saint, with a feast day of July 22. She is also commemorated by the Lutheran Church with a festival on the same day. The Orthodox Church also commemorates her on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers, which is the second Sunday after Pascha (Easter).

Mary Magdalene's name identifies her as being "of Magdala" — the town she came from, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee Mary Magdalene is often referred to as a prostitute, but she was never called one in the New Testament. Mary Magdalene is honored as one of the first witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus, and received a special commission from him to tell the Apostles of his resurrection (John 20:11–18 Because of this, and because of her subsequent missionary activity in spreading the Gospel, she is known by the title, "Equal of the Apostles."

The French tradition of Saint Lazare of Bethany is that Mary, her brother Lazarus, and Maximinus, one of the Seventy Disciples and some companions, expelled by persecutions from the Holy Land, traversed the Mediterranean in a frail boat with neither rudder nor mast and landed at the place called Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer near Arles. Mary Magdalene came to Marseille and converted the whole of Provence. Magdalene is said to have retired to a cave on a hill by Marseille, La Sainte-Baume ("holy cave", baumo in Provencal), where she gave herself up to a life of penance for thirty years. When the time of her death arrived she was carried by angels to Aix and into the oratory of Saint Maximinus, where she received the viaticum; her body was then laid in an oratory constructed by St. Maximinus at Villa Lata, afterwards called St. Maximin.

In 1279, when Charles II, King of Naples, erected a Dominican convent at La Sainte-Baume, the shrine was found intact, with an explanatory inscription stating why the relics had been hidden.

In 1600, the relics were placed in a sarcophagus commissioned by Pope Clement VIII, the head being placed in a separate reliquary. The relics and free-standing images were scattered and destroyed at the Revolution. In 1814, the church of La Sainte-Baume, also wrecked during the Revolution, was restored, and, in 1822, the grotto was consecrated afresh. The head of the saint now lies there and has been the centre of many pilgrimages.

Other religions, especially Christian Mysticism and many New Age faiths, venerate Mary Magdalene as the Bride of Christ, an avatar of Sophia, and even the Co-Messiah with Jesus Christ, or simply combine all three. A group of scholars, he most familiar of whom is Elaine Pagels, have suggested that for one early group of Christians Mary Magdalene was a leader of the early Church and maybe even the unidentified Beloved Disciple, to whom the Fourth Gospel commonly called Gospel of John is ascribed. Further attestation of Mary of Magdala and her role among some early Christians is provided by the gnostic, apocryphal Gospel of Mary Magdalene which survives in two 3rd century Greek fragments and a longer 5th century translation into Coptic.

Karen King of Harvard Divinity School has observed, "The confrontation of Mary with Peter, a scenario also found in The Gospel of Thomas, Pistis Sophia, and The Greek Gospel of the Egyptians, reflects some of the tensions in second-century Christianity. Peter and Andrew represent orthodox positions that deny the validity of esoteric revelation and reject the authority of women to teach." (introduction, The Nag Hammadi Library) Mary Magdalene appears with more frequency than other women in the canonical Gospels and is shown as being a close follower of Jesus. Mary's presence at the Crucifixion and Jesus' tomb, while hardly conclusive, is at least consistent with the role of grieving wife and widow. The idea that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus was popularized by books like The Jesus Scroll (1972), Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1982), The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991), The Woman with the Alabaster Jar (1993), Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus Revealed (1996), and The Da Vinci Code (2003)

Jefferson_Bible

Fathers of NeoPlatonism

Ammonius Saccas (birth unknown death ca. 265 AD) is a founder of Neoplatonism and the teacher of Plotinus. Little is known of the teacher other than both Christians (see Eusebius, Jerome, and Origen) and pagans (see Porphyry and Plotinus) claim him a teacher and founder of the Neoplatonic system. Porphyry stated in On the One School of Plato and Aristotle, that Ammonius' view was that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle were in harmony. Eusebius and Jerome claimed him as a Christian until his death, whereas Porphyry claimed he had renounced Christianity and embrace pagan philosophy.

