Posts by Cassius

One more comment. You wrote "I don't want to create a whole new thread just to ask a question but I see no obvious way to ask a new question (like this) in the General focum. Thanks"

It's possible you are just seeing the way the forum operates, with everything needing to be under a thread of some kind (or a new thread created) for organizational purposes.

You can also post a general comment on your "wall" which i think is also visible to everyone outside the forum structure.

If you continue to run into issues please post, because questions like this help us set up the forum for better use by everyone.

Roger I reviewed the forum permissions, and you should have been able to see a Create Thread button once you went to the General Discussion Forum. Can you check there again and let me know? Thanks!

Welcome RogerAlyn ! When you get a chance please introduce yourself and let is know about your background in Epicurus and areas of interest. Thank you for joining us!

Hi Roger and thanks for joining us.

Do you not see an option to start a new thread in the General Discussion setting? Should be a button at the top right of the forum list? I will check forum settings - let me know if you don't see the option.

If I have picked up the right section of the Greek, here is the original and the Bailey translation of the "gods among men" reference:

Here we ought to consider whether Epicurus should be thought of as a god himself. In addition to Epicurus' own "gods among men" comment, probably the most important reference is the opening of Lucretius' book 5. Was Lucretius being tongue-in-cheek, deadly serious, or something in between? I don't know how to begin to discuss it legitimately without comparing translations, so here are four:

Recently (July 7th) MK posted the following as part of a post on whether the Epicureans were in fact "atheists." The part I'd like to focus on is: "The gods are integral to Epicurean ethics as a standard to aspire to of absolute ataraxia." Without getting into the debate about what "ataraxia" means, I think there is another important point here. We may or may not agree with them, but it seems clear that to the Epicureans the "gods" were not simply abstractions - from the texts we know that they had a form/appearance "similar" to humans, a language "similar" to humans (Greek), and presumably other real attributes which allowed Epicurus and the ancient Epicureans to participate in public ceremonies without considering themselves to be ludicrous. We can add Lucretius' "hymn to Venus" as Roman example, and also cite Cicero, as did Martin, for the point that Epicureans were firmly convinced of their speculations on many of these aspects of divinity.

My question is this: Are we today overlooking an important (integral? critical?) component of Epicurean philosophy when we fail to articulate and identify concrete examples of the ultimate standards to which we should aspire? It sounds like the ancient Epicureans were quite comfortable in referencing Venus and / or Zeus and similar entities in ways that were consistent with their philosophy. By failing to consider this part of Epicurean philosophy, are we failing to identify in concrete terms the standard to which we should aspire, and leaving our standard at a useless level of abstraction?

Yes I agree Hiram. We are aren't talking rocket science here. We're talking simply thinking about the way people generally think in 2018, and applying the lessons that have been in learned in the last 75+ years to the current generation. We know from our last almost ten years of work on Epicurus to know what to expect the major issues, and the major reactions, to be, and we can fine-tune an introduction to the situation we find ourselves in today.

It would be relatively simply to rework the major observations from DeWitt Chapter 1, plus the observations of the Epicurus Reader introduction, into a summary that would prepare a 2018 reader for reading the original texts.

A question was posed privately that would be good for group discussion. Let me summarize it this way. "Which of the ANCIENT TEXTS would you recommend first to NORMIES as an introduction to Epicurean philosophy?" The twist here is that we're talking about ancient texts rather than modern commentaries, and we're talking about recommendations to people who do not have a background in understanding issues in Greek philosophy in general, or Epicurus in particular. The obvious possibilities include the letters of Epicurus, Lucretius, selections of Diogenes Laertius, Diogenes of Oinoanda, and Cicero. Here are some initial thoughts carved out of a private conversation:

I would consider the Torquatus section of "On Ends" for that purpose almost as much as the Epicurus letters. It seems to me that the letters are so condensed and presume so much about background teaching that it can be dangerous to start with them, especially the letter to Menoeceus given the "absence of pain" passage. The Torquatus section does not have that issue, and it is really a more broad presentation.

Lucretius also has merits in that regard, as it doesn't have the "absence of pain" focus that people get caught on with Menoeceus. That problem is so big, and so pervasive right now, that it just about consumes the question and calls for another starting point than Menoeceus. I am completely convinced that a normie who is led to think that the goal of life is the "nothingness" implied in a typical discussion of "absence of pain" (without the technical background) is going to be turned off and lost at that moment (as he/she should be if he takes the presentation as emulating stoicism). {Also, see the nearby Michael Onfray discussion for an example of someone far smarter than a "normie" who found the interpretation of "absence of pain" so hard to swallow that he decided Lucretius was at odds with, rather than following, Epicurus.)

Diogenes Laertius himself might in some instances be a better choice but might be too detailed. We have a real problem here that needs to be addressed.

Just look at this page of the ancient texts on Epicurus.net -- https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3…oQJ4Pl5CEwEneJh None of them really stand alone as being clear for us today. Torquatus explains the ethics well, and if you read that first then you aren't so tempted to get misled by the "absence of pain" passage in Menoeceues. The letter to Herodutus has a lot of good material, but doesn't read all that smoothly. The argument in Lucretius is more clear, but you first have to get past the flowery hymn to venus and sacrifice of Iphigenia to give a normal modern reader a chance to get into the argument about eternal / infinite universe / atoms before he/she is totally turned off. Even then, the modern reader needs to be told what is about to be discussed or else the detail about atoms and void can appear to be a total waste of time. There's still a lot more to be done to organize a good understandable presentation of Epicurean philosophy for normal people.

So what are your thoughts on this?

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So the bottom line at this point is that if some normal person asked me "What ancient Epicurean text should I read first?" I really don't have a good answer. There is too much discontinuity of thought between the Epicurean age and today for a normie to pick up any existing ancient text and read it without serious risk of misunderstanding or turnoff. The optimum answer is something like "Read Torquatus first, but before you do that, read this brief essay on what you're about to read." But at this moment I cannot point to that brief essay either. The absence of that document (or that series of documents, each one of the series aimed at different sets of normies) is for me the crucial missing link. No doubt people could make suggestions on that introductory piece and we ought to discuss that too. There's always chapter 1 of DeWitt's book, but that's probably too long and not directed at this purpose.

Poster RR: Cassius Amicus I'm also fairly certain that Michel Onfray has never read any of DeWitt's material on Epicurus. To my knowledge his only cited material on Epicurus (rather than Lucretius) has been the extant letters (and maybe a few of the Vatican sayings and PDs). I do think he's a bit unfair in his estimate of Epicurus, but that's a problem that many academics have, even those who recognize the need for a counter-history of philosophy. Do you think he offers a fair assessment of Lucretius?1

Cassius Amicus I scanned back through the article but I am short of time to reread the whole thing. Let me focus on this passage: "On the other hand, the Roman Epicureanism of Lucretius turns its back on the Greek formula. We are unaware of the biography of this Roman philosopher. We can barely affirm that he was a knight during the first year of the Common Era, but from his work we can deduce that his body was one of great health. Lucretius does not wish to define ataraxia as solely the satisfaction of necessary and natural desires; he wishes that all desires be satisfied if they are not repaid by a greater displeasure."

BINGO he is hitting on THE BIG issues. Do we limit desires to natural and necessary? Or do we evaluate ALL desires, and choose whether or not to satisfy them, according to the calculus or cost and benefit? And the issue of the definition of "ataraxia" is closely related to this - I contend the modernist definition of ataraxia is erroneous and in fact has no real meaning, If we follow this line of Onfray's thinking to go past "natural and necessary," we are inevitably led back to the common sense definition of ataraxia as no more esoteric than "one or a combination of any number of ordinary mental and physical pleasures without any mixture of disturbance/pain."

