Category Archives: Religion

Five contemplations on the gods: A path to community and friendship (part 5)

Continued from:

FIRST CONTEMPLATION: THE GODS

SECOND CONTEMPLATION: UTOPIA

THIRD CONTEMPLATION: THE SAGE

FOURTH CONTEMPLATION: THE FRIEND

FIFTH CONTEMPLATION: THE DEPARTED

Quote: Fragment from On the Gods by Philodemus[1]

Even if the gods’ community as a species is aloof from the supplying of things of practical help in order to motivate their companionship, their friendship communicates their feelings. For it is not possible for them to maintain their community as a species without any social intercourse. And indeed even amongst us, weak as we are, and needing from our friendship in addition things of practical help, no longer does our friendship to our friends we have lost provide practical help; and nonetheless our admiring reverence for characters which are peers of our own itself binds us together in affection, even in the highest degree. However, the gods also accept from each other what supplies their own needs, even though they are able to provide these things for themselves, just as we human beings sometimes do from those who have the same things as ourselves.

Commentary: divine friendship

In this passage, Philodemus is describing the lifestyle of the gods and how they interact with each other. Just like humans, they live in communities and have friends. What makes them different from us is that they do not share in our weakness, and do not need friendship to offer a sense of security by taking care of each other if they are sick, help them in case of financial difficulties, etc. And yet, the gods still choose to have friends. In fact they will even go as far accepting “from each other what supplies their own needs”, which seems to mean that they provide each other with gifts of some sort, perhaps a kind of nutrition that maintains their immortality, much like the ambrosia from the gods of myth, even though they can obtain it by themselves. The friendly gesture of gift exchange seems to serve a more psychological purpose, contributing to their blissfulness.

In order to make this clear, we can think of Epicurean friendship as having three levels (according to David Armstrong): (1) Friendships based on virtue, trust and mutual utility. (2) Friendships based on our strong natural desire for affection and open self-expression. This is only achievable after accomplishing the first kind of friendship. (3) God-like friendship, satisfying a desire for affection and open self-expression, apart from all consideration of utility.

This third type of friendship is mainly accessible to the gods, but only accessible to humans after the death of a friend once the mourning for our loss of them is over and we come to enjoy their memory. This is because once a loved one is dead, they no longer contribute to our basic needs beyond the psychological wellbeing acquired from the good memories. This helps us answer a question about why it is that Epicureans worship gods that do not intervene in human affairs, bestow favors, etc. The same could be said about our dead friends: why honor them when they are no longer there to serve our needs. This is because they fulfill a psychological need, even though they are no longer with us and in fact they don’t exist as their souls have been annihilated with their bodies.

However, they still exist in our memories, and this is why Epicurus referred to friendship as an immortal good, because even in death, they continue to impact us and they contributed in making us who we are. Remembering our friends is not a passive activity. This is why Epicurus set up rituals and festivities to commemorate his dead friends, Metrodorus and Polyaenus, as well as his parents and brothers.

Practice: friendship beyond death

First lesson: grieve for the loss of your friends. For Epicureans, friends can include family members as well, as is demonstrated by his devotion to his parents and brothers. He advises us not to suppress our emotions when faced with the loss of loved ones. The ancient writer Plutarch writes the following about the Epicureans: “They disagree with those who would do away with grief and tears and lamentation at the death of friends, and say that an absence of grief that renders us totally insensible stems from another great evil: hardness or a passion for notoriety so excessive as to be insane.”[2]

Second lesson: cultivate the good memories of your dead friends. After the grieving period which will vary from person to person, keep the flame of your friendship alive. They are a part of your life and nothing can take that away. This does not mean that you have to think about them all the time but every now and then, take a moment to bring up the pleasant times spent with that person in your mind and be thankful for the happiness they brought and continue to bring.

Third lesson: develop rituals to honor your friends. You might have kept photos, presents, letters from your lost friends. These are now sacred objects. It might be a good idea to develop some symbolic gestures and rituals to honor your friend. Perhaps there is a favorite song you shared. Perhaps you can listen to that music on your friend’s birthday. Or maybe you can just close your eyes and bring back a specific memory to your mind’s eye. There are countless ways to commemorate your loved ones.

Forth lesson: remember that the divine nature of friendship transcends life and death. This is how you become eternal. This is not just the final lesson of this Fifth Contemplation but of all five contemplations combined.

This is how you become a god. Atheists and other nonbelievers in supernatural religions are often asked this question: if there is no supernatural god ordering the universe and giving us purpose, if all that exists are atoms, molecules, forces, “stuff”, then all is without meaning. With no higher purpose, everything is empty, we are all alone. Many atheists bite the bullet and fall into nihilism. An Epicurean rejects this mode of reasoning entirely. We are not alone and without purpose. Life has meaning. Once we have a friend who acknowledges our existence and our value and we recognize them in return, and are committed to continue doing so for the long term, we become godlike. As Epicurus said to his friend and disciple Colotes, “go about as one immortal in my eyes, and think of me as immortal too.”

CONCLUSION

And now we see the connection between the two ideas mentioned in the beginning of our introduction: philosophizing with a like-minded friend and living as a god among men. It is through friendship that we realize the highest ideal of the philosophical life.

Through the five contemplations, we have progressively descended from the domain of the gods outside our world, to a hypothetical utopian society, to the Epicurean communities of sages from the past, to the gesture of reverence between to philosopher friends, to culminate with the memories of lost friends conjured up in our minds.

An atheist could argue that we could very much have come up with much of the same philosophy without any reference to gods that probably do not exist in the first place.[3] This may be the case. But in response to that, we could say that by invoking the divine as a concept, we are invoking something that has the highest value to us, beyond just atoms and void.

When describing Epicurean philosophy, people often refer to it as a materialist philosophy that rejects the supernatural and divine providence, or a hedonistic philosophy defending a life of pleasure, albeit a modest reasonable pleasure defined as an absence of suffering of the body and tranquility of the mind. But these descriptions are incomplete and give us a very limited scope of what the philosophy is really about. By putting the gods front and center in their function as role models and comparing the immortality of the gods to that of the relationship between friends, it might be most accurate for us to conclude that Epicureanism is first and foremost a religion of friendship.

Notes:

[1] Quote from article Utility and Affection in Epicurean Friendship by David Armstrong.
[2] From Plutarch, That Epicurus actually makes a pleasant life impossible. Quote from http://www.attalus.org/translate/epicurus.html
[3] Many modern Epicureans consider themselves atheists and think that modern Epicureanism no longer has any use for any conception of the divine. This article was intended to give an alternative to this perspective by rethinking what we understand as being divine. For more on this debate, read The Third Way to Think about the Epicurean Gods.

Five contemplations on the gods: A path to community and friendship (part 4)

Continued from:

FIRST CONTEMPLATION: THE GODS

SECOND CONTEMPLATION: UTOPIA

THIRD CONTEMPLATION: THE SAGE

FOURTH CONTEMPLATION: THE FRIEND

Quote: Fragment of a letter by Epicurus to Colotes [1]

You, as one revering my remarks on that occasion, were seized with a desire, not accounted for by my lecture, to embrace me by clasping my knees and lay hold of me to the whole extent of the contact that is customarily established in revering and supplicating certain personages. You therefore caused me to consecrate you in return and demonstrate my reverence… Go about as one immortal in my eyes, and think of me as immortal too.

Commentary: friendship, the key that unlocks godhood

We now reach the core of Epicurean godhood, the ultimate manifestation of what it truly means to be divine. In this scene depicted in one of Epicurus’ letters meant to be read by his community, he portrays one of his closest disciples, Colotes, showing reverence for him and he in turn returns the favor. This gesture goes beyond a simple sign of appreciation; it has religious value. This scene would become immensely popular with later Epicureans when recounting the hagiographies of their tradition. Enemies of Epicureans would mock the over the top gestures of affection that existed within these communities.

At first, what we see is an overzealous disciple overcome with a fanatical need to worship his guru. After all, Epicurus could be seen as something of a spiritual master akin to Jesus or the Buddha. However, this gesture seems to have caught Epicurus off guard at first, as it refers to Colotes’ “desire, not accounted for by my lecture”. But then, Epicurus mirrors the action directed to him by his disciple by returning that gesture back at him. He turned what could have been an awkward moment into a philosophical lesson, but also into a symbolic scene that would be remembered by future practitioners of his philosophy.

Epicurus has often been criticized putting himself too much at the center of his philosophy. He has often been viewed as greedy for attention and fame. After all, why would he institute in his will an annual day to celebrate him (and Metrodorus) after his death, as well as a monthly celebration of himself and his best friend every twentieth of the month during his lifetime in his honor, the famous Eikas gatherings? All of this is only partly true. It would be more accurate to see Epicurus as a sort of “first among equals”. Epicurus did not found his philosophy alone, but with the aid of Metrodorus, Poyenus, Hermarchus and others. His annual celebration from his will is supposed to be in conjunction with funerary rites honoring his parents and brothers, showing his devotion to his family. And the monthly Eikas celebrations honor both him and his closest friend Metrodorus as a pair. Other friends such as Polyaenus and Pythocles were also honored after their deaths. By associating the honoring of his friends with religious rituals normally meant to celebrate gods and important individuals that are elevated to a status of godhood, he is placing friendship at the center of his philosophy of happiness.

This association of friendship with godhood is made obvious by the final part of the quoted fragment: “Go about as one immortal in my eyes, and think of me as immortal too”. How does this work? After all, unlike gods, our loved ones are notoriously mortal and losing them is a source of suffering. In what way can our friendships make us immortal? This will be the subject of the Fifth Contemplation.

Practice: building friendships

First lesson: take measures to make friends. In his Treatise On Choices and Avoidances, Philodemus says: “Since he does not cut short the long extent of his life, he always begins new activities and friendly attachments”. He adds: “He will treat with much care as many people as he can, and be thankful to those who have treated him kindly, in particular because he hopes that he will share in some goods with them or that he will receive some benefits by these same people in the future…”[2]. Here it seems we are beyond the restricted circle of close friends, engaging with society at large. This is what Epicureans might mean by practicing philanthropy. There is something here resembling enlightened self interest. We benefit others and we benefit in return. There is something transactional about this kind of relationship. But this is just a first step. What starts as something based on utility can become something more intimate. “Every friendship is an excellence in itself, even though it begins in mutual advantage.”[3] Being socially active will lead to developing more affectionate ties over time.

Second lesson: show your gratitude and generosity to the friends you have. Gratitude is one of the core values of Epicurean philosophy, especially with one’s friends. An Epicurean will be generous with his friends, willing to sacrifice his own comfort in order to make his friend’s feel good. Even when financially struggling, he will prefer to increase his own frugality than lack generosity for his friends. He will care for them when they are sick, give aid when they are struggling financially, protect them when they are in danger and under extreme circumstances, even sacrifice his life. He will also give them counsel and advice, with honesty, even if that means telling hard truths. Epicurus says: “When the sage contends with necessity, he is skilled at giving rather than taking — such a treasury of self-reliance has he found.”[4]

Third lesson: contemplate the divine nature of your friendships. While it is necessary and even useful to interact with society at large, it is among our closer friends that we find refuge, where we feel secure, where we come the closest to experiencing the imperishability of the gods. It is somewhat ironic that it is the possibility of being vulnerable with our friends that contributes to making us invulnerable. Epicurus, while addressing Metrodorus said: “I write this not for the many, but for you; each of us is enough of an audience for the other.”[5] Our friends bring us a feeling of confidence: “The same judgment produces confidence that dreadful things are not everlasting, and that security amidst the limited number of dreadful things is most easily achieved through friendship.”[6] Friends play a role similar to what a god would for many religious people. Just as they turn to a divine being in times of crisis, an Epicurean will turn to a friend.

Forth lesson: develop rituals with your friends. One way in which we can show our appreciation for a friend and celebrate a friendship is to come up with traditions you share exclusively with the person(s). As you get to know someone and spend time with them, you may find yourself repeating a very specific and semi-regular activity with that person. Perhaps you go to the same music festival every year, or go camping once a month, or some other special occasion. Perhaps you enjoy a certain drink socially, like yerba maté. Birthdays and anniversaries would be excuses for such rituals. Epicurus placed these celebrations of friendship as the center of his philosophical practice, as is made clear with the importance of Eikas, the monthly gathering every 20th of the month in honor of his relationship with Metrodorus, his closest friend.[7] This friendship, modeled on the gods, has strong symbolic value that has been celebrated for generations of Epicureans, and is a template of what a divine friendship should look like.

Notes:

[1] From Plutarch’s Against Colotes. Quote from http://www.attalus.org/translate/epicurus.html
[2] Philodemus, On Choices and Avoidances, published by Bibliopolis. See Hiram Crespo’s article https://societyofepicurus.com/reasonings-about-philodemus-on-choices-and-avoidances-part-i/
[3] Vatican Saying 23. Quote from https://monadnock.net/epicurus/vatican-sayings.html
[4] Vatican Saying 44. Quote from https://monadnock.net/epicurus/vatican-sayings.html
[5] Seneca, Letters to Lucilius. Quote from http://www.attalus.org/translate/epicurus.html
[6] Principle Doctrine 29. Quote from https://monadnock.net/epicurus/principal-doctrines.html
[7] See article from Hiram Crespo: https://societyofepicurus.com/eikas-and-ancestral-reverence/

Five contemplations on the gods: A path to community and friendship (part 3)

Continued from:

FIRST CONTEMPLATION: THE GODS

SECOND CONTEMPLATION: UTOPIA

THIRD CONTEMPLATION: THE SAGE

Quote: Wall inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda, fragment 125 – 126 [1]

For when images of persons who are far away from our sight invade our mind, they cause the greatest disturbance. But if you examine the whole matter carefully, you will learn that the images of persons who are not present are of precisely the same kind as those of persons who are present. For although the images are perceived not by the senses, but by the mind, they have the same power, as far as in them lies, for persons who are present as when they existed with those other persons present also. Therefore, with regard to these matters, mother, be of good heart: do not reckon the visions of us to be bad; rather, when you see them, think of us daily acquiring something good and advancing further in happiness. For not small or ineffectual are these gains for us which make our disposition godlike and show that not even our mortality makes us inferior to the imperishable and blessed nature; for when we are alive, we are as joyful as the gods, knowing that death is nothing to us; and when we dead, we are without sensation… Think of us then, mother, as always joyful in the midst of such good things and show enthusiasm for what we are doing.

Commentary: the sage is equal to a god

These fragments of a letter to a mother, quoted in Diogenes’ wall inscription, are attributed to Epicurus[2]. In it he reassures his mother who fears for his safety because of visions of her son, probably in a dream, which she took to be a bad omen. As is implied in the letter, Epicurus reminds his mother Chaerestrate (who was a priestess) that interpreting dreams or visions of any kind as having any kind of prophetic value is superstition and that there is nothing to fear.

After reassuring his mother of the nature of these images, he recommends she turn these manifestations to her advantage and visualize positive things regarding her son. Here we see a common exercise in Epicureanism: “placing before the eyes”, a kind of visualization technique meant to help us achieve virtue and overcome vice[3] for the sake of living pleasantly.

In this case, Epicurus is making the claim that thanks to philosophy, his mother has nothing to worry about, for he has already achieved the best of all possible lives. Thanks to his wisdom, he has learned to be content with little, and does not need much to live a satisfying life. Thanks to his friends’ support, he feels safe in case he is lacking in basic needs.

Even if something bad was to happen and he was to die, he does not fear death. Death is the absence of sensation. There is no suffering in being dead. There is no punishment in the afterlife. Thanks to his gratitude for the good memories of his past, he is secure in having lived a good life. He says: “Misfortune must be cured through gratitude for what has been lost and the knowledge that it is impossible to change what has happened”[4]. One could retort that even if Epicurus’ mother could be reassured about the happiness of her son, she may still fear losing him and never seeing him again. We will address this later.

Practice: envision the life you want to live and try to make it reality

First lesson: envision the life of a sage. After the dwellings of the gods and utopia on Earth, we reach the third phase in our quest for godhood: the community of sages. We are now beyond mere thought experiments and are much closer to history with the existence of Epicurean communities that existed around the Mediterranean for over five centuries.

What is a sage? For all intents and purposes, sages are equal to gods, though to be fair, they are not quite at that level as they are somewhat more vulnerable, subject to misfortune and obviously, mortal. However, they are better prepared than most for misfortune, as Diogenes points out: “Chance can befall us and do harm, but rarely; for it does not have fuel, like fire, which it may lay hold of. So Epicurus, having regard to these matters, refused to remove chance from things entirely–for it would have been rash and incompatible with philosophical respectability to give a false account of a matter so clear and patently obvious to all–, but not a few occurrences he called only small. As then the disposition of the wise man can represent the accidental happening in this way, so, it seems, it seldom operates dominantly, as the son of Neocles (Epicurus) says: «It is seldom that chance impedes the wise man: it is reason which controls and controlled the greatest and most important matters »”[5]. Wisdom is the highest achievement possible for a human and being wise is our way to mirror the life of the blessed and immortal beings.

Second lesson: make yourself worthy in the eyes of a sage. The Stoic philosopher Seneca, in a letter to his friends Lucilius, quotes Epicurus: “We need to set our affections on some good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing”[6]. Aside from having some wise person to look up to, be it an Epicurean philosopher or some friend of family member we know and admire, we must try to become better ourselves, and improve our lives.

Third lesson: rethinking what it is you really desire. If what you desire is fame, wealth, power and the like, you will fail in your pursuits. Even if you succeed, you will still fail. Rethink what is important in your life. There are very few things we really need: food, shelter, health and a few moderate luxuries to give life some flavor. Some extravagant pleasures, if they are fortunate to come across our path, such as vacations to foreign countries or refined food for example, can be appreciated and add good memories we can appreciate in the future, though they are not necessary. Most importantly, whatever the experiences are, whether modest or extravagant, make sure you share them with loved ones.

Forth lesson: aim to live a complete life. In his treatise On Death, Philodemus expresses this best: “But the sensible man, having received that which can secure the whole of what is sufficient for a happy life, immediately then for the rest of his life goes about laid out for burial, and he profits by one day as he would by eternity, and when the day is being taken away, he neither considers the things happening to him surprising nor goes along with them as one falling somewhat short of the best life, but going forward and receiving in a remarkable manner the addition provided by time, as one who has met with a paradoxical piece of good luck, he is grateful to circumstances even for this”[7]. From a psychological perspective, Philodemus unveils to us how a human, mortal as he is, can match the immortality of the gods: “he profits by one day as he would by eternity”. However, this is no reason to neglect our finances, health, diet, etc. While ready to die at any moment, the sage expects to live a long life. A healthy life is another way to imitate the gods.

Notes:

[1] Quote from M. F. Smith’s work, The Epicurean Inscription. See https://www.english.enoanda.cat/the_inscription.html
[2] There is some disagreement amongst scholars on whether this quote is from Epicurus but we will tentatively accept this hypothesis in order to move forward. What matters here is this is an Epicurean quote.
[3] https://societyofepicurus.com/ethics-of-philodemus-moral-portraiture-and-seeing-before-the-eyes/
[4] Vatican Saying 55. From https://monadnock.net/epicurus/vatican-sayings.html
[5] https://www.english.enoanda.cat/the_inscription.html
[6] From Seneca, Letters to Lucilius. Quote from http://www.attalus.org/translate/epicurus.html
[7] Philodemus, On Death, published by Society of Biblical Literature. See Hiram Crespo’s article https://societyofepicurus.com/reasonings-about-philodemus-on-death/

Five contemplations on the gods: A path to community and friendship (part 2)

Continued from:
FIRST CONTEMPLATION: THE GODS

SECOND CONTEMPLATION: UTOPIA

Quote: Wall inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda, fragment 56[1]

So we shall not achieve wisdom universally, since not all are capable of it. But if we assume it to be possible, then truly the life of the gods will pass to men. For everything will be full of justice and mutual love, and there will come to be no need of fortifications or laws and all the things which we contrive on account of one another. As for the necessities derived from agriculture, since we shall have no slaves at that time for indeed we ourselves shall plough and dig and tend the plants and divert rivers and watch over the crops…, and such activities, in accordance with what is needful, will interrupt the continuity of the shared study of philosophy; for the farming operations will provide what our nature wants.

Commentary: Human Society

This passage is from the wall inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda, a 2nd century CE Epicurean philanthropist and philosopher from Anatolia (today called Turkey). It imagines a utopian society where humankind as a whole achieves Epicurean wisdom. Before we continue, keep in mind that this is yet another thought experiment, not a political project. While what we see here resembles a kind of libertarian socialist utopia, in reality Epicureans were very much in favor of institutions like the state with its laws, police, regulations, etc. This utopian vision of a society with “no need of fortifications or laws” could only exist if everyone became wise, but Diogenes of Oinoanda starts by specifying that “we shall not achieve wisdom universally”. So why imagine such a society at all? What is the point of this thought experiment?

Yet again, we see the reference to divinity when he says that such a utopian society would be the reflection on earth of the society of the gods that live outside of our world. This is what would happen if humanity imitated the peaceful dispositions of the gods. We would seek to achieve wisdom and happiness instead of constantly engaging in conflict and war for such vain desires such as greed, wealth, lust, fame and all the other vices. Instead we would be “full of justice and mutual love”. Since we lack the invulnerability of the gods, we would work together to achieve universal wellbeing with activities such as farming and irrigation. Also of notice is that this society has no slaves and a kind of work/life balance exists, alternating labor and philosophy.

Expressions such as “what is needful” and “what our nature wants” indicate that people would be focused on what is important in life, not what is superfluous. Gone are the expensive yachts, five star hotels and ostentatious mansions of billionaires. Humanity would live comfortably, but modestly. In short, we would be mostly self-sufficient, needing very little. This is another way to imitate the gods, who are entirely self-sufficient.

All of this seems like wishful thinking doesn’t it? And historically, attempts to create utopian societies such as these have led to disaster. And yet, when we think about what has been achieved, such as the existence of weekends, paid vacation, minimum wage, universal education, we realize that we are in a much better place than ever thought imaginable to an ancient philosopher. If you had mentioned a concept such as the abolition of slavery in ancient Greece and Rome, you would have been laughed out of the room. Many horrors still exist in today’s world and many more are to come. However, by imagining utopia, we imagine what our lives could be like, and we take steps to make them better.

Practice: Live Justly

First lesson: be harmless. Remember the function of the gods as role models. Philodemus, a 1st century BCE Epicurean philosopher says: “Those who believe our oracles about the gods will first wish to imitate their blessedness in so far as mortals can, so that, since it was seen to come from doing no harm to anyone, they will endeavor most of all to make themselves harmless to everyone as far as is within their power”[2]. Epicureans do not live isolated from society and adhere to the social contract. But also, we do not behave like tyrants, imposing our ways on other people who are different from us. This inevitably leads to the politics of tolerance, a policy of “live and let live”. Another associated principle would be: “my freedom ends where another person’s freedom begins”. While this all may seem like common sense, there are many influential and powerful political movements that oppose these very basic principles.

Second lesson: favor peace over war. Epicureans believed that war is only justified in self-defense. Keep in mind that more often than not, wars of aggression come with propaganda claiming that the act of aggression was in fact provoked and political leaders will not hesitate to lie to claim that an offensive war is in fact an act of defense. Epicureans are well aware of the dirty and corrupt nature of politics. We must always be skeptical and on our guard.

Third lesson: consider the wellbeing of your community. Epicureans are not selfish and believe in collective wellbeing. While part of this is based on enlightened self interest, Diogenes also uses the term “mutual love”. Other Epicurean sources insist on philanthropy. In fact, if we are to follow Diogenes, we must show concern not just for our tribe or nation, but to all humankind: “For, while the various segments of the earth give different people a different country, the whole compass of this world gives all people a single country, the entire earth, and a single home, the world”[3].

Forth lesson: decide how involved you want to be in political affairs. The expression lathe biosas (often translated as “live unnoticed”) is often attributed to Epicurus, who is reputed to have avoided getting involved in the political disputes of his time. The reality, as is often the case in Epicurean philosophy, is much more complex. There are many recorded Epicureans in history who were politically engaged in some form or another. Long story short, not getting involved in politics is what is preferred, but circumstances might lead one to act differently. It is important to keep in mind that there are different degrees of political participation. Some of us may be content to vote in elections, which involves minimal effort and trouble, to more active forms of participation, such as activism, running for office or occupying positions of power. In the face of tyranny, other forms of action can be considered, such as civil disobedience, or in extreme cases, armed struggle.

Notes:

[1] https://www.english.enoanda.cat/the_inscription.html
[2] Quote from The Polytheism of the Epicureans by Dr Paul Terence Matthias Jackson. To learn more about Epicureans theology: https://www.academia.edu/36564126/The_Polytheism_of_the_Epicureans
[3] https://www.english.enoanda.cat/the_inscription.html

Five contemplations on the gods: A path to community and friendship (part 1)

The following is as five-essay collection of contemplations on the gods by SoFE member Marcus. Although we have made many efforts to clarify aspects of Epicurean cosmology, the ancient Epicurean conception of gods as cosmic beings who have physical bodies remains difficult for many students to understand. Epicurean theology falls more within the realm of astrobiology speculation and sci-fi, than within the realm of theology which (today) has become almost entirely Platonized. Marcus wrote these five contemplations to help us place the gods before our eyes, and to derive their intended ethical utility even if we are non-theistic. – Hiram Crespo

Educational Video: On the Epicurean Gods

Epicurus concludes his Letter to Menoeceus, the summary of his teachings on the happy life, as follows: “So practice these and similar things day and night, by yourself and with a like-minded friend, and you will never be disturbed whether waking or sleeping, and you will live as a god among men: for a man who lives in the midst of immortal goods is unlike a merely mortal being.”[1]

This is not the only passage in Epicurean literature where the idea of living wisely is compared to living as a god. Also notice that this passage places importance in practicing philosophy “with a like-minded friend”. As we shall see, these two ideas, living as a god among men and philosophizing with a like-minded friend, are not only very closely related but they represent the very core and highest realization of the entire Epicurean philosophical endeavor.

It shall be made clear that the recurring theme of becoming like a god is not hyperbolic or poetic, it is quite literal. To understand this, it will be necessary to think outside the box, outside the contours of monotheistic religions like Christianity or Islam. Epicurus defined a god as a “blissful and immortal being”[2]. This is nothing new or innovative on Epicurus’ part. These are very much the gods of Homer and Hesiod. For example, in his Theogony, Hesiod refers to “the blessed gods that are eternally”. Many of the other philosophical schools of this time, those of Plato, Aristotle or the Stoics for example, would have agreed with this definition. Where the Epicureans and the other philosophical schools disagreed with Homer and Hesiod is their characterization of the gods as being subject to petty human weaknesses such as jealousy, adultery, anger, cruelty, and so on. The god of a philosopher must represent reason, virtue and wisdom. As a result, these different philosophers agree that to become wise is to become like the gods.[3]

But getting back to the Epicureans… Unlike most other philosophical schools of their day, they believed that the gods do not intervene in human affairs or the workings of the universe. They do not punish or reward humans. So, rivals to Epicurus could – and did – ask: why care about these gods at all if they do not interfere with our lives? Why did Epicurus venerate these gods who are not concerned with us? Why did he encourage his followers to pray, worship statues of the gods, take part in religious festivals and mystery initiations? Long story short, the Epicurean gods serve as role models for the philosopher. What does this mean practically? This is what we will investigate.

