Most - possibly all - excerpts in this post are from christianism.com.
Modern western rationalists like to present all of the learned Greco-Romans (including at least one of the two only philosopher-emperors of Rome - Marcus and Julianus) as "rational" to the core, in a bid to thus make themselves the heirs to/descendants of philosophy and more importantly the origins of ('European') rational thought and science of inquiry. (What 'Europe' existed back then, is another question.)
Yet in reality, many of those historic people were just your average Greco-Romans:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[footnote (not referenced above)] '4Pagan antiquity, says Lecky [W.E.H. Lecky 1838 - 1903], has left us no grander example than that of <b>Epictetus</b> [c. 55 - c. 135], who, while sounding the very abyss of human misery, and looking forward to death as simple decomposition, was yet so filled with a sense of divine presence that his life was one continued hymn to Providence. <b>The great stoic himself says, "What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to the gods?"</b>--Reign of the Stoics, p. 32.' [51].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Down to the Christian era the fear of magic rarely led to any persecution very systematic or very cruel. While in Greece and Rome laws were at times enacted against magicians, they were only occasionally enforced with rigour, and finally, toward the end of the pagan empire, the feeling against them seemed dying out altogether. <b>As to its more kindly phases, men like Marcus Aurelius and Julian did not hesitate to consult those who claimed to foretell the future.</b> As to black magic, it seemed hardly worth while to enact severe laws, when charms, amulets, and even gestures could thwart its worst machinations.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[footnote (not referenced above)] '2Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and the stoics considered the daemons to be physical beings; that the heroes are souls separated from the bodies; some are good, some are bad, and the bad those whose souls are worthless.--Plutarch, Sentiments which Delighted Philosophers, i. 8. "The great mind of Zeus who loveth men disposeth for thee, the Demon."--Pindar Pyth., v. 164. "Men are good and wise as the Demon orders."--Olympia, xi. 41. Cf. Plutarch, Discourse Concerning the Demon of Socrates, ii. 4.' [289].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then, when the modern western secular 'rational' people find out that there was all this sort of 'stuff' going on among many philosophers (I have no comment either way, so not using the word 'superstition'), they turn around and try to knock the people they had set up as their idols:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The STOICS bestowed many magnificent and even impious epithets on their sage; that he alone was rich, free, a king, and equal to the immortal gods. They forgot to add, that he was not inferior in prudence and understanding to an old woman. For surely nothing can be more pitiful than the sentiments, which that sect entertained with regard to religious matters; while they seriously agree with the common augurs, that, when a raven croaks from the left, it is a good omen; but a bad one, when a rook makes a noise from the same quarter. PANAETIUS was the only STOIC, among the GREEKS, who so much as doubted with regard to auguries and divinations.[76] MARCUS ANTONINUS[77] tells us, that he himself had received many admonitions from the gods in his sleep. It is true, EPICTETUS[78] forbids us to regard the language of rooks and ravens; but it is not, that they do not speak truth: It is only, because they can foretel nothing but the breaking of our neck or the forfeiture of our estate; which are circumstances, says he, that nowise concern us. Thus the STOICS join a philosophical enthusiasm to a religious superstition. The force of their mind, being all turned to the side of morals, unbent itself in that of religion.[79]
[77]Marcus Aurelius Antonius, Meditations, Bk. I, Ch. 17,<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Afijn, before someone thinks I am knocking oracles or divination or something or other - I make it a point not to have an opinion on these matters (it's stuff I don't know about and not really interested in). Still, in their defense, at least here's a Greek (or Roman) who was proven right in his foresightedness, so possibly some may have been genuine:
http://ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=lovestories
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->380
On 27th February, Christianity becomes the exclusive religion of the Roman Empire by an edict of Emperor Flavius Theodosius, requiring that "all the various nations, which are subject to our clemency and moderation should continue in the profession of that religion, which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter". Non-christians are called "loathsome, heretics, stupid and blind". In another edict Theodosius calls "insane" those that do not believe in the christian god and outlaws all disagreements with the Church dogmas. Ambrosius, bishop of Milan, starts destroying all the Pagan Temples of his area. <b>Christian priests lead the mob against the Temple of Goddess Demeter in Eleusis and try to lynch the hierophants Nestorius and Priskus. The 95 year-old hierophant Nestorius, ends the Eleusinian Mysteries and announces the predominance of mental darkness over the human race.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->"mental darkness over the human race" - No kidding.
Apparently even McCabe starts judging people with respect to what they understood. In the following excerpt, am in agreement with McCabe in the first para. In the second para, however, he thinks his own views disprove Aristotle's and Plato's. Where these differed from McCabe's own views, he finds they were "leading human thought astray" - hmmm, maybe McCabe still had some remnant of the monotheistic tendency ("I'm Right Just Because"), in spite of his deconversion from christianism into atheism. But then modern western atheism is actually a negation of the christian worldview even while it yet lives inside the christian worldview and consequently works by christian rules - as I think Dhu had earlier explained with reference to the "His Dark Materials" books (Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, etcetera).
No, no, I'm not picking on McCabe.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In fact, they prove in another way a truth which I have previously established: that a man's philosophy of life, whether materialist or spiritualist, religious or non-religious, makes no difference to his moral ideal. The materialist Democritus had as lofty sentiments as the mystic Pythagoras or the spiritual Plato. The skeptical Alcidamas, a Sophist and Agnostic, was the first man to denounce slavery; hundreds of years before anybody discovered that it was condemned by Christian principles. The Agnostic Epicurus had as sane and sober a conception of character as the Theistic Aristotle. Morality is a human matter. It has its roots in human experience, not in speculation.
I have said the "Theistic Aristotle," but that great thinker was far less mystic than Plato. His god, or Supreme Mind, was unconscious of sublunary matters, and therefore not a universal providence or a creator. Nor did he believe in personal immortality. His system of thought is one of the most learned and original ever given to the world. He summarized all the science of his time, and he made a science of ethics and politics. Unfortunately, he was also a metaphysician. He thought that besides our knowledge of nature (ta physica) it was possible to get a knowledge of things beyond the physical (ta meta ta physics, or metaphysics), and these were more important and more worthy of the mind. In that sense Aristotle, though for his time a great scientific man, joined Plato in leading human thought astray.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Modern western rationalists like to present all of the learned Greco-Romans (including at least one of the two only philosopher-emperors of Rome - Marcus and Julianus) as "rational" to the core, in a bid to thus make themselves the heirs to/descendants of philosophy and more importantly the origins of ('European') rational thought and science of inquiry. (What 'Europe' existed back then, is another question.)
Yet in reality, many of those historic people were just your average Greco-Romans:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[footnote (not referenced above)] '4Pagan antiquity, says Lecky [W.E.H. Lecky 1838 - 1903], has left us no grander example than that of <b>Epictetus</b> [c. 55 - c. 135], who, while sounding the very abyss of human misery, and looking forward to death as simple decomposition, was yet so filled with a sense of divine presence that his life was one continued hymn to Providence. <b>The great stoic himself says, "What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to the gods?"</b>--Reign of the Stoics, p. 32.' [51].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Down to the Christian era the fear of magic rarely led to any persecution very systematic or very cruel. While in Greece and Rome laws were at times enacted against magicians, they were only occasionally enforced with rigour, and finally, toward the end of the pagan empire, the feeling against them seemed dying out altogether. <b>As to its more kindly phases, men like Marcus Aurelius and Julian did not hesitate to consult those who claimed to foretell the future.</b> As to black magic, it seemed hardly worth while to enact severe laws, when charms, amulets, and even gestures could thwart its worst machinations.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[footnote (not referenced above)] '2Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and the stoics considered the daemons to be physical beings; that the heroes are souls separated from the bodies; some are good, some are bad, and the bad those whose souls are worthless.--Plutarch, Sentiments which Delighted Philosophers, i. 8. "The great mind of Zeus who loveth men disposeth for thee, the Demon."--Pindar Pyth., v. 164. "Men are good and wise as the Demon orders."--Olympia, xi. 41. Cf. Plutarch, Discourse Concerning the Demon of Socrates, ii. 4.' [289].<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then, when the modern western secular 'rational' people find out that there was all this sort of 'stuff' going on among many philosophers (I have no comment either way, so not using the word 'superstition'), they turn around and try to knock the people they had set up as their idols:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The STOICS bestowed many magnificent and even impious epithets on their sage; that he alone was rich, free, a king, and equal to the immortal gods. They forgot to add, that he was not inferior in prudence and understanding to an old woman. For surely nothing can be more pitiful than the sentiments, which that sect entertained with regard to religious matters; while they seriously agree with the common augurs, that, when a raven croaks from the left, it is a good omen; but a bad one, when a rook makes a noise from the same quarter. PANAETIUS was the only STOIC, among the GREEKS, who so much as doubted with regard to auguries and divinations.[76] MARCUS ANTONINUS[77] tells us, that he himself had received many admonitions from the gods in his sleep. It is true, EPICTETUS[78] forbids us to regard the language of rooks and ravens; but it is not, that they do not speak truth: It is only, because they can foretel nothing but the breaking of our neck or the forfeiture of our estate; which are circumstances, says he, that nowise concern us. Thus the STOICS join a philosophical enthusiasm to a religious superstition. The force of their mind, being all turned to the side of morals, unbent itself in that of religion.[79]
[77]Marcus Aurelius Antonius, Meditations, Bk. I, Ch. 17,<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Afijn, before someone thinks I am knocking oracles or divination or something or other - I make it a point not to have an opinion on these matters (it's stuff I don't know about and not really interested in). Still, in their defense, at least here's a Greek (or Roman) who was proven right in his foresightedness, so possibly some may have been genuine:
http://ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=lovestories
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->380
On 27th February, Christianity becomes the exclusive religion of the Roman Empire by an edict of Emperor Flavius Theodosius, requiring that "all the various nations, which are subject to our clemency and moderation should continue in the profession of that religion, which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter". Non-christians are called "loathsome, heretics, stupid and blind". In another edict Theodosius calls "insane" those that do not believe in the christian god and outlaws all disagreements with the Church dogmas. Ambrosius, bishop of Milan, starts destroying all the Pagan Temples of his area. <b>Christian priests lead the mob against the Temple of Goddess Demeter in Eleusis and try to lynch the hierophants Nestorius and Priskus. The 95 year-old hierophant Nestorius, ends the Eleusinian Mysteries and announces the predominance of mental darkness over the human race.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->"mental darkness over the human race" - No kidding.
Apparently even McCabe starts judging people with respect to what they understood. In the following excerpt, am in agreement with McCabe in the first para. In the second para, however, he thinks his own views disprove Aristotle's and Plato's. Where these differed from McCabe's own views, he finds they were "leading human thought astray" - hmmm, maybe McCabe still had some remnant of the monotheistic tendency ("I'm Right Just Because"), in spite of his deconversion from christianism into atheism. But then modern western atheism is actually a negation of the christian worldview even while it yet lives inside the christian worldview and consequently works by christian rules - as I think Dhu had earlier explained with reference to the "His Dark Materials" books (Golden Compass, Subtle Knife, etcetera).
No, no, I'm not picking on McCabe.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In fact, they prove in another way a truth which I have previously established: that a man's philosophy of life, whether materialist or spiritualist, religious or non-religious, makes no difference to his moral ideal. The materialist Democritus had as lofty sentiments as the mystic Pythagoras or the spiritual Plato. The skeptical Alcidamas, a Sophist and Agnostic, was the first man to denounce slavery; hundreds of years before anybody discovered that it was condemned by Christian principles. The Agnostic Epicurus had as sane and sober a conception of character as the Theistic Aristotle. Morality is a human matter. It has its roots in human experience, not in speculation.
I have said the "Theistic Aristotle," but that great thinker was far less mystic than Plato. His god, or Supreme Mind, was unconscious of sublunary matters, and therefore not a universal providence or a creator. Nor did he believe in personal immortality. His system of thought is one of the most learned and original ever given to the world. He summarized all the science of his time, and he made a science of ethics and politics. Unfortunately, he was also a metaphysician. He thought that besides our knowledge of nature (ta physica) it was possible to get a knowledge of things beyond the physical (ta meta ta physics, or metaphysics), and these were more important and more worthy of the mind. In that sense Aristotle, though for his time a great scientific man, joined Plato in leading human thought astray.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->