So if Onfray's interpretation of Lucretius follows through with these comments, then that is excellent. But in the meantime I would temper my enthusiasm for his interpretations by keeping front and center that Epicurus himself was the master who Lucretius was attempting to follow as closely as possible, so we should never admit that there is a conflict between the two. It sounds like Onfray was (in my view) on the right track, and it's up to us to carry that track all the way back to Lucretius to reclaim the full force of the philosophy. Which means the first part of that passage cited above about Lucretius "turning his back" on the Greek formula (presumably meaning Epicurus) is just totally wrong.

Wow MK, that post was dense with information, articulate, insightful, and gathers together in one place a great list of evidence that anyone thinking about this subject needs to consider. Thank you for taking the time to write that - I am going to make a note of it so when this subject is discussed again your comments can be referenced! This is Facebook and we don't expect every post to meet this kind of standard, but citing references and addressing controversial subjects courteously and professionally - can't say enough good about it.

Also:

Those last three paragraphs in particular ("To call all of this....") is really thought-provoking and in my view is right. Many people seem to want to conclude that Epicurus was being a coward and just protecting himself from the religious crowd exercising the "Socrates solution" on him, but it seems clear to me that there was no need for the Epicureans to have been so "over-the-top" in insisting on the existence of their version of gods if they where just trying to be escape laws against atheism. As Martin points out "Epicurean pronouncements on the gods were more self-assured than most of the other schools" and they seemed to exhibit no hesitancy to go into detail speculating on the attributes of Epicurean divinity. Cicero documented this in "On the Nature of the Gods": "Hereupon Velleius began, in the confident manner (I need not say) that is customary with Epicureans, afraid of nothing so much as lest he should appear to have doubts about anything. One would have supposed he had just come down from the assembly of the gods in the intermundane spaces of Epicurus! “I am not going to expound to you doctrines that are mere baseless figments of the imagination.....

We may not agree with all the conclusions that the Epicureans reached, but I don't doubt for a minute that they were serious about them and that we can gain a lot of insight and value from taking their arguments seriously.

This is a great post full of helpful information from Facebook from M.K., in response to a post reading: "What do you think about this?? The debate of whether Epicureans were atheists or not. The argument is that they just use the logic they created about the gods so that it didn't contradict their beliefs and that they could still believe in them so that they didn't get prosecuted for being nonbelievers. What are you're thoughts on that? I read this debate going both ways but wanted to know what other fellow Epicureans think."

MK:

There is no debate. They not only did not believe in no god, they believed in poly (many) theoi (gods).

Extant Epicurean texts demonstrate they dislike being called atheists.

Diogenes of Oenoanda [Fr. 16] denies with disgust the charge that they believed there were no gods. An abhorrent view he attributes to Diagoras of Melos (apparently an ancient Richard Dawkins) and another toned down version to Protagoras of Abdera (one of my favourite advocates of classics education today describes herself as a Protagorean agnostic). He avows Epicureans are properly the "most pious people."

Philodemus' fragments from Herculaneum, Lucretius, the Epicurean exposition put in the mouth of a one Gaius Velleius by Tully in De Natura Deorum.

All are very clear a vibrant and live conviction in that there are gods was a pillar of Epicureanism.

Cicero actually insinuates they seemed to have an improbably expert knowledge of what the gods look like and how they live [Tum Velleius fidenter sane, ut solent isti, nihil tam verens, quam ne dubitare aliqua de re videretur, tamquam modo ex deorum concilio et ex Epicuri intermundiis descendisset]. Epicurean pronouncements on the gods were more self-assured than most of the other schools.

The gods are integral to Epicurean ethics as a standard to aspire to of absolute ataraxia. And are central to the anthropological aetiology of the school. Human beings are erect, sentient, some times sapient, with eyes aimed above: because they are like the gods.

Epicurus' argument for the existence of gods is actually attractive and rather logically durable. Certainly defensible.

Since the senses are the sources of all knowledge, even of dreams, and human beings have a fairly universal acquaintance with gods - that knowledge must come from something materially real.

Knowledge of gods is a πρόληψιν - a mental preconception imprinted indelibly on the human mind.

