Epikouros was not an atheist from the modern concept of the expression. The guy felt regarding the lives of deities, however, the guy thought that the gods had been fairly prime beings and you will that they had zero wedding anyway within the people factors. Within his Page in order to Menoikeus, one of many around three extant letters which can be an element of the sources for almost all out of what we know about their teachings, Epikouros himself writes, because the translated into English of the Robert Received Hicks:
“Earliest believe that [a jesus] try an income becoming immortal and you can pleased, according to the concept of a jesus conveyed from the prominent sense of humankind; and therefore away from him anything that was at agrees not with in the your whatever get support both their happyness along with his immortality. To possess its discover gods, and you may expertise in them goes without saying; but they are maybe not including the plethora believe, seeing as people do not steadfastly keep up with the notions they function valuing him or her. Not the one who rejects the latest gods worshipped of the wide range, however, he which affirms of one’s gods just what selection believes about the subject is really impious. On utterances of your selection concerning the gods aren’t correct preconceptions however, incorrect presumptions; and that it’s the most useful evils happen to new wicked while the best blessings occur to the nice on hand of one’s gods, seeing that he is usually favorable on the own a good features and savor anyone need to by themselves, however, refute as the alien any isn’t of the kind.”
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