Posts by Eikadistes

Quote from Cassius

But I never found a reference to "Thomas Young." Do you know if he wrote anything worth reading? Probably this list of books here deserves a thread of its own for people who would like to research and cite "Founding Fathers" of the USA for reference in advocating Epicurean viewpoints. Even if they were "deists" or didn't mention Epicurus specifically I can imagine this kind of material being useful to lots of people. I didn't orginally consider it but of course now in retrospect I should include Frances Wrights AFDIA in that list too.

Thomas Young was an intellectual mentor to Ethan Allen and perhaps a more devoted contributor to the Lucretius-inspired group of Colonial "Deists" than his contemporaries. I recently read about him in Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic by Matthew Stewart. It is a dense read, but very informative, and I recommend it.

Young's fellow citizens regularly accused him of being "a man of no morals," an "infamous character," and, of course, an "infidel." And Young--this is perhaps the most unusual thing about him--regularly responded with daring public confessions in which he let it be known, in so many words, that if with such terms his antagonists meant to identify him a deist, then they were right. Rushing to his defense after one assault on the doctor's unacceptable creed, his fellow members of the Boston Committee of Correspondence marveled that on his journey through life he had accumulated many friends of high character notwithstanding the fact that "uniform throughout, he appears in all places to have declared his sentiments on all subjects, natural, civil, and religious." The thing about Young, everyone agreed, was that he could not keep his mouth shut. When he died, the nation he served found it convenient to forget such a troublesome individual. Let him now face the consequence in the afterlife whose reality he so blasphemously denied, they said, and they moved on.

Young's philosophical oeuvre is not large or systematic, and it is sometimes obtuse, as one might expect from a self-taught medicine man moonlighting as a global revolutionary. Yet its neglect turns out to be the most damaging of the many unfortunate consequences of his omission from the history books. In the uncomfortably personal confessions he committed to print, Young tells us what it was like to come of age as a deist in prerevolutionary America. In his sundry philosophical treatises, he articulates a form of deism that is substantially more radical than that which has traditionally figured in the stories America tells itself about its philosophical heritage. And he makes clear that, at least in his own mind, this radical philosophy was the axis on which the Revolution turned. For him, the project to free the American people from the yoke of King George was part of a grander project to liberate the world from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion. (Ibid. 22-23)

Quote from Don

Are you familiar with Thomas Jefferson's Bible editing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible?wprov=sfla1

There is an interesting historical connection between Epicurean philosophy and (heterodox) Christianity at the intersection of the American Revolution. While Colonial religion was dominated by the evangelism of the First Great Awakening, a notable group of critics (including Ethan Allen, a founder of Vermont, Thomas Young, organizer of the Boston Tea Party, and, of course, Thomas Jefferson, who re-wrote the Bible) represented a piety apart from religion.

Rather than dispense with Christianity altogether, some of these individuals sought to re-orient the narrative of Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ into the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth, a simple moral reformer in ancient Judaea. They generally rejected the Epistles and Revelation in their entirety, and saw Christian Churches as being subversive political institutions that repeatedly changed their doctrines to accommodate political interests.

At the same time, critics of Christianity heavily employed religious language that evangelists have cited to support the "American is a Christian Nation" argument. A closer reading of that language, and the philosophical context in which it was written, however, shows that "God" and "Creator" refer to "Nature" and never to "Jesus". Even so, many of these critics glorified the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth as the most morally "perfect" figure in history.

Nonetheless, these critics stand in contrast with the Christian authorities of the time (most notably the Catholic Church), so they are not great examples of typical Christians (if Christians at all). They derived their positions from a line that begins with De Rerum Natura, and grows through Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and then eventually American Revolutionaries like Jefferson who held on to some aspects of Christianity after applying an Epicurean critique.

If one is intending to interface with Christianity in a way that does not completely dismiss the tradition while maintaining an Epicurean position, Jefferson's approach seems appropriate.

If he only realized that he ends with a uniquely Epicurean observation:

"[Y]ou should [not] try to meditate yourself into a mystical state of total presence or concentration, but just that to recognise the fact that the past is past, and that soon you won’t have any future left – so you really might as well be here. It’s not so bad. Often enough, it’s wonderful. And in any case, there’s nowhere else to be."

"Death is nothing to us" is not just a temporal categorization of "before" versus "after", but, more important, it is a proposition that we are mortal, that life is finite, that time is precious, and pleasure is prudent.

