Stephen Greenblatt's book on the "anti-Christ" Lucretius (Buddhism, soul, hell)

[Neuling]

I just read an article on Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Greenblatt's book The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. It discusses the ancient Roman thinker Lucretius, who more than 2000 years ago was quite ahead of his time. His views were pretty much the opposite of Christianity, that would come after him.
He did not believe in fate, nor in the power of gods, nor in sin, nor in the existence of a soul (in the modern sense, he believed the soul was a biological/physical unit that dies with the body) and thus not in life after death, either. His entire focus was on living in the here and now, on pleasure, thus neither being afraid of any later sanctions such as hell etc., nor hoping for any later compensation for a religious or hard earthly life.

Needless to say Christianity despised him, he was like the anti-Christ

Has anyone read that book or even Lucretius' original works? I must confess I had never heard of him before, but maybe I should have.

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by Neuling

I just read an article on Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Greenblatt's book The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. It discusses the ancient Roman thinker Lucretius, who more than 2000 years ago was quite ahead of his time. His views were pretty much the opposite of Christianity, that would come after him.
He did not believe in fate, nor in the power of gods, nor in sin, nor in the existence of a soul (in the modern sense, he believed the soul was a biological/physical unit that dies with the body) and thus not in life after death, either. His entire focus was on living in the here and now, on pleasure, thus neither being afraid of any later sanctions such as hell etc., nor hoping for any later compensation for a religious or hard earthly life.

Needless to say Christianity despised him, he was like the anti-Christ

Has anyone read that book or even Lucretius' original works? I must confess I had never heard of him before, but maybe I should have.

I haven't read the book you're mentioning, but I have studied Lucretius a little bit and read his only work: De Rerum Natura ("On the Nature of Things"). It is an epic poem well worth reading, and it takes the writings of Epicurus a step further (and improves on the latter's style of writing heh heh) into sublimity. He lived through some of the most tulmultus events in Roman history (99-51 BC), and these highly influence his masterwork.

Will Durant, in his Story of Civilization series writes on Lucretius that

The aristocracy to which he probably belonged was in obvious decay; the world in which he lived was falling apart into a chaos that left no life or fortune secure. His poem is a longing for physical and mental peace.
Lucretius sought refuge in nature, philosophy, and poetry....
In woods and fields, in plants and animals, in mountain, river, and sea, he found a delight only rivaled by his passion for philosophy.....
Nothing of nature's loveliness or terror was lost upon him....
No poet before him had so expressed the grandeur of the world in its detailed variety and its congregated power. Here at last nature won the citadels of literature, and rewarded her poet with a force of descriptive speech that only Homer and Shakespeare have surpassed.
(Caesar and Christ, p. 147, Simon and Schuster, 1944)

If you are not familiar with Will Durant (and his wife Ariel, who helped write these books), then run to your nearest Goodwill Bookstore and purchase this series. Durant's masterful prose is excellent, and it makes his exploration of history through the eyes of philosophy riveting. Seriously, though - the series is almost the equivalent of a college education. After discussing the state of the State, and the various religious practices of the day, Durant goes on:

It was this mass of superstition, ritualism, and hypocrisy that Lucretius knew as religion.
No wonder that he rebelled against it, and attacked it with all the ardor of a religious reformer. We may judge from the bitterness of his resentment the depth of his youthful piety and the distress of his disillusionment. Seeking for some alternative faith, he passed through the skepticism of Ennius to the great poems in which Empedocles had expounded evolution and the conflict of opposites. When he discovered the writings of Epicurus it seemed to him that he had found the answers to his questions, that strange mixture of materliasm and free will, of joyful gods and a godless world, appealed to him as a free man's answer to doubt and fear.
(ibid p. 148)

To sum up, if you are an atheist, or a scientist with a poetic soul, or a nature-lover - you must read De Rerum Natura. You will find many of your own thoughts echoed, and amplified, within the words of the poem. Take, as an example, the idea that certain religious rituals and stories are said to be from the gods - a common complaint on these forums (that the God of the OT, for example, is a barbarous god of cruelty and terror):

O miserable race of men,
to impute to the gods such acts as these,
and such bitter wrath!
What sorrow did men prepare for themselves,
what wounds for us,
what tears for our children!
(Lucretius, De Rerum Natura V, 1202)

Thanks for reminding me of this great work (it's been far too long), and for the heads up on the book written about him - I will have to check it out, and read Lucretius again. I only regret that I cannot read Lucretius in his native tongue...

Here is a review done by Michael Shermer Skeptic » eSkeptic » Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

[Neuling]

It's amazing. If Lucretius visited us on a time machine, he would be considered a progressive despite his coming from ancient Rome.

[Wallisdj]

Another example of the world running in cycles.

Lucretius described (or others described) his world as one pretty horrible and distressing. He sought answers and allegedly found them in a philosophy.

Move up a hundred years, and we have people in the Greek and Roman world seeking the same relief from a terrible world. Some sought Judaism; others Buddhism; and then latched on to the new Christian movement.

Move up several more hundreds of years, and we have people creating new philosophies to explain why they are miserable and--better yet--why their particular vision / version of God has not relieved them of all their burdens.

