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Stefan Stenudd           Author, Artist, Aikido instructor
MYTH

Myths of Creation

The Logics of Myth

Psychoanalysis of Myth

Genesis 1: The first creation of the Bible

Enuma Elish: Babylonian Creation

Cosmos of the Ancients: Greek philosophers

Cosmos of the Ancients: The book

Aristotle - life and work

Aristotle's Poetics

Ideas and learning

Life Energy
Encyclopedia


The Taoist source

About the writer

ANCIENT GREECE
Introduction
Thales
Anaximander
Anaximenes
Pherecydes of Syros
Pythagoras
Xenophanes
Theagenes
Hecataeus
Heraclitus
Pindar
Parmenides
Anaxagoras
Empedocles
Herodotus
Gorgias
Melissus
Protagoras
Euripides
Prodicus of Ceos
Leucippus
Democritus
Critias
Antisthenes
Diagoras of Melos
Plato
Aristotle
Epicurus
Euhemerus
Table of the Greek Philosophers
Literature

Aristotle - life and work
Aristotle's Poetics

Books by Stefan Stenudd:
Cosmos of the Ancients, by Stefan Stenudd.
COSMOS OF THE ANCIENTS
by Stefan Stenudd. What the Greek philosophers thought about religion, cosmology, myth, and the gods.
Get the book at Amazon.


Life Energy Encyclopedia, by Stefan Stenudd.
LIFE ENERGY ENCYCLOPEDIA
by Stefan Stenudd. Qi, prana, spirit, and other life forces around the world explained and compared.
Get the book at Amazon.


Murder, by Stefan Stenudd.
MURDER
by Stefan Stenudd. Thoughts on life, death, and the meaning of it all.
Get the book at Amazon.


QI - increase your life energy.
QI
Increase your life energy
by Stefan Stenudd. The life energy qi (also chi or ki), with exercises on how to awaken, increase, and use it.
Get the book at Amazon.



Parthenon

Cosmos of the Ancients

The Greek Philosophers
on Myth and Cosmology


Thales


T he earliest cosmological theories of ancient Greece, would be those of Thales of Miletus, honored by his later peers as the very first philosopher and one of the Seven Sages, flourished circa 585 BC. In stating that the world had been formed out of the one substance water, he renounced the mythological accounts of how it all began, replacing divine action with natural processes where no gods were responsible for what took place – although Aristotle claims that the same Thales saw the gods being present in everything, filling it somewhat like an ether or inner substance.
Thales      Again according to Aristotle, he regarded also the lifeless things as having a soul, using the magnet's influence on iron as an argument for his case, which Aristotle interpreted as explanatory to Thales' idea that god is in all. Furthermore, Thales may have been the first to maintain the soul's immortality.
     According to Diogenes Laertius he had stated that: "Of all things that are, the most ancient is God, for he is uncreated, " and "The most beautiful is the universe, for it is God's workmanship." If Diogenes is to be trusted in this, Thales expressed a monotheistic opinion, enforced by the impression of Aristotle that the divine, present in all, seems not to have been divided into different divinities – if even distinctly differed from the soul. He claimed, again according to Diogenes Laertius, that there is not even any difference between life and death. None of his own writing remains.

Literature
Aristotle, de Anima, 405a and 411a.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, translated by R. D. Hicks, volume I, Loeb, London 1942.

© Stefan Stenudd 2000

How to get the book
An edited and extended version of the texts on this website was published in 2007.
     If you want to buy the book, you can do so at most international web based bookstores, such as Amazon and the like. Here are links to the book on Amazon US and Amazon UK. Use the latter if you are European - then you get the book cheaper and quicker. Otherwise, you may want to buy it at Amazon US.

At Amazon US:
Cosmos of the Ancients, by Stefan Stenudd - at Amazon US.
At Amazon UK:
Cosmos of the Ancients, by Stefan Stenudd - at Amazon UK.


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Stefan Stenudd
Stefan Stenudd
is a Swedish author and historian of ideas, who researches the thought patterns in creation myths. He has also written books about Chinese and Japanese traditions.



Tao Te Ching - the Taoist source.
TAOIST SOURCE
The Taoist source. The complete Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu.


More on this website:
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Myth
Greek Philosophers
Aristotle and his Poetics
The Taoist source
Qi - life energy
Fiction by Stenudd
Art by Stenudd
Astrology and horoscopes