Talk:Gods

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The Gods. Plato in the Republic claimed the ethical-political purpose of religion and noticed some ineffectiveness of Olympus gods, to much coarsened by poets and folklore. Alexander's empire had started a still major importation from Asia of mystery/gnostic cult: man is god, or a child of god. The most passionate declarations of fraternal religion was those of lonely, armed, jealous shepherds. The gods of Epicurus are more extraterrestrial living bodily beings, but they are a more realistic paragon of human judicious aspirations intensified into the idea of god, their supreme fulfilment. In Aristotle also god is an 'end-goal' of all natural being' s becoming, but it is a "pure form", although extraterrestrial. The proof of the actual existence of this paragons could be no crux of the matter, insofar as they "can be grasped by the mind ..." [Philod. On Methods of Inference PHerc. 1065. Frag 8. De Lacy] (especially in dreams). "In On the Gods (E.) says without possible doubts that a being with a perfect nature must be grasped by intellect and may not be conceived as sensible" [U34. Phld. On Piety 117]. Only body or void may exist... and everyone may infer, and keep it for himself. Thanks to a stable and propitious secluded space environment and a 'state-of-the-art' wisdom, oriented to assimilation (some of them are indeed so unerring as to be indistinguishable one from another), the Epicurean gods have reached a stable evolutionary equilibrium, replacing the parts which they lose (like crabs and lizards).

"In Book XII of On Nature [... and] On Holiness [...] Epicurus makes clear that not only that thing which exists indestructibly, but also (that which) continually exists in perfection as one and the same entity, are termed in common usage 'unified entities', some of which entities are perfected out of the same elements and others from similar elements [literally 'out of same things' and 'out of similar things']... " [Philodemus, On Piety P. Herc. 1428. Obbink 's tr.]. The more homogeneous is a compound , the lesser is divisible (" what has no share of the void, endures"), like diamond. Epicurean gods liken enough to a source: a perennial dissipative system (see Prigogine). The idea is sci-fi (at present...). But the theory of Gods being made up of mind's atoms smacks of irony against idealist competitors: soul's atoms "cannot stay out of nerves and blood" [Lucr. III, 789]. The evolutionary human being (he/she must still reproduce...) tries to imitate the the paragon of gods as much as he can, as "two sorts of happiness can be conceived: the one is the highest possible, such as the gods enjoy, which cannot be augmented; the other admitting addition and subtraction of pleasures", he is depending on inconstant environment and therefore on conjectural choices. For the Epicurean the niche of a secluded living is the safest (like gods "completely preoccupied with the continuance of his own happiness and indestructibility and so is not concerned with human affairs" U631), like the garden (an intermundia); the easiest is the most at hand, like the lentil proteins and porridge for food, ten time less squandering than meat, or the 'alternative kinetic pleasures. The most successful reproduction is the adoption/co-optation of valuable just persons: an assimilation as a matter of fact [see P.D. 39]: "The just person [...] exceedingly enjoys pleasures that are unalloyed and effortless. And once such a distinction between desires has been grasped, he enjoys even necessary pleasures, than which there are none greater, nor is it possible to derive from any enjoyment any gain equal to those (that derive from freedom from fear of harm)." [On Piety, cit. Col. 76]. The gods affect humans as motivations, not as causes, because their blessedness entails thinking only to themselves, i.e. to pleasurable and perfect subjects (see - for normalization... - the "thinking on the thinking" of Aristotle's "pure form" god). Peripatetic school did already think that a Whole Being ('unified entity') is delighted always by the same pleasure: the thought, a stationary activity; and that the animated activities in any case are delightful if they find no hindrances, whence the life of the virtuous person isn't the best if his activities are not delightful.
In holy day time the contemplative Epicurean men also realized that foreseeable and repeatedly pleasurable ataraxy' s needs, philosophy, theoretical inward virtues were the ones which more brought him nearer to the prolepsis of bliss and retreat, they called them 'katastematic', and they practiced sternness. Seneca reports that they did it repeatedly (monthly) as an exercise to scarcity. Arius Didymus reports an explanation of katastematic pleasure: “contentment is arranging oneself in natural way from oneself to oneself, leaving out every purpose to external things”[at Stobeus, Epitome]. The divine pleasure of living itself. Whence a certain 'divine' boast in their texts, and an unrealistic divinization of self-control and solidarity by some fanatics followers (some yoga techniques and ('atomist') buddist nirvana via Pyrrho-Nausiphanes was known).

Leisurely I face my ink stone all day long, and without any particular object jot down the odds and ends that pass through my mind, with a curious feeling I am not sane. [Kenko Hoshi (jap. bonze XIII cent.), Tsuregusa, Introd.]. If one appreciates being alive, should he not delight in it each particular day? But he who is foolish, forgetful of this joy, seeks laboriously for pleasures of another sort, and unmindful of this wealth his boundless ambition is ever coveting riches of a dangerous kind. While he lives, he does not value his life; yet, when on the point of death, he dread it - which is inconsistent [ibid. sect. 93 ]. Happy is he who can live at peace without starving and without feeling the cold when attacked by wind and rain. [...] Adding medicine therefore (to the three others), he is poor who cannot attain these four thing. [ibid. sect. 123]. If you would learn the Way, it teaches you not to be vain of your own virtues and in no case to enter into competition with others [sect. 130].