Plotinus

Plotinus (Greek: Πλωτῖνος) (ca. 205–270) was a major Egyptian^[4] philosopher of the ancient world who is widely considered the father of Neoplatonism. Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads. While he was himself influenced by the teachings of classical Greek, Persian and Indian philosophy and Egyptian theology,^[5] his metaphysical writings later inspired numerous Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics over the centuries. Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity or distinction; likewise it is beyond all categories of being and non-being. The concept of "being" is derived by us from the objects of human experience, and is an attribute of such objects, but the infinite, transcendent One is beyond all such objects, and therefore is beyond the concepts that we derive from them. The One "cannot be any existing thing", and cannot be merely the sum of all such things (compare the Stoic doctrine of disbelief in non-material existence), but "is prior to all existents".

Porphyry

Porphyry (Greek: Πορφύριος, c. A.D. 233– c. 309) was a Syrian^[4] Neoplatonist philosopher. He wrote widely on astrology, religion, philosophy, and musical theory. He produced a biography of his teacher, Plotinus. He is important in the history of mathematics because of his Life of Pythagoras, and his commentary on Euclid's Elements which was used by Pappus when he wrote his own commentary. [1] Porphyry is also known as an opponent of Christianity and defender of Paganism; of his Adversus Christianos (Against the Christians) in 15 books, only fragments remain. He famously said, "The Gods have proclaimed Christ to have been most pious, but the Christians are a confused and vicious sect."

Iamblichus

Iamblichus, also known as Iamblichus Chalcidensis, (ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek: Ιάμβλιχος) was a Syrian^[4] neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western philosophical religions themselves. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy. In Iamblichus' system the realm of divinities stretched from the original One down to material nature itself, where soul in fact descended into matter and became "embodied" as human beings. The world is thus peopled by a crowd of superhuman beings influencing natural events and possessing and communicating knowledge of the future, and who are all accessible to prayers and offerings. Iamblichus had salvation as his final goal (see henosis). The embodied soul was to return to divinity by performing certain rites, or theurgy, literally, 'divine-working'. Some translate this as "magic", but the modern connotations of the term do not exactly match what Iamblichus had in mind, which is more along the lines of religious ritual.

Proclus

Proclus Lycaeus (February 8, 412 – April 17, 485), surnamed "The Successor" or "diadochos" (Greek Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος Próklos ho Diádokhos), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major Greek philosophers (see Damascius). His set forth one of the most elaborate, complex, and fully developed Neoplatonic systems. The particular characteristic of Proclus' system is his insertion of a level of individual ones, called henads between the One itself and the divine Intellect, which is the second principle. The henads are beyond being, like the One itself, but they stand at the head of chains of causation (seirai or taxeis) and in some manner give to these chains their particular character. They are also identified with the traditional Greek gods, so one henad might be Apollo and be the cause of all things apollonian, while another might be Helios and be the cause of all sunny things. The henads serve both to protect the One itself from any hint of multiplicity, and to draw up the rest of the universe towards the One, by being a connecting, intermediate stage between absolute unity and determinate multiplicity.

Neoplatonism, Gnosticism & Atheism

The idea that genuine knowledge requires us to penetrate the veils of illusion goes back two and a half millennium to Plato. How we can make any sense of the famous Myth of the Cave, which seems to identify reality with the unchanging and the eternal.

Gnosticism is a term created by modern scholars to describe a collection of religious groups, many of which thought of themselves as Christians, which were active in the first few centuries AD.^[1] There has been considerable scholarly controversy about exactly which groups to describe with this term. Sometimes it is used narrowly to refer only to religious groups such as Sethians and Archontics who may have used it as a self-designation. Sometimes it is used a little more broadly to include groups similar to Sethians, or influenced by them such as followers of Basilides or Valentinius and later the Paulicians. Sometimes it is even used broadly enough to cover all groups which heavily emphasized gnosis, in which case it would probably include Hermetics and Neoplatonists as well. One distinct, if questionable, attempt to define Gnosticism since Nag Hammadi has been to limit it to groups that used the term gnostikoi, even though early Platonists and Ebionites also used the term and are not considered to be Gnostics.

Contention

Scholarship on Gnosticism has been greatly advanced by the discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi texts, which shed light on some of the more puzzling comments by Plotinus and Porphyry on the Gnostics. More importantly, the texts help to distinguish different kinds of early Gnostics. It now seems clear that "Sethian" and "Valentinian"^[2] gnostics attempted "an effort towards conciliation, even affiliation" with late antique philosophy ^[3], and were rebuffed by some Neoplatonists, including Plotinus. Plotinus considered his opponents "heretics"^[4],"imbeciles" and "blasphemers" ^[5] taking all their truths over from Plato^[6]. Coupled with the idea expressed by Plotinus that the approach to the infinite energy which is the One or Monad can not be though knowing or not knowing. ^[7]^[8] Although there has been dispute as to which gnostics Plotinus was referring to it appears they were indeed Sethian.

