Philosophy
According to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, one of the greatest impediments to human flourishing is religious superstition. He thought that the idea of an afterlife is a pernicious tool wielded by those in power in order to manipulate, control, frighten and subdue the masses; not to mention the fact that religious faith requires the rejection of your critical thinking skills and an objective understanding of reality.
Epicurus' materialist ontology (his catalog of the kinds of things that exist) explicitly rejected the existence of supernatural and nonphysical entities. Accordingly, he found the idea of a disembodied afterlife to be pure nonsense, a contradiction in terms. To him, the mind is an aspect of life, rooted in the biology and the physics of the body: when the body dies, so does the mind.
You may think this means that death must be bad for you, since on this view death means nonexistence. But Epicurus thought such a conclusion is irrational: how can death be bad for you when there is no longer a "you" to be affected by death? You did not suffer before you came into existence, and to Epicurus (as interpreted by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius in the following reading by Charlton Griffin), the time before your birth presents you with a mirror image of what the time after your death will mean for you: absolute nothingness, and how can you possibly be afraid of nothing?
Why would you be afraid of death? Greater men than you have died with dignity before. Besides, if you're already wasting your life as it is (and you most likely are wasting your life...), it seems inconsistent to be afraid of losing something that you're already letting go to waste, no?
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- Lucretius - De Rerum Natura - On The Nature Of Love
Epicurean philosophy is hedonistic, and as such it exalts the importance of pleasure and makes it the standard of the good. Although the term has of late gained a connotation for decadence, since in modernity we tend to equate pleasure with physical excess,...
- Christopher Hitchens - The Never-ending Party
Death is one of those things we all have to confront at some point. In fact, the 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger thought that the very essence of human nature (or Dasein, as he called us) is our being-toward-death. Obviously, once you're...
- No Evidence, No Cigar...robert Lanza's Biocentric Universe And The Afterlife
"Is there an afterlife? Science can prove there is, quantum physicist claims" by John Hall November 15th, 2013 The Independent It's a question pondered by philosophers, scientists and the devout since the dawn of time: is there an afterlife? While...
- Misunderstood Epicurus
“When we say that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence...
Philosophy
Lucretius - De Rerum Natura - Death Is Nothing to Us
Epicurus' materialist ontology (his catalog of the kinds of things that exist) explicitly rejected the existence of supernatural and nonphysical entities. Accordingly, he found the idea of a disembodied afterlife to be pure nonsense, a contradiction in terms. To him, the mind is an aspect of life, rooted in the biology and the physics of the body: when the body dies, so does the mind.
You may think this means that death must be bad for you, since on this view death means nonexistence. But Epicurus thought such a conclusion is irrational: how can death be bad for you when there is no longer a "you" to be affected by death? You did not suffer before you came into existence, and to Epicurus (as interpreted by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius in the following reading by Charlton Griffin), the time before your birth presents you with a mirror image of what the time after your death will mean for you: absolute nothingness, and how can you possibly be afraid of nothing?
Why would you be afraid of death? Greater men than you have died with dignity before. Besides, if you're already wasting your life as it is (and you most likely are wasting your life...), it seems inconsistent to be afraid of losing something that you're already letting go to waste, no?
- Physical Monism Vs. Substance Dualism - Arguments
In the last post we?ve been dealing generally with the differences between the two major schools which are monism and dualism. It?s time we take a closer look to one of the most popular branches of the dualism ? substance dualism. It states that there...
- Lucretius - De Rerum Natura - On The Nature Of Love
Epicurean philosophy is hedonistic, and as such it exalts the importance of pleasure and makes it the standard of the good. Although the term has of late gained a connotation for decadence, since in modernity we tend to equate pleasure with physical excess,...
- Christopher Hitchens - The Never-ending Party
Death is one of those things we all have to confront at some point. In fact, the 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger thought that the very essence of human nature (or Dasein, as he called us) is our being-toward-death. Obviously, once you're...
- No Evidence, No Cigar...robert Lanza's Biocentric Universe And The Afterlife
"Is there an afterlife? Science can prove there is, quantum physicist claims" by John Hall November 15th, 2013 The Independent It's a question pondered by philosophers, scientists and the devout since the dawn of time: is there an afterlife? While...
- Misunderstood Epicurus
“When we say that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence...