De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) By Marcus Tullius Cicero Bk1 Ch21-32

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  • čas přidán 13. 09. 2024
  • Cotta, the Roman Priest and Academic philosopher, refutes Velleius the Epicurean. He gives Velleius a sideways compliment that he is so bright and such a good speaker it's a shame he's talking nonsense. Cotta makes fun of Velleius' assertion that all people believe in the gods as a proof that there are gods (he proposes counterexamples) and then spends a lot of time poking fun at Velleius' Epicurean statement that the gods have human like bodies because they're the only things that contain reason we experience directly (Cotta asks if Velleius experiences the Sun/Moon/Planets directly and implies they have reason). He says animals likewise would think their bodies were the most beautiful, points out that most people aren't beautiful, makes a comment about his own pederasty in the Greek philosophical tradition, and lampoons the statement that the gods have something "like a body" or something "like blood". He also sort of shruggingly undermines the Epicurean doctrines of the universes spontaneous origin without a Designer, and the idea that there are gods that don't do anything and that may as well not exist, suggesting and then withdrawing the suggestion that Epicurus and his followers are closet atheists who are just being politic.

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