Posts by Matt

Yes, everyone who is seeking way more than their pound of flesh. It’s hard to escape all the vampires out there sucking the lifeblood out!

Mine would be those who attempt to impose their will or ideologies on me (and others). Authority figures and so-called leaders that are actually just absentee landlords, bankrupt of actual power except through rhetoric, coercion and physical force.

Who are your Persians?

For awhile now I’ve noticed that Epicurean adherents use the idea of Persians as the ultimate monolithic enemy. Clearly in reference to the Greco-Persian wars of antiquity.

But what about today? Who are your Persians and why?

In regard to the invading Persians, can we assume they are an allegorical generic population with an alien philosophy and traditions invading the city of modern times?

I mean this allegory is also meant for modern times too correct?

Not just the historical Persians under Xerxes I?

So my only thought is this in regard to solitude, isolation and ascetic practice.

Even if Epicurus did not endorse this behavior, there will always be a type of person who, no matter what philosophy or religion, will attempt to be alone and away from the crowd.

I think there can come a point when a (certain type) of person can reach the summit of their practice and find themselves already intellectually isolated and alone even in the crowd. They may choose to stay in solitude among the crowd and try to teach those around them, or conversely they go into isolation away from the crowd to live their life in peace.

But it’s a totally different idea than prescribed asceticism or hermitage. This is just like water seeking its lowest point, the wisest become separated mentally from the crowd whether they choose to or not. The only choice is to stay and cultivate those around them or cut and run to sanctuary.

I agree with what both you said. Elayne’s response is quite good. It’s tempered and definitely reasonable. Yes, I would be interested in your response when you get time to add it all up.

What do you really think number 7 should add up to? It’s true the first 6 do not add up to 7, but what would 7 actually be?

“So now that I am graduated from my Epicurean education, in the prime of my mental and physical strength of young adulthood....(blank).”

I agree with you Godfrey. I think the formula clearly has an Epicurean stamp on it. Whether or not Epicurus coined it himself.

It’s not a “full” presentation of Epicureanism by any stretch. But it certainly functions as a brief reminder of the most basic beliefs.

I mean it’s not like it’s possible that it would endorse anything other than Epicureanism. The first two premises are drawn directly from the first two PD’s!

It’s clearly in the vein of Epicureanism. Whether or not Epicurus himself would’ve liked it or coined it himself.

In my opinion, It’s a super simplified breakdown of the very basic tenants that kept (and keep) Epicureanism afloat.

“Don’t fear the divine” According to E’s own specific theological doctrines, the very ones he promoted. This one makes sense to me as being very Epicurean.

“Don’t fear (worry, obsess etc.) death.” This is also E’s doctrine and it ties directly into the first premise. There are no gods, no judgement, no afterlife. So when life ends, it’s just a cessation of sensation. So don’t “fear it” because there is nothing after you stop breathing.

The last two are a bit more vague, but they are certainly a reference to the shortness of mortal life and the battle between pleasure and pain. “What’s terrible (painful)” doesn’t last forever and “what’s good (pleasurable)” is easy to obtain, because if you follow the Epicurean system, you would have the wisdom to know the difference between necessary pleasures and unecessary ones.

Interesting. I always thought this formula was firmly associated with Epicurus. But it sounds like Philodemus was the one who coined it.

But wouldn’t Philodemus have based this model on the teachings of Epicurus? And would we believe Epicurus would disagree with the formula?

Maybe it was some sort of proselytizing tract that was formulated during those 200 years between Epicurus and Philodemus by other devoted Epicureans looking to give a simple “cure” to the world while Epicureanism was still flourishing.

So yes and no. I like it, but I recognize it has some flaws and it has not aged well. Plus, Stephen King’s books rarely translate well to the screen. This one is more of a cult classic. There are some pretty lame special FX at the very end. But the first part of the movie is somewhat entertaining.

Since they are remaking “Pet Semetary” maybe they will do a remake of this one.

https://goo.gl/images/CvuivB

Yeah the Amish, like some other communal groups like the Orthodox Jewish folks, dress in an archaic European fashion.

To the modern eye it just appears out of the ordinary and out of step with progress. Like we stepped back into the 19th century. It’s all to preserve a cultural identity.

Also, we tend to associate that style with more “cultish” behavior like the various species of LDS Mormonites.

I too am guilty of having this POV, but make no concession that it appears normal nor will I change my opinion that this style will forever remind me of Isaac’s cult from Children of the Corn. ?

Haha! Why were you surprised?

The message of simplicity is valid. But the delivery is overtly Bizzarre.

Children of the Corn Part IV.

There are certainly peripheral philosophical aspects weaved into Christian theology by later theologians and commentators. Primarily Platonic and Stoic. But these ideas are not the basis of Christian thought. They may enhance certain aspects of the theology, but not the overall narrative of the Gospel.

Plato and Zeno’s ideas have nothing to do with the miracles of Jesus healing the sick and resurrecting the dead. They have nothing to do with a Messiah in the lineage of David. They have nothing to do with the coming Kingdom of God. They have no part in the resurrection of the dead. Plato and Zeno certainly did not understand if you are a sheep at God’s right hand or a goat at his left. Nor did they understand that the tree of life that was denied to Adam is at the center of the new Jerusalem.

These ideas are the basis of Christian thought. It’s not philosophy at all.

It’s true that we can find objections and criticisms of Epicureanism throughout early Christian writings. As general rule, hedonistic philosophy is at odds with Christianity. Epicurean philosophy denies a providential deity, an afterlife and even the survival of a soul. So it shouldn’t be shocking that this conflict arises.

EP has some great ideas to its credit, but none of which the Christian church was willing to adopt. The Church did however adopt many pagan philosophical ideas into its metaphysics, primarily from Platonism and Stoicism. But these ideas were in regard to abstract formulas in respect to deity, virtue and cosmological principles. In the eyes of the Early Christians, these were harmless ideas that could be freely utilized in the service of evangelism by bolstering intellectual interests.

However, there were some early Christian apologists that were rather hostile to philosophy general, not just Epicureanism.

St. Paul, Tatian of Syria, Tertullian of Carthage, and Theophilus of Antioch to name a few. To view their hostility of philosophy as just another “know-nothing” ideological group with an axe to grind with the vogue rationalistic schools of the day is to deny the reality of their message.

It should be understood that though the Judeo-Christian religions were by this time becoming infused with Hellenic thought (as were other Near Eastern traditions like Hermeticism in Egypt) at ther core was non-philosophical religion, apocalypticism and mysticism. Before all the venerable philosophers, before Epicurus, before Plato, before Heraclitus, before Thales there were only myths and divine revelation.

These early apologists drew from an older tradition, not reliant on philosophical speculation. They attempted to show that Christianity and also the Jewish religion needed no intellectual philosophical bolstering. No need for the speculations of Epictetus or Aristotle to enhance the Gospels, the Psalms of David or the Law of Moses.

In regard to Christianity specifically, I believe it is important to view the religion as it truly is. Though the Gospels survive in a dialect of Greek, the common language of Hellenic philosophy, it would be wrong to assume that they are some sort of secular hybrid mishmash of Hellenized Judaism, Cynicism, and Stoicism as the basis of the religion that over 2 billion currently adhere to. That would be, in my opinion, an enormous mistake...It isn’t a philosophy at the heart of the faith. What the early apologists attempted to do was proclaim an apocalyptic message of high antiquity. Far, far older than Greece itself.

Jesus Christ may be referred to as the Logos in the opening lines of St. John’s Gospel, a philosophical word familiar to Hellenic audiences reading the Gospel at the time, but Jesus during his life referred to himself as “bar’enash” the Son of Man. A term completely unfamiliar to Greeks, but very familiar to Jews who knew the scriptures related to Enoch, Jubilees, Ezekiel and Daniel intimately. The message of Jesus was the coming of the Kingdom of God and the resurrection of the dead.

This isn’t Hellenistic philosophy.

