So, we are nothing more than chemicals acting upon each other and for no higher reason than any other chemical reaction?
Who said that?
To be fair, Lucretius (99 B.C. to 55 B.C.) said something very much along that line. However no one since then that comes to mind. (Creationists are sooo first century B.C.)
To be fair, Lucretius (99 B.C. to 55 B.C.) said something very much along that line. However no one since then that comes to mind. (Creationists are sooo first century B.C.)
I guess Heartlander's only perceived choices are Lucretius (circa 2000 years ago) or whatever it is he believes (circa I guess about 4000 years ago). Well there goes at least two thousand years of effort down the drain.
They are unlikely to find any comfort in Lucretius--who is almost the sole source (apart from a few fragments) of the teachings of Epicurus (whose writings were systematically destroyed by the early Church fathers). Lucretius' view of Epicurus's role:
Humana ante oculos foede cum vita iaceret / in terris oppressa gravi sub religione / quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat / horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans / primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra / est oculos ausus primusque obistere contra / quem neque fama deum nec fulmina nec minitanti / murmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis acrem / inritat animi virtutem, effringere ut arta / naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret
De Rerum Natura, 1:62-71
When man's life lay for all to see foully grovelling upon the ground, crushed beneath the weight of Superstition, which displayed her head from the regions of heaven, lowering over mortals with horrible aspect, a man of Greece [Epicurus] was the first that dared to uplift mortal eyes against her, the first to make stand against her; for neither fables of the gods could quell him, nor thunderbolts, nor heaven with menacing roar, but all the more they goaded the eager courage of his soul, so that he should desire, first of all men, to shatter the confining bars of nature's gates [trans: W.H.D.Rouse]
This was the preamble to Epicurus's atomic theory, in turn the foundation for his morality -- ok, I'll stop there. But L and E are both remarkable figures, however you look at them.