We move to the 20th Century. It is NOT the dawn of atheism, but the atheistic / agnostic philosophies get a real jump start. The horrors of WWI drove peoples en masse away from God. Who could possibly believe in a God that would allow human beings to kill each other off in droves, with such barbarity, and with such animalistic ferocity?

WWII surely didn't help. Millions of Jews perished in Nazi camps. Tens of millions of people died in Soviet camps. Pol Pot tried to out do both of the former regimes by decimating the Myanmar population. "Yugoslavia" picked up the baton and set Serbs against Croats in a "last man standing" battle. And then we haven't even touch upon Africans on Africans yet.

Another offshoot of man's total mental collapse is the millennialist and like movements. Even before the calendar changes that force us to write b.c. (b.c.e.) and a.d. (c.e.), humans were predicting the end of the world. In fact, they were praying for the end of the world.

-------

But the bottom line comes here. After all the philosophical changes and flip-flops, are people any happier than they were before? Is the individual any happier than he/she was before?

I am a human being, and being a human being I have to vote "no." I feel that, personally, I am a little bit happier than I was before because I just happen to follow a personal philosophy that is a bit strange. It is more of a "I don't care" philosophy when it comes to "things" I don't understand.

But I am not very happy when over the last six decades I see no improvement in the condition of mankind. Technology has made leaps and bounds, but the human psyche still remains in the pleistocene age.

What a laugh. Sorry. Just thought of those commercials where "Why are we here" is the theme, and human beings are capable of protecting the Earth, all the species of the Earth, including ourselves. Pierce Brosnan, who narrates such dribble, tries to make us believe that the Earth cannot exist without human beings, the one species on the planet responsible for most of the catastrophes that have occurred on this planet in the last, say, 100,000 years.

Let every person take up their own philosophy and leave the others alone. Let every person use their philosophy to build bridges with other philosophies and people. Let there be no ascending leaders to use and abuse other people and build nations designed to wither away in the next full tide or strong wind. Let people finally use their synergy to make a new Earth here and a new Earth elsewhere in the galaxy.

Ooops! Sorry. I got so carried away that I forgot that we are just animals.

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by Wallisdj

Another example of the world running in cycles.

Lucretius described (or others described) his world as one pretty horrible and distressing. He sought answers and allegedly found them in a philosophy.

Move up a hundred years, and we have people in the Greek and Roman world seeking the same relief from a terrible world. Some sought Judaism; others Buddhism; and then latched on to the new Christian movement.

Move up several more hundreds of years, and we have people creating new philosophies to explain why they are miserable and--better yet--why their particular vision / version of God has not relieved them of all their burdens.

We move to the 20th Century. It is NOT the dawn of atheism, but the atheistic / agnostic philosophies get a real jump start. The horrors of WWI drove peoples en masse away from God. Who could possibly believe in a God that would allow human beings to kill each other off in droves, with such barbarity, and with such animalistic ferocity?

WWII surely didn't help. Millions of Jews perished in Nazi camps. Tens of millions of people died in Soviet camps. Pol Pot tried to out do both of the former regimes by decimating the Myanmar population. "Yugoslavia" picked up the baton and set Serbs against Croats in a "last man standing" battle. And then we haven't even touch upon Africans on Africans yet.

Another offshoot of man's total mental collapse is the millennialist and like movements. Even before the calendar changes that force us to write b.c. (b.c.e.) and a.d. (c.e.), humans were predicting the end of the world. In fact, they were praying for the end of the world.

-------

But the bottom line comes here. After all the philosophical changes and flip-flops, are people any happier than they were before? Is the individual any happier than he/she was before?

I am a human being, and being a human being I have to vote "no." I feel that, personally, I am a little bit happier than I was before because I just happen to follow a personal philosophy that is a bit strange. It is more of a "I don't care" philosophy when it comes to "things" I don't understand.

But I am not very happy when over the last six decades I see no improvement in the condition of mankind. Technology has made leaps and bounds, but the human psyche still remains in the pleistocene age.

What a laugh. Sorry. Just thought of those commercials where "Why are we here" is the theme, and human beings are capable of protecting the Earth, all the species of the Earth, including ourselves. Pierce Brosnan, who narrates such dribble, tries to make us believe that the Earth cannot exist without human beings, the one species on the planet responsible for most of the catastrophes that have occurred on this planet in the last, say, 100,000 years.

Let every person take up their own philosophy and leave the others alone. Let every person use their philosophy to build bridges with other philosophies and people. Let there be no ascending leaders to use and abuse other people and build nations designed to wither away in the next full tide or strong wind. Let people finally use their synergy to make a new Earth here and a new Earth elsewhere in the galaxy.

Ooops! Sorry. I got so carried away that I forgot that we are just animals.

Very good points!

I have Central AC, and that makes me believe that the quality of life has definitely improved for some. I mean - I live in Florida, for Pete's Sake!

But you're right - we are humans, glorified animals (if that) that despite it all, will very quickly revert to animalism. Despite that - it's not entirely pessimistic, is it? I like to think Bach alone was worth it - or Beethoven. Schoenberg can go to hell, but that's because his music ushered in an age of music done for the sake of intellectualism, or to mirror society's industrial age sounds - which resulted in some awful music. To this day, classical music (modern "classical" music) has done nothing but alienate it's listeners. At least we still have the good ol' ones.

[Wallisdj]