This is even in the letter to Menoeceos, where Epicurus says a knowledge of the gods is engraved on our minds and so we know they exist "since knowledge of them is by clear vision derived from sensation." [ἐναργὴς γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ γνῶσις’]

Lucretius suggestively seems - or at least could be read to - to nod toward a time when people saw gods but now don't (save in sleep). The prolepsis peoples still persistently have of them derives somehow from that dim distant past.

To call all of this "functional atheism," is to too easily abandon the field to the Abrahamic tradition. Gods do not need to be tirelessly provident and maniacally judgemental to exist.

In the classical world, that (Abrahamic) kind of thinking was considered populist (plebish). Crucially important to the average every-person without the time, inclination or education to think hard about these things and be good without an all-seeing eye anxious to punish. It had a name: superstition.

It was that which was the polar extreme of atheism, not belief in gods.

Fyi much more discussion about this at the Facebook thread

Rescheduling the next chat: It looks like I did not ever post a notice at Facebook, or in this thread, and since it looks like one of the regulars (Martin) is out of town, I will change the notice on the front page to postpone the next chat until later in July. I suspect that here in the USA there is a lot of dislocation due to the July 4 holiday week as well.

"that [philosophy] of Epicurus was the thought of a sick, fragile man with a weak body distorted by extremely painful kidney stones during a period that was unaware of any effective sedation." Where is the evidence that Epicurus lived his entire life in pain??????? How is it accurate to take Epicurus LAST days, in which he found pleasure DESPITE the pain he was in, and transmute that last heroic fight for pleasure into a RENUNCIATION of all pleasure despite the entirety of the rest of his obviously vigorous life, and all that Epicurus said and did to the contrary? Very unfortunate except for the fact that this has become the modern consensus. Regardless of that, it's still unfortunate.

Wow a lot of work went into this and it's great to see that much effort. My view, though, is that I fully reject Onfray's characterization of Epicurean philosophy, which presumably is the foundation on which the rest of his analysis takes place:

"Nietzsche is right to say that philosophy is an autobiographical confession; that of Epicurus was the thought of a sick, fragile man with a weak body distorted by extremely painful kidney stones during a period that was unaware of any effective sedation. This is why his hedonism is austere, ascetic, minimal, and defines itself by the absence of pain. To refuse to satisfy all desires, (focusing mainly on) those of hunger and thirst, then to make of this satisfaction the peace of the body, therefore the peace of the soul, this links the hedonism of Epicurus to a wisdom of renouncement. On the other hand, the Roman Epicureanism of Lucretius turns its back on the Greek formula."

Once again we have the irony of someone 2000 years later, with a handful of texts, saying that he understands Epicurus better and far differently than did Lucretius, whose brilliance is a focus of much of the rest of the essay. There is a contradiction here that cannot stand, and my view is that Lucretius understood Epicurus perfectly well - and if Onfray thought it stands for a life that is "austere, ascetic, minimal, and defines itself by an absence of pain" then I doubt his other "insights" will be very helpful.

Epicurus did not live to renounce his own life, or to teach us to renounce ours. It's nihilism and asceticism and austerity like this that should be renounced.

Wow - great - I will read in detail!

Facebook Exchange on existence of gods / ontology:

Poster T: Can and do some Epicureans believe the God(s) created the laws of the universe? They just let it unfold from there and because that would be contradictory to a supreme being who is devoid of all pain they do not interfere with it.

Poster I: The gods exist _within_ the universe, so they couldn't have created the laws of nature that govern themselves.

Poster A: No. The universe evolved all animals, including us, including the gods.

Poster T: I was coming from the point of view that they existed outside of time and space, therefore, require no creation and thus the first cause that created the universe. But I did not know whether Epicureans believed that they existed outside or inside our universe.

