1. Home
    1. Start Here: Study Guide
    2. Community Standards And Posting Policies
    3. Terms of Use
    4. Moderator Team
    5. Site Map
    6. Quizzes
    7. Articles
      1. Featured Articles
    8. All Blog Posts
      1. Elli's Blog / Articles
  2. Wiki
    1. Wiki Home
    2. FAQ
    3. Classical Epicureanism
    4. Physics Wiki
    5. Canonics Wiki
    6. Ethics Wiki
    7. Search Assistance
    8. Not NeoEpicurean
    9. Foundations
    10. Navigation Outlines
    11. Key Pages
  3. Forum
    1. Full Forum List
    2. Welcome Threads
    3. Physics
    4. Canonics
    5. Ethics
    6. Uncategorized Forum
    7. Study Resources Forum
    8. Ancient Texts Forum
    9. Shortcuts
    10. Featured
  4. Latest
    1. New Activity
    2. Latest Threads
    3. Dashboard
  5. Podcast
    1. Lucretius Today Podcast
    2. Episode Guide
    3. Lucretius Today At Youtube
    4. EpicureanFriends Youtube Page
  6. Texts
    1. Overview
    2. Diogenes Laertius
    3. Principal Doctrines
    4. Vatican Sayings
    5. Lucretius
    6. Herodotus
    7. Pythocles
    8. Menoeceus
    9. Fragments - Usener Collection
    10. Torquatus On Ethics
    11. Velleius On Gods
    12. Greek/Latin Help
  7. Gallery
    1. Featured images
    2. Albums
    3. Latest Images
    4. Latest Comments
  8. Calendar
    1. Upcoming Events List
    2. Zoom Meetings
    3. This Month
    4. Sunday Zoom Meetings
    5. First Monday Zoom Meetings
    6. Wednesday Zoom Meeting
    7. Twentieth Zoom Meetings
    8. Zoom Meetings
  9. Other
    1. Featured Content
    2. Blog Posts
    3. Files
    4. Logbook
    5. EF ToDo List
    6. Link-Database
  • Login
  • Register
  • Search
This Thread
  • Everywhere
  • This Thread
  • This Forum
  • Forum
  • Articles
  • Blog Articles
  • Files
  • Gallery
  • Events
  • Pages
  • Wiki
  • Help
  • FAQ
  • More Options

Welcome To EpicureanFriends.com!

"Remember that you are mortal, and you have a limited time to live, and in devoting yourself to discussion of the nature of time and eternity you have seen things that have been, are now, and are to come."

Sign In Now
or
Register a new account
  1. Home
    1. Start Here: Study Guide
    2. Community Standards And Posting Policies
    3. Terms of Use
    4. Moderator Team
    5. Site Map
    6. Quizzes
    7. Articles
      1. Featured Articles
    8. All Blog Posts
      1. Elli's Blog / Articles
  2. Wiki
    1. Wiki Home
    2. FAQ
    3. Classical Epicureanism
    4. Physics Wiki
    5. Canonics Wiki
    6. Ethics Wiki
    7. Search Assistance
    8. Not NeoEpicurean
    9. Foundations
    10. Navigation Outlines
    11. Key Pages
  3. Forum
    1. Full Forum List
    2. Welcome Threads
    3. Physics
    4. Canonics
    5. Ethics
    6. Uncategorized Forum
    7. Study Resources Forum
    8. Ancient Texts Forum
    9. Shortcuts
    10. Featured
  4. Latest
    1. New Activity
    2. Latest Threads
    3. Dashboard
  5. Podcast
    1. Lucretius Today Podcast
    2. Episode Guide
    3. Lucretius Today At Youtube
    4. EpicureanFriends Youtube Page
  6. Texts
    1. Overview
    2. Diogenes Laertius
    3. Principal Doctrines
    4. Vatican Sayings
    5. Lucretius
    6. Herodotus
    7. Pythocles
    8. Menoeceus
    9. Fragments - Usener Collection
    10. Torquatus On Ethics
    11. Velleius On Gods
    12. Greek/Latin Help
  7. Gallery
    1. Featured images
    2. Albums
    3. Latest Images
    4. Latest Comments
  8. Calendar
    1. Upcoming Events List
    2. Zoom Meetings
    3. This Month
    4. Sunday Zoom Meetings
    5. First Monday Zoom Meetings
    6. Wednesday Zoom Meeting
    7. Twentieth Zoom Meetings
    8. Zoom Meetings
  9. Other
    1. Featured Content
    2. Blog Posts
    3. Files
    4. Logbook
    5. EF ToDo List
    6. Link-Database
  1. Home
    1. Start Here: Study Guide
    2. Community Standards And Posting Policies
    3. Terms of Use
    4. Moderator Team
    5. Site Map
    6. Quizzes
    7. Articles
      1. Featured Articles
    8. All Blog Posts
      1. Elli's Blog / Articles
  2. Wiki
    1. Wiki Home
    2. FAQ
    3. Classical Epicureanism
    4. Physics Wiki
    5. Canonics Wiki
    6. Ethics Wiki
    7. Search Assistance
    8. Not NeoEpicurean
    9. Foundations
    10. Navigation Outlines
    11. Key Pages
  3. Forum
    1. Full Forum List
    2. Welcome Threads
    3. Physics
    4. Canonics
    5. Ethics
    6. Uncategorized Forum
    7. Study Resources Forum
    8. Ancient Texts Forum
    9. Shortcuts
    10. Featured
  4. Latest
    1. New Activity
    2. Latest Threads
    3. Dashboard
  5. Podcast
    1. Lucretius Today Podcast
    2. Episode Guide
    3. Lucretius Today At Youtube
    4. EpicureanFriends Youtube Page
  6. Texts
    1. Overview
    2. Diogenes Laertius
    3. Principal Doctrines
    4. Vatican Sayings
    5. Lucretius
    6. Herodotus
    7. Pythocles
    8. Menoeceus
    9. Fragments - Usener Collection
    10. Torquatus On Ethics
    11. Velleius On Gods
    12. Greek/Latin Help
  7. Gallery
    1. Featured images
    2. Albums
    3. Latest Images
    4. Latest Comments
  8. Calendar
    1. Upcoming Events List
    2. Zoom Meetings
    3. This Month
    4. Sunday Zoom Meetings
    5. First Monday Zoom Meetings
    6. Wednesday Zoom Meeting
    7. Twentieth Zoom Meetings
    8. Zoom Meetings
  9. Other
    1. Featured Content
    2. Blog Posts
    3. Files
    4. Logbook
    5. EF ToDo List
    6. Link-Database
  1. EpicureanFriends - Home of Classical Epicurean Philosophy
  2. Forum
  3. Ethics - How To Live As An Epicurean
  4. Dealing With Death, Dying, And Old Age
  • Sidebar
  • Sidebar

