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Battling the Gods

Audiobook
Nonfiction: History / Religion
Unabridged   10.25 hour(s)
Publication date: 11/10/2015

Battling the Gods

Atheism in the Ancient World

Available from major retailers or BUY FROM AMAZON
Audio CD ISBN:9781622319640
Digital Download ISBN:9781622319657

Summary

For readers of Karen Armstrong, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens: An impassioned and learned account of atheisms origins in antiquity

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Product Description

Long before the European Enlightenment and the Darwinian revolution, which we often take to mark the birth of the modern revolt against religious explanations of the world, brave people doubted the power of the gods. Religion provoked skepticism in ancient Greece, and heretics argued that history must be understood as a result of human action rather than divine intervention. They devised theories of the cosmos based on matter, and notions of matter based on atoms. They developed mathematical tools that could be applied to the world around them, and tried to understand that world in material terms. Their skepticism left a rich legacy of literature, philosophy and science, and was defended by great writers like Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero and Lucian. Tim Whitmarsh tells the story of the tension between orthodoxy and heresy with great panache, a story that ended - for the moment - with the imposition of Christianity on the Roman Empire in 313 CE.

Reviews/Praise

"James Langton's narration is fitting as his highbrow British accent and engaging tone further elevate the work's internal debates." —AudioFile

Author Bio

TIM WHITMARSH is currently the AG Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge. He has published widely on ancient prose fiction, includingNarrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance, and edited The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel.