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Athenian Politics: The Debate Between Faith And Reason

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The debate over faith and reason has existed for as long as philosophy has been in existence itself. Ancient Athenian scholars began engaged each other over matters surrounding what was good or bad right or wrong just or unjust pious or impious moral or immoral among others. Athenian scholars such as Socrates had these scholarly debates and engaged in these scholarly escapades and debates long before the coming of Jesus Christ of Nazareth and the subsequent advent of the Christian faith (Choi & Sciglitano pp 25). This is a clear indication that the human beings have always sought some basis and safe secure grounding of what they believed in and deemed to be the right thing to believe in. while most ancient societies such as the ancient roman …show more content…

The society tended to develop same inclinations towards their belief on what is good or bad. In 700 before Christ the society moved from the original mythology of good and bad and subscribe to a general belief that originally all Athenians were good pious people. This view is what historians christened Homeric’s (Choi & Sciglitano pp 25). The shared believe was that as long as one lived appropriately then they were both pious and virtuous. This means that the society had virtues and every one was believed to be pious as long as they didn’t deviate from the set virtues. As Plato came to illustrate later after the challenge pluralist cultures challenge to the Homeric’s, the beliefs that shaped the society then were customary and the challenge the pluralist nature of culture arose (Choi & Sciglitano 26). It is under such circumstances when Plato questions the adage; when you go to Rome act as romans. His question is what if the culture is unconscionable and goes against ones believes of what is right or wrong (Choi & Sciglitano 26). Owing to the societies pursuit of faith that appeals to reason the sophist approach was born (Choi & Sciglitano 27). This approach is based on the art of persuasion to prove what is right or wrong. Socrates doesn’t agree with the view that the good or bad, truth or lie can lie on ones mastery of oratory and speech skills. Since what appeals to reason is

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