Neoplatonists

Plotinus (Greek: Πλωτῖνος) (ca. AD 205–270) was a major philosopher of the ancient world who is widely considered the father of Neoplatonism. Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads. His metaphysical writings have inspired centuries of Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics.

Christopher Hitchens

Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair and author of the book, "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everythin

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has — from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

The sharp-tongued British-born critic and provocateur called Mother Theresa "the Ghoul of Calcutta." He was early and loud in denouncing "Islamic fascism."
He documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix. He was named one of the world’s “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” by Foreign Policy and Britain’s Prospect. Christopher Hitchens lives in Washington, D.C. and became an American citizen. in 2007

"That's part of what I'm criticizing in this book -- the presumption that faith is a virtue." Christopher Hitchens

"It's only in the United States that there's a constitution that separates the church from the state." Christopher Hitchens

"It's part of a change in the zeitgeist. I think there're a lot of people, very great number of people ... who are fed up with religious bullying and coercion and clerical lecturing and with the damage being done to civilization by faith. They want to find a way of pushing back at it." Christopher Hitchens

"Religion comes from the terrified infancy of our species. ... [It] is innately coercive as well as innately incoherent. Because it's man-made, there's an infinite variety of it for them all, and these sects proceed to quarrel among themselves, religious warfare having being one of the great retardances of civilization of the time we've been alive and very much to this day." Christopher Hitchens

"You can believe in God, be a deist, as Thomas Jefferson was for example, ... but not believe in religion. ... Religion means that you claim that you know God's mind." Christopher Hitchens

"I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful."

I leave it to the faithful to burn each other’s churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can always be relied upon to do. When I go to the mosque, I take off my shoes. When I go to the synagogue, I cover my head.

Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.

Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, Season 3, Episode 5: "Holier Than Thou" {2005-05-23}

I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator — that's beyond my conceit. I therefore have no choice but to find something suspect even in the humblest believer. Even the most humane and compassionate of the monotheisms and polytheisms are complicit in this quiet and irrational authoritarianism: they proclaim us, in Fulke Greville's unforgettable line, "Created sick — Commanded to be well." And there are totalitarian insinuations to back this up if its appeal should fail. Christians, for example, declare me redeemed by a human sacrifice that occurred thousands of years before I was born. I didn't ask for it, and would willingly have foregone it, but there it is: I'm claimed and saved whether I wish it or not. And if I refuse the unsolicited gift? Well, there are still some vague mutterings about an eternity of torment for my ingratitude. That is somewhat worse than a Big Brother state, because there could be no hope of its eventually passing away.

In any case, I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There's no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man's debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves.

You can see the same immorality or amorality in the Christian view of guilt and punishment. There are only two texts, both of them extreme and mutually contradictory. The Old Testament injunction is the one to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (it occurs in a passage of perfectly demented detail about the exact rules governing mutual ox-goring; you should look it up in its context [Exodus 21]). The second is from the Gospels and says that only those without sin should cast the first stone. The first is a moral basis for capital punishment and other barbarities; the second is so relativistic and "nonjudgmental" that it would not allow the prosecution of Charles Manson. Our few notions of justice have had to evolve despite these absurd codes of ultra vindictiveness and ultracompassion.

Judaism has some advantages over Christianity in that, for example, it does not proselytise — except among Jews — and it does not make the cretinous mistake of saying that the Messiah has already made his appearance. However, along with Islam and Christianity, it does insist that some turgid and contradictory and sometimes evil and mad texts, obviously written by fairly unexceptional humans, are in fact the word of god. I think that the indispensible condition of any intellectual liberty is the realisation that there is no such thing.

"Homer, Ovid, Horace, and Virgil treat complex ethical conflicts better than the Old and New Testament."

"Hitchens talks about all the evil 'religion' does but has no arguments against my god"

Reverend Al Sharpton

I liked and enjoyed this book, and recommend it to anybody who is interested in the subject. Like everything Christopher writes, it is often elegant, frequently witty and never stupid or boring.