"Are We Indifferent to Death?"

  • Cassius
  • March 27, 2018 at 3:16 PM
Regularly Checking In On A Small Screen Device? Bookmark THIS page!
  • Cassius
    05 - Administrator
    Points
    103,917
    Posts
    14,227
    Quizzes
    9
    Quiz rate
    100.0 %
    • March 27, 2018 at 3:16 PM
    • #1

    A Question from the Facebook Forum:

    "Hey everyone. Epicurus says that Death is indifferent to us. Does It mean that If I'm sick I have no good reason to take a medicament that could save my life?"

    My response:

    Cassius Amicus I will go further than the posts so far. In my view, Epicurus has clearly said that life is DESIRABLE, and dying is UNDESIRABLE. FULL STOP. Absolutely clear. No need for dialectical word-chopping.

    Given the same balance of pleasure and pain throughout the period, it is no doubt better to live ten years than five. We are not and should not be INDIFFERENT to death - that is a Stoic word and a Stoic attitude. Our life, and the lives of our friends, are the most important thing we have and we must act to keep it. Pleasure (and pain) have no meaning to the dead - all that is good occurs in life.

    The reason that so much of what is written about this is confusing is that Epicurus was emphasizing the central point that "the state of being dead" - which does not really exist to the dead person, only to us thinking about it - is a state in which there is no pain or punishment to worry about. Therefore once we are dead we don't care about anything because we are no longer exist to care about anything. The entire thrust of this "death is nothing to us" is the focus on "the state of being dead" is not a concern because there is no hell, no god to punish us, no awareness of regret or awareness of anything.

    So OF COURSE if you are sick you take medicine. While you are alive, you eat well, you exercise your mind and your body, you act to protect yourself from enemies of all kinds and you act in every reasonable way possible, consistent with your expectation of your personal pain pleasure calculus under your personal circumstances, to extend your life as long as possible, as you know that for an eternity thereafter you will no longer exist.

    If I think about this long enough it really steams me that we even need to have this discussion. PLEASURE is the goal / guide of life and the only thing that is desirable in itself -- and pleasure has no meaning except to the living. The alternative suggestion is Christian/Stoic/Platonic "salvation" theory that equates some few moments of virtue/pure reason/etc as superior to a lifetime of pleasure. Epicurus would have considered that to be absurd, and probably wrung his hands to see how something so clear as this could be so misunderstood and warped in the hands of those who don't understand the role of life and pleasure.3

    I am not aiming this at you George because the question you ask is asked all the time. But remember from the Epicurean part of Cicero's On Ends:


    "Every animal, as soon as it is born, seeks for pleasure, and delights in it as the Chief Good, while it recoils from pain as the Chief Evil, and so far as possible avoids it. This it does as long as it remains unperverted, at the prompting of Nature's own unbiased and honest verdict."
    .....|
    "No! Epicurus was not uneducated: the real philistines are those who ask us to go on studying till old age the subjects that we ought to be ashamed not to have learnt in boyhood."