Before we start exploring this conception of divinity and how it leads to the Epicurean ideal of friendship, we should clarify a few things: the object of this article is not to defend the existence of the Epicurean gods, for which there is obviously no evidence, nor point out any potential inconsistencies in their arguments concerning the gods.[4] In order to move forward, we can simply think of these gods as part of an ethical thought experiment that will lead to practical results on how we think about and experience our lives and our relationships.[5]

We will do this by examining five “contemplations” on divinity taken directly from Epicurean literature. Each quote will be followed by a commentary based on the evidence left to us by the Epicurean writings and suggested philosophical exercises on how to put these theories into practice in our daily lives.

This essay will be divided into 5 parts, each part dedicated to one of the contemplations:

FIRST CONTEMPLATION: THE GODS

SECOND CONTEMPLATION: UTOPIA

THIRD CONTEMPLATION: THE SAGE

FORTH CONTEMPLATION: THE FRIEND

FIFTH CONTEMPLATION: THE DEPARTED

Today we begin with the gods.

 

FIRST CONTEMPLATION: THE GODS

Quote: From On the Nature of Things, book 3, by Lucretius[6]

I see what is going on in all the void,
the majesty and calm habitations
of the gods reveal themselves in places
where no winds disturb, no clouds bring showers,
no white snow falls, congealed with bitter frost,
to harm them, the always cloudless aether
vaults above, and they smile, as far and wide
the light spreads out. Then, too, nature provides
plentiful supplies of all things—their peace
is not disturbed by anything at any time.

Commentary: the society of the gods

This passage from the 1st century BCE Roman philosopher-poet Lucretius is part of a eulogy to Epicurus included in his epic poem, De Rerum Natura, a presentation of Epicurean philosophy in verse. We can see that much emphasis is placed on the habitat in which these peacefully minded gods live, a calm pleasant environment not subject to the destructive forces of the universe.[7]

The Epicureans give us a number of arguments defending the existence of these gods that may seem debatable to a modern audience, but let’s indulge these ancient philosophers from two millennia ago for a bit (also, let’s not get lost in the complex details of ancient theories in physics).[8] To keep a very long and complicated story short, using contemporary terminology, we can think of the Epicurean gods as a kind of privileged extraterrestrial species living far outside of our world, somewhere within an infinite multiverse[9]. In other words, humans are not at the summit of creation. This is an important point, because the Epicureans are trying to imagine the best, most pleasant life possible in all of what exists, and what we can learn from it.[10]

According to this philosophy, divinity is thought of in biological, not supernatural, categories[11]. Philodemus makes this clear in On the Gods: “These demonstrate that every nature has a different location suitable to it. To some it is water, to others air and earth. In one case for animals in another for plants and the like. But especially for the gods there has to be a suitable location, due to the fact that, while all the others have their permanence for a certain time only, the gods have it for eternity.”[12]

But how should we imagine these beings? What are they like? In his Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus gives us the foundational principles needed to conceptualize the gods: “First, believe that god is a blissful, immortal being, as is commonly held. Do not ascribe to god anything that is inconsistent with immortality and blissfulness; instead, believe about god everything that can support immortality and blissfulness.”[13]

Beyond these two basic principles, blissfulness and immortality, Epicurus seems to be giving his followers license to fill in the gaps with all sorts of speculations. Epicurus wants us to represent the gods before our eyes, be it the mind’s eye, using our imagination, or our actual eyes, through statues, paintings, religious rituals and so on.

This is important for two reasons: first we must free ourselves from any fear that the gods might be a source of harm to humans. These gods will not punish us in our lives or the afterlife. Such petty actions would contradict their blissfulness and immortality. They are too far outside our world and too peaceful for that. The gods are to be admired, not feared. The second reason is that the gods are ethical ideals, role models to be imitated. How do we become more like the gods here on Earth? What can we do to try to match their supreme happiness? This is one reason the gods are represented as human looking: we are supposed to identify with them. They are just like us, only better. Let’s contemplate how we can become better…

Practice: deconstruct false conceptions of the gods

First lesson: change how we think of the divine. Do away with what has been taught to us by monotheistic religions, the notion of a single god that is all knowing, all powerful, being responsible for creating the universe and benevolent towards humans. Instead, think of the god as a supremely happy biological entity existing within our universe, not above it. Do not be afraid to represent them as humanoid. We are supposed to identify with them. Remember, this is a thought experiment. Forget about the fanatical impulse taught to us by monotheists to “smash the idols!” Do the opposite instead: build idols!

Second lesson: let’s imagine ourselves as living amongst the gods. Let’s make this fun! Imagine, for whatever reason, due to some amazing, ridiculously improbable coincidence, that these gods happen to look a lot like the characters from Greek mythology. They have the same names too! Imagine that you no longer have back pain, don’t have to wake up early on Monday to go to work and get yelled at by your tyrannical boss, get stuck in traffic, fill out your taxes… Now imagine yourself playing music with Apollo, discussing philosophy with Athena, observing the stars with Zeus, arm wrestling with Ares, playing poker with Hermes, partying with Dionysus, hiking with Pan, caressing the body of Aphrodite (or if you prefer, Eros)…

Third lesson: picture multiple gods. The second lesson had us interacting with the gods, the key word here being “interacting”. After all, we lack the invulnerability of the gods. We have weak bodies that get sick and old, have back pain… And of course, we have to deal with bad bosses, traffic, taxes and all the other “perks” of living among humans. We cannot avoid these things. But when we contemplate the perfect life of the gods, we see them living in communities, enjoying each other’s company, building friendships. This is within our grasp. Thinking about the gods is imagining the best of all possible lives. And that divine happiness has a word: friendship. And now we see why monotheism doesn’t work in this philosophy. A solitary god is no model for us. Gods are social animals.

Fourth lesson: view the gods as embodiments of happiness. Diogenes of Oinoanda, says: “Some statues of gods shoot arrows and are produced holding a bow, represented like Heracles in Homer; others are attended by a body-guard of wild beasts; others are angry with the prosperous, like Nemesis according to popular opinion; whereas we ought to make statues of the gods genial and smiling, so that we may smile back at them rather than be afraid of them.”[14]

Notes:

[1] Translated by Peter Saint-Andre: https://monadnock.net/epicurus/letter.html
[2] Also in the Letter to Menoeceus: https://monadnock.net/epicurus/letter.html
[3] For more on the complex relation between Greek philosophy and religion: https://www.academia.edu/4990433/Greek_Philosophy_and_Religion
[4] It should be noted that within scholarship, there are two interpretations of the Epicurean gods: realist an idealist. According to scholar David Sedley, : “Epicurean theology has come to be viewed as a battleground between two parties of interpreters, the realists and the idealists. Realists take Epicurus to have regarded the gods as biologically immortal beings […] idealists take Epicurus’ idea to have been, rather, that gods are our own graphic idealization of the life to which we aspire.” We consider that the textual evidence overwhelmingly favors the realist interpretation. In order to get a good understanding of Epicurus’ theology, we recommend the following article: The Polytheism of the Epicureans by Paul T M Jackson: https://www.academia.edu/36564126/The_Polytheism_of_the_Epicureans
[5] While we believe the realist interpretation of the gods is what Epicurus intended, this article takes the position the idealist interpretation is more useful to us today as part of an Epicurean revival for the 21st century. It is worth mentioning that many modern Epicurean practitioners prefer to call this the “non-realist” rather that “idealist” interpretation, but both mean the same thing.
[6] Translated by Ian Johnston: http://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/lucretius/lucretius3html.html
[7] It is important to keep in mind that Epicurean theology is intertwined with Epicurean cosmology. The gods did not create the universe but are a part o it and subject to its laws.
[8] To get a sense of Epicurean reasoning on the gods, one argument they put forth is that in an infinite universe with infinite possibilities, the existence of such beings is inevitable.
[9] According to Epicurus and his followers, our cosmos is but one of an infinite amount of world systems.
[10] To live within a cosmos is to be subject to the same forces of destruction that end up destroying that cosmos. Nothing lasts forever and all life must end. There is no eternal soul, no afterlife. The gods seem to escape this fate because they live in the metakosmia—in other words, in the spaces in between different cosmoi.
[11] As physical beings, the gods lose atoms over time but they are able to replenish all the atoms that they lose with new ones. Also, the gods have intelligence and wisdom, which allows them to actively preserve their bodies and mind.
[12] Quote from Space and Movement in Philodemus’ De dis 3: an Anti-Aristotelian Account by Holger Essler. https://www.academia.edu/26142444/Space_and_Movement_in_Philodemus_De_dis_3_an_Anti_Aristotelian_Account
[13] https://monadnock.net/epicurus/letter.html
[14] Quote from M. F. Smith’s work, The Epicurean Inscription. See https://www.english.enoanda.cat/the_inscription.html

 

On the Harm and Benefit of the Gods

The subject of the harm and benefit of the gods is covered in the (incomplete) Philodeman Scroll Peri Eusebeias (On Piety). The scroll discusses the physical and mental benefits of piety, which are documented to some extent in modern research on meditation and chanting. The study of the benefits of religious techniques from a purely naturalist perspective will continue to enlighten us in our investigation of this subject, but here I’m interested in going to the Epicurean sources where the discussion of the harms and benefits of the gods begins. The Letter to Menoeceus contains an interesting declaration:

For the utterances of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are always favorable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in people like to themselves, but reject as alien whatever is not of their kind.

These are strange statements, considering that we know that the first Epicureans did not believe that the gods intervened in human affairs. Here, it seems that the gods are being studied as a cultural phenomenon, based on the signs or effects that they have as cultural creations. The Monadnock translation says it differently:

The things that most people say about the gods are based on false assumptions, not a firm grasp of the facts, because they say that the greatest goods and the greatest harms come from the gods. For since they are at home with what is best about themselves, they accept that which is similar and consider alien that which is different.

… which seems to indicate an art of attuning to the gods according to our own qualities (a subject which Sri Krishna, curiously, also discusses in the Bhagavad Gita, saying that everyone worships according to their own tendencies). Peter St Andre adds notes / commentaries that clarify that here, Epicurus is referring to the “prolepsis” (or preconception) of the gods, and another note that says:

This is a puzzling sentence. Some translators understand it as applying to “the gods” from the previous sentence, with the sense that the gods would not interfere in human affairs because they don’t care about (“consider as alien”) mortal creatures who are so different from themselves. Other translators understand it as applying to “most people” from the previous sentence, with the sense that most people assume that immortal beings so different from themselves must want to interfere in human affairs.

The essay Epicure, dieu et image de dieu: une autarcie extatique presents some interesting points (it was shared with me by my friend Marcus, who compares the author with Norman DeWitt and laments that she has not been translated into English). It compares participation in the studies of Epicurean philosophy with the ancient mysteries (because only initiates had insight into the knowledge being taught in the Garden and were able to participate in the blissful practices).

In the past I’ve used the word “osmosis” (the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge, etc.) to refer to the religious techniques that were used in the Garden to help students imitate the Kathegemones (Epicurean Guides)–and especially Epicurus and Metrodorus–in order to experience the pleasures they enjoyed. In “Dieu et image de Dieu“, the author uses the word scissiparité, which translates into the English word “fission” (the action of dividing or splitting something into two or more parts). It’s the process by which one cell divides into two clone cells.

This metaphor drawn from biology is used to describe how, by contemplating on the sages and gods, on their ataraxia and bliss, we may become like them. In the case of osmosis, it would be through a slow assimilation of our psyche into the larger, blissful psyche of the deity or the sage; in the case of “scissiparité” it seems like we would merge into a union with divinity through some religious technique (like “chanting the names”, a popular practice in Bhakti-yoga) and then separation, where we would take with us the bliss and pleasant impressions acquired via the divine union. It’s interesting that in both English and French we are today using verbiage and metaphors from science, from nature, from organisms–rather than supernatural language–to describe these religious techniques.

Lucretius has more to say on this. In Liber Sextvs, he says:

For even those men who have learned full well
That godheads lead a long life free of care,
If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan
Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things
Observed o’erhead on the ethereal coasts),
Again are hurried back unto the fears
Of old religion and adopt again
Harsh masters, deemed almighty,- wretched men,
Unwitting what can be and what cannot,
And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.

This passage reminds me of “the Almighty”, a false-god character from the film 10,000 BC who (in the movie) seems to have been a survivor of Atlantis. Whenever he appears, everyone in the city must bow and kiss the ground, and his attendants approach him covering their faces with their hands and long nails in fear. This type of primitive religious fear is one of the main “diseases of the soul” that Epicurean philosophy saves us from. Lucretius elsewhere continues:

Wherefore the more are they borne wandering on
By blindfold reason. And, Memmius, unless
From out thy mind thou spuest all of this
And casteth far from thee all thoughts which be
Unworthy of gods and alien to their peace,
Then often will the holy majesties
Of the high gods be harmful unto thee,
As by thy thought degraded,- not, indeed,
That essence supreme of gods could be by this
So outraged as in wrath to thirst to seek
Revenges keen; but even because thyself
Thou plaguest with the notion that the gods,
Even they, the Calm Ones in serene repose,
Do roll the mighty waves of wrath on wrath;
Nor wilt thou enter with a serene breast
Shrines of the gods; nor wilt thou able be
In tranquil peace of mind to take and know
Those images which from their holy bodies
Are carried into intellects of men,
As the announcers of their form divine.
What sort of life will follow after this
‘Tis thine to see.

