Xenophanes
OriginGreece
Era570 BC
SchoolPre-Socratic
About Xenophanes
The first critic of anthropomorphic religion. If horses had hands, he joked, they would draw gods shaped like horses. Proposed a single supreme deity who moves all things by thought. Recognized fossils on mountaintops as proof the land was once sea. Traveled the Greek world for decades as a wandering poet. His skepticism about knowledge influenced later Pyrrhonists.
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