Welcome Elayne!

Thank you, Cassius! This is an amazing site-- so much information.

Ok, I am a 54 year old pediatrician, raised atheist from birth by a physicist father and mathematician mother, in Alabama. In the past, I have gotten misled by those who interpret Epicurus as being more like Stoics or Buddhists, philosophies which don't resonate with me. So I had a bad impression of the whole thing. I read Hiram Crespo's book, because a friend lent it to me, and it had a fairly different approach. When I started looking around, I found a FB page and then this site.

All my life, I have been an outlier philosophically-- not only with the religious people in the South but with most of the other atheists I know. To the point where some friends have said "maybe you just tend to disagree with whatever you see." I knew that was not true-- I knew it was because there were conflicts between my core perspectives and theirs that were just very different. Most people didn't even seem to understand what I was talking about.

When I found out there was this entirely different way of understanding Epicurus, I was thrilled, because almost all of his philosophy seems right to me. That has never happened to me before. I am so so glad to find out there are others out there who think and live this way as well.

My philosophy education is pretty much nil. I read a lot, but not systematically. I am currently reading DeWitt, as advised by Cassius.

Welcome Elayne!