Besides, Aristotle suggesting that men have more teeth than women is really the most useless pseudo-observation.

I am looking forward to adding more dots on the map!

School at LAMPSACUS (modern Northwestern Turkey) Founded by Epicurus

The GARDEN (O KHΠOΣ) of ATHENS (Central Greece) Founded by Epicurus

Community in CORINTH (Peloponnese peninsula, Greece)

Community in CHALCIS (Euboea island, Greece)

Community in THEBES (Boeotia, Central Greece)

Community in THESSALONIKI (Macedonia region, Greece)

Community in KOS (Southeastern island of Greece)

School at RHODES (Southeastern island of Greece)

School at AMASTRIS (Northern Turkey) Founded by Tiberius Claudius Lepidus

Community in TARSUS (Northwest Turkey)

Community in PERGAMON (Western Turkey)

Community in COLOPHON (Western Turkey)

Community in EPHESUS (Southwestern Turkey)

School at MILETUS (Southwestern Turkey) Founded by Demetrius Laco

Community in OINOANDA (Southwestern Turkey) Supported by Diogenes

Community in RHODIAPOLIS (Southwestern Turkey)

School at ANTIOCH (South-central Turkey) Founded by Philonides

School at APAMEIA (Western Syria) Lead by Aurelius Belius Philippus

Community at SIDON (Lebanon)

Community at TYRE (Lebanon)

Community in ALEXANDRIA (City of Alexander III of Macedon in Egypt)

Community in OXYRHYNCHUS (Southern Egypt)

School at NAPLES (Southwestern Italy) Founded by Siro

Community in HERCULANEUM (Southwestern Italy) Lead by Philodemus

Community in ROME (Western Italy) Inspired by Albucius

Community in AUGUSTODUNUM (Eastern France) Inspired by Albucius

“[Epicurus'] philosophy rode this tide. It had reached Alexandria even before his arrival in Athens. By the second century it was flourishing in Antioch and Tarsus, had invaded Judaea, and was known in Babylon. Word of it had reached Rome while Epicurus was still living, and in the last century B.C. it swept over Italy.” (De Witt, Epicurus and His Philosophy 29)

“Both Thessalonica and Corinth must have been strongholds of Epicureanism.” (Ibid. 338)

“After the third century BCE there were Epicurean centres in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt: adherents, identified from their cities, came from Tyre, Sidon, Tarsus, and Alexandria. Epicureanism also expanded west. […] The existence of communities in the Naples region is attested by both Horace and Vergil. […] Epicureanism can be attested in a board variety of locations: Herculanem, Sorrento, Rhodes, Cos, Pergamon, Oenoanda (the Lycus valley), Apameia (Syria), Rhodiapolis, and Amastris (Bithynia). Locations like Athens and Oxyrhynchus provide evidence for the preservation of Epicurean writing, as well as Herculaneum. […] Asia Minor (notably Ephesus, Alexandria, and Syria are all suggested as prime candidates for its location.” (King, Epicureanism and the Gospel of John: A Study of Their Compatibility 11-13)

“It will be worth our while to observe how admirably Epicureanism was equipped for the penetration of Asia. As mentioned already, the branch school at Lampsacus was strategically situated for dissemination of the creed along the coast of the Black Sea. On the west coast of Asia there was another school at Mytilene […] Still further to the south was the original school at Colophon, close to Ephesus. […] The gateway to Asia, however, had been open to the cred of Epicurus for three centuries before Paul’s time and Tarsus was a center of Epicureanism. […] Epicureanism was the court philosophy of Antioch during the reigns of at least two kings of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes and Demetrius Soter." (Ibid. 62)

“In it he attests the widespread Epicurean communities of Athens, and Chalcis and Thebes in Boeotia.” (The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism 20)

"We meet Epicureans not just in Athens, where they were amongst Paul's audiences, but we also come across Epicurean communities in the West, in Herculaneum or Sorrento, in the East, on Rhodes and Cos, in Pergamon, Lycian Oinoanda, Syrian Apameia, in remote southern Lycian Rhodiapolis or in Amastris in Bithynia on the Black Sea. (Ibid. 48)

"It has recently been discovered that the extensive mosaic floor in the House of the Greek Authors in Autun (ancient Augustodunum) includes portraits of Epicurus and Metrodorus (Blanchard-Lemee and Blanchard 1993; Frischer 2006: paragraphs 10-20)." (Gordon, The Invention and Gendering of Epicurus 141)

Quote from Kalosyni

I wonder if some kinds of modern therapy or modern psychology can end up being a kind "false medicine"?

I have Bipolar 1 so paranoia is part of my makeup and many moons ago I discovered a blind spot owned by Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for my condition. At the time, I was in the middle of acknowledging paranoid feelings about a group of people I was calling my friends. My Psy.D. and I worked through exercises that slowly desensitized me to anxiety I felt around groups. I went from a period of being recluse and antisocial to performing onstage.

Still, the strides that I made could not prepare me for the following: that group really did have ill intentions planned for me, and more than one individual was involved in methodically acting on those ill intentions. "You don't have anything to feel anxious about" as a blanket statement was inadvertently poison, because I needed to hear, "You may suffer from irrational paranoia, but, in this case, your paranoia is justified and the objects thereof are worthy of suspicion."

Having a trusted friend in my corner was as important as a proper chemical balance. A medical professional can only do so much. It takes the support of a trusted friend to know you well enough to offer nuanced advice. A psychologist, therapist, or counselor can only work with so much. Someone close to you has an invested interest in your health, and (in an era of constant moving and job-switching) is more reliable than a doctor you infrequently see.

Anyway, CBT made it easier for me to go on to tolerate the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. What it failed to do was provide direction. In my case, how can I distinguish justified suspicion from unjustified paranoia? Under a microscope of academic psychology, I seemed to be obsessing over unhealthy thoughts. In a larger context, I was actually obsessing over making a critical decision that warranted my anxious behavior.

As a side note, one thing you learn in theatre is that the general anxiety thespians call "first night jitters" is actually a net positive gift from nature. You stop performing as well when you get desensitized to the crowd and stop caring.

On Epicurus being a herald:

“Epicurus is occasionally described as as a saviour (sōtér) or messenger (kéryx), terms which are also used by Epicureans themselves and are reminiscient of Old Testament expressions. Perhaps such a choice of words was intended as a kind of ‘competitive offer’ to the blossoming Christianity.” (The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism 53)

“Diogenes employs similar language to describe Epicurus to his fellow Epicureans in Rhodes, calling him ‘the herald who saved you’ (NF 7 III.12f [see Smith (1971) 365-71]) = fr. 73 Casanova [= fr. 72.III.12-14 Smith]). The conception of Epicurus as a savior is of course not unique to Diogenes; we find it in Pompeia Plotina’s letter to the Epicureans of Athens, and elsewhere among Epicureans both Greek and Roman. But the term kēryx is neither common nor orthodox. Epicurus had, it seems, used the verb Κῆρυttein in his enthusiastic description of friendship ‘dancing about all of the inhabited world, heralding the call to us all: Awake to proclaim blessedness!’ Diogese speaks of ‘salvation’ when he states his motives for displaying on the wall of his stoa the gospel of Epicurean philosophy. The philosophy as a soter is not a commonplace in the philosophical literature of the second century. And Diogenes’ description of Epicurus as a herald (kēryx) is even less common. Both terms, ‘savior’ and ‘herald,’ remind us rather of the language of the New Testament. The language of I Timothy 2.7 combines the terms ‘herald’ and ‘apostle,’ and ‘savior’ is the word for Christ in II Timothy 1.10. The kērygma of the New Testament is of course the coming of Christ as the Messiah and savior.” (Clay, Paradosis and Survival 243-244)

"For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all--this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth." (1 Timothy 2:5-7)

"This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has not been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospelI was appointed a herald and an apostle and Ia teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do." (2 Timothy 1:9-12)

"For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of the deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly" (2 Peter 2:4-5)

Regarding the usefulness of prayer:

“[P]etitionary prayer to the gods is obviously, for an Epicurean, of no avail; and, indeed, as Epicurus says in his Vatican sayings 65, it is pointless to pray for happiness which a man can provide for himself. If the gods paid attention to human prayers the human race would long since have become extinct since men are continually praying for calamities to fall upon their enemies [...] Yet Epicurus recommend prayer, on the grounds that it is a natural act and that one should also participate in the religious life of one’s country, and it seems that he himself, led the way by taking part, and urging his followers to take part, in the sacrifices of the gods, without worrying too much about popular superstitious beliefs.” (Thrower, The Alternative Tradition: Religion and the Rejection of Religion in the Ancient World 184)