Obviously working days are more variable, that is kinetic, and only possibly without hindrances. Testing new foods, exploring new regions was and is adaptive. Even today one must vary foods abroad. Originality of E. is suppleness, and no fixation of fundamentalism: body/soul, kinetic/katastematic, friendship/autarky, seclusion/law' s authority, dogmatic didactic/ polyvalent interpretations, etc..: each one of duality helps to control excesses of the other in a variable world. Zen Buddhism (a form of 'eastern Protestantism') admits contradiction too, and even temporary conventual life and martial arts; the very Kennko was a writer (unlike Buddha) and admits traditions and sexuality "Did not the sage Kumé lose his supernatural powers when he saw the white legs of a girl washing clothes? And well he might, at the sight of the bare unpainted skin of those arms and legs beautifully glossy and plump! [sect. 8]. To live apart therefore and to go and stay with her from time to time is the way to form a tie that the passing months and years can never dissolve; for it will be no affliction then for him to go and pay her a little visit." [sect. 190].
In conformity with their doctrine Epicureans had no need of paragons for feeling what is pleasurable; gods' means/tricks and their environment were admirable but useless for many of them. Variable (ecologically politically, familiarly) environment needs also variable desires. "Photocopy" and unerring gods are an effective treatment/paragon against human erring competitive spirit, and their sole katastematic pleasure would attract emotionally our underlying palaeoreptile nervous system. But any mammal in cage, in order to have some variety-stimulations gets to the point of hurting himself, like the poet who writes sad lines. A cat, taken by plane in a new apartment, will nose around previously, in the end it will eat his can and enjoy his ataraxia. One may renounce holidays but a daily walk desire in public space - territorial instinct - is generally felt ("I cannot stay sealed indoors all day long!"). Why had Epicurus (often in wheelchair) a good time to sail (he was shipwrecked too) and to write three hundred books? A side effect on us is some downsizing of celestial life. Intentional? A working hypothesis 'ab absurdum'? Does Epicurus want to remember us life is structurally off balance (even in 'unified entities') and god's pleasure is qualitatively identical to the pleasure you and we feel, and must be moderate otherwise we would become absent-minded like love birds? Their pleasure is only quantitatively (duration) bigger, and Diog. L. would be wrong defining it “highest”; therefore the boast would be lesser, but anyway Menoeceus' L. remain of course a protreptikos, a leaflet . For men, needs go back, satisfaction has to be complete, but it's repeatable: not permanent; 'kinetic' are postponable - but neurological ward guards. . "We regard self-sufficiency as a great virtue not so that we may only enjoy a few things, but so that we may be satisfied with a few things if those are all we have." The risk of prudence is asceticism; of benevolence the badly addressed imprudence. [Bentham].

Athenian citizens have to worship city and familiar gods, but they may follow sideways other cults too, like exotic or mystery cults. Without monotheistic holy scriptures no heresy. The very Epicurus found fault with theological astronomy in Pytocles Epistle as it was no official cult.

An Egyptian papyrus (perhaps esoteric) show more mental reservation to conventionality:

It's is not true piety, in my opinion, complying common religious obligations - even if the offering of sacrifices is, as I have told, a natural need in suitable circumstances - nor there is way of speaking piety, by Zeus, when this man and another one keep repeating: "I fear all the Gods, and I respect them, and I want to spend my riches to make sacrifices and to consecrate offerings." Such sort of persons are perhaps more praised than common persons, but they didn't put the basis of true piety. Hey friend! consider that the best talent you possesses is a correct conception of things; these are absolutely the best riches we are able to entertain in present life. Appreciate this mental power, value this godlike talent. Moreover, don't respect the Gods as you expect to find their favour, as well as you expect general opinion may reckon when you show yourself in that. In actual fact, for God's sake, as you say, what have you to dread? Do you think the Gods want to harm you? Like this you degrade them! Why not consider divine nature a pitiable condition, if it reveals itself lower than you? Do you think that with immolation of about thousand oxen you can appease divine nature? or that will it refund, if you appeal, his share of damages?
All that seems to reveal people's vain hopes, in comparison with the doctrine of he who does believe that in the present is there already a good life, and who does not fancy that the dead persons return to life: idle stories like those invented by Plato. [The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part II, London, 1899, . CCXV, pp. 30.33; 150-75 B.C.; attributed by Diels to Epicurean school, near Zeno of Sydon] It was necessary to mend the regional epistemology that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" [Prov. 1:7]

Epicurus was almost unknown (Sen. Ep 79, 16), but a sect ran mostly some risks: atheism, subversiveness, 'debauchery' (panderism) suspects. Epicurus agreed to Gods, to Monarch, to autarky: he wrote even a Perì Basileia, dedicated to Ptolemy Philadelphos, and bore relations with Demetrius Poliorcetes, Lysimachus of Thrace, Antigonus the Squinting; nonetheless he didn't believe on politics as treatment for ataraxia, and preferred landed property; he had also his delicious meals, which are more tasty if not too frequent (Men. 13), and liked perhaps better the chop than the smell which went up to gods sky.
In order to drive well we must handle right, left, forward, reverse motions; when we are sleepy we contradict all. For defining a line two spread apart points of reference at least are needed, as teaches analytical geometry and Aristotle's moral metriòtês. Let' s grant strictness to Cynic, definitions to Stoics, passivity to Middle and Eastern religions. Exactly, volition is always compact (idealistic 'constantia sapientis') if one believes in a deterministic and stationary nature, or in an abstract Reason, and in the Book. Epicureans believe in evolution (not necessarily favourable), in usefulness, in variable desires for a variable nature and social agreement, if possible; a book Doubtful Cases for the most eager was there. Only for choice of ataraxia they are 'constant', but the very means are calculable: "Evaluate each of your desires [necessary ones too of course; r.'s n.] by this question: "What will happen to me if what seeks this desire is attained, and what if it is not?" In particular case even some natural and necessary desires may be an evil (Men. 130); e.g. eating when one must fleet at once, or when is badly without drinking water. Widespread and continuous altruism would render moral gratification enough bland, used to excess, just not welcome - as old maid aunts visits ..., it would bring demographic increase to parasitic pets.