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You can't have Venus without Mars. Old things must be destroyed, must die, for new things to be created. Otherwise, nothing would change; everything would be static.

You can't have Venus without Mars. Old things must be destroyed, must die, for new things to be created. Otherwise, nothing would change; everything would be static.

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As to Mars, that's the type of conclusion I am questioning. The tendency now is to see Mars as wholly negative, whereas it does not appear that he was viewed in such a wholly negative way in Greco-Roman mythology. Are these conclusions about Mars what…

Summary of the above:

• Lucretius poetically adopted for his own poem the Empedoclean struggle between the moral forces of Love and Strife [wikipedia]
  • However, in an atomistic understanding of Nature these forces are not moral. Through an endless process of

…

This comes to mind from Lucretius book V: 1198-1203 ish:

It is no piety to show oneself

Bowing with veiled head towards a stone,

Nor to be seen frequenting every altar,

Nor to fall prostrate on the ground, with palms outspread 1200

Before the shrines of…

This comes to mind from Lucretius book V: 1198-1203 ish:

It is no piety to show oneself

Bowing with veiled head towards a stone,

Nor to be seen frequenting every altar,

Nor to fall prostrate on the ground, with palms outspread 1200

Before the shrines of…

Summary of the above:

• Lucretius poetically adopted for his own poem the Empedoclean struggle between the moral forces of Love and Strife [wikipedia]
  • However, in an atomistic understanding of Nature these forces are not moral. Through an endless process of

…

Summary of the above:

• Lucretius poetically adopted for his own poem the Empedoclean struggle between the moral forces of Love and Strife [wikipedia]
  • However, in an atomistic understanding of Nature these forces are not moral. Through an endless process of

…

Perhaps it ought to be phrased: "The Spirituality of Nature" rather than "religion" (because I am taking notice of what Lucretius wrote at the start of Book 4 in Derum Natura regarding "religion").

One would guess that back in time people where much more…

George Santayana discusses this question in his essay on Lucretius from Three Philosophical Poets;

[…]

And Stephen Greenblatt in The Swerve argues a similar case;

[…]

George Santayana discusses this question in his essay on Lucretius from Three Philosophical Poets;

[…]

And Stephen Greenblatt in The Swerve argues a similar case;

[…]

It was a pleasure to put faces to names for those I hadn't met yet, and always good to see those with whom I have had conversations in the past.

Links to various Aphrodite myths, including "The Trojan War in which she supported her favourites Paris and Aeneas and was wounded in the fighting. <<More>> (which stikes me as particularly relevant to Lucretius given that the poem starts out referring…

In regard to the opening of Lucretius referring to interaction between Mars and Venus, I know personally that I've always associated the allusion to mean something like "Venus - good / Mars - bad." However I now see that the original Greek mythology…

It was a pleasure to put faces to names for those I hadn't met yet, and always good to see those with whom I have had conversations in the past.

It was a pleasure to put faces to names for those I hadn't met yet, and always good to see those with whom I have had conversations in the past.

It was a pleasure to put faces to names for those I hadn't met yet, and always good to see those with whom I have had conversations in the past.

Thanks for today everyone! Your perspectives were very helpful. Don, Bryan: It was great to finally meet you “in-person”.

I’m interested in hearing more about the epicurean perspective(s) on gods. Are there any recommended podcast episodes on this topic?

Rolf I am pretty sure this is the one where Don appeared with us:

Episode 256 - Epicurean Gods: Real, Or Ideal Thought Constructs? there's also the full series of episodes on Cicero's "On The Nature of The Gods" that begins with episode 226:

Episode 226…

Rolf I am pretty sure this is the one where Don appeared with us:

Episode 256 - Epicurean Gods: Real, Or Ideal Thought Constructs? there's also the full series of episodes on Cicero's "On The Nature of The Gods" that begins with episode 226:

Episode 226…