Cassius. I agree with I and A. Epicurean "physics" is a consistent whole. The elemental particles are eternal, nothing comes or goes to nothing - which means the universe is eternal and therefore was never "created" by anything outside of it. There IS nothing outside of it, because anything that exists is part of the universe - nothing else exists - not gods, not eternal ideals/forms, not eternal universal morality. Nothing that would contradict that fundamental view of the universe would be allowed in the philosophy. Any modern conclusion about ethics or epistemology that would appear to contradict that fundamental core is in all likelihood a misunderstanding of what the Epicureans thought. That's the way you reconstruct the philosophy - just like Lucretius and Epicurus did - with logical consistency starting at the eternal infinite universe of elemental particles. Think Earth/humanity has a special place in the universe? Wrong, ruled out by the infinite eternality of the universe. Think morality exists universally, or apart from the particular humans you're considering it applies to? Wrong, ruled out by nothing being eternal but particles and void. As DeWitt points out, even the "gods" are not clearly stated by Epicurus to be eternal, just deathless.

Poster N: I wonder from where Epicurus got the knowledge of Eternal or deathless ''Gods'' because there is no evidence or proof of theirs existence even in other worlds, even though, believing in such ''Gods'' does not affect the epicurean Philosophy but still kind of theism. I think also the existing of Eternal Gods contradict with Eternal infinite universe of elemental particles, if both exist so the Universe will be made by those Eternal particles+ Eternal ''Gods '' or we can say the eternal Gods are the same Eternal particles because Both are not created and Both are Eternal

Poster T: I believe Epicurus got the idea because we believe their are gods the concept exists so there must be gods. If I recall accurately.

Poster N: with the same logic we can approve all religious superstitions, for example as we believe in Eternal souls so it must be life after death.

Poster I: Laertius 123:

"First believe that God is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind;"

The truth is that we don't exactly know... From the remaining texts it appears that Tyler is right. Because all humans believe in gods _something_ like that has to exist. However! The texts where Epicurus talks about this in length, have been destroyed. The speculation that is most convincing is that Epicurus thought that the gods were natural creatures that existed just beyond our world in perfect happiness that they could maintain by will.

They would be made of the same elementary particles that everything is. Remember that they didn't have the periodic table of the elements in those days, so there was no reason to think that there couldn't have been "god-atoms" that didn't exist on Earth.

The gods wouldn't have been eternal in the sense that the universe is eternal. The closest they might be was "deathless": they could maintain themselves bodily at will. Control the flow of atoms perfectly, you might say.

Cassius: I agree with what I. wrote but I am not sure that Tyler's statement is exactly right to state in these terms: "because we believe their are gods the concept exists so there must be gods." That sounds very close to the "ontological" argument for god based, as Tyler said, on "concepts": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument (" Anselm defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be thought", and argued that this being must exist in the mind, even in the mind of the person who denies the existence of God. He suggested that, if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality.")

We probably do not have enough information to resolve this question, but DeWitt argues that "concept" is not an accurate description of Epicurus' argument for the evidence of gods, but rather "preconception" / anticipation, which arguably is much different than simply a concept asserted in words.

Note: As often the case I am posting this not to say who is right or wrong, but to make people aware of DeWitt's alternative argument, which deserves consideration. Here is a part from Cicero in which this subtlety is present:

“Anyone pondering on the baseless and irrational character of these doctrines ought to regard Epicurus with reverence, and to rank him as one of the very gods about whom we are inquiring. For he alone perceived, first, that the gods exist, because nature herself has imprinted a conception of them on the minds of all mankind. For what nation or what tribe of men is there but possesses untaught some ‘preconception’ of the gods? Such notions Epicurus designates by the word prolepsis, that is, a sort of preconceived mental picture of a thing, without which nothing can be understood or investigated or discussed. The force and value of this argument we learn in that work of genius, Epicurus's Rule or Standard of Judgment.

