Posts by Joshua

Regarding the telos of the forum ( ), we have had a few interesting threads that might be worth looking at;

September 2019:

Thread

How Would You Answer Someone New Who Asked You: "What Is Epicurean Philosophy All About?"

If you met someone who asked you to explain to them what Epicurean Philosophy is about, how would you introduce them to it, and what are some examples of how it can be applied in everyday life?

Cassius

September 1, 2019 at 8:08 AM

July 2020:

Thread

Musings on A Quick Statement of "What It Means to Be An Epicurean"

My mind is distracted tonight and going in too many directions,, and in times like this it seems I always turns back to the fundamental issue of "what it means to be an Epicurean."

I do not expect to make any changes at the moment, but I am toying with the idea of deleting the quote from Lucian of Samosata (about "striking a blow for Epicurus") currently at the top of the home page. New people probably don't recognize that quote, and i am thinking it might be beneficial if we replaced it…

Cassius

July 13, 2020 at 10:57 PM

For my part, there is a great deal of looming uncertainty as to how much of my free time will be taken up by the online professional coursework that I'll be starting in January.

I don't think I'll know for sure until at least the first week of January. But I like the idea on the whole!

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Other research discovered that 20 minutes outside three times a week is the dose of nature that had the greatest effect on reducing an urban dweller’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

I'm outside 35+ hours a week, I must be as beatific as the Dalai Lama!

For me, it's the evening walks that I find restorative, and mostly when the stars are out—walking caeli subter labentia signa, under the gliding signs of heaven. Or, below that heraldry of star and planet, as Humphries renders it.

Dear me, is there to be a lot of shouting? 😅

Since we spoke a little bit about Thomas More a few weeks ago, I thought I would drop this in here. I can't say that I've read the play, but the film is good!

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O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South [...]

I'm a Keats-ian where beverages are concerned, whether its libations or poetry.

So wine for me, thank you very much!

I like the way Martin has put it.

Once you've got the core arguments right in your mind, there's room to relax. But minds are imperfect, and memory is frail---so that a certain degree of 'regular maintenance' is necessary to keep one's philosophy on a right heading.

The best way to preserve books from rotting away is to keep them in circulation, and to make new copies from time to time as the old ones fail. Papyrus crumbles, parchment fades---after a generation, nobody remembers anything. So it is with philosophy. We owe this much, I think, to our future selves---to keep the philosophical machinery of our minds in good working order: and perhaps we owe something more; something to those nameless millions as yet unborn, who have not heard the story of Epicurus of Samos. Who will not hear that story, unless we here and others like us are prepared to spend some small part of our own precious time in preserving it---to pass on that torch.

Because to strike a blow for Epicurus is in some measure to strike a blow against time itself, and forgetfulness. Consider--the whole history of our species up to this moment has transpired before the Milky Way galaxy has completed a tenth of one percent of its rotation! We bloom for a day, we lucky few; and in a flash our lives are gone, withered like grapes on the vine.

But though the vine whither, the Garden still has her secrets. By the end of a century no part of her is left unchanged. This plant dies, and that plant dies---

And the Garden remains. In what seems the bleakest winter, all of her hope lies hidden---tucked away in a seed.

Ah, but such seeds! In a monastery in Germany in 1417, a poem sprouted that had lain dormant for a thousand years, unfolding in its spreading leaves the knowledge of nature, and the way things are. Another of these, Italy held in her bosom; mouldering but not lost, buried under a hundred feet of volcanic ash, a cache of papyrus scrolls in 1750 sent forth green tendrils; fresh thoughts from long ago, winding their way through the dark tunnels of the lost villa toward living daylight. Then in 1884, in Turkey on the coast of Asia---where, knitted into cold barren stone, the very words of Epicurus himself were found to have taken root. Indeed, even the library of the Vatican itself came to bear this startling, alien and ancient fruit.

Who knows but that the hand of a child may not bury that acorn, whose growth comes to tower over every other oak. For a seed is so small a thing---and in the planting, it is then that we strike our greatest blow. But how should we do this?

Something comes to mind;

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VS41. We must laugh and philosophize at the same time and do our household duties and employ our other faculties, and never cease proclaiming the sayings of the true philosophy.

Notes:

The passage from Lucretius I mentioned (Still need a direct citation):

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Another fallacy comes creeping in whose errors you should be meticulous in trying to avoid. Don't think our eyes, our bright and shining eyes, were made for us to look ahead with. Don't suppose our thigh bones fitted our shin bones and our shins our ankles so that we might take steps. Don't think that arms dangled from shoulders and branched out in hands with fingers at their ends, both right and left, for us to do whatever need required for our survival. All such argument, all such interpretation is perverse, fallacious, puts the cart before the horse. No bodily thing was born for us to use. Nature had no such aim, but what was born creates the use. There could be no such thing as sight before the eyes were formed. No speech before the tongue was made, but tongues began long before speech were uttered. and the ears were fashioned long before a sound was heard. And all the organs I feel sure, were there before their use developed. They could not evolve for the sake of use be so designed. But battling hand to hand and slashing limbs, fouling the foe in blood, these antedate the flight of shining javelins. Nature taught men out to dodge a wound before they learned the fit of shield to arm. Rest certainly is older in the history of man than coverlets or mattresses, and thirst was quenched before the days of cups or goblets. Need has created use as man contrives device for his comfort. but all these cunning inventions are far different from all those things much older, which supply their function from their form. The limbs, the sense, came first, their usage afterwards. Never think they could have been created for the sake of being used.”

― Titus Lucretius Carus, The Way Things Are

Chimpanzees sharing food:

Wild chimpanzees share food with their friends

Why share food with non-family members when there is no immediate gain? An international team of researchers conducted observations of natural food sharing…

www.sciencedaily.com

Kids for Cash scandal:

Kids for cash scandal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Problems with the Roman Constitution:

The Roman Republic Fails, Ancient Rome for Kids - Ancient Rome for Kids

Political history of the Roman military - Wikipedia

History of the Vatican Sayings:

The Vatican Sayings of Epicurus

A sparse selection of Epicurus' wise words survives to this day in writing. The collection of his "Vatican Sayings" gives us insight into the key teachings of…

owlcation.com

Explanation of this drivel to follow!

https://www.abdabrs.com/uploads/5/1/0/4/51042467/natural-law-1_orig.jpg

Reading Poggio Bracciolini's account of the baths of Baden in Germany may give some support for your ideas, Matt. He felt at once isolated and enchanted when he saw the Germans at the baths living with such cheerful license, and wrote thus to his friend Niccolo Niccoli in Florence;

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I have related enough to give you an idea what a numerous school of Epicureans is established at Beden. I think this must be the place where the first man was created, which the Hebrews call the garden of pleasure. If pleasure can make a man happy, this place is certainly possessed of every requisite for the promotion of felicity.

It is easy to see why the German traditions of Yule have been chosen and perpetuated, in favor of those more properly Christian.

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To deny any of these comforts is to neglect the needs of the body and dull the very sensory mechanisms that allowed us to understand dis-ease in the first place.

The needs of the body, but also the claims of the body, in so far as they do not bring too much trouble to relieve or fulfill. Dwelling too much on the needs of the body gets us only so far as Buddhism, and does not do justice to the full measure of the life of pleasure that awaits us.

Thank you for the etymology, Eikadistes !

I've been listening to the unedited recording on my commute, and one point that I'd like to address in clear terms is "Natural Law". Cassius does a good job of covering the general idea, but we never gave it a name. When I talk to my younger relations who go to Catholic schools and listen to Catholic podcasts, I get the impression that Natural Law has become an important part of the pedagogy by contrasting it with 'moral relativism', which is, in my view, their code word for the degenerate morals of a godless society.

My initial response is twofold—first, that Natural Law is not simply wrong-headed but actually quite harmful; and second, that the whole history of their religion and it's scripture is one of clear moral relativism, which they express most obviously by saying that Jesus' resurrection stands as a new relevation, and that thereby some (but by no means all) of the laws of the Torah no longer apply. Thus it becomes acceptable for a Christian to wear mixed fibers, make graven images, and allow women to be teachers—but no longer acceptable are polygamy, concubinage, or "an eye for an eye".

What is this if not moral relativism?

Thank you Godfrey! I wish I had thought to find these quotes before we recorded, but, alas! You'll have to listen to me ramble on from memory.

Ok, I found the passage from Utopia that I was looking for: [Edit; See my post above]

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[...] He made a solemn and severe law against such as should so far degenerate from the dignity of human nature, as to think that our souls died with our bodies, or that the world was governed by chance, without a wise overruling Providence: for they all formerly believed that there was a state of rewards and punishments to the good and bad after this life; and they now look on those that think otherwise as scarce fit to be counted men, since they degrade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon it no better than a beast’s: thus they are far from looking on such men as fit for human society, or to be citizens of a well-ordered commonwealth; since a man of such principles must needs, as oft as he dares do it, despise all their laws and customs: for there is no doubt to be made, that a man who is afraid of nothing but the law, and apprehends nothing after death, will not scruple to break through all the laws of his country, either by fraud or force, when by this means he may satisfy his appetites.

A more recent take, from a sitting Supreme Court Justice;

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"If you’re an atheist, what does an oath mean?" -Clarence Thomas

Cassius , you can read this long passage to see whether I've portrayed Thomas More correctly. The quote at the bottom from John Locke gets to the real heart of what I was talking about. [Edit; See my next post]

From Utopia, by Thomas More;

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“These are their religious principles:—That the soul of man is immortal, and that God of His goodness has designed that it should be happy; and that He has, therefore, appointed rewards for good and virtuous actions, and punishments for vice, to be distributed after this life. Though these principles of religion are conveyed down among them by tradition, they think that even reason itself determines a man to believe and acknowledge them; and freely confess that if these were taken away, no man would be so insensible as not to seek after pleasure by all possible means, lawful or unlawful, using only this caution—that a lesser pleasure might not stand in the way of a greater, and that no pleasure ought to be pursued that should draw a great deal of pain after it; for they think it the maddest thing in the world to pursue virtue, that is a sour and difficult thing, and not only to renounce the pleasures of life, but willingly to undergo much pain and trouble, if a man has no prospect of a reward. And what reward can there be for one that has passed his whole life, not only without pleasure, but in pain, if there is nothing to be expected after death? Yet they do not place happiness in all sorts of pleasures, but only in those that in themselves are good and honest. There is a party among them who place happiness in bare virtue; others think that our natures are conducted by virtue to happiness, as that which is the chief good of man. They define virtue thus—that it is a living according to Nature, and think that we are made by God for that end; they believe that a man then follows the dictates of Nature when he pursues or avoids things according to the direction of reason. They say that the first dictate of reason is the kindling in us a love and reverence for the Divine Majesty, to whom we owe both all that we have and, all that we can ever hope for. In the next place, reason directs us to keep our minds as free from passion and as cheerful as we can, and that we should consider ourselves as bound by the ties of good-nature and humanity to use our utmost endeavours to help forward the happiness of all other persons; for there never was any man such a morose and severe pursuer of virtue, such an enemy to pleasure, that though he set hard rules for men to undergo, much pain, many watchings, and other rigors, yet did not at the same time advise them to do all they could in order to relieve and ease the miserable, and who did not represent gentleness and good-nature as amiable dispositions. And from thence they infer that if a man ought to advance the welfare and comfort of the rest of mankind (there being no virtue more proper and peculiar to our nature than to ease the miseries of others, to free from trouble and anxiety, in furnishing them with the comforts of life, in which pleasure consists) Nature much more vigorously leads them to do all this for himself. A life of pleasure is either a real evil, and in that case we ought not to assist others in their pursuit of it, but, on the contrary, to keep them from it all we can, as from that which is most hurtful and deadly; or if it is a good thing, so that we not only may but ought to help others to it, why, then, ought not a man to begin with himself? since no man can be more bound to look after the good of another than after his own; for Nature cannot direct us to be good and kind to others, and yet at the same time to be unmerciful and cruel to ourselves. Thus as they define virtue to be living according to Nature, so they imagine that Nature prompts all people on to seek after pleasure as the end of all they do. They also observe that in order to our supporting the pleasures of life, Nature inclines us to enter into society; for there is no man so much raised above the rest of mankind as to be the only favourite of Nature, who, on the contrary, seems to have placed on a level all those that belong to the same species. Upon this they infer that no man ought to seek his own conveniences so eagerly as to prejudice others; and therefore they think that not only all agreements between private persons ought to be observed, but likewise that all those laws ought to be kept which either a good prince has published in due form, or to which a people that is neither oppressed with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud has consented, for distributing those conveniences of life which afford us all our pleasures.

