The Epicurean Revival

Now, farewell.  Remember all my words.- Epicurus' parting words

A funny twist happened in the 2012 meta-narrative when the world didn't end and no significant historical events transpired on the solstice.  Many 2012-ers began to speak of the world coming to a start.  Although I normally remain cynical, I liked the idea of a fresh perspective, the idea that periodically one can start again, remove the dross of the ages to use Marxist verbiage, or bad faith to use existentialist verbiage.  Alan Watts said our history is not our destiny.  Without renewal, we'd be slaves to the past.

At around the beginning of 2013, I decided to not only send an Act of Defection to the dioceses where I had been baptized as an infant without my consent, but also to take a vow to formally adopt Epicureanism as my philosophy, as was done in antiquity according to the sources which indicate that Epicurus "instituted a hierarchical system of levels among his followers, and had them swear an oath on his core tenets".

I did this, in part, because for months I've been saying: "Wouldn't it be great if the ancient schools and the Epicurean Gardens had not been dismantled, but had continued to exist until our day?"  Now, I've decided that rather than continuing to say this, I will be the change I want to see.

The formality of the Act of Defection led me to research the Epicurean oath, and after deliberating on whether or not to formally adopt the philosophy as my own, I wrote a simple discipleship resolution that reflected my level of adherence and am now officially and formally a proud disciple of Epicurus.  The following is a generic contemporary version of the vow that I wrote for this:

I, ___ , freely and out of my own authenticity declare myself a disciple of Epicurus and I resolve to follow his teachings and to adopt his doctrine as my own, to further it, update it, and make it relevant in my context.  I take refuge in his teachings and I resolve to share them with anyone who expresses a genuine interest in them.  I resolve to treat my mind as an Epicurean Garden and to cultivate it.  I resolve to apply the four remedies, to seek the three goods and to cultivate a blissful state of ataraxia.

In recent months, I took to delving into the Epicurean doctrine in a full manner, seeking to maximize the benefits and the consolations of philosophy.  And so I did not take this oath, until I had thoroughly studied the foundations upon which I was setting my spiritual welfare and, having considered that Epicurean Gardens persisted for seven centuries and obviously fulfilled the social, mental, and other needs of adherents, I decided that this noble philosophy was worthwhile, robust, relevant, and inspiring, that it represented the best and the highest of the secular humanist tradition, and that I needed and desired the light discipline that it provided me with.

In the process of cultivating an Epicurean spirituality, I bumped into gems such as the wonderful newepicurean.com, Jules Evans' Epicureans piece in his Philosophy for Life Series, and several other contemporary sites, as well as collections of modern and ancient writings like the one found at epicurus.info.

I also administer a forum (only) for adherents of our school of philosophy, the Epicurean Garden.  It's meant as a space where we can discuss issues like philosophy as a practice, how to effectively apply the Epicurean theory and philosophical / empirical methodology to the pursuit of happiness, etc.

Below is a portion of a commentary by a modern Epicurean, Nikos, on one of the 40 Principal Doctrines which points to how by being instead of wanting, we can begin to peer into the Zen-like lake of serenity that is ataraxia.

For Epicurus, the key to taking maximum advantage of the pleasure life affords is appreciating who we are and where we are .... The sickness of desire – more, more, more.  Enough is never enough for the unwise man or woman.   If we are not experiencing physical pain or mental pain, which is the vast majority of the time, we should enjoy and value the pleasures life affords.  If you cannot enjoy the simple pleasure of taking a deep breath or the taste of your morning coffee or listening to the birds sing or the sight of trees turning in fall, you are missing the natural rhythms of being alive.  In a very real sense, all we have is the present moment - relax and enjoy. 

Nikos the Epicurean

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.  

Epicurus

The Father of Cynicism

Diogenes was asked why he always begged.

"To teach people," replied Diogenes.

"Oh yes, and what do you teach?" people would ask him scornfully.

"Generosity", he replied.