Here, Lucretius is accentuating that the error of fear-based religion and superstition is not only degrading, but also keeps us from having the proper disposition to be able to derive benefit from religious techniques. He says that unless we purge these thoughts that are unworthy of the gods, they will be harmful to us “as if they had been degraded by our own thought”.

Our own thoughts cannot harm the natural gods (who, if they exist, would live in outer space): we can only hurt ourselves with our beliefs about the gods. Lucretius says that we “plague ourselves” with the belief that the gods are wrathful, and nor will we be able to enter their shrine in peace or to visualize them ecstatically (a practice that ancient Epicureans seem to have found both blissful and ethically useful) if we really hold evil beliefs about the gods.

Lucretius also warns that we will see what sort of life arises from our view of the gods, that this will be self-evident to us. Immediately, I think about the obscene orgies of violence and terrorism that we see today in Islam, and about the misery that is accepted blindly and passively as a yolk by the Christians who believe that God wants them to “bear their cross” and who believe that suffering is good, that it dignifies us and makes us good people. I also think of the Jehova’s Witnesses and others who reject blood transfusions for their own children and themselves even if this is the only life-saving method because of blind obedience to a Bronze-Age Biblical taboo against having contact with blood, etc. Fear of gods is just as harmful today as it was in antiquity.

These Lucretian verses are in line with the “cognitive purity code” that Epicurus established for the gods when he said we could believe anything about them so long as it didn’t contradict their incorruptibility and beatitude (ever-blissful nature) in his Epistle to Menoeceus–an epitome, or summary of his ethics. Epicurus must have looked at many case-studies and elaborated on this teaching in many ways with his disciples prior to summarizing it in this way. Lucretius continues, making an appeal to reason–which helps to save us from superstition and its dangers–and warning against the tendency to degrade ourselves with fear-based auguries or oracles:

But that afar from us
Veriest reason may drive such life away,
Much yet remains to be embellished yet
In polished verses, albeit hath issued forth
So much from me already; lo, there is
The law and aspect of the sky to be
By reason grasped; there are the tempest times
And the bright lightnings to be hymned now-
Even what they do and from what cause soe’er
They’re borne along- that thou mayst tremble not,
Marking off regions of prophetic skies
For auguries, O foolishly distraught
Even as to whence the flying flame hath come,
Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how
Through walled places it hath wound its way,
Or, after proving its dominion there,
How it hath speeded forth from thence amain-
Whereof nowise the causes do men know,
And think divinities are working there.

Here we see that 2,000 years ago, Lucretius warned against a still-popular mistake among the men of religion of our day: the “God of the gaps” argument, which tries to impose or project the image of God unto whatever field of knowledge has not yet been deciphered and pierced by science. As science has advanced, the “gap” that God needs to fill has narrowed and, today, there is very little that can be justified by an appeal to a creator, vindictive or intervening God. For instance, creationism is little more than a joke, and the theory of evolution by natural selection eloquently explains the nature of things.

It is unfair to speak of the harms that come from incorrect religiosity without also addressing the benefits of correct piety, according to Epicurean philosophy. If we claim that there is nothing whatsoever worthy of honor or praise, this would seem to endorse a cynical nihilism that can only awkwardly attach itself to a pleasant lifestyle and philosophy. Piety was an important area of interest for the ancient Epicurean Guides.

Honoring a sage is itself a great good to the one who honors. – Epicurean Saying 32

Epicurean Guides like Hermarchus and Philodemus seemed convinced that those who practice philosophy correctly feel as if they were protected by a lucky star or a guardian angel, but it’s not a spirit or supernatural force that is protecting us. They addressed philosophy in salvific terms, and Epicurus said that to be truly free we must be slaves to philosophy. It’s philosophy that liberates us and protects us, our heads, and our characters, if we honor her and practice correctly: the canon protects us from false views that are harmful for our happiness, the parrhesia (frank criticism) of our friends protects us from error and helps keep our character healthy, some of the healing Doctrines diagnose some disease of the soul and carry medicine for it, etc. If we engage the process of philosophy, it’s as if we have created guardian angels for ourselves. This reminds me of this ecstatic, poetic, and quasi-shamanic statement in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra:

I want to have goblins about me, for I am courageous. The courage which scareth away ghosts, createth for itself goblins- it wanteth to laugh.

… which reminds me of religious techniques used in many cultures, which involve music, loud noises, and other playful behavior believed to shoo away bad spirits (sadness, depression, etc.) and attract good spirits (happy dispositions). The book De l’inhumanité de la religion discusses interesting aspects of the intersection between play-behavior and primitive (pre-agricultural) forms of shamanic religion. In nature, we see that play behavior has didactic utility: puppies and cubs learn social skills, hierarchical structure, hunting techniques, and other useful skills for survival and socializing. I believe the intersection between primitive religiosity and play behavior deserves more focused study from a specifically Epicurean perspective.

Form our meleta on the Philodeman Scroll On Piety, I get the sense that Epicurus was specifically interested in the bodily and mental repercussions of pious practices, and their effect on our bodies, minds, habits, and dispositions. If some form of pious practice is playful, blissful, ethically useful and correct as per our Doctrines, and treats fear-based beliefs and superstitions as taboo, it may qualify as a specifically-Epicurean experiment in piety, and might in the future furnish a useful case-study that would allow us to speak with more authority on the subject of the harms and benefits of the gods.

Further Reading:

The Epicurean Gods: a SoFE Educational Module

 Piety according to the sources of Epicurean Philosophy

Dialogues on the Epicurean Gods

Second Dialogue on the Epicurean Gods

“For there ARE Gods …”

PD 1: On the Utility of the Epicurean Gods

The Oshún Mythical Cycle: The Seduction of Ogún

The following is an Epicurean meleta (deliberation or commentary) on an African fairy tale, which is here placed before the eyes and treated as a philosophical parable about Divine Pleasure as the Guide of Life. In this myth, Oshún heroically smears herself in honey and dances seductively in order to lure Ogún out of the jungle and back into civilization, and save human society from collapse.

I’ve heard many Oriki (chants) for Oshún (Yoruba Goddess of sweetness, a form of the Venus-archetype) which I’ve found beautiful and enchanting, but if I was to choose a soundtrack for this essay (after all, Venus is associated with music, art, and aesthetics), I would choose either La India’s prelude to Yemayá y Ochún or, better yet, the magical Mongo Santamaría song Ye Ye.

I was speechless when I found this painting, by Lili Bernard, titled Sale of Venus. It refers to the arrival of the cult of Oshún to Cuba via the slave trade. Here, however, she is syncretized with Venus, instead of with her Catholic aspect as “Our Lady of Charity”.

When we studied the Prometheus myth at Eikas, we discussed a bit about some of the ethical problems related to technology (personified as Hephaistos), when it answers to power entanglements rather than to ethical guidance and personal loyalty. Today, I’d like to discuss a bit about how a parallel character (Ogún, the artisan and smith of the Yoruba Gods) was lured back into civilization by Oshún (the Yoruba version of Venus).

Concerning the archetype of Ogún, the story is that he was one of the first Orisha who made a path through the jungle. He was a scout, a hunter, and a perceptive tracker. But most importantly he “makes a path” where no one else has made a path yet. He is a creative force, and quite introverted by all accounts (even in the Greek version of this archetype, Hephaistos), being quite socially awkward in both traditions, and often preferring to remain in his workshop all day. He is the God of iron, of the forge, and of technology. Without Ogún, Yorubas believe that civilization simply cannot progress.

Yoruba myths are known in Cuba as patakís, and this one is found in this page, although many versions of it exist in oral tradition (and now on YouTube). For reasons explained in other myths, Ogún was “cursed” with constant toil, and part of his social contract involved the demands caused by the societal need for his particular skillset. In reality, Ogún represents men (and women) who are by their natural constitution hard-working and active in productive labor. In the myth, Ogún decided to take a break from all his work. The way it’s explained in the OrishaNet page, he did this because “his heart always remained in the forest”, but some may interpret this as a labor strike; others may interpret this as an episode of depression. This last interpretation is probably the most useful, ethically speaking, and also because when people are depressed they lose the pleasure derived from doing many things, which they normally desire to do.

The point is that “once upon a time” Ogún disappeared from the city and went into the forest, and very soon (since he is the Orisha or spirit of industriousness) civilization came to a halt. No tools can be built without him, since he is the smith. No trains may run. No wheels constructed, and no machines. No one can plow the fields. No construction. There’s no progress, no civilization.

Once they realized that Ogún went into hiding, many of the divine powers tried to convince him to return, but (after a long series of attempts) no one succeeded until a young Orisha, Oshún, offered to try to lure him back into the city. This worried the other Orishas, who did not think she would succeed. However, absent other options, she was allowed by wise old Obatalá (the Orisha of the head, where decisions are made) to go on this mission.

How did she do this? Oshún is the Goddess of sex, an enchantress. By singing and dancing semi-naked, and by seducing and entrancing Ogún with her charms, from time to time pouring honey over herself–and when she saw that Ogún was ogling her, placing some honey on his lips–she slowly got him to move out of his forest refuge and slowly lured him out, danced him out, seduced him out of the forest and back into the city. She probably did this following the path of some spring or river, as Oshún is a river-goddess of fresh waters and her role in the universe is to “cool” the other Orisha and to refresh the world with her sweet waters. The story ends:

And all learned that sweetness (is) sometimes the most powerful weapon of all, and that Oshún was much more powerful than she appeared and was to be respected.

… which immediately reminds me of our meleta on the Lucretian passage where Venus subdues Mars. I must here note a parallel between this patakí and another one where Oshún saves the world once again, this time during times of famine and by bringing rains. In that other myth, we also see that the other Orishas from the onset underestimated Oshún. Stories about Oshún seem to be an ongoing commentary in Yoruba mythos about the status of women, and a warning to not underestimate them but to allow them to be leaders and to prove themselves, because without their gifts there is no possibility of successful human civilization.

That Oshún is sexually emancipated, adds to her role as an empowering Orisha for women. One merely needs to look at the high levels of involvement of women at all levels of society in southern Nigeria, where Oshún is still revered, versus the horrible oppression that women suffer in the Islamic north of Nigeria, where women are constantly targeted for rape, violence, and abduction, and are routinely denied basic human rights.

This might give us some ideas about why Epicurean philosophy was not historically favored, unlike Platonism, Stoicism, and other philosophies. Epicureanism has always suffered the fate of enjoying the same reputation as that of the Goddess of sex and pleasure, who embodies our ethical ideals, and this reputation and respectability greatly diminished under patriarchal hegemony.

Going back to the role of Hephaistos in the Promethean cycle, during our meleta on The Betrayal and Passion of Prometheus, we had discussed:

Hephaistos (The God of Technology) had been closely related to both Prometheus and Athena, and in fact they were all three worshiped together (they are all tied to progress, civilization and science). However, in Prometheus Bound, Hephaistos betrays his friend and–even while expressing sadness for his friend–he’s the one who built the chains and bound Prometheus, against his own will, out of obedience (and/or fear?) of Zeus.

Throughout Prometheus Bound we see Zeus impiously referred to as a tyrant. The ethical problem of blind obedience to tyranny (the problem of the “good German” during the Nazi era), and the remorseless cruelty it produces, is seen in the Prometheus myth.

Hephaistos’ role also raises questions about the ethical utility of science and technology. In Principal Doctrines 10-13, Epicurus establishes an ethical purpose for science, however Prometheus Bound raises questions about what can happen when Technology serves the interests of power rather than ethical values.

In the Yoruba myth, Ogún is set right by Oshun’s sweetness, represented by the honey she smears on herself.

From the perspective of the psychological interpretation, where Ogún suffers from depression, she uses pleasure / honey / sweetness as medicine for depression and heals him.

From the perspective of refusal to work, she made him productive by using the powerful appeal and the seduction of pleasure, of sweetness. She would have made work agreeable.

From the literal perspective, he simply goes back to being himself and performing his role in the world … but what is going on inside? As when I studied Taoism, I am here reminded of Epicurean Saying 21:

We must not force Nature, but gently persuade her.

What were the Yoruba ancestors trying to teach when they articulated this particular myth? Notice the contrast between how the Greeks warned us that Zeus (associated with Power) corrupts Hephaistos, whereas the Yoruba warned us that the Yoruba Venus (associated with sweetness, Pleasure) saves and redeems both the Yoruba Hephaistos and the world.

Power corrupts, but Pleasure saves and heals.

Second Dialogue on the Epicurean Gods

This discussion, which is edited from our Garden of Epicurus FB group discussion on the Gods, is a follow-up to similar discussions from previous years. You may read Dialogues on the Epicurean Gods, the essay For there ARE Gods and Principal Doctrine 1: On the Utility of the Epicurean Gods to be appraised of the controversies. You may instead watch this short video, which summarizes the matter.

This is the second Dialogue on the Epicurean Gods that we at SoFE edit for publication, in order to further clarify our ideas about the subject for the benefit of present and future students.

Second Dialogue on the Epicurean Gods

Alan. Unfortunately, even recently, and in spite of progress in the study of Epicurean philosophy, Epicurus has still been stubbornly regarded as an atheist: yet anyone who believes this has not taken Epicurus’s texts into consideration and refuses to recognize the decisive role that theology plays in Epicurus’ system. Those who think Epicurus was an atheist would do well to meditate carefully on a passage in Philodemus’ De pietate, where, making due allowance for its apologetic purpose, the philosopher from Gadara furnishes an important piece of information:

“those who eliminate the divine from existing things (tōn ontōn) Epicurus reproached for their complete madness, as in Book 12 (sc. of On Nature) he reproaches Prodicus, Diagoras, and Critias among others, saying that they rave like lunatics, and he likens them to Bacchant revelers, admonishing them not to trouble or disturb us.” – Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism, Theology

Hiram. It’s curious that he compares them negatively to the Dionysian revelers, because the word he used for his ambassadors was “kathegemones” (=guides), and the priests of Dionysus (at least in the city of Pergamon) were also known as Kathegemones. It seems like he wanted the Epicurean Guides to model themselves, in some way, after Dionysian priests. It seems from this quote that the type of “guiding” that these priests did was very different from the mysteries of the Maenads.