This is Judaic revelation. Christianity is not easily dismissed as a rival philosophy of Stoicism or Epicureanisn, because the heart of the faith has to do with a supernatural occurrence that people simply believe. Jesus viewed himself as the Son of Man, the Elect One of God, that was foretold in ancient scriptures, scriptures that have familial relationships with demonstrably ancient legends from the Near East. Far older than any Hellenistic philosophical school of thought, the narratives in the Gospels and Hebrew Bible have antecedent relationships with the legends of Egypt, Babylon and Sumer, the foundations of human civilization. The proof of this is written in clay tablets in the ruined cities of ancient Iraq and on papyrus from Egyptian tombs.

The early apologists writing for a clear distinction between secular philosophy and divine revelation were not attempting to be fashionably ironic by attacking the vogue philosophical schools of the time, they were being faithful to a far more ancient tradition that has its roots in the oldest traditions known to humankind.

So, it all comes down to whether a person believes in what revealed religions have to say. If a person doesn’t believe, then that person really has no reason to explore the ancient apologists and scriptures, since at their core is something imaginary and this can easily be dismissed as fanciful as all myths can be regarded as false.

A selection from Epicurus.net, clearly written from a sympathetic Epicurean perspective. Though the author highlights many interesting points, they bizarrely take the Christ in India/Kashmir hypothesis and the Christ Myth hypothesis as possibly genuine. That should give some pause and caution since both theories are considered rather fringe from a completely objective, non-religious, academic perspective. But regardless of that peculiarity, the author does highlight some of the main opponents of Epicureanism. It’s a good jumping off point to find the actual texts.

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Epicureanism and the Early Christians

As indicated in the discussion of Judea above, Christians originated as one of the Nazarene cults. Unfortunately, the various historical accounts of Jesus are highly unreliable and mutually contradictory, and many of the stories associated with him may be an amalgamation of folk-tales about several different Nazarene leaders and wholly fictional accounts (based on widespread myths in circulation at the time) written many decades after the alleged events described. As best as can be determined, Jesus appears to have been a renegade Mandaean who claimed to be a descendant of the royal house of David, the anointed (“messiah” or “christos”) king of Jewish prophecy who would conquer the world. There are also strong indications that Jesus also claimed to be an incarnation of a “wisdom of life” that the Mandaeans equate with god.

Jesus's political pretensions were cut short at a crucial stage in his career when he entered Jerusalem in preparation for a coup against the Herodians, only to be betrayed by one of his own followers. Jesus was arrested and crucified, but to the dismay of the Roman/Herodian authorities, Jesus survived the crucifixion (possibly with the connivance of the commander of the Roman troops handling the crucifixion, who later became a Christian bishop in Cappodocia), and after his resuscitation was seen leaving the tomb-chamber assisted by two other Nazarenes. As the startling news of Jesus's resuscitation spread, his brother James announced that Jesus had been miraculously resurrected and that he had been personally deputized by Jesus to lead the Nazarenes as their “bishop of bishops” until Jesus's return (which was supposed to take place within a single generation of his original ministry). James's claim to leadership was accepted by most of the recent Nazarene converts, as he was the heir apparent to Jesus and thus next in line to be King of the Judeans. There is some evidence that Jesus meanwhile fled to Syria and then eastwards out of the Roman Empire, where he continued his teaching and faith-healing for many decades in Iran and Kashmir. A possible tomb of Jesus is located in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.

While James's sect in Jerusalem was largely destroyed by his execution and the flight of his followers from Judea prior to the Roman sacking of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., as well as the systematic campaign carried on by the Romans to kill the families of all messianic claimants, a missionary to non-Judeans by the name of Saul of Tarsus (also known by his latinized name Paul) transmitted a less militant form of Christianity to various cities in Turkey, Greece, and Italy. Rather than stressing Jesus's messianic role as a Judean world conqueror, Saul claimed that Jesus was not just a mere mortal from the house of David, but one of the immortals who shortly after his resurrection had ascended into heaven. Saul portrayed Jesus as a miracle-working demi-god, the son of the traditional Judean deity, who had come for the salvation of all mankind and not just Judeans. With this dejudaizing process initiated by Saul, Christianity could be made acceptable to non-Judeans, who otherwise would have had no reason to feel any loyalty towards a Jewish messiah.

