The Religion of Socrates

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Socrates in Plato’s Apology of Socrates is defending himself against three charges. This essay will focus on Socrates’ defense against the charge of atheism and his seeming obsession with the gods. With closer inspection of the script and context in which Socrates is speaking brings up a number of questions. Is Socrates a religious person? Much of what Socrates uses to defend himself proves otherwise; this is proven in the story of the Oracle from Delphi. What does Socrates think of the gods? Socrates seems to contradict himself on several occasions on this issue. As Socrates defends his charge of atheism proposed by his accusers, he is able to prove to one of his accusers, Meletus, that he believes in the gods. In this essay I will prove that Socrates is in fact not a religious person, but he has had to act religious all his life as so he wouldn’t ever be accused for something such as this and uses this act to completely disprove the accusations made against him. Socrates throughout his entire apology brings up the gods to defend himself against one of his charges, but is he really a religious person? There are some cases in which Socrates compares himself to gods or godly characters. When discusses why he is an asset to the city, he compares his ‘job’ of philosophizing to the tasks of Heracles (22a). In many other cases though, he compares himself to regular mortals such as an Olympian (36d) or a horsefly that awakens the horse (30e). Socrates belief in the gods actually severely comes into question in one main example that he uses: the Oracle of Delphi. In his story of the Oracle of Delphi, a friend of Socrates named Chaerephon travels to Delphi to find out whether or not Socrates is the wisest man of all. At the temple of Apollo, “The Pythia replied that no one was wiser” (21a). Chaerephon then returns to Socrates and delivers him the great news. Socrates,
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