Atheism as natural as religion, study claims

New University of Cambridge research theorizes that atheism was widespread in ancient times, predating Christianity and Islam, The Telegraph reports.

The study, led by Tim Whitmarsh, Professor of Greek Culture, argues that faith is not necessarily intrinsic to humans since people in ancient times, though living in polytheistic societies, did not always believe in gods.

He argues in his book, Battling the Gods, that atheism flourished in ancient Greek and pre-Christian Roman societies, and that atheism is not merely a modern phenomenon brought about by secular Western societies but rather a belief that already existed at least 500 years before Christ.

Some texts cited in the book date back before Plato, 570 BC.  But this "ancient atheism" was airbrushed from history as Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire in the early 4^{th century through Constantine.}

However, he added that early societies were far more capable of including atheism within the scope of what they considered normal.  The idea of a priest telling people what to do was alien to ancient Greek world, for example. 

His research challenges two assumptions that current debates between atheists and believers argue over: the idea that atheism is a modern phenomenon and the idea of "religious universalism", meaning that humans are naturally inclined to believe in the supernatural.

Whitmarsh expressed that the existence of atheism for already thousands of years suggests that systems of disbelief can exist in cultures, and may always have. He added that it flourished more during ancient times than it does now.

"Adherents wish to present scepticism toward the supernatural as the result of science's progressive eclipse of religion, and the religious wish to see it as a pathological symptom of a decadent Western world consumed by capitalism," he writes in the book.

"Both are guilty of modernist vanity. Disbelief in the supernatural is as old as the hills."