Prophilactics 5

in the days of wifi the land was plagued by talibans
and the westboro klux klan roved the plains
with signs uttering blasphemies against the Spaghetti Lord
coocoo they were, our Noddly Lord judged
coocoo fur shit's sake
blow them all away!

and a waco-like cloud of manjuice exploded
like sperm from a pornstar's ballsaque
bang!
and there was a great white flood
and the spaghetti spirit laid its meatballs on the face of the heinous, hated hate-preacher
and said "you wanted divine fury motherfucker?"
and the devil that was in the body of reverend phelps left
and the entire klan was made into goo before our eyes
yay, thusly they entered a black hole in the center of the galaxy
never again to be heard of again
but our noodly numen knew better
and revealed that they had been sent to the planet of the apes

and so the great spaghetti monster saved the day again
from the evil that had settled itself
like a tick in our asses
this is why henceforward the people called this day
"the day of our lord's cumming"
ra-men

My Act of Defection

When I was an infant, my parents baptized me into the Catholic Church. Like almost all children who grow up in Christendom, at no point was I ever consulted and the ceremony, plus the indoctrination, all took place without my consent. It took me many years to realize the fraud and the dangerous cult that is the Catholic Church, to begin to realize that the high clergy of the church where I was nurtured as a child has always had fascist sympathies and seeded them in the culture, and how detrimental its agenda is to global human rights, and gay and women's rights in particular.  Once I left the church, it's taken me many more years to overcome the anger of having been lied to on so many fronts.

After having last year compared gay people to the Ku Klux Klan, this year Chicago Cardinal George does it again! Now that gay marriage is likely to be approved in Illinois, he wants to play politics even as he dodges his taxes by writing a lil letter calling gay marriage unnatural.

Let's put aside the fact that his church has spent 2 billion dollars covering up the crimes of predator priests and that the pope has headed an international criminal conspiracy to cover up child molestation over generations.

Isn't morality itself unnatural? It's meant to tame our natural aggression. Nature is completely amoral: there's cannibalism in nature, some species of birds sacrifice one chick if that increases the chances of survival of the stronger chick.

Plus, dogs, dolphins, octopi, apes, and almost all mammals engage in homosexuality. What does he mean by unnatural, and in what way would that be relevant to ethical questions?

No species exhibits celibacy.

His doctrine is so unsophisticated, feudal, archaic, bigoted and stupid, and his church so lacking in credibility that it's embarrassing that this type of nonsense is still coming out of his mouth and that he even thinks he has the moral authority to utter this.

But there's more. The pope has given a blessing during the Christmas holidays to a Ugandan Parliamentarian, Representative Kadaga, who had promised her constituents earlier in December that she would pass the Kill the Gays bill in Uganda as a Christmas gift. She was unable to pass the bill because the Parliament went on vacation but it will be considered during January. News about her visit with the pope, how the pope blessed her (and presumably didn't admonish her or mention the Kill the Gays bill) and how the papacy has not ever, not once, assumed any type of leadership role with regards to stopping the bill from passing, as well as pictures of her kneeling and kissing his hands, have gone viral in Western secularist media.

Generally, the Catholic Church makes it nearly impossible for people to declare apostasy and formally leave the church: they try to talk you out of it, to convince you to consider returning "home", to continue treating you like a child. But after exchanging some emails with former Catholic atheists on January 2 of 2013, I figured out what I needed to do and sent this letter to the assistant of the bishop at the dioceses where I was baptized as an infant:

January 2, 2013
Nicholas DiMarzio
Bishop of Brooklyn
310 Prospect Park West
Brooklyn, NY 11215 

Dear DiMarzio, 

I am hereby formally defecting from the Catholic Church and request an execution of the Actus Formalis Defectionis Ab Ecclesia Catholica for myself to begin this process in accordance with canons 1086, 1117 and 1174 of the Code of Canon law as well as notification Prot. N. 10279/2006 from the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (PCLT). 

This request is being made by me personally, freely and consciously in order to sever all bonds of Catholic faith, sacraments, and pastoral governance and constitutes a willful act of apostasy of my part. I am providing herein all necessary information with an explanation for my decision.
I was born on ... in Brooklyn, NY and as a matter of custom received baptism as an infant in New York. In 1991, shortly after turning 15, I stopped believing in Catholic doctrine and left the Catholic Church. I have now chosen to leave the Catholic Church in a formal and open manner for a number of reasons: 

• I am not a believer in Catholic teachings or any other salvific or revealed doctrine 

• I am not religious, and in fact consider organized religion to be fraudulent and harmful to society in many ways 

• I exhibit a profound distrust and skepticism of supernatural claims in general 

• I am a gay male and consider the anti-gay doctrine and the open hostility of many in the ranks of your clergy to be insulting to our human dignity and harmful to LGBT youth struggling to come out

• I am a firm believer in the equal validity of same-sex marriage 

• I am appalled at the culture of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church 

• The decision to baptize me, and to raise me as a Catholic, was made without my consent when I was an infant 

• As an adult, I have found that most of the authentic questions I have are best answered within the realm of secular philosophical discourse 

• I find that my political and ethical views are in direct contradiction with those of the Catholic Church and I vehemently disagree with Church teaching with regards to, among other things, human sexuality. I consider these doctrines as harmful, feudal, archaic and irrelevant 

The decision and declaration of initiating excommunication is made out of my own free will, being of sound mind, and in full cognizance of the repercussions. I do not expect to ever get married in a church and see no need to be a hypocrite in order to participate in sacraments. I also do not wish to be considered Catholic for census and demographics purposes.
I recognize that many members of your church exhibit a high quality of character and it is not my intent to personally attack you or any member of your staff, but simply to respectfully assert my right and my choice of pursuing philosophy instead of religion and to raise my voice in stalwart dissent against the teachings and actions of Catholic leadership. 