“…already been pointed out by the Epicurean Hermocrates — does one have to pray to be able to pray properly? — by using Epicurean ideas of prayer as meditation, when the good is not a result generated from outside, but consists in the act of the prayer itself and, consequently, in looking after the self.” (The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, 60)

“[T]he Epicurean school encouraged prayer representing a disinsterested, high-minded admiration and adoration of an ideal. Pray (in its genesis and in its employment, doubtless representing, at once, for some an individual, emotional need, and for others a social habit) became through the Epicurean rationalization of religion, theoretically at least, an intellectual matter, conducted, according to the Epicurean conception, truly pie and sancte. The higher aspiration of the Epicureans for an ideal that might be worshiped because of its perfection, found expression in prayer, that necessarily involved the religion of poetry, of mythology, of cultus, and of dogma, while at the same time, it gave to gods and goddesses a new function and character. It is inconceivable that prayer among the Epicureans was wholly or even in large part the result of a concessionary or cowardly spirit; it was rather a psycholigcal necessity and at the same time, as conceived by Epicureans, not inconsistent with the entire Epicurean philosophy of religion. Sincerity in the matter of prayer would necessarily among the Epicureans be a variable matter, as also the degree of attachment to the old religion of which the Epicurean theology was an out-growth, a purification, and a reconstruction.” (Classical Philology: Volume 2 188)

“It is true that Epicurus saw little value in prayer but he did declare that continuous happiness was possible and he exalted the virtue of gratitude to first rank as a factor of happiness. Verse 16 is therefore partly Epicurean, partly exclusively Pauline: ‘Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks under all circumstances.’” (St. Paul and Epicurus 51)

Regarding Epicurus as the sōtēr of humanity:

“It is interesting that a man like Epicurus—who later was so much attacked by the Christians that only some of his fragments remain—was called soter by his pupils. This is the Greek word which the New Testament uses and which we translate as “savior”. Epicurus the philosopher was called a savior. […] He was called soter because he did the greatest thing anyone could do for his followers: he liberated them from anxiety.” (Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, from Its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism 5 [1972])

“The similarity of god and sage reaches out of the paradisiacal realms of the Garden and intermundia into the world inhabited by common men, for it is in the world of the common man that the effects of divinity and deosimilitude are most visible. Both the sage and the gods are called sōtēres in Epicurean writings, for both effect acts of salvation for the benefit of the common man still in the world.” (Frischer, The Sculped Word: Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient Greece 79)

“[T]he Lord Jesus Christ . . . our Savior. In the Greco-Roman world, it was common for the Caesars to call themselves “Lord” (kurios […]) and “Savior” (sōtēr […]) […] For example, Epicurus is called sōtēr by his followers.” (Hoehner and Davids, Ephesians; Philippians, 1-2 Thessalonians; Colossians, Philemon 209)

“Epicurus is occasionally described as a savior (sōtēr) or messenger (kēryx), terms which are also used by Epicureans themselves and are reminiscient of Old Testament expressions. Perhaps such a chocie of words was intended as a kind of ‘competitive offer’ to the blossoming of Christianity. Lucian’s Alexander seeks to put up a monument to Epicurus the ‘saviour’, ‘for this in the truest sense holy and divine man, the only one actually to recognize that which is true and good and, through its dissemination, to become a liberator and benefactor of his disciples’.” (The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism 53)

Epicurean Similarities With Early Christianity

— Personalized letters (Epistles) were the primary form of literary dissemination.

— "FAITH" (as ΠIΣTIΣ or pístis) served a key role (also "confidence", "conviction", "guarantee", "pledge", "assurance")

— The founder was called "SAVIOR" (as ΣΩTHP or sōtēr) and honored as a universal "Savior of Humanity".

— Followers venerated the founder as a deity.
— A core set of beliefs was prescribed by the founder as dogma (ΔOΓMA).

— Uniquely included women as equals and leaders of the early community.

— General cautioning against participating in State politics

— Suspicion of wealth and fame as reliable sources of happiness.

— Recognition that a simple life is all that is required to enjoy the fullness of a good life.