“They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own advantage as far as the laws allow it, they account it piety to prefer the public good to one’s private concerns, but they think it unjust for a man to seek for pleasure by snatching another man’s pleasures from him; and, on the contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and good soul for a man to dispense with his own advantage for the good of others, and that by this means a good man finds as much pleasure one way as he parts with another; for as he may expect the like from others when he may come to need it, so, if that should fail him, yet the sense of a good action, and the reflections that he makes on the love and gratitude of those whom he has so obliged, gives the mind more pleasure than the body could have found in that from which it had restrained itself. They are also persuaded that God will make up the loss of those small pleasures with a vast and endless joy, of which religion easily convinces a good soul.

“Thus, upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they reckon that all our actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in our chief end and greatest happiness; and they call every motion or state, either of body or mind, in which Nature teaches us to delight, a pleasure. Thus they cautiously limit pleasure only to those appetites to which Nature leads us; for they say that Nature leads us only to those delights to which reason, as well as sense, carries us, and by which we neither injure any other person nor lose the possession of greater pleasures, and of such as draw no troubles after them. But they look upon those delights which men by a foolish, though common, mistake call pleasure, as if they could change as easily the nature of things as the use of words, as things that greatly obstruct their real happiness, instead of advancing it, because they so entirely possess the minds of those that are once captivated by them with a false notion of pleasure that there is no room left for pleasures of a truer or purer kind.

“There are many things that in themselves have nothing that is truly delightful; on the contrary, they have a good deal of bitterness in them; and yet, from our perverse appetites after forbidden objects, are not only ranked among the pleasures, but are made even the greatest designs, of life. Among those who pursue these sophisticated pleasures they reckon such as I mentioned before, who think themselves really the better for having fine clothes; in which they think they are doubly mistaken, both in the opinion they have of their clothes, and in that they have of themselves. For if you consider the use of clothes, why should a fine thread be thought better than a coarse one? And yet these men, as if they had some real advantages beyond others, and did not owe them wholly to their mistakes, look big, seem to fancy themselves to be more valuable, and imagine that a respect is due to them for the sake of a rich garment, to which they would not have pretended if they had been more meanly clothed, and even resent it as an affront if that respect is not paid them. It is also a great folly to be taken with outward marks of respect, which signify nothing; for what true or real pleasure can one man find in another’s standing bare or making legs to him? Will the bending another man’s knees give ease to yours? and will the head’s being bare cure the madness of yours? And yet it is wonderful to see how this false notion of pleasure bewitches many who delight themselves with the fancy of their nobility, and are pleased with this conceit—that they are descended from ancestors who have been held for some successions rich, and who have had great possessions; for this is all that makes nobility at present. Yet they do not think themselves a whit the less noble, though their immediate parents have left none of this wealth to them, or though they themselves have squandered it away. The Utopians have no better opinion of those who are much taken with gems and precious stones, and who account it a degree of happiness next to a divine one if they can purchase one that is very extraordinary, especially if it be of that sort of stones that is then in greatest request, for the same sort is not at all times universally of the same value, nor will men buy it unless it be dismounted and taken out of the gold. The jeweller is then made to give good security, and required solemnly to swear that the stone is true, that, by such an exact caution, a false one might not be bought instead of a true; though, if you were to examine it, your eye could find no difference between the counterfeit and that which is true; so that they are all one to you, as much as if you were blind. Or can it be thought that they who heap up a useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a false shadow of joy. Those are no better whose error is somewhat different from the former, and who hide it out of their fear of losing it; for what other name can fit the hiding it in the earth, or, rather, the restoring it to it again, it being thus cut off from being useful either to its owner or to the rest of mankind? And yet the owner, having hid it carefully, is glad, because he thinks he is now sure of it. If it should be stole, the owner, though he might live perhaps ten years after the theft, of which he knew nothing, would find no difference between his having or losing it, for both ways it was equally useless to him.

“Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all that delight in hunting, in fowling, or gaming, of whose madness they have only heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us, ‘What sort of pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice?’ (for if there were any pleasure in it, they think the doing it so often should give one a surfeit of it); ‘and what pleasure can one find in hearing the barking and howling of dogs, which seem rather odious than pleasant sounds?’ Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a hare, more than of seeing one dog run after another; for if the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you have the same entertainment to the eye on both these occasions, since that is the same in both cases. But if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak, harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and cruel dogs. Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the Utopians, turned over to their butchers, and those, as has been already said, are all slaves, and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a butcher’s work, for they account it both more profitable and more decent to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind, whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure, from which he can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of the bloodshed, even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already corrupted with cruelty, or that at least, by too frequent returns of so brutal a pleasure, must degenerate into it.

“Thus though the rabble of mankind look upon these, and on innumerable other things of the same nature, as pleasures, the Utopians, on the contrary, observing that there is nothing in them truly pleasant, conclude that they are not to be reckoned among pleasures; for though these things may create some tickling in the senses (which seems to be a true notion of pleasure), yet they imagine that this does not arise from the thing itself, but from a depraved custom, which may so vitiate a man’s taste that bitter things may pass for sweet, as women with child think pitch or tallow taste sweeter than honey; but as a man’s sense, when corrupted either by a disease or some ill habit, does not change the nature of other things, so neither can it change the nature of pleasure.

“They reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones; some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a well-spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness. They divide the pleasures of the body into two sorts—the one is that which gives our senses some real delight, and is performed either by recruiting Nature and supplying those parts which feed the internal heat of life by eating and drinking, or when Nature is eased of any surcharge that oppresses it, when we are relieved from sudden pain, or that which arises from satisfying the appetite which Nature has wisely given to lead us to the propagation of the species. There is another kind of pleasure that arises neither from our receiving what the body requires, nor its being relieved when overcharged, and yet, by a secret unseen virtue, affects the senses, raises the passions, and strikes the mind with generous impressions—this is, the pleasure that arises from music. Another kind of bodily pleasure is that which results from an undisturbed and vigorous constitution of body, when life and active spirits seem to actuate every part. This lively health, when entirely free from all mixture of pain, of itself gives an inward pleasure, independent of all external objects of delight; and though this pleasure does not so powerfully affect us, nor act so strongly on the senses as some of the others, yet it may be esteemed as the greatest of all pleasures; and almost all the Utopians reckon it the foundation and basis of all the other joys of life, since this alone makes the state of life easy and desirable, and when this is wanting, a man is really capable of no other pleasure. They look upon freedom from pain, if it does not rise from perfect health, to be a state of stupidity rather than of pleasure. This subject has been very narrowly canvassed among them, and it has been debated whether a firm and entire health could be called a pleasure or not. Some have thought that there was no pleasure but what was ‘excited’ by some sensible motion in the body. But this opinion has been long ago excluded from among them; so that now they almost universally agree that health is the greatest of all bodily pleasures; and that as there is a pain in sickness which is as opposite in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health, so they hold that health is accompanied with pleasure. And if any should say that sickness is not really pain, but that it only carries pain along with it, they look upon that as a fetch of subtlety that does not much alter the matter. It is all one, in their opinion, whether it be said that health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire gives heat, so it be granted that all those whose health is entire have a true pleasure in the enjoyment of it. And they reason thus:—‘What is the pleasure of eating, but that a man’s health, which had been weakened, does, with the assistance of food, drive away hunger, and so recruiting itself, recovers its former vigour? And being thus refreshed it finds a pleasure in that conflict; and if the conflict is pleasure, the victory must yet breed a greater pleasure, except we fancy that it becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued, and so neither knows nor rejoices in its own welfare.’ If it is said that health cannot be felt, they absolutely deny it; for what man is in health, that does not perceive it when he is awake? Is there any man that is so dull and stupid as not to acknowledge that he feels a delight in health? And what is delight but another name for pleasure?

