Top 10 Ancient Atheist Philosophers and Their Quotes
Published on February 17, 2017 at 3:00 am by JAY MARTIN
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10. Epicurus
He is one of the very first atheist writers in history. His theory is mostly inclined into ‘materialism,’ which is the view that all things are physical. For him, even the soul is made of material objects and the soul dies as the body dies. He did not believe in the afterlife, and also had something to say about “The Problem of Evil.”
“The soul cannot survive separation from the body since it is necessary to understand that it too is a part.
By itself, the soul cannot ever either exist (even though Plato and the Stoics talk a great deal of nonsense on the subject) or experience movement, just as the body does
9. Lucretius
He never denied that gods exist, but always believed that if they exist, they have nothing to do with humankind. I wonder what the gods would get up to in that scenario? Watch a lot of Morgan Freeman movies on Netflix? Lucretius is a known follower of Epicurus and also subscribed to materialism.
“This terror, then, this darkness of the mind,
Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,
But only Nature’s aspect and her law,
Which, teaching us, hath this exordium:
Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
Fear holds dominion over mortality
Only because, seeing in land and sky
So much the cause whereof no wise they know,
Men think Divinities are working there.
Meantime, when once we know from nothing still
Nothing can be created, we shall divine
More clearly what we seek: those elements
From which alone all things created are,
And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.”
8. Thales
He is an ancient Greek philosopher who also pioneered in atheism. He declared that everything originated from water and that the Earth floats on water–which just sounds nice. Given the amount of times I have seen rats climb out of a sewer puddle in the subway–he may just be right. He is one of the ancient atheist philosophers who argued that nature is a self-contained and self-sustaining system on its own–kind of like Pauly Shore in Biodome. Because Thales ruled out divine intervention in the creation of the world, he also paved the way to the beginning of Greek astronomy.
“All things are from water and all things are resolved into water.”
7. Anaximander
He was essentially the first metaphysician who argued that the origin of everything is “boundless.” He also drew a map of the world and was the first geographer. Anaximander is one of the most popular pre-Socratic philosophers who argued that the origin is boundless and the boundless has no origin. Unlike Thales, he felt that the earth floated free in the universe.
“The source from which existing things derive their existence is also that to which they return at their destruction.”
http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/top-10-ancient-atheist-philosophers-and-their-quotes-544538/2/