ATOMS AND THE HUMAN CONDITION

One of the criteria for defining the human being is that it's an animal that thinks about itself and others. There is some very slight evidence that chimpanzees do a bit of such but apparently not so much that it matters. We are the champions of self-reflection. No one knows when we started to think about ourselves; I don't suppose that hunter-gatherers had much time for such a luxury. Perhaps self-reflection started after the agricultural revolution produced enough for leisure time activities. Why does Og act that way? Why do I? Hey, that's the beginning of philosophy.

I know almost nothing about the Greek philosophers, but it is evident they burned with passion to understand the universe and humanity's functioning within it. This essay is about one of them whom I have stumbled across and have come to be in awe of the influence he has had on us all.

Epicurus is the man and surely he is one of those who changed the course of history. His thinking, until monotheism became the fashion, swept the then known world but, two thirds of the monotheists declared a PR war against him and he wound up in the dust-bin of history, crumpled out of shape.

The problem was that he was an atomist. He did not originate that idea, it appeared first in Democritus' writings, but Epicurus developed it and understood its significance for how we orient ourselves to the universe. The ancient Greeks were always trying to get down to the essence of things, IE, what was is matter made of. There were plenty of ideas but Democritus logicked out atoms and Epicurus put intellectual meat on those bare bones.

His idea is simple: everything is made of atoms, tiny, indivisible bits of substance that always moved. The movement was sometimes slow and sometimes fast, but everything ultimately came apart with the freed atoms then capable of forming to make something different. Even the soul was made of atoms, reputedly of a finer sort. Still, with death, like the rest of the body's atoms the soul-atoms also came apart and like them also dispersed.

Do you now have a glimmer of why the monotheists were enraged? If the soul disperses, ceases to exist, there is no afterlife and if there is no afterlife what do the gods have to do for us? Epicurus was very clear, he believed in gods, but asserted they had no interest in us, that prayer was useless because they did not pay attention. This, I suppose is a form of deism and such belief ran smack into the notion of an involved, caring and punishing being, made death final and left us on our own. Thus, death was not frightful; after all without punishing gods what was there to be feared?

Epicurus understood that the purpose of life was enjoyment, that happiness is our best way to find pleasure in living. Remember, the idea of pleasure seeking was anathema to the duty bound Stoics and the monotheists developed ultimately what we laughingly call the pleasure police. Mencken wrote about how one of them could not sleep worried about how someone at that moment might be enjoying him or herself.

So, they deliberately distorted Epicurus teachings. He urged that friendship, human relationships, were the best source of pleasure for all humanity, but this was transformed into unbridled, Dionysian hedonism, pleasure seeking gone berserk. Epicurus said, “All pleasure is good, but not all pleasure is good for you.” They ignored the second part of that aphorism. And, he was a materialist, nuff said.

Even today, the Encyclopedia of Catholicism negatively describes Epicurus and Orthodox Jews have a word, Apikoros to express their displeasure. As far as I know, only Humanistic Jews understand his virtues. We are smart!

An ancient fellow yclept Epicurus

Wrote interesting stuff meant for all of us

Religionists got mad

They said he was bad

Their disdain makes them all seem quite curious