“You see therefore that the foundation (for such it is) of our inquiry has been well and truly laid. For the belief in the gods has not been established by authority, custom, or law, but rests on the unanimous and abiding consensus of mankind; their existence is therefore a necessary inference, since we possess an instinctive or rather an innate concept of them; but a belief which all men by nature share must necessarily be true; therefore it must be admitted that the gods exist. And since this truth is almost universally accepted not only among philosophers but also among the unlearned, we must admit it as also being an accepted truth that we possess a ‘preconception,’ as I called it above, or ‘prior notion,’ of the gods. (For we are bound to employ novel terms to denote novel ideas, just as Epicurus himself employed the word prolepsis in a sense in which no one had ever used it before). We have then a preconception of such a nature that we believe the gods to be blessed and immortal. For nature, which bestowed upon us an idea of the gods themselves, also engraved on our minds the belief that they are eternal and blessed. If this is so, the famous maxim of Epicurus truthfully enunciates that ‘that which is blessed and eternal can neither know trouble itself nor cause trouble to another, and accordingly cannot feel either anger or favor, since all such things belong only to the weak.’"

So to emphasize only one point: "nature herself has imprinted a conception of them on the minds of all mankind" does not seem to me to be a statement of the ontological argument / position. It is NATURE in Epicurus' view, not us as logical / speculative thinkers, that has created this preconception/anticipation of the existence of deathless / painless / happy beings.

Note also: I am omitting reference here to the rest of the argument, which involves isonomia and the argument that nature never makes only a single thing of a kind (as a result of which we should have confidence that the Earth is not the only location of life in the universe)

Manage

Cassius: Poster N, respectfully you seem to be presuming things about "gods" which Epicurus specifically rejected - the supernatural aspect. Why is it impossible that there is other life in the universe, not from this Earth, which is another race of being that is superior in intelligence to us, deathless and does not experience pain, but only pleasure? Those are the only attributes which Epicurus is recorded to have given these beings. Agree or disagree with Epicurus, but first state his position accurately. And his argument for their existence was not based on the existence of a "concept" of a God. The best evidence we have for his argument is contained mostly in Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods and is summarized best by DeWitt. We don't have the full argument by any means but we have much more than these comments suggest.

Cassius: Poster N wrote: "because there is no evidence or proof of theirs existence even in other worlds" Naw Ka, have you been throughout the universe to other worlds to have authority to make such a statement? I suspect you have not, and neither had Epicurus. Epicurus' argument was based on observations he made in THIS world, and meeting and refuting those arguments would require stating them accurately and describing their defects, which you have not done.

The material we have from Cicero is here: http://www.epicurus.net/en/deorum.html

And the material from DeWitt's reconstruction of the Epicurean argument is here in Chapter 12 "The True Piety" (unfortunately you need the book) - https://books.google.com/books?id=MSu2w…epage&q&f=false

Poster T: What do you think about this?? The debate of whether Epicureans were atheists or not. The argument is that they just use the logic they created about the gods so that it didn't contradict their beliefs and that they could still believe in them so that they didn't get prosecuted for being nonbelievers. What are you're thoughts on that? I read this debate going both ways but wanted to know what other fellow Epicureans think.

Poster I: The Epicurean philosophy is functional atheism. The gods exist _but_ they don't have anything to do with human life. You could be a theist and an Epicurean, though being an atheist is easier (especially today).

Poster A2 Agree. And I would add that the Epicureans - with knowledge from scientific advances - might have determined that gods don’t exist.

Poster W: So if the original Epicureans believed a deity exists but has no interaction with people would that make them Deists?

Poster I: That's probably the closest modern term for it.

Cassius Amicus: A. how far out do your telescopes go? Are you prepared to say with certainty that there are no other Earths / planets with life on them in the universe anywhere? Are you prepared to say with certainty that Humans are the most highly-evolved species in the universe? I agree with Epicurus - Nature does not create only one thing of a kind, and there is no reason to think that Earth is the only place with life. Likewise, there is no reason to think that the up and down progression of complexity of life we see here on Earth stops with humanity as the end point. Those observations we make here on Earth lead me to expect with confidence that these processes take place throughout the universe, so I expect that there are superior (NOT supernatural) beings elsewhere in the universe. There's nothing in Epicurean "theology" that really goes beyond that, and in fact it seems to me to be very dangerous epistemology to conclude that because we personally have not observed the results of a process here on Earth, (such as the observations I listed above) that those processes have not continued throughout the universe. The evidence that we already have, in my opinion, is enough to expect otherwise.

Cassius Amicus Poster W, virtually every common definition I have ever seen of "deists" includes the aspect that these gods created the universe before they "stepped away." That is clearly ruled OUT in Epicurean "theology" - Epicurean gods are NOT supernatural and did NOT create this or any other universe. So while Ilkka is definitely correct that that is probably the closest modern term, it is woefully inaccurate to describe the Epicurean position, and I would argue totally misleading. A proper appreciation for Epicurean philosophy requires us to at least understand Epicurus' position, even if we disagree with it.

Poster W: Cassius Amicus Perhaps I am misinterpreting. But to me it seems like you are arguing for the existence of Aliens. I would agree that aliens exist. But I'm not sure I would consider them deities even if there are aliens with superior intellects than ours.

Manage

Cassius Amicus Poster W: the answer to this question comes only from reading what the Epicurean texts say about the gods. The texts only say that these living beings are deathless, and that they have evolved to a state of total happiness (presumably meaning experiencing nothing but pleasure and no pain). These gods are NOT supernatural and NOT "omnipotent." Epicurus held nothing more about the "gods" than that in so far as the texts indicate. We can call them "aliens" if we like, but again the point is to discuss what Epicurus actually taught, not whether we think it comports with Judaism or Christianity or Islam or other conventional mystical religions. Epicurus was DEmystifying religion and our positions on "gods." He used the same term as did the supernaturalists, but he specifically re-defined it.

Cassius Amicus Poseter W wrote: "But I'm not sure I would consider them deities even if there are aliens with superior intellects than ours." I think you're seeing the point. The issue is definitions such as "gods" and "deities." Epicurus and his school defined these terms strictly in NATURAL and not supernatural terms, so in discussing these terms Epicurus stripped them of all the added-on mystical qualities which he taught would contradict the nature of the universe. Again, we can agree or we can disagree with his conclusions, but I don't think you can find Epicurean texts which contradict the point I am making here.

"First believe that God is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind; and so believing, you shall not affirm of him anything that is foreign to his immortality or that is repugnant to his blessedness. Believe about him whatever may uphold both his blessedness and his immortality. For there are gods, and the knowledge of them is manifest; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that men do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious. For the utterances of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are always favorable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in men like themselves, but reject as alien whatever is not of their kind."

Cassius Amicus: To follow further on this "it seems to me to be very dangerous epistemology to conclude that because we personally have not observed the results of a process here on Earth, (such as the observations I listed above) that those processes have not continued throughout the universe. The evidence that we already have, in my opinion, is enough to expect otherwise." I would argue that it would have led to much more success in human experience if people had accepted "atomism" from the days of Democritus, and worked to expand their knowledge of the way things work based on those scientific principles, rather than on the idea of gods/divinity. And that means that people should have accepted "atomism" over 2000 years ago, even though - even today - we have not seen or touched an "atom" in the sense of an ultimate particle.

Our senses/tools have not been sufficient to allow us to do that yet, but it is reasonable to expect that one day our resources will allow us to verify the existence of those "ultimate particles" in a way that makes us even more confident that the theory is correct. Same with the existence of life elsewhere in the universe which is deathless, happy, and painless - the expectation based on evidence we already have is that we should expect to find such life. We WON'T find that life to be supernatural, or creating universes, or showing favor or anger to beings that fall beneath its scope of reference, and we should reject all speculations/religions/philosophies which accept the existence of supernatural beings who have chosen peoples and chosen enemies. That seems to me to be the thrust of what Epicurus was arguing, and it all still seems very valid to me.