In the course of his attempts to win converts Saul soon came into collision with the Epicurean communities that existed throughout the Greek-speaking world. Chapter 17 of the Acts of the Apostlesrecords Saul's sermon to the Athenians, including Epicureans and Stoics, gathered at the Areopagus in Athens. When Saul gets ready to speak, the Epicureans present ask “What will this seed-pecker say?”. The Epicurean response to Saul's discourse was not recorded, but even the author of Acts admits that Saul was not too successful in winning converts on that occasion.

A more significant aspect of Saul's evangelism was the extent to which he adopted certain peculiarities of Epicurean terminology and phraseology, and certain Epicurean social customs; and the extent to which he focused much of his rhetoric on gainsaying Epicurean denials of divine providence, resurrection, and an after-life. His letters to the Thessalonians and Corinthians in particular show this tendency. These letters offer strong indirect evidence that Epicureans were the principal ideological opponents that Saul had to contend with in Greece. Also very telling was his indirect references to Antiochus Epiphanes as the anti-Christ, making the same kind of anti-Seleucid/anti-Epicurean allusions that were illustrated above in connection with the Talmud.

After Saul, the fledgling Christian church faced persecution at the hands of the Romans, and was largely confined to winning converts from the uneducated segments of the population. The characteristic early Christian attitude towards Greek philosophers was summed up by the teaching that the wisdom of the world was foolishness, squarely placing Christian faith in fierce opposition to human rationality and the human desires embraced by Epicureanism.

Epicureanism and the Christian Apologists

By the mid-2 ^nd century A.D., the Christian movement had become secure enough so that it could aspire to win converts from more educated circles. Certain church leaders began to seriously engage themselves intellectually against Greek philosophy, often in the form of written apologias against “pagans” and rival Christians. These works routinely included attacks on Epicureanism, as shown by Tatian's Address to the Greeks, Justin the Martyr's Hortatory Address to the Greeksand On the Resurrection, and Irenaeus of Lyon's Against the Heretics.

Two significant anti-Epicurean themes emerged in these early apologias: first, Justin and Tatian mocked Greek philosophers as being hopelessly disputatious with one another, taking their disagreements as evidence that human intellect could not arrive at definite conclusions about reality (a somewhat ironic charge in view of the emerging factionalism of the Christians themselves). In the Hortatory Address to the Greeks, Justin writes:

Quote

“How then, you men of Greece, can it be safe for those who desire to be saved, to fancy that they can learn the true religion from these philosophers, who were neither able so to convince themselves as to prevent sectarian wrangling with one another, and not to appear definitely opposed to one another's opinions?”

The second theme was to attack the specifically Epicurean denial of divine providence and after-life and affirmation of pleasure as the supreme good and of materialistic atomism. While these earliest apologias often lumped Epicurus together with other philosophers, the succeeding decades saw a significant change. The next major Christian antagonist of Epicureanism was Tertullian (2^nd to 3^rd century A.D.). Unlike previous Christian apologists, Tertullian fully grasped the gross irrationality of his own anti-Epicurean arguments, and was all the more inflamed against it by the inclination of certain heretics to adopt Epicurean doctrines in arguing against bodily resurrection or against divine providence. Tertullian's rage against Epicureanism and other Greek philosophies and their influence on heretics is best illustrated in The Prescription Against Heretics where he says “These are the doctrines of men and of demons produced for itching ears of the spirit of this world's wisdom: this the Lord called ‘foolishness’ and ‘chose the foolish things of the world’ to confound even philosophy itself. For philosophy it is which is the material of the world's wisdom, the rash interpreter of the nature and the dispensation of God. Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy” and went on to mock the diversity of philosophical theories and thunder “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

His opposition to philosophy lead to a profoundly irrationalist attitude, a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the Christian opposition to worldly wisdom originally promoted by Saul. This irrationalism is blatantly evident in On the Flesh of Christ, where he proclaims that “The Son of God was crucified; I am not ashamed because men must needs be ashamed of it. And the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd. And He was buried, and rose again; the fact is certain, because it is impossible.”

“NO ATOMIC AGGREGATION COULD PRODUCE A SELF-HARMONIZING UNITY.