I also think it is wrong, mostly in the way that it blames faith for so many bad things and gives it no credit for any of the good it may have done. I think it misunderstands religious people and their aims and desires...

It is astonishing, in one so set against the idea of design or authority in the universe, how often he appeals to mysterious intuitions and "innate" knowledge of this kind, and uses religious language such as "awesome" – in awe of whom or what?

Or "mysterious". What is the mystery, if all is explained by science, the telescope and the microscope? He even refers to "conscience" and makes frequent thunderous denunciations of various evil actions. .........

He even suggests that the atheist Soviet tyranny was itself a form of religion. You can’t win against this sort of circular absolutism. Yet he has this absurdly backwards. Religious and unbelieving people have both done dreadful things, and the worst of them have committed their murders and their tortures in the belief that they were doing good.

Nothing is proved by either side in this argument, by pointing to the mountains of skulls piled up by evil atheists, and evil theists. What they have in common is that they are human, and capable of the sin of pride.....

We are in the process – encouraged by Christopher – of abolishing religion, and so of abolishing conscience, too.

It is one of his favourite jibes that a world ruled by faith is like North Korea, a place where all is known and all is ordered.

On the contrary, North Korea is the precise opposite of a land governed by conscience.

It is a country governed by men who do not believe in God or conscience, where nobody can be trusted to make his own choices, and where the State decides for the people what is right and what is wrong.

And it is the ultimate destination of atheist thought.

PETER HITCHENS [brother of Christopher]

He is also occasionally guilty of crassness. For example: “In the very recent past we have seen the Church of Rome befouled by its complicity in the unpardonable sin of child rape, or as it might be phrased in Latin form, no child's behind left.” Hitchens squanders a lot of trust with that vulgar lapse: readers suddenly catch sight of him chortling at his desk and it’s not pretty, or funny, and it impugns his seriousness elsewhere.

Matt Buchanan, in the course of an otherwise rave review in the Sydney Morning Herald

"Do yourself a favor and skip the Dawkins and Harris; they're smug, turgid, and boring, with all the human feeling of a tax return. Read Hitchens instead. Test your faith severely or find a champion for your feelings, but read Hitchens. It's a tendentious delight, a caustic and even brilliant book. And with the title alone, he takes his life in his hands, which right there has got to be some proof of his thesis. And so, thank God for Christopher Hitchens."

—Esquire

Richard Dawkins review of the Chris Hitchens book tour on timesonline.co.uk

YouTube - Christopher Hitchens -- Religion

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens

“Hitchens vs. Hitchens” by Peter Hitchens, a response by Christopher’s brother
“Fighting Atheist” by William Placher
“This Book is Not Good” by Eugene McCarraher

At the same time, there is probably no atheist (be it a Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or Hindu atheist) who has never wondered about whether there is more beyond us. Or even just a question mark. Philosophical discussions between believers and unbelievers have never been more necessary than now when religion is being used so terribly as a pretext (or cause?) for violence. Hitchens's book reminds us that for such discussions to take place, there has to be some disarmament on both sides. The members of the religious camp have to cease treating secularists as less moral than themselves—the atheists have to stop thinking that believers are less intelligent.

"Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends and astronomy begins."
--- Christopher Hutchins

richarddawkins.net

A Web site of "atheist celebrities" lists, among others, Woody Allen, Richard Avedon, Marlon Brando, Jodie Foster, Jack Germond, Christopher Hitchens, Jack Nicholson, Penn and Teller, and Gore Vidal.

Agnostic

An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. … The agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or denial.

What would Jesus Do?

Jesus Without The Miracles

Thomas Jefferson's Bible and the Gospel of Thomas

ERIK REECE / Harper's Magazine v.311, n.1867 1dec2005

The of Gospel of Thomas presents a portrait of Jesus so at odds with the canonical Gospels, if one wants to argue, as I do, for the primacy of this version of Christianity, then one must date Thomas closer to its source—the talking Jesus—than any of the other four Gospels.

it is time we inverted Pascal's famous wager to say not that we should believe in heaven because we have nothing to lose but rather that we should believe first in this world, because in losing it we may lose everything. And if we can somehow live justly, modestly, with generosity and compassion, we have everything to gain. Perhaps we do not have to wait for the kingdom of God.
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Perhaps no figure in biblical scholarship has been the subject of more controversy and debate than Mary Magdalene. Also known as Miriam of Magdala Mary Magdalene was considered by the apostle John to be the founder of Christianity because she was the first witness to the Resurrection. In most theological studies she has been depicted as a reformed prostitute the redeemed sinner who exemplifies Christ's mercy.

