Tag: epicurean

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Secular Freedom and Respect For Marriage: Why the Culture Wars are Getting Old

Fresno Bee, December 4, 2022

As the Respect for Marriage Act passed the Senate, the culture wars resurfaced. This law will guarantee that same-sex marriages and interracial marriages are respected. In response to the Senate vote, President Biden said, “love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love.”

I agree that this is good news for love. But didn’t we already resolve this issue? Well, the Supreme Court threw things into disarray with its Dobbs decision earlier this year, which called into question the idea of a “right to privacy.”

And while Biden praised the legislation, not everyone agreed. One commentator, R.R. Reno, editor of the conservative Christian magazine First Things, said that what he calls “the Rainbow Reich” was trying to radically restructure society. He said that the ruling elites are “determined to drive our country into a ditch.”

Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, responded by saying that the Senate had “voted to redefine marriage, weaken society’s fundamental covenant, and threaten the religious freedom of Americans who, by religious conviction, cannot join in the legislation’s revolt against marriage and family.” He saw this legislation as a sign of “civilization crumbling.”

This hyperbolic language prompts a big sigh. When a civilization crumbles, you might expect marauding enemies. But letting people who love each other get married hardly seems to qualify as the end of civilization. This culture war re-run is a dud. It’s worth noting that 12 Republicans voted for the legislation. And those who opposed it seem like Scrooge at Christmas.

Biden himself was once opposed to gay marriage. He voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act in the 1990s. But society evolves and attitudes change.

Indeed, there is a growing acceptance of marriage equality. According a recent Pew Center survey, most Americans (61%) think it is good that same-sex marriage is legal. This opinion is more prevalent among the young: 75% of 18-to-29-year-olds are OK with same-sex marriage. For those over 65, that number drops to 50%.

The culture wars are getting old because they are being fought by older people. Young folks are ready to move on. And the warnings of the apocalypse fail to resonate.

But catastrophe is a handy rhetorical tool. Donald Trump is a practiced doomsayer. When he announced he was running for president again last month, he said that the Southern border had been “erased” and that the country was being “invaded.” He said, “The blood-soaked streets of our once great cities are cesspools of violent crimes.”

The merchants of doom hope to draw attention to the product they are selling by proclaiming that the end is nigh. In order for your party to save the world, the world must first need saving. Political and religious rhetoric are often infused with the rhythm and rhyme of doomsaying and messianism.

If you thought that things were going OK, why would you need a politician to save you? And if you were content with life and unafraid of death, what appeal would there be in religion?

The idea that life is pretty good and that there is nothing to fear in death can be traced back to the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus. The followers of Epicurus believed that happiness was easily obtained. They advised people to stay out of politics. And they basically ignored religion. The problem is that politicians and religious zealots have a knack for making us feel bad. A modern Epicurean might add that today’s media can add to our anxiety by amplifying the prophets of doom.

Epicureanism teaches us to stop listening to the prophets of doom. We should focus on easily obtained pleasures. We should mind our own business and leave other people alone to love and live as they want. It’s not true that civilization is crumbling.

Secular systems make life better for everyone because they allow us to enjoy the freedom to live how we want. Things are better today than in former years, when interracial marriage was illegal and when gay people lived in the closet. And if the doomsayers keep preaching about the decline of civilization, they may soon find themselves talking to empty churches.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article269497617.html#storylink=cpy

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Waning Religion and Our Epicurean Moment

Epicurus

Religious membership in the U.S. has dropped below 50% for the first time, according to a recent Gallup Poll.  Some Americans continue to believe in the supernatural.  A 2020 survey indicates that half of Americans believe in ghost and demons.  But it is remarkable that today fewer than half of Americans belong to an organized religion. 

This new data confirms other surveys indicating secularization.  The Pew Center has documented the rapid growth of “the nones” (those who do not claim to belong to a specific religion) and the decline in church attendance. 

Some pundits worry this indicates a cultural malfunction.  Dennis Prager says, “When Judeo-Christian principles are abandoned, evil eventually ensues.”  Shloto Byrnes says that the West is suffering from a “Godless delusion,” arguing that “to be human has meant to be religious throughout history.”  And Shadi Hamid suggests that secularism fuels political extremism. 

These hyperbolic concerns are misguided and misleading.  Many societies have done quite well without Judeo-Christian values.  It is not true that human beings have always been religious in the contemporary sense, or that we need to be.  And rational humanism actually offers an antidote for extremism. 

The Covid-19 crisis provides a great example.  Prayer and miracles will not solve this crisis.  Scientific medicine provides vaccines, prevention protocols, and treatments for infection.  When people get sick these days, they go to the doctor instead of the shaman. 

Scientific naturalism is ubiquitous.  To predict the weather, we consult meteorologists instead of astrologists.  Earthquakes and volcanoes don’t appear to us as the work of mercurial deities who need appeasing.  Reason and humanism provide us with useful advice that improves health and happiness.

And despite what Byrnes says, humanism has a long history.  It made a strong appearance 2,500 years ago in the philosophy of Epicurus.  The Epicurean philosophy aimed to cure the anxiety caused by religious superstition.  Epicurus offered thoroughly naturalistic explanations of earthquakes, lightning, and the like.  The Epicureans taught that happiness was easily obtain by focusing on friendship and virtue in a world emptied of the supernatural. 

The Epicurean philosophy was popular in the ancient world.  But Stoic and Christian authors vilified Epicurean naturalism.  Epicurus’s name was falsely associated with licentiousness and shameless hedonism.  This caricature is unfair to a school that emphasized modesty, frugality, and friendship—and the deliberate avoidance of political extremism.

As a result of persecution, however, few of Epicurus’s original writings exist.  We do know that Epicurus defended an early version of atomism based in a naturalistic view of the world.  His views are remarkably modern. 

Epicurus taught that the cosmos was made up of atoms moving in the void.  He held out the possibility that in the infinite space and time of the universe, there were other worlds that resulted from the same natural processes that produced our world. 

Epicurus said that the soul was merely a combination of certain kinds of atoms.  When the body died, the soul dissipated.  There was no life after death.  If there were gods, they were not concerned about human life.  Religious myths and superstitions caused anxiety by making us worry about the whims of the gods and life after death.  In order to cure that anxiety, a better understanding of nature helps.

Epicureanism also provided an antidote to extremism.  Religious zealots sometimes end up trying to silence the advocates of reasonable naturalism.  They can also fall prey to outrageous conspiracy theories. But rather than engage these zealots in the streets, the Epicureans advised living unobtrusively.  Political tumult results in unhappiness.  The Epicureans tried to avoid that by retreating to private communities, where friendship, reason, and happiness could be cultivated. 

It seems that now is a good time for an Epicurean renewal.  Religion is waning. And while some zealots are succumbing to extremism, most of us are rediscovering the importance of science, reason, and restraint.

The Covid lockdown has also encouraged us to find happiness in simple things.  While extremism and violence has erupted in the streets, we are re-learning the wisdom of living simply and with social distance.  This is an Epicurean moment: a time to rediscover the wisdom of naturalism, a time to turn away from superstition, and a time to cultivate modesty, simplicity, and friendship.