3. (b.) (No aggregation of atoms could form a whole that would be one and sympathetic with itself.) Others, on the contrary, insist that the soul is constituted by the union of atoms or indivisibles (as thought Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus.41) To refute this error, we have to examine the nature of sympathy (or community of affection, a Stoic characteristic of a living being,42) and juxtaposition.43 On the one hand an aggregation of corporeal molecules which are incapable of being united, and which do not feel cannot form a single sympathetic whole such as is the soul, which is sympathetic with herself. On the other hand, how could a body or extension be constituted by (a juxtaposition of) atoms?”

“STOIC AND EPICUREAN CAUSELESS ORIGIN REALLY THE UTMOST DETERMINISM.

Now among the things that become, or among those that although perpetually existent do not always result in the same actions, it may be boldly asserted that everything has a cause. We should not admit (the Stoic contention99) that something happens without a cause, nor accept the (Epicurean100) arbitrary convergence of the atoms, nor believe that any body initiates a movement suddenly and without determining reason, nor suppose (with Epicurus again101) that the soul undertakes some action by a blind impulse, without any motive. Thus to suppose that a thing does not belong to itself, that it could be carried away by involuntary movements, and act without motive, would be to subject it to the most crushing determinism. The will must be excited, or the desire awakened by some interior or exterior stimulus. No determination (is possible) without motive.”

“MATERIALISTS SUPPORT DETERMINISM.

Those sages who (like Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus) assumed material principles such as the atoms, and who explain everything by their motion, their shock and combinations, pretend that everything existent and occurring is caused by the agency of these atoms, their "actions and reactions." This includes, according to them, our appetites and dispositions. The necessity residing in the nature of these principles, and in their effects, is therefore, by these sages, extended to everything that exists. As to the (Ionic Hylicists), who assume other physical (ultimate) principles, referring everything to them, they thus also subject all beings to necessity.”

“THE PHYSICAL THEORIES ARE ABSURD.

3. To refer everything to physical causes, whether you call them atoms or elements, and from their disordered motion to deduce order, reason and the soul that directs (the body), is absurd and impossible; nevertheless, to deduce everything from atoms, is, if possible, still more impossible; and consequently many valid objections have been raised against this theory.”

“THE STOIC POLEMIC AGAINST THE EPICUREANS.

To begin with, even if we do admit such atomic principles, their existence does not in any way inevitably lead to either the necessity of all things, or fatality. Let us, indeed, grant the existence of atoms; now some will move downwards—that is, if there is an up and down in the universe—others obliquely, by chance, in various directions. As there will be no order, there will be nothing determinate. Only what will be born of the atoms will be determinate. It will therefore be impossible to guess or predict events, whether by art—and indeed, how could there be any art in the midst of orderless things?—or by enthusiasm, or divine inspiration; for prediction implies that the future is determined. True, bodies will obey the impulses necessarily communicated to them by the atoms; but how could you explain the operations and affections of the soul by movements of atoms? How could atomic shock, whether vertical or oblique, produce in the soul these our reasonings, or appetites, whether necessarily, or in any other way? What explanation could they give of the soul's resistance to the impulsions of the body?”

“EPICURUS TAUGHT CHANCE AND THE GNOSTICS AN EVIL CREATOR.

1. When Epicurus21 derives the existence and constitution of the universe from automatism and chance, he commits an absurdity, and stultifies himself. That is self-evident, though the matter have elsewhere been thoroughly demonstrated.22 But (if the world do not owe its origin to chance) we will be compelled to furnish an adequate reason for the existence and creation of all these beings. This (teleological) question deserves the most careful consideration. Things that seem evil do indeed exist, and they do suggest doubts about universal Providence; so that some (like Epicurus23) insist there is no providence, while others (like the Gnostics24), hold that the demiurgic creator is evil. The subject, therefore, demands thorough investigation of its first principles.

PARTICULAR AND UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE ASSUMED AS PREMISES.

Let us leave aside this individual providence, which consists in deliberating before an action, and in examining whether we should or should not do something, or whether we should give or not give it. We shall also assume the existence of the universal Providence, and from this principle we shall deduce the consequences.

Excerpt From

Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4 / In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods

Plotinus

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One main category is good! Just like you have it now.

That way you can keep religion and philosophy under the same heading.