Cassius: Poster A - Are we together that (1) Epicurus held there to be no supernatural beings, and (2) that Epicurean gods are not supernatural, and (3) Epicurean gods are not omnipotent and have no "magical" (meaning supernatural) powers whatsoever? That is the main issue that generally arises, because people think that the word "gods" necessarily implies supernatural powers. But there is also another issue -------

The second issue is the question of what to do when we have evidence that appears insufficient to form a positive conclusion. That's where we have the most disagreement even here about what direction to go. Philodemus devoted a lot of attention to this in "On Methods of Inference." We don't now, and will never know (if the universe is indeed infinite in size) everything that exists in the universe. So we have to think about what position we are going to take on the unknown - whether we are going to admit the possibility that he unknown may be supernatural or not. That was the point of my "how far do your telescopes go" comment - We're never in our lifetimes or ever going to be able to say "I have seen the entire universe and there are no deathless perfectly happy beings." So since we aren't going to be able to do that, we may or may not in our lifetimes see far enough out to establish life on other planets/areas of space.

The key point that I think Epicurus made was that we should NOT admit the possibility of anything supernatural out there, because we have no evidence of anything supernatural anywhere, and we also have lots of evidence that the universe operates on natural principles. On the other hand, we do have evidence that nature does not make only one thing of a kind, and if we apply that to the Earth we can say with confidence that there are other Earths out there, even if we haven't found them yet.

We can also say that we have evidence that intelligent life has developed in a progression from lower consciousness (birds for example) to higher consciousness (humans). And we can also say (I contend) that there is no reason to think that these processes of development are limited to what we see here on Earth in 2018. The likelihood in an infinite and eternal universe would be that these processes, and other processes analogous to them, have and will operate throughout the universe, and if so then it is entirely reasonable to expect that intelligent life will overcome all the issues of death and pain that we face as humans.

And Epicurus seems to have held (and I agree) that it is important for us to think about our place in the universe and in that continuum, and not simply wonder if we are the only life in the universe, and if there are gods putting us in the center of it and directing us.

So it seems to me that the issue of "gods" is a lot more complex than just rejecting the existence of Yahweh and Allah and the like. Those are important steps, but just because we have rejected nonsense does not mean we are at the end of the road of what to consider, and that's where (in my opinion) Epicurus was going with is redefinition of "gods."

This passage from Book 1 of Lucretius stretches the usable size of a graphic, but contains several key points, and it is helpful to read several translations to make the points easier to understand. Here we see the reasoning behind the Epicurean conclusion that there can be nothing outside the real world - neither supernatural gods nor concepts of "virtue" or morality - which have a real existence of their own - meaning it is nonsense to speculate that such things exist. The chain of reasoning is:

1) The only tool we have to recognize the existence of bodies - things that have reality - is sensation. Unless we can have confidence in our senses to reveal to us the reality of bodies directly in front of us, it is useless to look to "reasoning" to establish the reality of anything that might be distant or hidden from us.

2) The tool we use to recognize the existence of things that are distant or hidden, such as the void, which cannot be touched or sensed, is deductive reasoning. We have confidence that void exists because we observe with our senses that bodies move, and from this we conclude that there must be empty space or void through which those objects move.

3) We also conclude through deductive reasoning that besides bodies and void there is nothing - no third kind of existence. There are two arguments for this:

A - Anything that we consider to exist must have a physical presence (must be capable of being touched). If it has a physical presence then the thing is a part of the universe of bodies. If a thing does not have a physical presence (cannot be touched) then it must be considered as part of the void.

B - Anything that we consider to exist must either act upon something or be acted on by other things, or it must be a space in which things can exist and actions take place in it. But nothing can act or be acted on unless it have a body, and nothing can provide space for actions to occur except the void. Therefore anything that exists must be part of the material universe or part of the void.

This passage from Book 1 of Lucretius stretches the usable size of a graphic, but contains several key points, and it is helpful to read several translations to make the points easier to understand. Here i the reasoning behind the Epicurean conclusion that nothing outside the real world - neither supernatural gods nor concepts of "virtue" or morality - have a real or eternal existence of their own. The chain of reasoning is:it seems to be changing or unchanging, derives from bodies and void.

5) We also conclude that time has no independent existence. Time is only something we observe as an event of the movements of bodies through void, and not something mystical or unnatural with a separate existence in itself.

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The graphic is high resolution, so if it can't be expanded to readable size on your opening screen, it can be saved and viewed in any image viewer.