— Acknowledgement that a beloved friend is worth sacrificing oneself for.
— Prayer was employed as an effective practice

— Jesus is called "kathegetes" in Matthew 23:10, the same noun used to describe Epicurus' brothers' roles

— Epicurus, St. Paul, and Noah are described as KHPYX, a “herald" (or "preacher" in the King James Version)

— Incorrectly represented as "atheists" by philosophical and political opponents

I am curious about the Epicurus' proposed love of figs. From where do we read that?

This all reminds me of the visual blind spot seeing people share, the area in your visual spectrum that corresponds with the place behind your eye where your retina connects to your optic nerve and lacks light-detecting photoreceptor cells. Despite the limitations of the geometry of the eye, our brains fill in the blank without a problem.

Notice in the test on Wikipedia how the blind spot does not appear to be an empty black void in spacetime, but rather, your brain just fills it in with the same shade of Wikipedia White that surrounds the "R" and "L".

There seems to be a demonstration here of natural dogma versus skepticism. Since the blind spot is a consequence of missing photoreceptor cells (due to the presence of the optic nerve) the "color" of the blind spot is being drawn by the interpretive brain, making an educated guess based on other available information. Knowing "it's probably white" is a good enough guess to encourage human survival, whereas, a Skeptical Brain might say "we can never really know what fantastical colors might lie behind the ever-obscured blind spot, forever teasing our little human minds".

And while the Skeptical Brain doubts its own eyes, a tiger pounces and makes a meal out of a skeptic philosopher.

I am reading Nature's GOD: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic by Matthew Stewart right now who discusses the tensions and influence of the Calvinists and Puritans in Colonial North America versus self-described "Deists" like Thomas Young and Ethan Allen. He goes to great lengths to demonstrate his postulate (similar to The Swerve) that the re-discovery and dissemination of De Rerum Natura is the definitive catalyst that lead to the modern age.

He provides a number of interesting anecdotes about Calvinist arguments against Epicurean Philosophy. Needless to say, Epicurus seems to live atop History's "Most Wanted" list as a perpetual antagonist to the political and religious authorities who could benefit from incorporating the systems of Epicurus' philosophical opponents:

“In Epicurus […] there was nothing of that compromising, dialectical spirit that pervaded Aristotle and the others and allowed them to be wrestled to the ground and marked with the sign of the cross" (85).

I think that American rejectors of Christianity have a lot in common with Epicureans in the late Roman Empire. In both time periods, we have political figures who were publicly ridiculed for their devotion to the teachings of Epicurus. In both periods, people regularly misunderstood the principles behind scientific innovations that they, themselves, use. Both periods feature huge groups of reactionaries who actively seek the destruction of modern inventions. In both periods, there is a tension between Superstitious Fear-Based Religion versus Natural Reason, and it usually leads to the fearfully religious with the benefit of legal authority applying punitive measures against the naturally reasonable.

This is completely tangential, but Don have I ever shared my book of lyrical poetry with you?

I transcribed all of my albums' lyrics into a phonetic-alphabetic hybrid English Mode of Tengwar, including an analysis of Tolkien's linguistic devices and their real-world analogues: https://www.academia.edu/37729486/The_Book_of_SH_ZD_R

There's also a transcription on the back of every Tolkien manuscript with any form of Elvish in the appendix. (I am particularly proud of Tom Bombadil's song and the King's Letters, which were rather tedious to transcibe).

I've got a couple of Elvish tattoos, one in Quenya written in the Sarati script on my back ("Ilya i na malta ume mirilya..." and so on), and a Sindarin phrase on my chest ("Or 'waith bain nor Anor agiliath an-ui dorthar..." and so on).

Really digging into philosophy requires (in my opinion) a study of language, and most students of the history of English will bump into Tolkien as a scholar at some point, and a portion of us get caught there.

Quote from Don

Sorry. I could go on ad nauseam. Big Tolkien nerd here Tolkien was definitely no Epicurean, but he did talk and write about the pleasure language - both natural and constructed - gave him.

There seems to me to be significant overlap between residents of the Garden and Middle Earth. I have met more genuine Tolkien enthusiasts through Epicurean philosophy than through Lord of the Rings forums.

For me, "lay low" is our best contemporary idiom that expresses the basic meaning of ΛΑΘΕ ΒΙΩΣΑΣ. Somewhere behind it are "going underground" and maybe either "take the red pill" or "turn on, tune in, drop out". Turn on your natural intellectual faculties, tune in to the teachings of Epicurus, drop out of superstitious religious cults.

