Lucretius Beliefs

These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.3 The Greek philosopher Epicurus is most likely the first recognized philosopher to ask how the existence of evil could be compatible with the nature of God (The Wrath of God 13).4 According to Epicurean philosophy, the notions of good and evil are identified with pleasure and pain respectively. The Epicurean claim is that only pleasure is good. Accordingly, this translates into “pursue pleasure (good) and avoid pain (evil).”5 David Hume in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion says of Epicurus: “Epicurus’ old questions are yet unanswered. Is he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”6 Even if Epicurus is regarded as the first to raise

Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived from 3241-270 BC. This argument was favored by the ancient Greek skeptics, and maybe have been wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius who Christians considered and Atheist. Again, this goes to the lack of understanding of God. The Bible talks about all kinds of tragedies. Jesus was crucified on the cross. The apostle Paul witnessed people being stoned to death. The flood of Noah killed the entire human race except for a few. Nowhere in the Bible does God say there won't be suffering in the world.

Ancient philosopher Plato’s affiliation with religion is evident across multiple dialogues and referenced during his discussion of both metaphysical and ontological questions. Plato did not believe in one singular god, but many [2]. In his work Timaeus, he proposed that the universe

Many authors have employed the religious beliefs of their cultures in literature. The deities contained in Homer’s Odyssey and in the Biblical book of Exodus reflect the nature of the gods in their respective societies. Upon examination of these two works, there are three major areas where the gods of the Greek epic seem to directly contrast the nature of the God of the Israelites: the way problems are solved, the prestige and status that separates the divine from the masses, and the extent of power among the immortal beings.

Archaic Greeks had a much different beliefs than the ancient Hebrew people about their gods. Greeks believed that both man and god came from the same place, “Of how both gods and men began the same.” (Five Ages 1.1, RWH 49) Greeks considered their many gods were just another species of human. They did not believe that the gods made them or wanted them to worship at their feet. Greeks believed that they interacted with them daily. However they believed that there was specialness about them that Zeus made them to be above the normal humans. Zeus made

There has been many thinkers in history who have lacked a belief in God. Some ancient Greek philosophers, such as Epicurus, obtained natural explanations for these superior miracles. Epicurus was the first to question the compatibility of God with suffering. In contrast, Descartes proves God 's existence as an external reality and that ideas of perfection or infinity cannot come from oneself. He explains that “I am a finite being and thus cannot generate these ideas on my own. I have also never experienced perfection or infinity in the world, so they cannot come from experience, either”. God is a “perfect being”.

In the ancient Greek world, religion was personal, direct, and present in its citizens’ daily lives. During this time, they participated in animal sacrifices and offerings, created myths to explain the beginning of the human race and gave reverence to their gods by building temples which controlled the urban landscape. They also participated in local festivals and sporting and artistic competitions. Religion was never out of the presence of ancient Greece’s citizens. While they may have made up their own mind on the terms of their religious beliefs, some may have been completely confused if these gods actually existed. There were certain fundamental beliefs that must have been sufficiently widespread, in order for the Greek government to function. In ancient Greece, gods existed, they influenced human concerns, and they welcomed and responded to acts of godliness and worship.

In ancient times, people had a different relationship with their God(s) than people do now. Nowadays, people don’t rely on God as much as they used to. The Greeks had absolute and beyond doubt respect for their gods. They showed their admiration by putting in place many ceremonies and rituals to admire the gods that they cherished and were afraid of in order to establish peace with them. If we look at the ancient near east they believed that their role in the universe was to serve the gods. To this end the ancient near east devoted much of their time to ensuring their favor with the gods with worship, prayer, and sacrifice. Even though the ancient near east and the Greeks had some differences in their relation to their gods they also had

The cultures of Rome and Greece celebrated philosophical and religious thinking in various forms. The Greek and Roman religions were polytheistic and included Gods that created natural phenomena. Both religions had a God of Gods who possessed ultimate power and ruled over various capricious Gods. They both included Gods of the hunt, metalworking, war, nature, the ocean and many other human activities and forces of nature. Many Greco-Roman aristocrats searched for meaning outside of religion with philosophy. Thinkers such as Aristotle and Cicero believed strongly in balance and modesty. The Stoics stressed discipline and bravery while Socrates encouraged thinking independently.

