Was Greek Thought Religious

The Greeks are on trial. They have been for generations, if not millennia, from Rome in the First century, to Romanticism in the Nineteenth. We debate the place of the Greeks in the university curriculum, in New World culture - we even debate the place of the Greeks in the European Union. This book notices the lingering and half-hidden presence of the Greeks in some strange places - everywhere from the U.S. Supreme Court to the Modern Olympic Games - and in doing so makes an important new contribution to a very old debate.

A study of how Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers described, interpreted, criticized, and utilized the components and concepts of the religion of the people of their time. These include practices such as sacrifice, prayer, dedications, and divination, and the governing concepts of piety and impiety.

Ever since Vlastos’ “Theology and Philosophy in Early Greek Thought,” scholars have known that a consideration of ancient philosophy without attention to its theological, cosmological and soteriological dimensions remains onesided. Yet, philosophers continue to discuss thinkers such as Parmenides and Plato without knowledge of their debt to the archaic religious traditions. Perhaps our own religious prejudices allow us to see only a “polis religion” in Greek religion, while our modern philosophical openness and emphasis on reason induce us to rehabilitate ancient philosophy by what we consider the highest standard of knowledge: proper argumentation. Yet, it is possible to see ancient philosophy as operating according to a different system of meaning, a different “logic.” Such a different sense of logic operates in myth and other narratives, where the argument is neither completely illogical nor rational in the positivist sense. The articles in this volume undertake a critical engagement with this unspoken legacy of Greek religion. The aim of the volume as a whole is to show how, beyond the formalities and fallacies of arguments, something more profound is at stake in ancient philosophy: the salvation of the philosopher-initiate.

On the synthesis of faith and rational philosophy.

"The Religious Thought of the Greeks" by Clifford Herschel Moore. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Provides a comprehensive account of the socio-political role Aristotle attributes to traditional religion, despite rejecting its content.

This insightful book brings profound new insights to the Trinitarian doctrines of “orthodox” Christianity. With clear and precise documentation, the book shows how these doctrines migrated into early Christianity from Greek philosophy. The various aspects of Trinitarian belief are isolated, linked to their Greek sources, and carefully analyzed to show they differ radically from biblical teaching. The Writings of early Church Fathers, portrayed in their historical context, show that during the second century, theological concepts taught in Platonism were adopted as Christianity struggled to end Roman persecution. Emperor Marcus Aurelius, a famous Stoic philosopher, was putting Christians to death because their belief did not conform to the Hellenized religion of the day. The book shows that the early church fathers sought to save their people’s lives by redefining the Christian God in Greek terms. Their efforts brought metaphysics to Christianity and ushered in concepts like the Trinity. After presenting the historical setting in which these philosophical errors were embraced as Christian doctrine, the book compares orthodox Christian theology today, called “classical theism,” to biblical teachings. The book identifies how Greek philosophy has influenced major attributes of God taught in classical theism. The book constitutes a major challenge to those who accept the tenants of classical theism but do not know the many aspects of their doctrine that are based on Greek philosophy.

The relationship between religion, social structures and political institutions has always played a fundamental role in human societies. This collection of essays aims to explore possible ways in which philosophical conceptualizations of god, the gods, and the divine in the ancient world interact with traditional religious practices and institutions, as well as with non-philosophical images of the divine. It spans from the 'rationalization' of the divine operated by early Greek philosophers to the notion of toleration one may find in Augustine. It features such authors as Plato (who uses for the first time in history the words 'theology' and 'atheism'), and Aristotle, with his intellectualist view of God. It will be valuable to readers interested in intellectual history, political theory, history of religion and classics.