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This is cool! 
It's an old video, about 15 years old and about an hour long, but it's ideas about the origin of our ideas about the Gods is fascinating and first rate. Agreeing, naturally, with Epicurus that the belief in the Gods is innate but is composed of mechanisms the brain evolved for other purposes.
Enjoy!
Why We Believe in Gods - Andy Thomson - American Atheists 09 (youtube.com)
Thank you, Godfrey!
I think the gods might be what the cognitive does with the feelings created by this 'spiritual' mechanism in the brain. And of course, the gods are all culturally determined. It's why the gods all look different in different parts of the world, BUT are acknowledged worldwide, which was one of Epicurus' insights.
It's why he thought they must exist.
This might be a scientific description of the faculty of perceiving the gods:
Columbia and Yale scientists just found the spiritual part of our brains (qz.com)
Other innate preconceptions might work similarly in the brain.
Alexa here seems very humanlike. Much like a little girl, although she's a VERY RUDIMENTARY AI. (At least so far)! 
But anyway, I'll thank her for her information now and then. And talk to her like I'm talking to an actual person. 
People DO take their AI's seriously though. A chatbot called 'Replika' had a number of complaints when they toned down the erotic feature of the service. People were falling in love with their bots!
Hi there!
No, Thomas doesn't seem particularly hostile to Epicurus in the podcast. He's simply a BIG FAN of Cicero. There are people out there like that. 
The context where he made his statement was that Cicero admired Epicurus personally because Epicurus himself was this very disciplined, virtuous, even "monkish" man, while decrying the discipline of his philosophy as being too difficult for the average follower.
Later in the podcast, he agrees that NOBODY KNOWS the full extent of the reach of the philosophy because of the idea of Lathe Biosis.
So, there you go. To Thomas, Epicureanism is a philosophy too difficult for the average person to follow, yet it had a broad, sweeping and largely unknown following. One of the major schools of the ancient world.
We've seen this kind of bias before. Nothing new.
Nice presentation! One ACK! moment thought . Thomas says that Epicureanism requires too much discipline for the average person to practice it! 
I guess he skipped over where Cicero was concerned that the philosophy was taking Italy by storm.
Yeah. This guy, in the top note, is assuming that the universe is finite, in order to salvage intelligent design. The evidence, so far, shows a geometrically FLAT universe. As far as we can see in the observable cosmos.
What shape is the universe? (astronomy.com)
The implication of a flat universe is that it is infinite, or so unimaginably huge it might as well be. 
The universe is very old and VERY big, and ANYTHING that is allowed by physics is bound to occur.
LOL!!! Peak lights is a 2AM!!! I think I'll skip it.
(Lots of clouds too).
Sorry, I can't make it tonight. I have a minor family emergency. ☹️
See you Wednesday! 🙂
My very superstitious mother was always VERY CONCERNED when Mercury went into retrograde.
It was BAD NEWS. 
Hi there A_G!
You raise a good and valid point. You don't want to call the findings of science absolute truths. Especially since new information arises and even the example I gave of evolution isn't absolute but always changing as we learn more. Although the data is pretty solid in support for both evolution and psychological hedonism.
But saying it was "actually true", implying that it was an absolute truth, was a bit strong on my part. Thanks for the correction.
Right. Self-interest is a broad term, it might encompass a whole host of motivations, like the financial, social and the political motivations mentioned in the top article, but it all can be reduced down to hedonism.
Self-interest to do what?
Hallo!
Lots of good questions here that set me doing some research. 
>>One of the things we want to discuss too is how this applies to people like Plato or Aristotle or Cicero.
Is it fair to also label them "psychological hedonists?"<<
Yes. For one thing, psychological hedonism is part and parcel of human nature. As shown scientifically in the article posted. And these guys were definitely human.
Secondly, they seem to both promote eudemonia. Plato, I understand through self-awareness and moral virtue, Cicero, through his promotion of virtue. Both as ends in themselves, although leading to eudemonia. (The REAL end here).
>>Does this label explain anything helpful to distinguishing between Epicurus and Plato?<<
It does. For Epicurus, it's a more direct path through nature. For Plato it's a more mystical and convoluted path through his imaginary world: creating "self-awareness" and moral virtue, ending in eudemonia.