During a recent ecumenical gathering, a secretary rushed in shouting, "The building is on fire!"
The METHODISTS gathered in the corner and prayed.
The BAPTISTS cried, "Where is the water?"
The QUAKERS quietly praised God for the blessings that fire brings.
The LUTHERANS posted a notice on the door declaring the fire was evil.
The ROMAN CATHOLICS passed the plate to cover the damage.
The JEWS posted symbols on the doors hoping the fire would pass.
The FUNDAMENTALISTS proclaimed, "It's the vengeance of God!"
The EPISCOPALIANS formed a procession and marched out.
The CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS concluded there was no fire.
The PRESBYTERIANS appointed a chairperson who was to appoint a committee to look into the matter and submit a report.
AND the UNITARIANS shouted "everyman for himself"

3rd Century BC

Zeno of Citium (c. 334-262 BC), Founder of the Stoic school in Athens (c. 300 BC).
Persaeus (306-243 BC), Pupil and friend of Zeno.
Aratus of Soli (c. 315-c. 245 BC), Pupil of Zeno and poet.
Aristo of Chios (c. 310-c. 240 BC), Pupil of Zeno, leaned towards Cynicism.
Apollophanes of Antioch (fl. 250 BC), Stoic philosopher, friend of Aristo of Chios.
Dionysius the Renegade (c. 325-c. 250 BC), Pupil of Zeno who became a Cyrenaic.
Sphaerus (c. 285-c. 210 BC), Pupil of Zeno. Moved to Sparta and Alexandria.
Herillus of Carthage (fl. 250 BC), Pupil of Zeno, who held that knowledge was the highest good.
Cleanthes (of Assos) (331-232 BC), Second leader of the Stoic school.
Eratosthenes (of Cyrene) (fl. 225 BC), Pupil of Aristo. Chief librarian at Alexandria.
Hermagoras of Amphipolis (fl. c. 225 BC), Stoic philosopher and follower of Persaeus of Citium,.
Chrysippus (of Soli) (c. 280-c. 206 BC), Third leader of the Stoic school. Wrote 705 books.
Boethus of Sidon (fl. 225 BC), Contemporary of Chrysippus.
Dioscorides (Stoic) (fl. 225 BC), Pupil of Chrysippus. Father of Zeno of Tarsus.
Aristocreon (fl. 210 BC), Nephew of Chrysippus.

2nd Century BC

Zeno of Tarsus (fl. 200 BC), Fourth leader of the Stoic school.
Basilides (Stoic) (fl. uncertain), Extreme monist.
Eudromus (fl. uncertain), Stoic who wrote a book called "Elements of Ethics".
Crates of Mallus (fl. 175 BC), Grammarian. Head of the library at Pergamon.
Diogenes of Babylon (c. 230-c. 150 BC), Fifth leader of the Stoic school.
Zenodotus (Stoic) (fl. 150 BC), A pupil of Diogenes of Babylon.
Apollodorus of Seleucia (fl. 150 BC), Pupil of Diogenes of Babylon.
Antipater of Tarsus (c. 200-129 BC), Sixth leader of the Stoic school.
Apollodorus of Athens (fl. 150 BC), Historian. Pupil of Diogenes and Antipater of Tarsus.
Archedemus of Tarsus (fl. 140 BC), Founded a Stoic school at Babylon.
Panaetius (of Rhodes) (185-109 BC), Seventh leader of the Stoic school.
Polemon of Athens (fl. 150 BC), Geographer, follower of Panaetius.
Marcus Vigellius (fl. 125 BC), Stoic who lived with Panaetius.
Heraclides of Tarsus (fl. 125 BC), Pupil of Antipater of Tarsus.
Dardanus (c. 160-c. 90 BC), Leading figure in the Stoic school in Athens.
Mnesarchus (c. 160-c. 90 BC), Leading figure in the Stoic school in Athens.
Publius Rutilius Rufus (158-c. 75 BC), Statesman, orator and historian. Pupil of Panaetius.
Stilo (c. 154-74 BC), Grammarian and scholar.
Dionysius of Cyrene (fl. c. 125 BC), Leading figure in the Stoic school in Athens.
Quintus Lucilius Balbus (fl. c. 125 BC), Stoic philosopher, and a pupil of Panaetius.
Hecato of Rhodes (fl. 100 BC), Pupil of Panaetius, wrote about ethics.
Diotimus the Stoic (fl. 100 BC), Stoic who slandered Epicurus.