I also find connections with Vatican Saying 58 ("We must free ourselves from the prison of public education and politics") and Fragment 24 ("I congratulate you, Apelles, in that you have approached philosophy free from all corruption").

Martin, I have been wondering if you would agree that Epicurus' concept of a "World" is more-or-less compatible with the contemporary definition of the "Observable Universe". If so, is (as I understand it) the "whole Universe (beyond that which is "Observable") an appropriate candidate in which "Other Worlds" might be?

I know we often think of an Epicurean "World" as a Solar System, and "Other Worlds" as exoplanets, but I am considering the possibility that the "Observable Universe" better fits Epicurus' description of a "World".

I found some hostility to the Athenian festivals from Epicurus' opponents.

Cynics saw the religious festivals as wasteful: “[Philodemus] claims that Epicurus himself took part in Athenian festivals and was even initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. The major exceptions to this conventionalism were the Cynics, followers of Diogenes of Sinope on the north-east coast of Asia Minor (c. 400 to c. 325 BC). […] He was reputed never to take part in religious rituals and to hold that there was nothing wrong with stealing from temples or committing anything else conventionally seen as sacrilegious.” (Religions of the Ancient Greeks, 136)

Plato thought that some of the festivals promoted false morality, glorified drunkenness, and generally celebrated vice: “Plato […] proposes to institute a rigid regime of cultic events that would stand in contrast to the Athenian festivals with their crowds of choruses singing songs of no fixed genre” (Greek and Roman Festivals: Content, Meaning, and Practice 220). “Dionysus’ gift of wine, when unmediated, is the originary example of the Dionysiac sympotic behaviour that Plato condemned” (Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws 383). “The Greater Dionysia […] was celebrated with a bout of public drunkenness of which Plato heartily disapproved (Laws I 637a-b)” (Plato the Myth Maker, 21).

I did not locate any mentions of either Pyrrho or Epictetus displaying hostility toward public events, but I strongly suspect their derision given the overwhelming Stoic condemnation of intoxicants. Marcus Aurelius seems to only have supported such festivals as a point of control: “Marcus Aurelius [...] was [not] personally keen on public spectacles […] but, like all emperors, [he] had to placate the mob” (Marcus Aurelius: A Life 82). There also seems to be an accusation by critics that festivals eroded civic virtue: “celebrations and ‘religious’ festivals in honor of the gods had become so numerous that the emperor Marcus Aurelius finally had to step in and limit them to a sensible maximum of 135 per year” (The Hedonism Handbook: Mastering the Lost Arts of Leisure and Pleasure).

Conversely, the Cyrenaics (at least, their founder) were fond of the public spectacles, and seems to have specifically patronized the goddess of love and sexuality: “The philosopher Aristippus is said to have spent two months a year at the festival [of Aphrodite] with the courtesan Lais” (Pain and Pleasure in Classical Times 66).

After researching a bit, some of the rituals and traditions surprised me. While I often think of Epicurus’ theism in terms of someone with a conservative mentality, social norms in ancient Greece make the word “conservative” unhelpful by comparison to my American eyes. Wine drunkenness seemed to have been a central feature, as did (possibly) public sexual intercourse, and a vibe that seems to me to be a mix between the Day of the Dead and Carnival.

I observe how readily non-Mexican and non-Irish Americans celebrate the non-civic, but totally fun Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Days, versus how the civic, but totally non-fun Columbus Day has little ritualistic value to supporters (except as a political symbol for contemporary cultural tensions). If the ancient Greeks were as smart as the owners of some of the theatres in which I have performed, I have to imagine that they were smart enough to get their audiences drunk (makes for a better show), and (what a coincidence), Greek religion was, literally, the origin of theatre.

In general, ancient Greek civic holidays seem to have been celebrations associated with sensual indulgence. I wonder if that’s why Epicurus was pro-religious celebration. He wasn’t exactly avoiding red meat for Lent, or fasting for Ramadan (nor were his gods). The festival (Khoës) the author names was fairly orgiastic. I am curious if Epicurus’ philosophical opponents looked at civic holidays with suspicion, and, instead, preferred more private, esoteric practices.

Better yet, I acknowledge that my critical political opinions do not keep me from enjoying hot dogs, hamburgers, family, yard games, and beer on the Fourth of July. Those pleasures do not need to be justified by ideology to enjoy.

So, I think I get it (given that I'm not just massively projecting my own bubble on Epicurus).