Is Monotheism an Anomaly? History of Atheism in the Ancient World | Tim Whitmarsh. 

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I feel that asking "is religious belief a natural default for humanity" is sort of the wrong question - "religion" tends to refer to a collection of things interconnected in a certain way and I feel brings in a lot of baggage and assumptions. If the question is "is belief in the supernatural a default" then the answer is basically yes, since human brains are set to see agency where none exists, hence why a lot of old religion and ritual attempted to ascribe agency to events like storms and poor harvests via gods responsible for them. Then "is codifying general beliefs about how the world works into a socially-enforced system a default?" the answer is a bit more muddied - I think it still happens more often than not, where someone takes the step from "the last two times I sacrificed a goat I had a great harvest, I should keep doing it" to "I should convince everyone else to do it every year so all our harvests go well", and then basic biases like confirmation bias do the rest to keep the cycle going. It's also worth mentioning that the line between "natural" and "supernatural" is in some ways going to be a modern invention - while people at any point in history would've had some mental visualization of what events are natural and what are miracles, that'd probably be different for every person based on what they did and didn't know. Pretty much all beliefs about the world tended to just be a snowball of observations, assumptions and biases, and I think acting like some set of supernatural assumptions should've stood out as "special" to our thousands-of-years-ago ancestors presupposes them having a similar perspective to us - for many people it was ALL just the study of the natural world, some of it shakier than others, hence why a decent few religious scholars ended up at the forefront of naturalistic studies here and there. The fact that the root of this is about assigning agency to natural forces means, naturally (har har), polytheism tends to be the default, since the natural world is full of conflict and competition - from the food chain to natural disasters, people tended to view it as competing forces. Is atheism then "unnatural?" not in the slightest. As noted, monotheists are basically atheists towards all gods but one. Asking "is not believing in some arbitrary idea new or unnatural?" is silly. Why certain religious paradigms have stuck around and expanded has more to do with their specific idiosyncrasies (there are fundamental reasons on why some religions spread like a virus and others stayed in their own insular group) than a specific human default. Going into that would take far more than the space of a youtube comment, but I'm guessing most people reading this have a decent idea of what I'm alluding to. (Also I know I haven't been commenting much in a while, but good to know you're still making good stuff and got a second patron!)

I don't recall any prominent apologist or critic of religion saying that atheism only came up after the enlightenment. They say that being skeptical of religion became way more common then and atheism became more common among non-intellectuals. But lots of critics of religion like to cite Lucretius and the bible famously insults atheists.

Interesting video! What was the music you used at the end?

I’ve been really enjoying your videos lately! Would you be open to either a live interview or other video conversation with Alec Ryrie, the Gresham College professor and author of Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt. It’s a controversial book since rather than focusing at Ancient Greek thinkers of atheism or irreligiosity, Ryrie starts his history in medieval Christendom and moves through the medieval age and Reformation mapping apostasy / heresy from Christianity. He’s a Protestant Christian and reader in the Church of England, but he’s also an incredibly engaging lecturer and scholar who has some A-grade lectures on RU-vid per Gresham University’s Yt channel. I think it would be super cool to see some constructive back and forth between you two with respect to the history of atheism or apostasy.

very interesting, thank you

The Stillness Before Time Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner Website: thestillnessbeforetime.com Blog: thestillnessbeforetime.blogspot.com PDF: thestillnessbeforetime.com/thestillnessbeforetime.pdf

I don't understand the focus on a lack of supernatural beliefs in addition to a lack of belief in gods to be considered atheist. For the most part those people thought their so called supernatural beliefs were simply hypotheses about the natural world, and the only thing supernatural about them is that they turned out to be false. In fact the same goes for a belief in gods (ie their being immortal humanlike beings living on the sky dome that control the wheater), it was a false belief about the natural world and there is nothing supernatural about it except that it is false. And if you were to actually use this definition of supernatural beliefs being defined as false beliefs, that obviously opens another can or worms and isn't workable either.

21:19 Didn't you say atheistic/materalist thought proceeded monotheism in ancient Greece/India? Thus monotheism did not cause a logical next step from 1 to 0 gods. Though perhaps that logic may have reinforced atheism, that is if you can question many gods why not question 1 god.