We should ask ourselves: Why would Epicurus choose to name his representatives after Guides of a mystery religion? In what way is the role of the Epicurean Guides supposed to be similar to that of the Dionysian guides (even if in other ways the cult of Dionysus is worthy of objection)?

Alan. That’s an interesting question. I’ll let you know if the Oxford Handbook has any insight on it. There is a portion of the theology chapter on the topic of ‘Epicurean priests’.

Marcus. Yes, there were Epicurean priests! Ancient polytheism was no monolith.

Hiram. I don’t have that book so look forward to your report on that. I’m very interested in what that chapter says.

Epicurus establishes, according to Philodemus’ Peri Eusebeias, a cognitive purity code (he says: “Believe anything of the gods so long as it doesn’t violate their incorruptibility and blessedness”), so the role of the “reformed” faith with Epicurean priests would have been, in part, to ensure that this doctrinal purity code was applied while carrying out whatever their religious techniques were.

Alan. Here’s what they have to offer:

“Epicurean Priests

Given this picture [of the intense Epicurean critique of providential order in the universe], and in view of the latter position in particular [that followers of Epicurus are exhorted to revere the traditional gods but stripped of their Homeric qualities], it will come as no surprise that there are attested (especially through epigraphy) Epicureans in priestly offices. We limit ourselves to noting: (1) Tiberius Claudius Lepidus (second century ce), an important representative of the Epicurean community in Amastris, a coastal city in Paphlagonia, who was priest and head of the College of Augustales in charge of the imperial cult (see the testimony of Lucian of Samosata in his Alexander or the False Prophet); and (2) Aurelius Belius Philippus, who in an inscription (dated to the time of Hadrian or a little later) appears as “priest (hiereus) and diadochus of the Epicureans in Apamea.” As one may readily imagine, the question is as delicate as it is controversial, and hence widely debated. One plausible answer—which takes account, on the one hand, of the blessed and incorruptible life that is led by the gods and, on the other hand, of the Epicurean rejection of any divine activity and, connected to this, their denial of providence and of prophecy—may be found in the idea that the gods are models or regulative ideals to which all people (but especially the sophoi, the wise “friends of the gods”: see the third passage of Philodemus, gathered under Usener 386) should (or at least try to) conform.

Maintaining that the gods are models does not at all mean diminishing the role that they play, especially if we bear in mind that “conforming” in this world and to the extent possible to the blessed and perfect life of the gods is not an “ideal” undertaking, lacking any relation to reality. The conclusion to the Epistle to Menoeceus invites the addressee (who is simultaneously individual and general) to meditate on the central ethical issues in the letter; in this way it will be possible to avoid perturbation and to live like a god among men (hōs theos en anthrōpois), and thus to achieve in practice the highest realization of happiness (eudaimonia). We find the same idea expressed in the Epistle to Menoeceus also in Lucretius, where he affirms that it is not impossible, here and now, to lead a life like that of the gods (Lucr. DRN 3.322: dignam dis degere vitam).

The expression employed by Epicurus in the letter is quite strong and, if Epicurean theology has any meaning at all, it should be found just here in the conclusion to the Epistle to Menoeceus: to live like a god among men means to envision divinity not as something distant (although it is so, in fact, from a strictly physical and local point of view) and so insignificant, but rather as representing a practical possibility of realizing here and now the ideal of life proposed by Epicurus and of attaining happiness in a lasting way, enjoying in this life (the only one we have) pleasure (understood as the absence of pain: cf. Ep. Men. 131). Thus, the role played by the gods cannot be other than ethical, and it is significant that Epicurus very likely again justified this “function” in physical terms.”

Hiram. Ok, so this is only tangential: priests here is “hiereus”, and also these are priests outside of the Garden who happened to be Epicurean, not the “Kathegemones” that he instituted … except for Aurelius Belius Philippus.

Michael. For what it’s worth, Kathegemon is a pretty general word. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have religious overtones generally.

Eileen. Lucretius often uses the gods’ names metaphorically so I’m not sure that we should assume a belief in literal gods. But even if we do, what is the relevance of gods that don’t pay any attention to humans? Who can’t be propitiated or angered by anything we say, do, fail to say, or fail to do? Functionally speaking, this outlook strikes me as no different from atheism.

Alan. You may also find an answer to your question in the Oxford Handbook.

“Clearly, one place where someone might push the Epicureans’ theory is on the question of why they are so confident that some of their views, for instance in atomism and in theology, are not similarly susceptible of multiple explanations. The threat to their atomist theology seems especially strong, as Seneca was to insist in defending the providential and teleological views of Stoicism. But Epicureans were adamant in maintaining their view of anthropomorphic gods that are physically incorruptible, live in a state of psychic blessedness, and have absolutely no concern for human beings. This latter claim opened them to the charge of atheism from early on, and along with their denial of the immortality of the soul, was a key reason why, unlike Aristotle and Plato, Epicureanism seems to have completely disappeared from the Islamic and Byzantine philosophical traditions. Interestingly, Epicurus held up the life of the gods as an ethical model in many areas of his philosophy (e.g. friendship) and insisted that mortals can aspire to similar states of untroubled blessedness, all the while emphasizing our mortality and the fact that after our deaths we will be nothing.”

And elsewhere:

“Alongside the passages from Cicero and Lucretius, we may add an important text of the middle Platonic philosopher Atticus, recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea (des Places fr. 3 p. 48.63–65, ap. Eus. PE 15.5.7 = Usener 385), who deemed the absence of providence in Aristotle more impious than the same doctrine in Epicurus. In this passage, Atticus writes that, according to Epicurus, human beings derive a benefit (onēsis) from the gods: their better emanations (beltionas aporrhoias) are accessory causes (or “co-causes”: paraitias) of many good things for those who partake of them. Atticus is right not to attribute to the Epicurean gods any “pure” or “absolute” causality—that would result in a patent contradiction with Epicurus’s philosophy—but to speak more modestly of “co-causes” or paraitiai, although in the Epicurean tradition itself there are not lacking those who regarded the divine nature as a cause. This is the case with the Epicurean Polyaenus (Tepedino Guerra fr. 29) who, in the first book of his On Philosophy (Peri philosophias), maintained, according to what Philodemus reports in the De pietate, that the divine nature (theia physis) is the perfect cause (autotelousan . . . aitian) for us (hēmin) of the greatest pleasures (hēdonōn tōn megistōn). In any case, Atticus reports that the better emanations of the gods (the reference is, of course, to the divine simulacra) are able to provide a benefit, that is, a profit directly bound up with that imperturbability that the gods enjoy eternally and which, for those who adopt the philosophy of Epicurus, is an actual and real possibility that they are called upon to realize in practice, if they wish to achieve a truly genuine and lasting happiness.

On the basis of Atticus’s testimony and the other parallel sources, the veneration of the gods acquires an ethical value of the highest order, even as it coexists with the inactivity of the divine and the absence of providence. The simulacra of the gods, then, bring benefits, and thus to participate in prayers and in religious ceremonies (cf. Diog. Oen. fr. 19 II 6–11 Smith) means to “interiorize” in an effective way the (pleasurable) divine simulacra and to put into practice the commitment to become like a god among men.

In this sense, the gods are not only ethical models and regulative ideals, introduced by Epicurus solely in order to render his philosophical system consistent with his recognition of beings that are eternally and genuinely imperturbable. Epicurus’s gods also become figures highly relevant to our ethical life, playing a role that is at least indirectly active (although without any deliberate intention on their part), in virtue of the benefits that their simulacra bring us in practice on the not always easy road toward assimilation to god (homoiōsis theōi), which has a Platonic pedigree (cf. Theaet. 176a–b) but is totally of this world and bounded by the limits of this life. This is why, in Epicurus’s philosophy, veneration (sebasmos) of the gods is often confused with veneration of the Epicurean sages (at the head of the list are the kathēgēmones or andres of the Kepos: Epicurus, Metrodorus, Polyaenus, and Hermarchus), as happens, for example, in the anonymous treatise on ethical matters contained in P.Herc. 346.”

And another:

“Epicurus’s and the Epicureans’ interest in theology and their admission of the existence of divinities is indeed well attested in Epicurus’s own fragments and in Philodemus (On Gods 3, col. 10.34–38). Epicurus thinks that simulacra come to human beings from the divinities, composed by finest and subtlest atoms, which constitute a “quasi-body,” endowed with a “quasi-blood.” These simulacra come from the intermundia and can reach humans while they are awake and while they are asleep; thence comes the human notion of the divinities, a “clear” or “manifest” (ἐναργής) pre-notion.

Due to the fineness of those simulacra, human beings cannot grasp them by means of their sense-perception, but by a representative intuition of their mind (ἐπιβολὴ φανταστικὴ τῆς διανοίας). Pre-notions of the gods are common to all human beings, independently of their culture and race. Epicurus even produces a proof of the existence of the gods in Usener 352, preserved by Cicero ND 1.16.43, who translates πρόληψις by anticipatio: the very universality of these pre-notions of the divinities proves the existence of the gods.

Another way to arrive at the deities, according to Epicurus, is by inference: on the basis of the principle of isonomia or equivalence in the universe, human beings in the world(s) must correspond to the same number of divinities in the intermundia. The loss of atoms due to the continual emanation of simulacra is compensated by an uninterrupted inflow; this is why the deities are never destroyed (Cic. ND 1.19.50, 39.109): they push away destructive atoms (Arrighetti fr. 183). 28 The gods not only exist, according to Epicurus, but they are also models of happiness, and therefore they serve as ethical models for human beings.

However, since their perfect happiness rests on their ataraxia (Arrighetti fr. 184), 30 they cannot care for humans and their vicissitudes. Hence the Epicurean doctrine of the absence of providence and of teleology, as well as the denial of Fate and divination.”

Hiram. Some perspective: Epicurus always employed clarity in his speech, so when he says at the closing of Menoeceus that we will live like immortals among mortals, he must have placed before the eyes of his disciples the lifestyle and life state of these immortals, what their relations are like, what their blissful lives are like. He would not have used empty words. So this contemplative exercise has an ethical and educational utility. Regardless of an individual’s stance on either of the three interpretations of the Epicurean gods, a sincere student should not dismiss the intended utility and medicine of the First Doctrine, or his ethical education will be incomplete. (In LMenoeceus this is mentioned first among the elements of right living, so placing this before our eyes if of great importance).

Richard. Did Epicurus believe that he and his followers could become immortal?

Hiram. No. Epicurus taught his followers that immortality, for us, is neither natural nor necessary. So for example Philodemus said we should try to be harmless like the gods and imitate their blessedness “insofar as mortals are capable of doing so”. They’re just ethical models that point to the highest standard of living that is naturally available to sentient beings. We can also think of them as an early example of science fiction, since we don’t believe in the supernatural. Sometimes I think of religion as art, and gods / imagery in religion as poetry. In fact, the word for placing before the eyes in modern Greek (“visualization”) is optic-poeisia, which sounds like optical poetry.

Richard. I couldn’t agree more. So, when he used the word ‘immortal’, he wasn’t literally saying, “We can be immortal”, he was using the word in a poetic, open-minded way, to invoke ideas. I would suggest that he could have been doing the same with the notion of ‘divine natural beings’. I’m not saying that he did; I don’t know. But I see no reason to be negative towards someone who sees it this way.

Hiram. If you read Peri Eusebeias by Philodemus (“On piety”) you see that their level of sophistication in speculating about extraterrestrial life is considerable. There, Metrodorus seems to have been entertaining an idea of a colonial organism being godlike and potentially immortal. Our theology is basically science fiction.

Alan. If we ground ourselves in historical context, all of the players who considered Epicurus an advocate of atheism were his detractors from neo-Platonism, Stoicism, and Christianity, etc. Nobody in this group minds if any of us today profess atheism. It is totally compatible with our expanded interpretation of Epicureanism that unshackles itself from the most dogmatic ancient version of itself. What doesn’t really seem up for debate, and what both the quoted scholars and the consensus here now support, is that an innocent/non-cynical/non-malicious, plain-faced reading of the Epicurean sources indicates that Epicurus wasn’t an atheist. “For gods there are, our knowledge of them is clear” are not the words of an atheist.

We can never know, as the above quote admits, what Epicurus’ secret thoughts were. However, there is a methodology, grounded in textual analysis and exegesis, for establishing what positions ancient authors held. All we have to characterize Epicurus’ beliefs are the texts, which incontrovertibly lead us to the conclusion that he believed in gods and wasn’t an atheist by the contemporary historical understanding of the word. (And, if I myself would say publicly “there are gods, our knowledge of them is clear” yet privately considered myself an atheist, in the sense of ‘there are no gods’, then someone would be correct to label me insincere.)

Now, if we want to argue that, using the modern understanding of the word ‘atheist’ as someone who rejects the God of traditional theism, Epicurus could effectively be an atheist, well, that’s possible but it would be an anachronistic characterization and we’d really just be debating semantics and the modern definition of atheism at that point (something Epicurus wouldn’t want us to waste our time doing, hence his proleptical definition of gods as ‘immortal and blessed beings’). If that still doesn’t clear up our misgivings then I would direct you to VS 62 and would request that we turn this conversation around for the sake of fostering good will.