1st Century BC

Posidonius (of Apamea) (c. 135-51 BC), Stoic philosopher, astronomer, and geographer.
Crinis (fl. uncertain), Stoic who wrote about logic.
Proclus of Mallus (fl. uncertain), Stoic philosopher and writer.
Diodotus the Stoic (c. 130-59 BC), Stoic teacher of Cicero who lived in Cicero's house.
Geminus of Rhodes (c. 110-c. 40 BC), Astronomer and mathematician.
Athenodoros Cordylion (c. 130-60 BC), Librarian at Pergamon, lived with Cato.
Apollonius of Tyre (stoic) (fl. 60 BC), Stoic philosopher who wrote a biography of Zeno.
Cato the Younger (95-46 BC), Statesman who opposed Julius Caesar.
Antipater of Tyre (c. 100-45 BC), Friend of Cato. Wrote about practical ethics.
Apollonides (fl. 50 BC), Stoic philosopher whom Cato consulted before committing suicide.
Jason of Nysa (fl. 50 BC), Grandson of Posidonius.
Athenodoros Cananites (c. 74 BC-7 AD), Pupil of Posidonius. Teacher of Augustus.
Stertinius (Stoic) (fl. 50 BC), Philosopher satirised by the poet Horace.
Quintus Sextius (fl. 40 BC), Set up a school teaching Stoicism mixed with Pythagoreanism.
Arius Didymus (of Alexandria) (fl. 10 BC), Collected excerpts from earlier Stoic writers.

1st Century AD

Theon of Alexandria (fl. 10 AD), Stoic philosopher.
Attalus (Stoic) (fl. 25 AD), Stoic philosopher frequently visited by Seneca.
Papirius Fabianus (fl. 30 AD), Teacher of Seneca. Rhetorician and philosopher.
Julius Canus (fl. 30 AD), Stoic philosopher condemned to death by Caligula.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD), Statesman, philosopher, and playwright.
Thrasea Paetus (c. 10 AD-66 AD), Roman senator and Stoic.
Lucius Annaeus Cornutus (c. 20-c. 70 AD), Stoic teacher who wrote a Compendium of Greek Theology.
Chaeremon of Alexandria (fl. 50 AD), Stoic philosopher and grammarian. Librarian at Alexandria.
Paconius Agrippinus (fl. 60 AD), Stoic philosopher spoken of with praise by Epictetus.
Heliodorus (Stoic) (fl. 60 AD), Stoic philosopher. Informer in the reign of Nero.
Publius Egnatius Celer (fl. 60 AD), Stoic philosopher. Informer in the reign of Nero.
Helvidius Priscus (fl. 65 AD), Stoic philosopher and statesman.
Arulenus Rusticus (c. 30-93 AD), Statesman. Friend and pupil of Thrasea Paetus.
Musonius Rufus (c. 25-c. 90 AD), Stoic teacher and writer.
Euphrates the Stoic (c. 35-118 AD), Philosopher, orator and pupil of Musonius Rufus.

2nd Century AD

Cleomedes (fl. uncertain), Astronomer who lived later than Posidonius.
Epictetus (of Hierapolis) (c. 55-c. 135 AD), Philosopher, pupil of Musonius Rufus.
Hierocles (Stoic) (fl. 150 AD), Philosopher, wrote "Elements of Ethics".
Flavius Arrianus (c. 90-175 AD), Historian and pupil of Epictetus.
Basileides of Scythopolis (fl. 150 AD), Stoic teacher of Lucius Verus.
Apollonius of Chalcedon (fl. 150 AD), Stoic teacher of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
Claudius Maximus (fl. 150 AD), Stoic philosopher and friend of Marcus Aurelius.
Cinna Catulus (fl. 150 AD), Stoic teacher of Marcus Aurelius.
Sextus of Chaeronea (fl. 160 AD), Stoic philosopher and teacher of Marcus Aurelius.
Junius Rusticus (c. 100-c. 170 AD), Philosopher and Consul. Adviser of Marcus Aurelius.
Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), Roman Emperor from 161-180 AD.