    We live in a world that is so incredibly perverted. No kitten or puppy or human baby would be could be mistaken that living is good, and dying is bad, and yet as we grow older we are "educated" to be confused about it.

    The perversion and corruption is STRONG, and it takes strength of mind to battle back against it. Fighting philosophical and religious corruption and learning to embrace life, and fight death, and not feeble discussion of cupcakes and wine, like a bunch of dottering old men, is what Epicurus is all about.

    "So his force,
    His vital force of mind, a conqueror
    Beyond the flaming ramparts of the world
    Explored the vast immensities of space
    With wit and wisdom, and came back to us
    Triumphant, bringing news of what can be
    And what cannot, limits and boundaries,
    The borderline, the bench mark, set forever.
    Religion, so, is trampled underfoot,
    And by his victory we reach the stars."

    Humphries / Lucretius Book 1

Unread Threads

    1. Title
    2. Replies
    3. Last Reply
    1. Philodemus' "On Anger" - General - Texts and Resources 20

      • Like 1
      • Cassius
      • April 1, 2022 at 5:36 PM
      • Philodemus On Anger
      • Cassius
      • July 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM
    2. Replies
      20
      Views
      6.8k
      20
    3. Kalosyni

      July 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM
    1. Mocking Epithets 3

      • Like 3
      • Bryan
      • July 4, 2025 at 3:01 PM
      • Comparing Epicurus With Other Philosophers - General Discussion
      • Bryan
      • July 6, 2025 at 9:47 PM
    2. Replies
      3
      Views
      347
      3
    3. Bryan

      July 6, 2025 at 9:47 PM
    1. Best Lucretius translation? 12

      • Like 1
      • Rolf
      • June 19, 2025 at 8:40 AM
      • General Discussion of "On The Nature of Things"
      • Rolf
      • July 1, 2025 at 1:59 PM
    2. Replies
      12
      Views
      948
      12
    3. Eikadistes

      July 1, 2025 at 1:59 PM
    1. The Religion of Nature - as supported by Lucretius' De Rerum Natura 4

      • Thanks 1
      • Kalosyni
      • June 12, 2025 at 12:03 PM
      • General Discussion of "On The Nature of Things"
      • Kalosyni
      • June 23, 2025 at 12:36 AM
    2. Replies
      4
      Views
      887
      4
    3. Godfrey

      June 23, 2025 at 12:36 AM
    1. New Blog Post From Elli - " Fanaticism and the Danger of Dogmatism in Political and Religious Thought: An Epicurean Reading"

      • Like 3
      • Cassius
      • June 20, 2025 at 4:31 PM
      • Epicurus vs Abraham (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
      • Cassius
      • June 20, 2025 at 4:31 PM
    2. Replies
      0
      Views
      2.1k

Latest Posts

  • Epicurus' Prolepsis vs Heraclitus' Flux

    Cassius July 10, 2025 at 3:41 PM
  • Lucretius Today Episode 289 Posted - "Epicureans Are Not Spocks!"

    Cassius July 10, 2025 at 12:09 PM
  • Episode 289 - TD19 - "Epicureans Are Not Spocks!"

    Cassius July 10, 2025 at 12:03 PM
  • Happy Birthday General Thread

    Patrikios July 9, 2025 at 7:33 PM
  • Epicurus and the Pleasure of the Stomach

    Kalosyni July 9, 2025 at 9:59 AM
  • Welcome Dlippman!

    dlippman July 9, 2025 at 9:18 AM
  • Epicurus And The Dylan Thomas Poem - "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

    Adrastus July 9, 2025 at 3:42 AM
  • Philodemus' "On Anger" - General - Texts and Resources

    Kalosyni July 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM
  • July 7, 2025 First Monday Zoom Discussion 8pm ET - Agenda & Topic of discussion

    Don July 7, 2025 at 5:57 PM
  • News And Announcements Box Added To Front Page

    Cassius July 7, 2025 at 10:32 AM

EpicureanFriends - Classical Epicurean Philosophy

  1. Home
    1. About Us
    2. Classical Epicurean Philosophy
  2. Wiki
    1. Getting Started
  3. Frequently Asked Questions
    1. Site Map
  4. Forum
    1. Latest Threads
    2. Featured Threads
    3. Unread Posts
  5. Texts
    1. Core Texts
    2. Biography of Epicurus
    3. Lucretius
  6. Articles
    1. Latest Articles
  7. Gallery
    1. Featured Images
  8. Calendar
    1. This Month At EpicureanFriends
Powered by WoltLab Suite™ 6.0.22
Style: Inspire by cls-design
Stylename
Inspire
Manufacturer
cls-design
Licence
Commercial styles
Help
Supportforum
Visit cls-design