Hiram. It is the official position of the SoFE that the atheist interpretation is one of the three acceptable opinions that we may hold today and still be part of the SoFE. But it’s another thing to say that Epicurus held this view secretly, which raises questions about his character and the character of his friends that we have no reason to raise based on what we know, particularly considering that Epicurus himself called several atheists, by name, Dionysian revelers, and had to defend himself from their insults and attacks. So we may be atheists, but we’re not historical revisionists. It’s possible to state that _Epicurus_ held the realist view and that _we_ hold the non-realist or atheist view.

Theodorus “the Godless” was not an atheist in the modern sense also, or even in the ancient sense (in spite of the epithet he was given), in fact he was more like Epicurus 🙂 and Epicurus’ theology is said to be based on Theodorus’ doctrines. This is why we should invest less passion in this subject, because our definitions of gods and of atheism are different from theirs back then. That’s why the founders used the definition of the gods rather than the word “gods” in Principal Doctrine 1: they trusted the definition more than the word, which would have been misinterpreted. In the Theodorus essay I say:

“Diogenes Laertius claims that Epicurus took most of what he said about the gods from Theodorus the Godless, who apparently wrote a scroll (lost to us) titled “On the Gods”. His later followers, the Theodorans, were known for their polemics and attacks on other philosophers.”

Richard. Out of curiosity, if Epicurus was alive now and still held to his position of ‘advanced natural beings’ elsewhere in the universe, would you call him an atheist?

Hiram. Yes. If he was alive today, his theology would be considered science fiction and/or astrobiology.

Richard. So, even though his naturalistic views haven’t changed, you wouldn’t see him as an atheist because he lived in the past?

Hiram. I’m not as concerned about adopting the atheist label as you seem to be, although I am one. Your question was a hypothetical, saying: “IF Epicurus lived TODAY”. If that had been the case, my opinion is that he would not have been calling his theory theology but astrobiology.

But since he lived 2,300 years ago, he called it theology, as speculation about alien life was not mainstream and seems to have been limited to the atomists. So he found the words in his culture and used them. Gods were the denizens of heaven (today it might be angels maybe, and in fact there are Christians who theorize that angels are our “big brothers” in other planets).

Matt. I usually stay away from the gods discussion, since that is what originally caused me depart from the Epicurean discussion groups a few years ago. This topic is probably one of the more divisive ones and often generates significant commentary … which amazing since so little is known about the fullness of Epicurus’s theology. The Epicurean gods, no matter how you slice it, are VERY different from most other deities whether Greek, Hindu, Northern European or Middle Eastern in their role and lack of administration. Someone coming from a modern Islamic or Hindu background (as an example) would find the ideas to be rather alien. It may have been an easier transition for the pagan believers of that era to accept Epicurus’s ideas as opposed to modern religions today that have very specific qualifications as to what a god is or is not.

Alan. The common thread among other religions’ ideation of divinity is in their willingness to intervene on behalf of humans and participate in their events. That is a commonality that you could easily draw between the Homeric gods of Olympus and the Hindu pantheon. (So the purified gods of Epicurus would likely have seemed as foreign to the Greeks as to Hindus if they could have heard his message). The error in all of these ‘religios’ would be that their assent to the idea of interventional gods ultimately results in paranoia and fear, preventing ataraxia. It seems established beyond a doubt (by consensus of academic scholars of Epicurus and by our own koinonia, or tradition of practitioners) though that the study and integration of theology was necessary for the moral development of followers of Epicureanism.

Matt. I very much agree. The issue of intervention is one of the lynchpin issues I think that really drove the wedge between the theology of Epicurus and the religions of the time. In many of these religions, God is known by his positive or cataphatic qualities and acts with energy, and is a causal agent. Whereas, EP’s divinities are not, even though they are “real” but hold no administration. This is why it is so difficult to convince a religious person who holds the truth of the divine to be one that god acts and is the cause, that EP’s gods are relevant.

For the pagan of that time, it probably was an easier transition. It wasn’t a terrible leap to see the gods as inaccessible role models that sacrifices were made to in the temple. The pious continued to be pious by making propitiations that may or may not ever be answered.

But for the zealous Christian, who believed Jesus was God incarnate and performed all that was written and testified about him, would find Epicurus’s position to be a dressed up form of atheism, from a deeply theological perspective. The Christians of the time would’ve found more similarities in Stoic and Neoplatonic concepts, and used their philosophical attacks on Epicurus as their own … though even Stoicism and Neoplatonism themselves weren’t safe or off-limits for condemnation from some apologists.

This is why the Al-Ghazalis and Tertullians railed against all forms of Greek philosophy, not just Epicureanism….in fact Epicurus wasn’t even the main person being attacked or even thought of.

Alan. My ultimate intended point here was just that we should not be afraid or intimidated by the anticipated difficulty of the discussions that attend and surround issues of divinity, especially in this group. Those with an open mind, who are soft rather than rigid, will be able to hear what is being said and evaluate for themselves the utility of its integration.

David. There are many who feel a genuine need for a god figure in their lives. When studying, what are often alien cultures and beliefs, they try desperately to weave a god figure into that which they are observing.

Alan. The projection of human frailties on the divine is one of the first errors made by the impious.

Hiram. But humans also project their strengths and faculties on the Gods, so Epicurus May have been saying “we should not force nature but gently persuade her” as in VS 21, and taming this tendency to extract ethical utility.

David. As a Taoist I can totally agree that we should not force nature, I can even go further and say the very idea of forcing “nature” is preposterous.

Alan. By what means they acquired the attributes of indestructibility and immortality, I do not know.

Michael. I’m not aware of anything on the creation of the divine. Demetrius Laco, in the treatise called “sulla forma del dio” (“On the Shape of God”) by its Italian editor, seems to try to explain their indestructibility and immortality as a result of their very fine atomic constitutions, but the text is badly damaged and it’s not clear how exactly that’s supposed to work.

Marcus. Based on everything I’ve read from ancient sources and scholars, it seems like the early Epicureans were never the victims of accusations of impiety and were more criticized for their hedonism. By the time of Philodemus and Cicero, Epicureans were being accused of atheism which led to philosophers like Philodemus to defend Epicurus’ piety as he does in On Piety.

I guess the relevant debate for modern Epicureans is less about the existence of the gods and more whether or not Epicurean religious practices today can be of any psychological benefit, as Epicurus thought. After all, Buddhist meditation is connected to all kinds of superstition and can still be beneficial to people. Could Epicurean exercises of contemplation of divine beings as models of perfection (even if imaginary) be of any use?

Michael. I think not just the religious practices, however they’re understood, but also the community around them is important: if nothing else, church services and Epicurean feasts on the 20th are both social, communal gatherings. There’s importance in that as well.

It certainly seems that for Epicureans, the gods did serve mostly as an ideal, that’s true. But it also doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist. We have an awful lot of description from Philodemus about them (e.g. they speak Greek to each other, are friends, and have no desire to commit adultery) and Demetrius Laco seems to tie himself into knots trying to explain the physics of their bodily constitutions. (A die-hard believer in the “thought-construct school” could dismiss that as later Epicureans misunderstanding Epicurus, but that seems pretty difficult to me.)

Alan. To add more context to this conversation, the text in the Handbook after the Philodemus quote continues:

“The passage in Philodemus constitutes a further argument against the hypothesis that the Epicurean gods were projections or mental constructs: it would be illogical and indeed inconsistent to treat the gods as thought constructs and at the same time reproach atheists for their denial of the real existence of divinities.”

So it seems that the ancient Epicureans would have rejected the atheist and idealist interpretations and instead insisted on the realist interpretation.

For a treatment of how the Epicureans justified their knowledge of the gods (remember the letter to Menoeceus: “For the gods exist (theoi men gar eisin): our knowledge of them is evident (enargēs gar autōn estin hē gnōsis)”), let’s examine this passage from the Handbook:

“Epicurus’s and the Epicureans’ interest in theology and their admission of the existence of divinities is indeed well attested in Epicurus’s own fragments and in Philodemus (On Gods 3, col. 10.34–38). Epicurus thinks that simulacra come to human beings from the divinities, composed by finest and subtlest atoms, which constitute a “quasi-body,” endowed with a “quasi-blood.” These simulacra come from the intermundia and can reach humans while they are awake and while they are asleep; thence comes the human notion of the divinities, a “clear” or “manifest” (ἐναργής) pre-notion. Due to the fineness of those simulacra, human beings cannot grasp them by means of their sense-perception, but by a representative intuition of their mind (ἐπιβολὴ φανταστικὴ τῆς διανοίας). Pre-notions of the gods are common to all human beings, independently of their culture and race. Epicurus even produces a proof of the existence of the gods in Usener 352, preserved by Cicero ND 1.16.43, who translates πρόληψις by anticipatio: the very universality of these pre-notions of the divinities proves the existence of the gods. Another way to arrive at the deities, according to Epicurus, is by inference: on the basis of the principle of isonomia or equivalence in the universe, human beings in the world(s) must correspond to the same number of divinities in the intermundia. The loss of atoms due to the continual emanation of simulacra is compensated by an uninterrupted inflow; this is why the deities are never destroyed (Cic. ND 1.19.50, 39.109): they push away destructive atoms (Arrighetti fr. 183). The gods not only exist, according to Epicurus, but they are also models of happiness, and therefore they serve as ethical models for human beings. However, since their perfect happiness rests on their ataraxia (Arrighetti fr. 184), they cannot care for humans and their vicissitudes. Hence the Epicurean doctrine of the absence of providence and of teleology, as well as the denial of Fate and divination.”

So there are three arguments outlined in support of the real and clear existence of divinities, in descending order of importance:

1) The self-evidence (enargeia) of the simulacra or eidola that emanate from the quasi-bodies of the divine in the metakosmia, striking us while awake or sleeping. The atoms of their emanations are so fine as to be imperceptible to our senses, but graspable only in prolepsis.
2) An appeal to the universality of the prolepsis of divinity (is this not similar to the argumentum ad populum?)
3) The isonomic (iso=equal, nomos=law) argument, a kind of analogical inference based on the tendency of nature to produce uniformity. Isonomic arguments are also how the atomists justified the innumerable worlds doctrine.

… Would you reword the Letter to Menoeceus (the only complete work on ethics remaining in Epicurus’ own words) or just not accept the treatment of the gods contained in it?

Richard. I would place it in the context of the time. “Our knowledge of them is evident” seems a direct contradiction of Epicurus’s position about knowledge.

Jason. Inference carries great weight in the pleasure principle. We only study nature to decrease fears about the unknown. It is easy to reject gods wholecloth today with the effective separation of church and state. Religion is a private matter. Not so in Epicurus’ time. One was expected to participate in public ritual or face exile. There is little existential motivation to square one’s disbelief in the supernatural with continued participation in public worship today if you are a naturalist.

If we start from first principles and explore the universe in our minds, as we know Epicurus did in the descriptions we have of his volumes On Nature, we might arrive at the same sort of conclusion that Carl Sagan did. Superior beings must live in the universe and to call them superior to humans they must have none of our vices and all of our virtues. Take this as close to perfection as you can conceive in a material universe and you have natural gods, the only creatures worthy of the name in a material universe. Carl Sagan was a huge advocate of adding a contact mandate to SETI because he believed that any alien race capable of contacting us MUST be superior to us in just about every way. He’s the reason for the golden plates on the Voyager probes.

Epicurus arrived at their “existence” the same way we arrive at the existence of aliens today. Given the vastness of space and time, it is a certainty that they exist. A universe without them would be preposterous. If we maximalize an alien race’s bliss, they would appear god-like to us as Epicureans and would be worthy of admiration. Admiration of the good is a pleasant activity and can have a blissful effect on the one who practices it regularly.

Richard. Carl Sagan also thought that it was possible that we are the only intelligent life in the universe, as we could be the first or the last. We just don’t know. We have no knowledge of such a species.

Alan. Jason, this is an excellent rendering of the isonomic argument for the existence of gods, a line a reasoning Epicurus himself likely used. The way you present it makes it sound more compelling than at first it seemed (in the Handbook, they only presented it as inferred by analogy that because there are so many humans, there also must be so many gods, which I think doesn’t bring the full force of the atomistic cosmology to bear on the subject.) In an infinite universe with unlimited arrangements of matter within, we can conceive of such arrangements as would produce beings sufficiently advanced from us as to be indistinguishable from the divine, to put a spin on Clarke’s aphorism.

Jason. And you have extended it beautifully with your twist on Clarke. A worthy addition to the modern meleta on the gods.

The Epicurean method of multiple explanations lands squarely on pleasure as the end and aim. It pleases me more to think that humanity is not alone in the universe. It pleases me more to say that the supernaturalists are hurting themselves in their confusion and the only creature worthy of adoration is that which is actually possible, material beings who have shucked off their vices and live like sages. A race of people whose choices and avoidances have led them to perpetual bliss.

Supernatural gods don’t exist. Epicurus was explicit that belief in them is impious. We don’t have his book On Gods but we can take a stab at what it might have contained given the fragments we have available to us. Our arguments might not be convincing but I’m certain Epicurus’ were, given how widely they were adopted, even into the priesthood of Herod’s temple.

Michael. As for your two, an argument from the consensus omnium (“Agreement of everyone”) and one from the prolepsis can look awfully similar, even though only the second really has probative force for Epicureans. But if everyone believes something, there’s likely to be some kernel of truth in it somewhere.

(Dirk Obbink (yes that Dirk Obbink) has an article in Oxford Studies in…1992? 1992-ish?…about arguments from the consensus omnium in Epicureanism and other schools.)

Alan. To be clear, are you saying that there is a distinction between a consensus omnium with regards to divine prolepses and the informal fallacy of argumentum ad populum? If we are relying on an appeal to a universal consensus to establish the real existence of something, it seems to be a rather weak argument (at least by the standards of empirical evidence that we are accustomed to employing in other areas of investigation).

