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How Would You Live If You Were Sure That There Are No Supernatural Gods And No Life After Death?
Epicurus taught that "Nothing can be created from nothing." This is the most important observation of Epicurean physics, and it leads to many important conclusions about how the world works in ways that are natural, and not supernatural.
"Nature has no gods over her." In other words, the Earth was not created and isn't managed by supernatural gods, so it's up to us to figure out how Nature works so we can live most happily.
While there are no supernatural gods, almost everyone feels a motivation to think about the possibility of beings higher than ourselves. Epicurus taught that the best way to approach the subject is to "Never assign anything to a god that is inconsistent with incorruptibility and blessedness."
"Death is Nothing To Us," and that means that when you're dead, you're dead, and you never experience anything after that, so there's no punishment to fear or reward to look for after you're dead. That means you should always remember that you're mortal, and you have a limited time to live, and therefore you need to be sure you're spending your time the best way you can.
"There Is No Necessity to Live Under the Control of Necessity." Many people today live their lives in hopelessness, fearing that they have no control over their choices whatsoever, and that an angry god or implacable fate has predetermined their every moment. Epicurus taught that there are some things that do happen by accident, and some things that are predetermined by Nature, but that many things are within our control, so we should pursue making the right choices so as to live as happily as possible.
"He who says 'Nothing Can Be Known" Knows Nothing." Radical skeptics say that it is impossible to know anything, and that you can never be confident of anything. Epicurus taught a method of common sense reasoning based on evidence provided by nature by which we can be confident of our conclusions and organize our lives to live happily.
The method of thinking that Epicurus taught begins with the courage to understand how "All Sensations Are True." Epicurus was just as familiar with illusions and mistaken opinions as we are today, but he was smart enough to see that the way we escape from illusions and from mistakes is not to abandon our senses, but to study how the senses work and realize that the senses themselves are the only way we can hope to eventually find out the truth about anything.
In contrast to the Stoics and their modern counterparts in today's religious and humanist communities, Epicurus taught that "Virtue Is Not Absolute Or An End In Itself - All Good And Evil Consists In Sensation." Epicurus held that if virtue does not lead to pleasure and happiness, it is useless, and that the same things that are considered virtuous in Athens are often not considered virtuous in Rome, just like the things that were considered virtuous two thousand years ago are often not considered virtuous today.
Epicurus taught that since there are no supernatural gods or absolute rules of virtue to follow, we should follow the lead of Nature, and realize that "Pleasure Is The Guide Of Life." Of course Epicurus also taught that we do not pursue every pleasure at every moment, and we sometimes in fact choose pain, when choosing pain will lead us to a greater pleasure or lesser pain.
Epicurus taught that "By Pleasure we mean all experience that is not painful." Epicurus held that there are only two feelings in human life - pleasure and pain - and that we are always experiencing one or the other. Whereas the Prudes of the past and the present view "Pleasure" as limited to sensory stimulation - the modern equivalent of sex drugs and rock and roll - Epicurus taught that every experience of life that is not painful is pleasurable, and that we can and should select the activities of life that seem to us - under our own circumstances - most likely to lead to an overall happy life.
What do all of these doctrines lead up to? The final doctrine of Epicurus that we stress is that "Life is desirable, but unlimited time contains no greater pleasure than limited time." The one inevitability of human life is that at some point you will die. Is that a reason for you to forget everything that Nature has given you? The answer of course is "No," because if we think about it from the point of view of "Pleasure" as the highest good, and if we recognize that Epicurus was right in pointing out that everything in life that isn't painful is pleasurable, we can realize that in devoting our lives to Pleasure, rightly understood, we have fulfilled our Natures. We should not regret the pleasures that will not be available to us after we die any more than we regret the pleasures that were not available to us before we were born.
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