Atheism in ancient civilisations

True. I believe some Hindus classify Hinduism as a way of life rather than a religion. Labeling Hinduism as a single religion was mostly just a matter of convince for everyone involved anyways, by they British administrators of Indian nationalists.
This is actually something of a strange myth.
Whilst "Hinduism" as a term of course is British, the various traditions which we identify as Hindu have had a cultural and theological/philosophical unity which stretches all the way to proto-hinduism. Nastika has been used to define non-hindu schools prior to the existence of buddhism as opposed to Astika (non-vedic and vedic). To this day, we can identify a school as Hindu or otherwise based on it's relation to the Vedas, for even those schools that are focused more on the Upanishads (for instance the Hare Krishna movement's emphasis on the Bhagavad Gita) still rely on the Vedas as the Vedas are what justify the Upanishads.
 
This is actually something of a strange myth.
Whilst "Hinduism" as a term of course is British, the various traditions which we identify as Hindu have had a cultural and theological/philosophical unity which stretches all the way to proto-hinduism. Nastika has been used to define non-hindu schools prior to the existence of buddhism as opposed to Astika (non-vedic and vedic). To this day, we can identify a school as Hindu or otherwise based on it's relation to the Vedas, for even those schools that are focused more on the Upanishads (for instance the Hare Krishna movement's emphasis on the Bhagavad Gita) still rely on the Vedas as the Vedas are what justify the Upanishads.

I think defining Hinduism is a really complex affair. Is nastika really not Hindu, or is it just an unorthodox philosophy? The ancients seemed unconcerned with this, and in their texts they treated nastika and astika philosophies fairly similar, including atheism. The ancient Indians were far more concerned about the nature of God and the universe than on these definitions, and they viewed philosophies within nastika and astika, such as Advaita Vedanta (the dominant philosophy of Hinduism today), much more importantly than astika vs nastika.

Later, there are even more matters on what can be defined as Hinduism. Was Sikhism in the time of Guru Nanak a form of Bhakti Hinduism? He is a Bhakti saint, after all. And when did Sikhism truly become its own religion? In the time of Guru Gobind Singh?

It is really difficult to decouple nastika from Hinduism.
 
Even in the current world and even in the developed world "true" atheists are still quite a minority. Irreligiosity has grown a lot but the amount of people who state "god doesn't exist" or there is no god at all is still relatively small.

I can imagine it would be quite hard for hardcore atheism to thrive pre age of modern science at least.
 
I think defining Hinduism is a really complex affair. Is nastika really not Hindu, or is it just an unorthodox philosophy? The ancients seemed unconcerned with this, and in their texts they treated nastika and astika philosophies fairly similar, including atheism. The ancient Indians were far more concerned about the nature of God and the universe than on these definitions, and they viewed philosophies within nastika and astika, such as Advaita Vedanta (the dominant philosophy of Hinduism today), much more importantly than astika vs nastika.
Actually the ancients really did care about the difference.
First of all to clarify, the way it describes Orthodoxy (as the wikipedia article discusses it) is misleading. It isn't so much orthodoxy in the sense of "this is the correct way to think" (notably Buddhism formed it's own internal orthodox heterodox system) but orthodoxy in the same way that being a Christian in the UK is fairly normal whilst being a Taoist is quite unorthodox. This is important a distinction to recognise as it is why we can consider something like Samkhya as Astika because it conforms to the orthodoxy of the Vedas even if it's practitioners were something of a minority within that orthodoxy, as opposed to Jains and Buddhists who were distinctly seperated despite being more populous than Samkhya followers.

The idea that the ancients were not concerned with this, or that the other native indian religions fit somewhere into Hinduism is a modern conception which is used by Hindu nationalists much to the annoyance of Buddhists, Jains and Sihks in India, it being easier to marginalise their rights as distinct religions if they are not recognised as distinct religions.
In reality, important figures in Jainism and Buddhism (and later Sihkism) not only were defined as others by their rivals, but defined themselves so as well. Nagarjuna in particular is a fun example to study in this regard, being something of a renegade for his time within the Buddhist tradition (being the founder of Mahayana) but recognised as a Buddhist by his contemporaries and in regular debates with his Hindu and Jain rivals. Whilst they were contemporary and there is a lot of overlap (Hinduism in particular having the ability to absorb Buddhist and Jain ideas and vice versa), they are distinct in the same way we can recognise Cynicism, Stoicism and Epicureanism as distinct philosophical schools of ancient greece as opposed to different sects of the same philosophy.

Later, there are even more matters on what can be defined as Hinduism. Was Sikhism in the time of Guru Nanak a form of Bhakti Hinduism? He is a Bhakti saint, after all. And when did Sikhism truly become its own religion? In the time of Guru Gobind Singh?
Sikhism is more of a challenge, but I would say it was certainly distinct by Guru Gobind Singh.

It is really difficult to decouple nastika from Hinduism.
Not really. It is self explanatory in the game =L
 
Actually the ancients really did care about the difference.
First of all to clarify, the way it describes Orthodoxy (as the wikipedia article discusses it) is misleading. It isn't so much orthodoxy in the sense of "this is the correct way to think" (notably Buddhism formed it's own internal orthodox heterodox system) but orthodoxy in the same way that being a Christian in the UK is fairly normal whilst being a Taoist is quite unorthodox. This is important a distinction to recognise as it is why we can consider something like Samkhya as Astika because it conforms to the orthodoxy of the Vedas even if it's practitioners were something of a minority within that orthodoxy, as opposed to Jains and Buddhists who were distinctly seperated despite being more populous than Samkhya followers.

