Outstanding insights, Texas Songwriter! Thank you ever so much for this excellent discussion of Epicurus' relentless materialism and its Darwinian modern development.
Heaven forfend that there should be divine judgment! This is an idea too scary for human beings to live with. Funny thing is, Epicurus believed in "the gods"; he just maintained that they aren't the least bit interested in human beings, and for them to be involved with humans in any way would disturb their "beatitude." And according to Epicurus, they would wish to avoid this.
Point is, no gods, no "judgment" to worry about. This innovation is a stark departure from Plato's view of divine judgment — Dike — as inescapable for man, who continues to exist even after death and is subject to judgment (and more than likely, punishment) for the manner in which he lived his life.
Of course, if there's no god, there's no basis for "objective" morality. Epicurus' morality is entirely premised on (subjective) sense perception as the touchstone of truth. The report of our senses tells us that we should avoid pain and pursue pleasure. And that, in effect, becomes the "new and improved" moral law.
Epicurus believed that, on the basis of a radical materialism which dispensed with transcendent entities such as the Platonic Ideas or Forms, he could disprove the possibility of the soul's survival after death, and hence the prospect of punishment in the afterlife. He regarded the unacknowledged fear of death and punishment as the primary cause of anxiety among human beings, and anxiety in turn as the source of extreme and irrational desires. The elimination of the fears and corresponding desires would leave people free to pursue the pleasures, both physical and mental, to which they are naturally drawn, and to enjoy the peace of mind that is consequent upon their regularly expected and achieved satisfaction....So it's literally senseless to worry about it! We can't be judged if we are no longer around, i.e., don't exist, post-death. Ta-Da!!! Takes care of that problem!
[Epicurus' "proof" of the non-existence of life after death:] Death, Epicurus insists, is nothing to us, since while we exist, our death is not, and when our death occurs, we do not exist. — David Konstan
Another interesting aspect of Epicurean philosophy is that the soul is reckoned to exist. After all, Epicurus needed something to explain the obvious fact that men are conscious, that they have minds. But Epicurus' "soul" is just a finer material body than the physical body in which it resides. That is, it is also composed of material "atoms"; but they are finer than the atoms that compose the physical body. At death, the soul's atoms scatter, just as the physical atoms do. Strangely (to us), Epicurus physically locates man's soul, the rational mind, in his chest.
The important thing is even the soul is "material." Kinda reminds me of Stephen Pinker's claim that all human moral action is really dictated by chemical processes occurring in the brain....
I guess there's "nothing new under the sun."
TS, you wrote that your greatest concern is that the "keepers of the culture" — who are completely entrenched in business, universities, public education, and media — are Epicurean/Darwinian materialists. You correctly note (IMHO) that their success in ridiculing and suppressing intelligent design and the creator is entrenched and is moral in origin.
Yet with God "gone," man is reduced to the status of a clever animal. With God "gone," man can't even explain himself. The dirty little secret of these "keepers of the culture" is that they detest, not only God, but man himself....
But of course, we can't call these people "immoral" because they don't believe in morality.... :^)
Talk about a clash of worldviews, which is at the bottom of the so-called "culture war" — which is definitely coming to a head in our lifetime....
Or so it seems to me. FWIW
Be of good cheer, my friend! God cannot be "erased" because disordered men wish to erase Him.... And last time I checked, He was still in charge....
Thank you so very much for your excellent essay/post, dear brother in Christ!
I'm thoroughly enjoying being a spectator to your conversation, and would like to offer another insight from Justin Martyr from fragments of his lost work on the Resurrection.
Those, then, who are called natural philosophers, say, some of them, as Plato, that the universe is matter and God; others, as Epicurus, that it is atoms and the void; others, like the Stoics, that it is these four—fire, water, air, earth. For it is sufficient to mention the most prevalent opinions.
And Plato says that all things are made from matter by God, and according to His design; but Epicures and his followers say that all things are made from the atom and the void by some kind of self-regulating action of the natural movement of the bodies; and the Stoics, that all are made of the four elements, God pervading them.
But while there is such discrepancy among them, there are some doctrines acknowledged by them all in common, one of which is that neither can anything be produced from what is not in being, nor anything be destroyed or dissolved into what has not any being, and that the elements exist indestructible out of which all things are generated. And this being so, the regeneration of the flesh will, according to all these philosophers, appear to be possible.
For if, according to Plato, it is matter and God, both these are indestructible and God; and God indeed occupies the position of an artificer, to wit, a potter; and matter occupies the place of clay or wax, or some such thing. That, then, which is formed of matter, be it an image or a statue, is destructible; but the matter itself is indestructible, such as clay or wax, or any other such kind of matter. Thus the artist designs in the clay or wax, and makes the form of a living animal; and again, if his handiwork be destroyed, it is not impossible for him to make the same form, by working up the same material, and fashioning it anew. So that, according to Plato, neither will it be impossible for God, who is Himself indestructible, and has also indestructible material, even after that which has been first formed of it has been destroyed, to make it anew again, and to make the same form just as it was before.
But according to the Stoics even, the body being produced by the mixture of the four elementary substances, when this body has been dissolved into the four elements, these remaining indestructible, it is possible that they receive a second time the same fusion and composition, from God pervading them, and so re-make the body which they formerly made. Like as if a man shall make a composition of gold and silver, and brass and tin, and then shall wish to dissolve it again, so that each element exist separately, having again mixed them, he may, if he pleases, make the very same composition as he had formerly made.
Again, according to Epicurus, the atoms and the void being indestructible, it is by a definite arrangement and adjustment of the atoms as they come together, that both all other formations are produced, and the body itself; and it being in course of time dissolved, is dissolved again into those atoms from which it was also produced. And as these remain indestructible, it is not at all impossible, that by coming together again, and receiving the same arrangement and position, they should make a body of like nature to what was formerly produced by them; as if a jeweller should make in mosaic the form of an animal, and the stones should be scattered by time or by the man himself who made them, he having still in his possession the scattered stones, may gather them together again, and having gathered, may dispose them in the same way, and make the same form of an animal.
And shall not God be able to collect again the decomposed members of the flesh, and make the same body as was formerly produced by Him?
Truly, there is nothing new under the son. LOLOL!
God's Name is I AM.