Epicureanism as the spiritual essence or 'religion' of an entire community

I have some evidence that complicates things, and points to a possiblity that Philodemus held different views than Epicurus did.

I found this on Wikipedia, which seems to indicate that Epicurus held similar views on the Gods to Theodorus.

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Theodorus was attacked for atheism. "He did away with all opinions respecting the Gods," says Laërtius,^[17] but some critics doubt whether he was absolutely an atheist, or simply denied the existence of the deities of popular belief. The charge of atheism is sustained by the popular designation of Atheus, by the authority of Cicero,^[18] Laërtius,^[2] Pseudo-Plutarch,^[19] Sextus Empiricus,^[20] and some Christian writers; while some others (e.g. Clement of Alexandria)^[21] speak of him as only rejecting the popular theology.

Theodorus wrote a book called On the Gods (Περὶ Θεῶν). Laërtius had seen it, and said that it was not to be dismissed,^[17] adding that it was said to have been the source of many of the statements or arguments of Epicurus.

Source

This statement comes from Book 2: "Theodorus did all he could to overturn people's beliefs about the gods, and we came across a book of his entitled On Gods, which is not easy to dismiss; they say Epicurus took from it most of what he said." (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers 2.97)

The last line, "they say Epicurus took from it most of what he said...", to me, means that Epicurus was using On Gods as source material against which to argue, not material to support.

Theodorus' theological propositions were incompatible with Epicurus, as shown in Menoikeus:

"First and foremost consider the deity⁶ an incorruptible and blessed figure as the common conception of a deity prescribes; attribute to him nothing either hostile to incorruptibility or alien to blessedness rather believe anything about him that is able to preserve his incorruptibility and blessedness"

"Since it is better to comply with the myths of the deities than it is to become a slave of physical inevitability; for indeed subscribing in earnest prayer to an expectation of dignity from the deities [encourages agency], but she has not [once] been moved by prayers to necessity."

Quote from Kalosyni

I have some evidence that complicates things, and points to a possiblity that Philodemus held different views than Epicurus did.

One other thing I want to suggest is that we should believe Philodemos, for at least two, good reasons: (1) Philodemus pre-dates the other source by 300 years, so he had better sources, (2) Diogenes, himself, relied on Philodemus' own biography on Epicurus, so Philodemus is the real source here.

(And, of course, the best source is Epicurus, in his own words, in Menoikeus).

Still though, I don't think there's a disagreement. I don't think Diogenes was suggesting that Epicurus was actually an atheist in one sentence in Book 2, when he spend pages and pages in Book 10 sharing Epicurus, in his own words, who makes point after point arguing against Theodorean atheism.

This is probably of some interest here as well;

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U152

Philodemus, On Frank Criticism, Vol. Herc. 1, V.2, fragment VI:

"he will be frank with the one who has erred and even with him who responds with bitterness. Therefore, Epicurus too, when Leonteus, because of Pythocles, did not admit belief in gods, reproached Pythocles in moderation, and wrote to him {i.e., Leonteus, though Usener renders “Mys”} the so-called “famous letter,” taking his point of departure from Pythocles..."

I think Eikadistes' views here are correct, but I also think that Kalosyni's concerns should alert us that there's a regularly-occurring problem that we have to work on ways to address.

Many of the words we're talking about, including "religion," have many shades of meaning, some of which are reconcilable with core Epicurean views and some of which are not.

I suspect that if Kalosyni were to bore in and specifically question what it means to "pray" or "participate in the ceremonies" then we could reconcile most of the apparent contradictions in a way that would be consistent with core Epicurean views against the existence of supernatural forces.

It seems to me that the ground fule for the best way to deal with these ambiguities is a lot like Epicurus said about gods: Believe X, Y, and Z about gods, and never believe anything that it is inconsistent with X, Y, and Z.

It's probably not enough for us today to simply say "Epicurus taught that there are no supernatural forces" and therefore "never accept that Epicurus would teach anything that would imply the existence of supernatural forces." But that's the kind of hard logical chain reasoning approach that I think Epicurus was teaching when he was alive, and that we need to use to understand him now.

So anytime someone suggests an interpretation of any text that implies that the text contradicts Epicurus, the first step to address it should be to focus on looking for a way to interpret the words being used in a way that is consistent with core ideas. Only after that would I entertain the possibility that there might be some disagreement.

So far I personally don't see anything that can't be reconciled by cutting out any supernatural connotation from what's being discussed.

Quote from Kalosyni

and the extant texts of Epicurus do not provide any guidance for this.

This is an interesting perspective because (agreeably so) Epicurus does not prescribe a verbal mantra like the Lord's Prayer, nor strict recommendations about prayer times, or gestures as is the case with Salah in Islam. There might be a lose kind of correspondence between memorizing the Doxai and Christian breviaries, but I might be making a bit of a stretch there.

