homo naturaliter epicureus
Tertullian (CE 160-225), the prolific early Christian author opined that the human soul is basically Christian: “anima naturaliter christiana”. The Catholic PR has generalized this belief further, maintaining that the whole human being is basically Christian, not only his /her soul: “homo naturaliter christianus”. They mean that everybody is a natural born Christian but later, influenced by her/his environment and/or her/his own sins they sort of turn away from the their natural religion.
Observation of human behavior and some knowledge of Epicureanism have convinced me, however, that the natural religion/attitude of – at least of a significant part of – human beings is rather Epicurean than Christian:
- most people want to stay alive and enjoy their lives;
- prefer pleasure over pain;
- do not really believe in an afterlife (at least when they care to give this problem at least 5 minutes of thought),
- realize that most of our infinite desirers are artificially generated by PR/publicity and that our real needs are much simpler and easier to satisfy (at least when they care to give this problem at least 5 days of study and reflection)
“It is not surprising that Epicureanism should have some modern appeal as a faith, and that some people are attempting to revive it. It has the charm of antiquity to recommend it, and the fact that it was for seven centuries a living faith; unlike most extinct religions, we have a clear idea of what the tenets of Epicureanism were; and its religious and ethical doctrines are compatible with the naturalism of modern science, while their scientific doctrines prefigured it. ”
(see more about this in SkepticWiki)
Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of modern America, was too an Epicurean as he described in one of his letters. He, like Epicurus, treated slaves as equals and advocated natural human rights.
It is difficult to say, what proportion of humankind tends to cultivate freedom, friendship, reflection, honesty and tolerance instead of power, status, bigotry and manipulation. The socio-cultural environment we grow up in has certainly a major, perhaps determinant influence on our beliefs and behavior patterns. I read somewhere that some American Indian tribes burnt all the belongings of a tribe member who died, so that her/his relatives, friends and acquaintances should have no ground to develop greedy thoughts. I think socio-cultural anthropology (especially the ethnography of some of the American Indian, African. Eastern Polynesian cultures) could furnish us a long list of tried and true socio-cultural mechanisms to counter -balance our also natural tendencies to dominate, fight, hate, be greedy, jealous, envious. That is if we really cared to change our socio-cultural environment.
Another promising resource for the development of a sustainable socio-cultural evironment that fosters happiness could be Manfred Max-Neef’s “Human Scale Development”:
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/background/maxneef.htm
http://www.rightlivelihood.org/max-neef.html
Comments
Leave a Reply
FREE Report about stress
Download instantly your copy!