>>Does the meaning of "hedonism," especially one's definition of "hedonism / pleasure," make any difference to the analysis?<<
It does. Plato is only seeing pleasure in bodily stimulation. And he thinks it's a hindrance to eudemonia. Epicurus see's it as both bodily, and more importantly, mental pleasure.
>>If everyone is in fact a "psychological hedonist," does the label help in some way to answer questions about disputes when the opponent denies that he is acting for pleasure?<<
It does. The science shows everyone IS a psychological hedonist , and the science is what is empirically known. He or she may deny the science, like a creationist denying evolution, but that's what's actually true.
Hi all!
Psychological hedonism, the theory that humans are motivated by pleasure and the avoidance of pain, is supposed to be our 20th discussion topic, so I thought I'd do some research. Years ago, I read there was actual scientific evidence supporting this concept; so I did a quick search and came up with this item confirming the idea.
From the US government of all places!
Hedonism and the choice of everyday activities - PMC (nih.gov)
>>There are many factors that influence our everyday activities—from financial considerations to social norms to political constraints—yet most theories of motivation have highlighted the crucial role played by negative and positive affective states (4–6). In particular, human behavior is believed to be guided by the hedonic principle, according to which our choices of activities aim to minimize negative affect and maximize positive affect (7).
The hedonic principle has been tested empirically through laboratory studies that have used a wide variety of mood induction techniques (e.g., writing about negative or positive life events, watching sad or happy movies) and then asked individuals to choose among various activities.<<
The article is mainly about how people are most likely to compensate for bad moods, pleasure, and how likely they are to do disagreeable tasks, when in a good mood.
Very Epicurean!
While digging for a playground of all things.
This is where he would have witnessed the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius before going on his ill fated rescue mission to Pompeii. He was an admiral and the site would have given him an excellent view of shipping on the bay.
I remember a Cosmos episode from years ago where Carl Sagan talked about the duodecahedrons as being part of the "Platonic Solids".
Only five are possible. These he evidently saw as representing the elements of "earth, water, fire and air" and a fifth solid conforming to the material of the heavenly realm.
>>The Platonic solids are prominent in the philosophy of Plato, their namesake. Plato wrote about them in the dialogue Timaeus c. 360 B.C. in which he associated each of the four classical elements (earth, air, water, and fire) with a regular solid. Earth was associated with the cube, air with the octahedron, water with the icosahedron, and fire with the tetrahedron.
Of the fifth Platonic solid, the dodecahedron, Plato obscurely remarked, "...the god used [it] for arranging the constellations on the whole heaven". Aristotle added a fifth element, aither (aether in Latin, "ether" in English) and postulated that the heavens were made of this element, but he had no interest in matching it with Plato's fifth solid.[4]<<
If you can tap into the power of the heavens, you have a heck of a lucky charm!
Hi Cyrano and all!
The Big Bang doesn't necessarily have to be the beginning of things. There is a theory, called "Conformal Cyclical Cosmology", promoted by Nobel Prize Winner Roger Penrose, which seems to fit the facts. The theory postulates a universe infinite in time, with no beginning, which expands forever.
I always wondered, when thinking about the Big Bang, what happens when the universe in the far future reaches maximum entropy? BANG?
Hi and welcome Cyrano!
That was some presentation. I admit I knew nothing at all about the historical Cyrano, but he looks like he was quite a guy.
Open atheism was rare in his day and I know of no other examples.
LOL! Tertullian sounds vindictive!
So much for loving your enemies!
An Epicurean style take on happiness I stumbled upon:
What actually makes us happy (axios.com)
Gotta love it:
>>Know what counts as connection. Focus on real-time communication, which isn't a text or posting on someone's social media feed. As primates, we're evolved for live conversations, which can be virtual.<<
>>Happiness doesn't mean dispelling all negative emotions, which are part of what make us human. "I think especially in the tough times we're dealing with, negative emotions are normative. We need to pay attention to them because they're signaling changes that we need to make," Santos says. "Happiness really is about a decent ratio of positive to negative emotions."<<