The idea that the ancients were not concerned with this, or that the other native indian religions fit somewhere into Hinduism is a modern conception which is used by Hindu nationalists much to the annoyance of Buddhists, Jains and Sihks in India, it being easier to marginalise their rights as distinct religions if they are not recognised as distinct religions.
In reality, important figures in Jainism and Buddhism (and later Sihkism) not only were defined as others by their rivals, but defined themselves so as well. Nagarjuna in particular is a fun example to study in this regard, being something of a renegade for his time within the Buddhist tradition (being the founder of Mahayana) but recognised as a Buddhist by his contemporaries and in regular debates with his Hindu and Jain rivals. Whilst they were contemporary and there is a lot of overlap (Hinduism in particular having the ability to absorb Buddhist and Jain ideas and vice versa), they are distinct in the same way we can recognise Cynicism, Stoicism and Epicureanism as distinct philosophical schools of ancient greece as opposed to different sects of the same philosophy.

Interesting observation, however I'll have to disagree. Both astika and nastika philosophies drink from the same source, even if it's to refuse this very source. This very threat is a nice allegory to this "problem": We, westerners, have a notion of atheism based upon the Judeo-Christian worldview, which is pretty much the reason why is so hard for us to find atheism elsewhere.

Also, in one of the foundational texts of Buddhism, the Buddha exposes how he disagrees with the other Nastika philosophies, thus, one can argue that the Astika/Nastika divide only serves to compare Orthodox Hinduism with the other traditions, not the other way around.
 
Interesting observation, however I'll have to disagree. Both astika and nastika philosophies drink from the same source, even if it's to refuse this very source. This very threat is a nice allegory to this "problem": We, westerners, have a notion of atheism based upon the Judeo-Christian worldview, which is pretty much the reason why is so hard for us to find atheism elsewhere.
"Drinking from the same source" is partially true, but I think you are putting way more emphasis on it than the reality of the ancient traditions. As I mentioned earlier, Stoicism, Cynicism and Epicureanism (+ Platonism and Pythagoreanism) all "drank from the same source" in terms of sharing philosophical concepts and language unique to their culture and time, but it is considered absurd to see them as the same tradition. You can disagree, but to do so is again to apply a modern anachronistic lens whish pretty much solely exists to piss off sikhs, buddhists and jains (and is why I am quite passionate on the subject).

Also, in one of the foundational texts of Buddhism, the Buddha exposes how he disagrees with the other Nastika philosophies, thus, one can argue that the Astika/Nastika divide only serves to compare Orthodox Hinduism with the other traditions, not the other way around.
One can argue that, but it wouldn't make sense to do so from the prior example. Buddha did disagree with other Nastika philosophies, but this doesn't interfere with my earlier points at all. Objectivists do not like Marxists, even though both are Atheists. Atheist as an identifier that they use to descibe themselves works just as well to point out that they are not Christian as Nastika was used and is used to this day to point out that Buddhism, Jainism were not Hindu schools and that Hinduism had it's own unique identity from which they could contrast.
 
Just to be clear: I'm not arguing that Buddhism or Jainism, etc. are a part Hinduism. However, they do share an important an important bound, they come from the same cultural ensemble and IMHO it should be taken into consideration when comparing these traditions.

You didn't said that, but some today argue against the use labels such as Dharmic or Abrahamic to talk about a set of very different beliefs that share a common source. Personally, I disagree. I think that is more useful to compare, let's say, Stoicism and Epicureanism than Stoicism and Buddhism (as people love to do nowadays). The common world view cannot simply be discarted, at the risk of undermining the possibility of a systematic understanding of each philosophy - e.g. how can someone fully understand the Buddhist concept of anatta if he doesn't know Hindu atman? One cannot fully understand the negation of one thing if he doesn't understand the affirmation.
 
One cannot fully understand the negation of one thing if he doesn't understand the affirmation.

I don't know that this is broadly true, but I'm definitely open to reading more about what you mean/being convinced of its validity. I suppose it depends on if you're focused on daily practices vs. the deeper theological underpinnings of a learned class, and what "fully" means in your definition of "understanding" a concept.

While that feels like it's getting pretty nitpicky, it sounds like its key to the disagreements about how closely to group different branches of a religious group together ("Where are the boundaries of useful umbrella lumping?").

As a non-religious but philosophical example (comparing apples to oranges, but hey! they're both fruits), there are plenty of people in the US who both understand and practice capitalist economics without "fully understanding" any in-depth alternatives, the most prominent [imho] being socialism.
 
As a non-religious but philosophical example (comparing apples to oranges, but hey! they're both fruits), there are plenty of people in the US who both understand and practice capitalist economics without "fully understanding" any in-depth alternatives, the most prominent [imho] being socialism.

Your comparison is also applicable to my logic: one can certainly be capitalist without knowing socialism, however, a socialist need to have a basic understanding about capitalism to fully understand his belief. Or can someone abstract Marx's thoughts from the context of 19th century capitalism? I mean, you can always blindly follow it without knowing its origins, but that's far from ideal. Going back to the religious topic, this is even moe serious, because the Buddha was a firm proponent of free inquiry.

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Now, going back to the topic of the thread, if the OP enlarges the notion of atheism to a more pantheist or Spinozist approach, we can very well see "atheism" in pretty much all civilizations in the world.
 
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