For these reasons, I hereby request to be officially excommunicated as soon as possible, to have my name removed from all church accounts, to provide that this act be noted in the baptismal registry (cfr. can. 535, § 2) with explicit mention of the occurrence of a “defectio ab Ecclesia catholica actu formali” and to record that I am no longer a member of the Catholic church according to the PCLT. I want no membership in your church for the rest of my life and expect these wishes to be honored. 

Should you require further information to proceed, please advise accordingly. I look forward to receiving official confirmation of this action at your earliest convenience. 

Sincerely,

..... (signed)

And so there it is. I now await my certificate of apostasy (or whatever they send us post-Catholic gentiles), glad to have not been among the sheep that, while not really believing their lies, still went along with the hypocrisy so that sensibilities of sincere Catholics would not be insulted. I am sickened by the cardinal's comments and by the pope's blessing of a woman who has vowed to subject gays in her country to genocide.

I am happy to formally commence the process of excommunicating the Church of Rome from my life. I'm happy to pronounce a firm indictment against at least a small portion of the innumerable crimes that it has engaged in throughout the world's history, and having finally done this I am happy and proud of my place in history.

"If you never wanted to hurt me, why am I running away?" - Madonna

As part of my act of defection, and having read that in antiquity the followers of the Epicurus made a vow when they entered the school of Epicureanism, I also created a certificate on my computer where I formally declared myself a disciple of the philosopher Epicurus, and signed it, in order to formally assume the practice of philosophy in lieu of religion and I have the pleasure to announce that, after many months of studying the philosophy and cautiously pondering my need for this discipline, I am now formally a bona-fide Epicurean.

Epicureanism: an Introduction

Epicureanism is a humanist philosophical doctrine for human happiness. It requires us to make a firm resolution to live a happy life and to apply philosophical and empirical methods to the pursuit of happiness.

Its first tenets are contained in the Four Remedies:

Do not fear death
Do not fear the gods
What is good, is easy to attain
What is evil is easy to avoid

For non-believers, the first two negative statements may be translated as "Do not fear chance or blind luck, for it is pointless to battle that which we have no control over. It generates unnecessary suffering."

The latter two positive statements lead to Epicurean teachings on how we should evaluate our desires and discern which ones are unnecessary versus which ones are necessary, which ones carry pain when satisfied or ignored versus which ones don't. By this process of an analysed life, one learns to be content with the simple pleasures in life, those easiest to attain. The best things in life are free.

"The wealth required by nature is limited and easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity ... Do not spoil that which you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." - Epicurus

The three goods are friendships, an analysed life, and autarchy which translates as autonomy or self-sufficiency. Epicurus taught that friends are the most important ingredient for happiness. Difficulties are much more easy to bear, and pleasures much more easily enjoyed, in wholesome association with our trusted friends. We should seek them often and blend our minds with them.

The process of living an analysed life leads to the cultivation of what philosophers called ataraxia: a state of satisfied serenity, content, and self-control. It translates as imperturbability. Its attainment signals philosophical maturity.

The serene grounds of the Epicurean Academy were known as the Garden. There, an egalitarian community evolved where men, women, and slaves discussed philosophical matters among equals. This was very progressive, and even scandalous, in those days. Epicurean Gardens flourished for over 700 years until the Christians destroyed all the philosophical schools and philosophy was banned.

We must not underestimate the influence of Epicureanism in contemporary political philosophy and in modern life. We ultimately owe the inclusion of the 'pursuit of happiness' in the Declaration of Independence to Thomas Jefferson, who was a disciple of Epicurus. In his letter to William Short, he said:

"As you said yourself, I too am an Epicurean ... I consider the genuine doctrines of Epicurus as containing every thing rational in moral philosophy"

For a vast resource of writings by Epicurean thinkers throughout history, visit:
http://www.epicurus.info/

The following is a series of videos detailing Epicurean philosophy by youtuber Lootra:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEA3D3F7070776AD5

Tax the Rich: Animated Fairy Tale