One important difference is the origin of prayer within the context of each tradition. For Christians, prayer isn't necessarily natural. We only know how to pray (correctly) because a super-being came to Earth, and taught us how. Allegedly, humans existed for thousands of years before any one of them figured out how to pray properly. In this regard, Jesus Christ acts kind of like Prometheus.

With Epicurus, however, prayer is natural, and comes from Nature, and arises spontaneously in human beings the same way we each independently discover masturbation or any other number of development behaviors. In that regard, those philosophers who believe in natural prayer shouldn't prescribe a mantra, because it doesn't come from teachers, its just genetic, human behavior.

He does provide some guidelines, though in terms of how not to get hurt praying: no expectation of wish fulfillment, no expectation of supernatural intervention, no expectation of holding a dialogue.

I think this brings me, personally, to a place where I start to think ... (having been raised as a Methodist) ... what good is prayer if no one is listening? Why bother praying at all if someone isn't considering fulfilling your wishes? Why not just skip the whole, weird, archaic, pseudo-magical ritual altogether? It's not like it's ever been a necessary or important part of my own life.

I entertain the idea that the functional mechanism by which prayer operates is the placebo effect. I think Epicurus whittled down the concept of prayer to the bare-bones: positive thinking is healthy, and believing in a divine nature that you can access through self-improvement is positive. The other stuff (like praying to God for wishes like a genie) are all colorful, cultural additions.

Now, all that being said, let me also add: I don't think most Christians are really reciting their prayer honestly. I think ritualized soliloquies like the Lord's Prayer just puts people's brains on auto-pilot, and they aren't really, devotedly, observantly engaged. So, in that regard, I don't want to give the impression that they are more genuine than our observances. They might be empty.

That's definitely the case with grace before dinner (based my childhood). From personal experience, that's the case with the Pledge of Allegiance in school, too. After a while, they run the risk of losing their authenticity, and become as mundane, barely-conscious, habituated behavior as locking the door when you leave the house. So I think we own prayer just as much as anyone else.

Such an interesting topic containing so many variables that raise new issues!

I'm new to the study of Epicurus' actual teaching. But here's what I get out of the texts linked to this website. He taught that there is no un-caused cause; there is nothing that comes from nothing. His gods were not supernatural. They were immortal beings who existed in and above the earth. They could be prayed to for intervention in earthly affairs, but only intervention through natural causes rather than magic. That's why, for instance, blood sacrifices were done, to gain favor, and avoid disfavor (originally, perhaps as a last ditch act that coincided with the coincidental coming of a rain after a drought) .

As for the gods created by humanity over the last ten thousand years, the variety and involvement of those gods sometimes coalesced into religions managed by priests and kings to define virtues either by experience of what works to keep the peace among the populace, or by interpretation of non-material (faith based) unexplained occurrences within the natural world to keep peace, order and solidarity.

As peace keeping tools, the virtues discovered by humans, served to solidify the community to prosper and defend itself against outsiders.

I just don't see Epicureanism as either a faith, or a religion in the sociological sense. It is his explanation of natural human behavior, practiced by everyone, that includes the value of avoiding pain, accepting temporary pain and finding happiness in its absence. Certainly, if a group of people in a community practiced the individual nature of his teaching while exercising his virtue of prudence, happy and loving communities would result.

And in closing, science, in the true sense of being a method of discovering truth about the physical universe, by rational methods, can never be a religion any more than can Epicueanism.

I'm looking forward to hearing anyone's thoughts how my rather terse analysis can be clarified or corrected.

Quote from DaveT

He taught that there is no un-caused cause; there is nothing that comes from nothing.

This is getting into semantics, but one could perhaps say that the atoms themselves are the uncaused causes.

Cicero In his De Finibus says this;

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"The swerving [of the atoms] is itself an arbitrary fiction; for Epicurus says the atoms swerve without a cause, — yet this is the capital offence in a natural philosopher, to speak of something taking place uncaused."

However, the atoms are uncaused if we are speaking in terms only of their existence. The particular motion of the atoms is partially caused by an infinite regress of other causes (an endless chain of billiard balls bouncing, hooking, clinging, separating, and hurling apart through the void inertially), and partially, as in the swerve, their motion is caused by their own nature.

We do have evidence of Epíkouros directly praising individual people. He dedicated books to his brothers, Neoklês, Chairédēmos, and Aristóbuolos, and wrote other books where the entire topic seems to have been praise, for examples his books Eurýlochos, Hēgēsiánax, Themísta, and Mētródōros.

If said to oneself, this could be a type of self-affirmation that feels similar to a prayer:

You possess an inherited impulse toward action.
You were well brought up by your parents,
You have added to this upbringing, your own proportionate self-control.
You are strong in body, insofar as is possible for a mortal.
You have set aside discussion concerning incidental matters.
You are diligent — especially in having separated
the disturbance of all desire
from what is in accordance with nature.

— Demetrius Laco, The Harms of Drifting Thought (P.Herc. 831) col. 15