Hammurabi’s Code of Laws, The Great Hymn to the Aten, and The Epic of Gilgamesh: Tablet XI depicted various gods as omnipotent, omniscience, and omnibenevolent. In polytheism, followers upheld that the gods ruled on good and evil and so, people lived to obey their gods. Leaders of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia depended on the gods’ guidance and order because they believed they respected that their capabilities exceeded humans. Therefore, ancient civilizations relied on god and goddesses to dictate their actions and beliefs.

Growing up as a citizen of ancient Greek and Rome being raised to follow Greek and Roman mythology caused the ancient people to believe that they must act and behave like the gods. In creating this ideology, the people developed same personality and behavior habits as the gods in various myths. But even as the myths were written, the personalities of the gods and goddesses reflected the average human in that time period. The gods were so much like humans that it was normal to behave like them. Ancient Greek Philosophy stated “the gods depicted by Homer acted selfishly and were driven by emotions such as favoritism and jealousy. They behaved like ordinary people except they were immortal and had supernatural powers.” Unlike other religions were the gods have never sinned and are very different from humans, the gods in ancient Greek mythology make mistakes and commit horrific crimes that in today’s society would be highly unacceptable. For the people, it is a lot easier to be human and make mistakes rather than try to be perfect and sinless.

In David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, he claims that “Epicurus’s old question is yet unanswered.” (Cahn, end of page 958) The question he refers to are the following: “Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?” (Cahn, end of page 958, beginning of page 959) The “he” specifies God. Thus, the question can be translated to the following: God is good if he wants to prevent evil. If God does not want to prevent evil, he is bad. If God can prevent evil, he is all powerful. If God cannot prevent evil, he is not all powerful. Therefore, if God is both good and all powerful, then evil should not exist. Furthermore, it concludes that because evil exists in the world, God is not both omnipotent and

In Aristophanes the Clouds’, Socrates questions the role of the Gods in human’s everyday lives. Even though he explains to Strepsiades that clouds and rain are created by nature, not God, old Strepsiades misunderstands him and thinks Socrates is inventing new Gods. SOCRATES: “What Zeus! Don’t babble. Zeus doesn’t even exist.” (131). STREPSIADES “ And who is it that compels them to be borne along? Isn’t it Zeus?” (131). SOCRATES “Not in the least. It’s ethereal vortex. (131). STREPSIADES “ Vortex? I hadn’t noticed that Zeus doesn’t exist, and that instead of him Vortex is now King.” (131). Euthyphro believes that the traditional stories about the gods are true, unlike Socrates. “… why I am defendant against the indictments: that whenever someone says such things about the gods, I receive them somehow with annoyance…,” (47). Socrates explains to Euthyphro that if the Gods favor something, that alone does not make it pious. Socrates states he believes in “…sun and moon are the gods, as other human beings go. In Plato’s Apology of Socrates, Socrates says that the gods are considered the highest and most respected beings, and the citizens believe that they should follow the laws that were invented by the gods. With that he

In his only extant work, the poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), Epicurean author Titus Lucretius Carus writes of the soul as being inseparable from the corporeal body. This view, although controversial in its opposition to the traditional concept of a discrete, immortal soul, is nevertheless more than a mere novelty. The argument that Lucretius makes for the soul being an emergent property of interactions between physical particles is in fact more compelling and well-supported now than Lucretius himself would have ever imagined.

The personalities of the gods are as broad as there are stars in the heavens, and as such the ways that these gods interact with mortals vary. The purpose of gods intervening with the days of man comes down to two things, good or bad; there are gods who are caring and loving towards mortals while others view man as pawns which they can use for their own personal agenda. A few gods that capture and exemplify the various personalities of the gods can be found in Ovid: The Metamorphoses of Ovid and Homer: The essential Homer: Selections from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Although the ways man and the gods communicate and get each other’s attention are different, there are reoccurring and overarching themes such as desire, and loyalty that make each intervention between gods and mortals similar.