Michael. No, I’m saying that the consensus omnium, in its pure form, simply is an argumentum ad populum, but that because of the way the prolepsis works (i.e. that it is universal, at least within a culture), it takes some careful phrasing or interpretation to tell an appeal to the prolepsis from an appeal to a consensus omnium. An appeal to a prolepsis is, after all, an appeal to something that *everyone* has in their head (a belief or idea or something like that, depending on what you take a prolepsis to be).

Jason. Dirk’s article is really quite good reading and clears up a LOT of misconceptions about Epicurean prolepses of the gods. Thanks for the cite , Michael. Cicero is the cause of a lot of confusion for earnest learners. Philodemus was right to condemn the lawyers.

Michael. Yeah, there’s a reason he’s had the career he’s had.
We have to use Cicero carefully: he’s usually polemical, and he’s usually writing for Roman beginners as well, whom he hopes will graduate to reading the originals in Greek. But he does have a good eye and sometimes lands a criticism or preserves a point of doctrine we wouldn’t otherwise know about.

Richard. So it’s possible to believe in more advanced life forms elsewhere in the universe AND be an atheist, right?

Alan. Yes, sure. You can reasonably hold both views.

Hiram. At SoFE we accept all three interpretations as legitimate. The founders were realists, but today Epicurean theology falls in the realm of Sci fi and speculation about astrobiology.

It is one thing to say Epicurus believed in the realist interpretation … it is a different thing to say that we believe in the same interpretation. We can have the second or third view while recognizing he adheres to the first. What we at SoFE are saying is that all three could be justified as reasonable by reasonable people.

Richard. If he saw ‘gods’ as another natural species somewhere else in the universe, was he really talking about ‘gods’ as most people would understand the word, or is he just redefining them as a get-out-clause for any accusation of heresy?

Hiram. This is an accusation–that he was insincere–made by anti-Epicureans, that we do not endorse.

If you read Epicurus’ sermon “Against the use of empty words” (or watch our youtube video on it) you’ll see that the Epicureans (like the Confucians) have a method of redefining words according to the study of nature, so that the words would be as closely aligned with the objects of our investigation as was empirically possible. THIS method was used by the first Epicureans with regards to the gods.

So the gods of supernaturalism became natural beings, the most blissful beings in the cosmos that the Epicureans were able to imagine based on their methods of studying the non-evident based on that which is available empirically.

If you read the wording of the first Principal Doctrine, you will find that the words used by the founders are not “the gods” but “blissful and immortal beings”–they use the Epicurean DEFINITION of the word “gods” instead of the word, which I think accentuates the fact that they trusted their DEFINITION of the word more than the word itself. They didn’t trust that the word accurately conveyed what they meant, so they used instead the definition. This was an ongoing issue with this and many other words, as we see in “Against empty words”. I think this attests to the fact that part of the way in which Epicurean theology came about was by attempting to apply their rules on redefinition of words according to nature to the word “gods”, so as to demystify the word and purge it from its supernatural trappings. If you consider this, you’ll begin to see some of the value that some of us see in this Doctrine.

Richard. Why would it be a problem for Epicurus to be an atheist? It all points to him not believing in ‘gods’ as most theists would define them. Why is that an issue?

Hiram. Epicurus was saying these ARE the real gods, the only gods that nature may produce. There was a _legitimate_ interest in the question of what is the life form with the highest quality of life in the cosmos, because this points to the highest ethical model achievable naturally.

Alan. Why does one have to believe in supernatural deities to be a polytheist?

As Hiram just explained, to cut the ambiguity away, Epicurus appeals directly to the proleptic intuition about the nature of the divine, giving them three essential attributes: that it is a zōion or a living entity, incorruptible (aphtharsia), and blessed (makariotēs) (which is even higher than eudaimonia).

It seems you are walking closely by Posidonius’ anti-Epicurean argument, explained in the Handbook:

“According to Posidonius, Epicurus was an atheist because at bottom he did not believe in the existence of the gods; if Epicurus allowed that the gods existed, he did so solely for the sake of convenience, that is, to deflect hostility and in particular the accusation of atheism from himself. It is obvious that Posidonius’s testimony is polemical and malicious in respect to Epicurus; but Posidonius expresses in nuce the basic features of Epicurus’s bad reputation in matters of theology, which, as we have said, were to cast a long shadow well beyond the chronological limits of the ancient world. It is obviously impossible to determine whether Epicurus, the “coryphaeus of atheism,” as Clement of Alexandria dubbed him (Strom. 1.1), was at heart an atheist; nevertheless, it is certain that, basing ourselves on what his texts say, Epicurus believed firmly and with conviction in the existence of the gods.”

The consensus is that upon taking the Epicurean texts innocently and sincerely, the only possible reasonable conclusion was that Epicurus did believe the gods to be real. Any suggested secret convictions or deception could cast into doubt the sincerity of Epicurus’ entire salvific project.

*

Closing on an intellectually humble note, we share a quote by the Guide Philodemus of Gadara from his scroll On Piety:

“It would be fitting to describe all men as impious, inasmuch as no one has been prolific in finding convincing demonstrations for the existence of the gods” – Philodemus of Gadara

Further Reading:

For there ARE Gods

Dialogues on the Epicurean Gods

Principal Doctrine 1: On the Utility of the Epicurean Gods

PD 1: On the Utility of the Epicurean Gods

That which is blissful and immortal has no troubles itself, nor does it cause trouble for others, so that it is not affected by anger or gratitude (for all such things come about through weakness). – Principal Doctrine One

Epicurus applied epilogismos (empirical thinking) to all things, even the gods. In thinking empirically about the gods, he specifically considered their role as witnesses to our oaths–which is why Philodemus equates piety with justice in his scroll On Piety–, Epicurus saw how oath-breakers are treated by the community, so that the gods seem to embody the collective memory, traditions, choices and avoidances, and norms of the tribe. Gods (or rather the social group, through invocation and use of its gods) have the “power” to bring specific curses and blessings, which may at times be specified in the social contract of the community. I should clarify that this is not a supernatural power, but rather a social function.

For instance, if you vow by Athena to be loyal to a friend, and then you turn around and betray your friend, many sincere worshipers of Athena will consider you cursed because you will have blasphemed Athena. They may have, as a community, ways of dealing with oath-breakers that are unpleasant, as a way of discouraging oath-breaking. We see in many modern religious communities that oath-breakers and apostates are often banned from their Mormon, Muslims, or other religious communities. As central symbols of tribes and communities, we see that the gods function as their unifying symbols that add coherence and stability to communities.

The Letter to Menoeceus says that gods make us feel “familiar” to them as a result of sharing similar virtues as they have. This “filial” (familiar) model of Epicurean piety has been distinguished from the “servile” model of vulgar piety that we see elsewhere.

We may view the gods and the practices concerning them as instances of (individual or communal) self-expression and reminders of our highest values.

The Epicurean gods also invite us to ask what kinds of sentient beings would be WORTHY of everlasting happiness, of immortal bliss, and also of immortality–which is a quite different question from the ontological station of the gods.

Therefore the Doctrine of Epicurus concerning the gods must be studied in terms of its utility so that, even if we do away with the Epicurean gods, we still have a clear grasp of their utility in their original context, and we may seek alternate ways to fulfil that same utility and possibly experiment with a non-theistic religiosity. I have speculated that this religiosity can perhaps focus its piety on the healing words of true philosophy, rather than on the gods.

A non-theistic Epicurean religiosity is a worthwhile project, however, a part of me still wonders if, by neglecting the moral tasks posed by the Epicurean gods, we’d be neglecting crucial exercises for the soul’s “muscles”, and whether we harm our moral development by ignoring the utility of the gods.

The Imaginary Friends Argument

Imaginary friends are often cited as a metaphor by atheists who wish to ridicule vulgar religiosity, but the “imaginary friends” metaphor actually may yield important insights concerning religiosity and should be treated as a legitimate ethical and anthropological argument. 

Children have imaginary friends, which are sort of familiar spirits to them, and this is considered a normal part of childhood. This is probably because they are developing social faculties. I imagine it’s like a computer that has the program to update itself: the child’s brain is learning and processing for the first time complex social interactions, which give him skills necessary for adult life. The child must learn communication skills, and even subtle social cues. Perhaps imagining friends helps the brain to learn and practice these social skills in the initial stages of social development.

The Utility of Piety

Honoring a sage is itself a great benefit to the one who honors – Vatican Saying 32

This issue of the utility of piety is a separate question from the nature of the gods, even if related. But in what way do we benefit when we honor or respect something? Epicurus said piety had psycho-somatic effects: that it may help us to cultivate pleasant dispositions in the body and mind.

Piety can make us feel happy, attached to something wholesome and familiar, and can help us feel healthy and mentally strong.

Piety can also feel like a great peace, because we are being just whenever we honor our covenants of loyalty, friendship, or filial love, and one is genuinely happy when one hears the name of a loved one, and is reminded of that love. This sweetens life, is pleasant, memorable, and makes us happy.

Piety, if sincere, feels like reverence, which ennobles if the thing revered is worthy. When such piety feels like familiarity, filial, we may say that we share part of our (mental and bodily) identity with the thing revered, otherwise it would not feel familiar. The Epicurean Doctrines may also gain familiarity through acquaintance, repetition, and memorization.

When we observe the psycho-somatic effects of piety in us, we have clear, direct insight about its benefits, which justifies “faith” not in gods or in anything external to ourselves, but in the memorized Doctrines and their power and medicine in our soul.

Living Like Immortals

In the third book of De Rerum Natura, Lucretius praised the words of Epicurus saying: “like bees, we sip their nectar”–as if from flowers in a meadow–and that they’re “golden, ever worthy of immortal life”. In this way, he compared the Doctrines to ambrosia–the nectar of immortality.

Lucretius was conveying that the Aurea Dicta (the “golden words” of true philosophy) help us to live like immortals, and to feel as if we are surrounded by immortal goods. This is because these words point to all the things that make life worth living, and so the diligent study of the Aurea Dicta is the most advantageous activity for our happiness. But bees drink nectar in order to make honey: the idea of imbibing Epicurus’ words is to produce sweetness, pleasure.

Epicurus would not talk about living like immortals, as he did in his Epistle to Menoeceus, if he had not first placed before the eyes of his disciple, in clear detail, just what it means to live like an immortal.

Living like an immortal implies various things. Epicurus describes the gods as indestructible and forever happy. These are the only two religious taboos he gave us. He said we may believe anything about the gods so long as we do not blaspheme their immortality and their constantly blissful state of sentience. We are left to fill in the blanks.

This must mean that the gods are envisioned as sentient beings, since only such beings are able to experience constant pleasures. Living like an immortal implies that the pleasures that we experience are all of a higher nature, that we become resilient, indestructible, and transcendentally happy. Living like gods also implies an art of living, a methodology for living, a lifestyle, or a cultural expression which is modeled by our Epicurean narratives about the gods.

It can be dangerous to remain unaware of what gods, guiding values, and beliefs we have set for ourselves. Unanalyzed praise can sometimes degrade a soul, sinking it in unwholesome association. Epicurus invites us to consciously create our values in this manner, and to observe the pragmatic results of this ethical exercise in our own bodies and minds

The Future Self

This task may remind some of Nietzsche’s Overman. This is because the utility of the gods and the utility of our narratives about our own future are, in some ways, similar.

Just as we feel rooted in our past when we revere our ancestors, we also anchor our selves in the future when we revere our gods. There is a progression in time between these two cosmological imaginaries: the one (usually) below our feet in the graves of our ancestors where we are rooted like trees, and the one (usually) in the heavens towards which our instincts of freedom and creation inspire us to advance and evolve. Perhaps we subconsciously intuit our evolutionary advance from a less-evolved past to a more-evolved future, and this finds expression in these two forms of piety? We naturally (and perhaps subconsciously) seek to imitate and to become like the things we deify or idealize. The future Self has to be conceived and imagined so clearly, that it feels within reach. Thinking about our future self is, in itself, ethically useful if done right.

While you are on the road, try to make the later part better than the earlier part; and be equally happy when you reach the end. – Vatican Saying 48

The Letter to Menoeceus teaches that the future is partly ours and partly not ours. This means that we have causal responsibility for a portion of our destiny, of our future self. Concerning what this portion entails is a matter of great importance for our happiness and for our moral development. The favors we do to our future self give us hope in our future pleasure, stability, and confident expectation that we will easily secure our needs.

Exercise: Envision Your Gods

If we were to set up an existential task, or “a homework”, related to Principal Doctrine 1, it would be to place before our eyes: to clearly imagine, in detail, the lifestyle of the gods. This is a visualization exercise–which could be done in the form of journaling, if we are not very good visual thinkers.

I recently shared the Isle of the Blessed passage from Lucian’s comedy True Story. Since it depicts a paradise of pleasure, one worthy of Epicurus himself (whom Lucretius makes a resident there), the Isle of the Blessed might be a good example of a type of exercise similar to envisioning the gods, that we may draw inspiration from.

Since the Epicurean gods of the realist interpretation are what today would be considered extraterrestrial super-evolved animals, some of our readers may wish to draw inspiration from the emergent field of astro-biology. I have speculated that any creature that feels perfectly safe and invulnerable (as the gods do) would have to evolve in an ecosystem that has an extremely high level of symbiosis (that is, cooperation rather than competition) between creatures.

“Sculpting” our gods (or “imagined persons” if we are non-realist about them) in our minds, and putting before our eyes their activities, pastimes, narratives, opulences, pleasures, qualities, values, and attributes may serve as a good point of reference to help us to sculpt our own characters and lifestyles. In this way, we gain a clear conception in our minds of how to live a godlike lifestyle. 

Envisioning the gods is an exercise in ethical self-creation, and in character-building. It’s a reflection on the quality of life that the highest form of sentient being in the cosmos would have. How would we live if we were to imitate their godly lifestyle? That is part of the utility of the Epicurean gods.

Finally, I wish to stress that this exercise is useful and has educational value even if we believe that our gods are imaginary: they can still be our lifestyle-models, who point us in the direction of the healthiest and happiest way of living.

The usefulness of this exercise is increased if we include concrete details concerning the aromas, tastes, architecture, fashion, and mental and emotional states of our gods. This is what we mean by “placing before the eyes”–a practice used by the Epicurean Guide Philodemus, and by Epicurus himself in his Letter to Menoeceus. In this way, we move from the abstract to the concrete, from the Platonic realm to the real and tangible world.

Further Reading:

For There ARE Gods …

Dialogues on the Epicurean Gods

 The Isle of the Blessed

On Natural Holiness

The above video on the Epicurean gods may help us to contextualize the following discussion. When I say natural holiness, I mean as opposed to supernatural, and also holiness as it is empirically observed and experienced by mortals.

We recently carried out a study of holiness with the purpose of carrying out experiments in the theory and practice of Epicurean piety, and as part of an effort to formulate a non-theistic Epicurean religiosity for the 21st Century. We also wanted to rescue the words “holiness” and “the sacred” from centuries of appropriation by world-denying religions.

The holy and the sacred, in conventional religions, have sometimes come to be associated with what we view as unhealthy asceticism and self-denial, and sometimes even with the vulgar hypocrisy of people who are ostentatious about their false piety, whereas in Epicurus we find a non-Platonic concept of “righteous happiness” related to natural holiness, and which is not at all ascetic or world-denying. In Against the use of empty words, we learn that the founders of our School re-assigned new meanings to words as per the study of nature. The rectification of a natural conception of holiness, and the sacred, is a (mammoth and worthwhile) philosophical project.

On Holiness

Holiness shares semantic roots with wholeness (the state of being healthy and complete, safe and sound, uninjured, entire). Scottish hale (a related word that shares semantic roots) implies health, being whole, and happiness. In Spanish, the word “santo” (“the holy”) also shares semantic roots with “sano”, which means healthy, and with the English word sanity. The “in-sane” are people who lack mental health. So the naturally holy may have originally been tied to bodily and mental health.

One of the initial points I wish to make in our investigations of natural holiness is that at some point in history, the healthy and the holy separated in many languages, but they are Siamese twins.

Ancient people utilized “the holy” in order to avoid germs and diseases. This may help to explain the many purity and health codes in ancient religions related to hygiene, and the fact that the goddess of health is known as Hygieia (Hygiene, personified). So we may forgive our conventionally religious friends for having inherited so many hygiene-based superstitions and taboos concerning burial of decaying bodies, menstrual and purity taboos, avoidance of eating pork, etc. Many of these taboos are later corruptions of the initial prolepsis of the holy: the feeling of being happy, whole, complete, healthy and sound, which in antiquity (and even today, as the pandemic has shown) at times required certain taboos around hygiene and health.

On the Utility of the Holy

Philodemus taught that Epicurus ordered that all oaths be taken in the name of the most holy gods, and not on trivialities or non-divine things. One of the ancient Epicurean Guides, Philodemus of Gadara, said:

Piety and justice appear to be almost the same thing … because to break one’s oath is to be unjust and also to lie, and both are disturbing.

Over the years of studying together, the Friends of Epicurus have come to realize that a social contract is needed to properly practice Epicurean philosophy. The sincere student must abide by some house rules, and these rules need to be clearly delineated.

An oath, or agreement, between the teacher / community and the individual student helps to know the house rules (this is also true in most social settings). The specific details of any social contract or agreement must delineate the concrete rules by which that community attains the most advantageous ways of achieving its aims and values. If the social contract is vague, it will not serve its purposes efficiently. Since justice depends on very specific circumstances, contracts require specificity and concreteness.

This is the first, and most obvious, use of holiness: it serves as a guarantor of our oaths with each other. If you and I hold our friendship to be holy, and you swear on our friendship that you will complete a shared project, your disloyalty would be an act of injustice that implies a desecration of our holy friendship.

But there are other ways in which the holy is useful. Since it represents our Highest Values, on which we make our oaths, it also serves as a way to distinguish our highest values from our non-values. It creates a separate category for things of great value for a community.

On the Sacred

Let’s now look at the prolepsis (original attestation and meaning, or “proto-noesis“) of the sacred. A quick online search for the meaning of “sacred” yields some of the following meanings:

connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.

(of writing or text) embodying the laws or doctrines of a religion.

regarded with great respect and reverence by a particular religion, group, or individual.

The sacred is that which is set aside (or dedicated) as a Higher Value, or for the sake of a Higher Value. It’s set apart from the profane, which is ordinary.

It seems initially that the sacred and the holy are one and the same thing, since sacred comes from Latin sacrare, from sacer, sacr– ‘holy’. However, in our usage, people can be holy but not usually sacred (although I would argue that some people are sacred to us). Objects and books can be both holy and sacred.

Things can be made sacred by consecration. In our modern usage, the sacred is that which is “set aside” for a higher purpose or “set aside” as a higher value, and is worthy of great respect. Sacred things are not ordinary. Hence, the Torah scrolls are kept in the Ark in a synagogue. The eucharist is kept in the tabernacle in a Catholic church. The Krishna prasadam (food consecrated and served in Hindu temples) is not just eaten: it is “honored”. They are set apart from ordinary things, and connect us with the higher values they’re consecrated to.

Does the sacred exist in nature? Without a doubt. I do not consider ordinary people comparable in any way to my parents, to my siblings, to my friends. My mother is the most “sacred” person to me. The tomb of my grandmother is sacred to me because of the love and memories attached. The ground around her tomb is, comparably, meaningless and valueless, but her tomb is sacred. Many people go out of their way to visit their mothers’ graves on Mother’s Day, for instance: that means that the place that holds those remains is set apart, marked as sacred in some way. Even elephants have been observed assuming a solemn demeanor in the presence of bones of their loved ones when they stumble upon them during their long journeys.

It seems to me that the utility of the sacred has to do with a communal or individual choice to focus on some good, and with separating the things that we associate with our Higher Values (which are holy to us) from ordinary things. Sacredness also separates the things worthy of respect from those indifferent or unworthy. Religious scholar Durkheim argues that the sacred represents the interests of the group, including communal unity, which is embodied in symbols, as for instance in a totem (the symbol that unites a tribe). Mircea Eliade, another scholar of religion, says that religion is based on a sharp distinction between the sacred and the profane.

I argue that the sacred does exist in nature: that some things are observed to have a much greater value that most other things to certain sentient beings, and so we observe that they are considered to deserve special respect, so they are set aside.

In addition to things that are naturally sacred, things can come to be considered sacred by dedication, devotion, or formal and ceremonial consecration. The definitions of “consecrate” include:

To make / declare something sacred

To dedicate formally to a religious, divine, or sacred purpose

Ordain someone to sacred office

Devote something exclusively to a particular purpose

We sometimes hold on to pictures or objects that were given by loved ones or friends due to emotional attachment: they are “consecrated” to the memory of a loved one. When something is offered to a higher ideal, or to a friend, or towards a goal which is itself considered sacred, the thing offered becomes set apart, gains value from that sacredness.

The Sacred Within our Hierarchy of Values

Let us now contextualize the usefulness of the sacred within the framework of our highest existential projects and goals. Why? Because this helps to illuminate the relation between our hierarchy of priorities and values, and the practice of hedonic calculus. This places “the sacred” within an undeniably Epicurean ethical context, one that helps us navigate our choices and avoidances.

Can our goals (which guide our actions) be “sacred”, or be tied to things that are sacred? The pleasures and advantages we get from our toil justify the disadvantages and pains we choose. Our sacrifices must always be devoted to some higher goal or value, which redeems them or justifies them thanks to the mathematics of hedonic calculus. A rational mortal will sacrifice only lesser values to higher values. 

Notice how we are moving from the most holy gods to our Highest Values in our non-theistic discourse. Rather than sacrifice to Zeus or Dionysus, we are taming religious techniques, and recruiting them for ethical and philosophical purposes. This reminds me of the poem/epiphany early in Liber Primus (the First Book of “De rerum natura” by Lucretius) where religion is trampled underfoot by philosophy.

Also, notice that part of what I’m saying here is that the language used in conventional religions (words like the sacred, or sacrifice) can be transferred into a realism that rejects all supernaturalism; that we can return to the original prolepsis of these words in formulating our own Epicurean religiosity based on the study of nature.

In Epicurean philosophy, we believe Pleasure is the Guide of Life, and the faculty that points to what the goods are. We say a man may be “devoted” to his wife, or to his studies. This expression implies a goal (love and happiness within a matrimony, a PhD or some other professional or educational attainment with prospects of a higher salary, etc.) that justifies these sacrifices and could itself be “sacred”. In fact, matrimony is considered a sacrament by many religions. It’s seen as a holy contract, and an act of mutual consecration of two beings to each other so that they become each other’s Higher Values.

Our sacrifices are a good place to look for our highest values, since we do not seek pains except to serve greater pleasures, so that we observe that our sacrifices (and our hedonic calculus) point to an empirical encounter with in our hierarchy of values.

The word sacrifice carries the prolepsis “to make sacred”–that is, sacer(sacred) + facere (to make). A rational human only offers or makes sacrifices (of any kind) for worthy reasons, or to worthy ideals and goals. Sacrifices are, to speak naturally and concretely, the objects or actions that are “made sacred” and therefore redeemed or justified by consecration to our goals and our Higher Values. We may not think of these goals as sacred, but we use the word “sacrifice” (sacer-facere), which implies something sacred which justifies our efforts. I made huge sacrifices to obtain a school diploma, for instance. Some people sacrifice their marriage for an addiction or a short-lived affair, to offer an example of an irrational, unethical sacrifice that does not pass hedonic calculus.

If our pains are not “sacrificed” to a higher aim, they are not made sacred, they are not redeemed or justified, they lack meaning and value to us. In these cases, such pains or sacrifices are to be avoided, if possible. Please consider your own past and present choices and rejections, and place this before your eyes: we observe that the sacred is, by pragmatic definition, that which justifies our sacrifices by being a Higher Value. We make great sacrifices and accept great pains for the sake of our friends, our loved ones, our Highest Values, and our Gods (even metaphorical ones).

And while we are willing to make great sacrifices and take great risks for a loved one or a friend, we admit only lesser pains for the sake of a stranger. The life of a stranger may still be sacred to us, and we may still be moved by compassion, but not nearly as much as that of a loved one or friend.

Having explored the natural sense of the words holiness and sacred, let’s now move on to a specifically non-theistic religious discussion of them while keeping these definitions clearly in our mind.

Towards a Non-Theistic Experience of the Holy

Should we–and how do we–make the sacred tangible and material in a worldview that rejects the supernatural? How do we enjoy the pleasures of the holy as Epicureans or spiritual naturalists? I believe our experiments in piety within the context of a non-theistic Epicurean religiosity might contribute to the modern atheist arguments that we can create values without God with clear demonstrations of how it’s done, and in a manner that is true to our traditions.

I will begin by arguing that many things other than the holy gods are holy. For instance, people make non-theistic oaths, like “I swear on our friendship …”, with the assumption that said friendship is held in such high esteem that it is understood to be holy by the two parties. There are many other “immortal goods”. We could say “I swear on the words of Epicurus”, or “I swear on justice, or on my honor, or on my reputation”, with the assumption that these are things of value to us. Non-religious people, when they go to a court, have the option of swearing on the Constitution instead of a Bible, in the civic ceremonial tradition of the United States. Even the religious sometimes swear on things other than their god. “I swear on the tomb of my grandmother”, for instance, is a non-theistic oath. They are oaths taken on our (often shared) values, things we love, revere, or highly respect, among which we will find our sacred things.

Epicureanism as a Non-Theistic Religiosity

The imagery, in De Rerum Natura, where religion is trampled under the feet of man, teaches that religion must have utility for all the individuals it serves. Religion must be civilized, reformed, tamed by the Epicurean. Our chosen beliefs must serve us and increase our pleasures.

A naturalist, and perhaps non-theistic, religiosity can be useful, healthy, and relevant. It would purge religion of its less civilized elements, domesticate it, tame it, and keep the best aspects of religion that give people central symbols around which to organize their lives and communities, develop their culture and aesthetics, and make oaths. It’s also a sign that we respect ourselves, our chosen communities, our values, and our philosophy.

By creating tangible artifacts and ceremonies that are considered holy and worthy of reverence, by the sacralization of the words of Epicurus as a sacred text or object of contemplation, by the celebration of the Twentieth, by an oath, or by any other ceremony, philosophy furnishes all the things that conventional religions furnish. We are also making philosophy tangible by these acts of value-creation.

Impious is not so much the man who denies the Gods of the many as the man who attributes the beliefs of the many to them.

Ancient Epicureanism mimicked much of the utility and culture of conventional religion. It was a sect, had rituals, feasts, sacred oaths, Guides (the kath-hegemones), culture heroes (the four Founders) for whom sculptures were made and fetishized (as documented in The Sculpted Word), revered writings, and even a patron Goddess (Venus). It will take years for modern intellectuals to successfully rescue the original sense of many of the words, concepts and practices that world-denying religions have monopolized, but it is my view that carrying out concrete experiments in piety within the context of Epicurean philosophy as a legitimate (theistic or) non-theistic religion for the 21st Century deserves careful and sincere further exploration.