Stoicism @ plato.stanford.edu

The works two of the later Roman Stoics are available as e-texts:

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Epictetus, Discourses and Enchiridion

To live in harmony with nature and the universe is to live the good life. Our highest human nature – is as essentially rational, reflective and thoughtful beings – these are manifestations of the one universal spirit. A Stoics should live in brotherly love and readily help one another

Stoic ethics taught freedom from passion by following reason. But the Stoics did not seek to extinguish emotions, only to avoid emotional troubles by developing clear judgment and inner calm through diligent practice of logic, reflection, and concentration.

Stoic philosophy is often contrasted with Epicureanism. Christianity shares many concepts with Stoicism while rejecting other major tenets

The Stoics provided a unified account of the world, consisting of formal logic, materialistic physics and naturalistic ethics. God is known called ‘fate.’ It is important to realise that the Stoic God does not craft its world in accordance with its plan from the outside, as the demiurge in Plato's Timaeus is described as doing. Rather, the history of the universe is determined by God's activity internal to it, shaping it with its differentiated characteristics. The biological conception of God as a kind of living heat or seed from which things grow seems to be fully intended.

Later Roman Stoics focused on promoting a life in harmony within the universe, over which one has no direct control. Seneca and Epictetus, emphasise the doctrines (already central to the early Stoics' teachings) that the sage is utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Stoicism became the foremost popular philosophy among the educated elite in the Greco-Roman Empire.

Criticisms of the Stoic theory of the passions in antiquity focused on the wisdom of emotions. The first was a Platonic view asking whether the passions were, in fact, activities of the rational soul. The Aristotelian tradition while making judgment a component in emotions, argued that the happy life required the moderation of the passions, not their complete extinction

Modern philosophy, contrary to original Stoicism, often associates Stoicism with determinism, as opposed to the Arminian doctrine of free will.

Stoicism as a philosophical movement in its own right nearly disappears after the second century although its influence among key thinkers continued.

A primary aspect of Stoicism involves improving the individual’s spiritual well-being: "Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature." This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy", and to accept even slaves as "equals of other men, because all alike are sons of God."

Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason (logos) . Stoicism's prime directives are virtue, reason, and natural law. Stoics believe that, by mastering passions and emotions, it is possible to find equilibrium in oneself and in the world.

Stoicism first appeared in Athens in the

Zeno of Citium

born about 336 B.C., at Citium on the island of Cyprus; Zeno dies about 254. He seems to have followed his father in commercial activity. Coming to Athens, he learned philosophy and became a disciple of Crates the Cynic.

Hellenistic period around 301 BC and was introduced by Zeno of Citium. He taught in the famous Stoa Poikile (the painted porch) in the Agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the members of the school congregated, and their lectures were held. Central to his teachings was the law of morality being the same as nature. During its initial phase, Stoicism was generally seen as a back-to-nature movement critical of superstitions and taboos. The philosophical detachment also encompassed pain and misfortune, good or bad experiences, as well as life or death. Zeno often challenged prohibitions, traditions and customs. Another tenet was the emphasis placed on love for all other beings.

Zeno's ideas developed from those of the Cynics, whose founding father, Antisthenes, had been a disciple of Socrates. Zeno's most influential follower was Chrysippus, who was responsible for the molding of what we now call Stoicism. Borrowing from the Cynics, the foundation of Stoic ethics is that good lies in the state of the soul itself; in wisdom and self-control. Stoic ethics stressed the rule: "Follow where reason leads." One must therefore strive to be free of the passions, bearing in mind that the ancient meaning of passion was "anguish" or "suffering", that is, "passively" reacting to external events — somewhat different to the modern use of the word.

God is not separate from the world; He is the soul of the world, and each of us contains a part of the Divine Fire. All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. In one sense, every life is in harmony with Nature, since it is such as Nature’s laws have caused it to be; but in another sense a human life is only in harmony with Nature when the individual will is directed to ends which are among those of Nature. Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature. The wicked, though perforce they obey God’s law, do so involuntarily; in the simile of Cleanthes, they are like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes. In the life of an individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no account. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man’s life depends only upon himself. He may be poor, but what of it? He can still be virtuous. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Other men have power only over externals; virtue, which alone is truly good, rests entirely with the individual. Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires.