I just got my copy of "The Atheism Tapes" and had looked at the first bit before hitting the shower so my mind kept wondering about the subject (though nothing to do with the ontological argument that gets discussed in that first segment).
I like this picture but had not really thought about it before, I think it holds a lot more truth than is visible on first glance, often christians will say that their book/religion has stood the test of time, their book has survived 2000 years but has it really?
Translations and revisions have and are being done all the time, the oldest current bible translations are from about 1300 but I did not want this post to be about them.
Atheism has very ancient roots, if old generates respect then atheism has it, the Greeks had atheistic philosophies and every holy book talks about non-believers, both in the sense of believers in other religions but also in the sense of not believing in a god so even the holy books acknowledge that atheism existed.
And (and this is my point) in all its history atheism has not changed, translations do not make the Greek standpoints mean other things there is nowhere that an atheist has to double up and say: (like with homosexuality) "oh, well, this here where it says kill, it does not mean kill, it actually means love, or maybe tolerate but do not approve of the lifestyle, we love everyone ..."
No, no god then still means no god now, and even the problems with religion then are still valid points towards religion now. The only difference is that atheism has bucket loads more evidence now.
Some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_atheism
http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/
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