“But, of all pleasures, they esteem those to be most valuable that lie in the mind, the chief of which arise out of true virtue and the witness of a good conscience. They account health the chief pleasure that belongs to the body; for they think that the pleasure of eating and drinking, and all the other delights of sense, are only so far desirable as they give or maintain health; but they are not pleasant in themselves otherwise than as they resist those impressions that our natural infirmities are still making upon us. For as a wise man desires rather to avoid diseases than to take physic, and to be freed from pain rather than to find ease by remedies, so it is more desirable not to need this sort of pleasure than to be obliged to indulge it. If any man imagines that there is a real happiness in these enjoyments, he must then confess that he would be the happiest of all men if he were to lead his life in perpetual hunger, thirst, and itching, and, by consequence, in perpetual eating, drinking, and scratching himself; which any one may easily see would be not only a base, but a miserable, state of a life. These are, indeed, the lowest of pleasures, and the least pure, for we can never relish them but when they are mixed with the contrary pains. The pain of hunger must give us the pleasure of eating, and here the pain out-balances the pleasure. And as the pain is more vehement, so it lasts much longer; for as it begins before the pleasure, so it does not cease but with the pleasure that extinguishes it, and both expire together. They think, therefore, none of those pleasures are to be valued any further than as they are necessary; yet they rejoice in them, and with due gratitude acknowledge the tenderness of the great Author of Nature, who has planted in us appetites, by which those things that are necessary for our preservation are likewise made pleasant to us. For how miserable a thing would life be if those daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to be carried off by such bitter drugs as we must use for those diseases that return seldomer upon us! And thus these pleasant, as well as proper, gifts of Nature maintain the strength and the sprightliness of our bodies.

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From Letter Concerning Toleration, by John Locke

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Lastly, those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist.

I certainly hadn't seen that, thank you!

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Edit:. Ok now maybe *everyone* can access the link!

Still no!

...unless this is a cache problem. Let me try a different way:

Edit: nope.

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I get this when I click your link:

Insufficient Permissions

You and I must not be very important, Don!

I brought up Boccaccio and his De Mulieribus Claris, or Concerning Famous Women. In one chapter he talks about the life of the Epicurean Leontion, where he chastises her for demonstrating a perfect lack of "feminine virtues".

I earlier wrote a reply to Boccaccio, which I will copy here:

To Boccaccio: A Rebuke

I mark it, sir, and wonder at it dully,

To find the lady's name maligned so fully

On evidence begot anecdotálly;

A pond'rous load to hang by such a pulley!

Was our Leontium so fierce a bully,

Who sent him off peripateticálly

Pouting, old Theophrastus; when her volley

Charmed a grudging kindness out of Tully?

And have you, sir, the gall to say she sullied?

Who scattered bastards all across Itály!

I am officially upgrading my response from "fascinating" to AMAZING!

In addition to not believing in any gods and not being convinced by his claims about Jesus, they also apparently don't think the world was 'created', and they're not afraid of death.

And somehow, in spite of all that, they still manage to be happy!