Bible Word of the Day
Epicurean (Epicurus, Epicureanism)
Meaning
Epicureanism was a form of thought which was founded around 300 BC by a Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicurus believed in the line of thinking that only the material world mattered. These are things that we can see, feel, taste as well as those particles that make up matter. Epicurus was also said to be an “atomic materialist.” Materialist believed that all phenomena, including spiritual phenomena, mental phenomena as well as consciousness were all the result of interactions between material matter. For example Epicurus believed that atoms (particles that were unseen) had the ability to “swerve” and miss each other on purpose. And it was this ability of “atomic swerving” that accounted for human free will.
Moreover, he believed that pleasure was the absence of fear along with the absence of disturbance among material particles. And along with this line of reasoning, pleasure was seen as the “greatest good.” The main thrust of Epicureanism was an emphasis on both materialism and on philosophy. Even today those who follow this religion (though they would deny it’s a religion) believe that philosophy can eliminate all fears of death and belief in superstition. However, by superstition, they mean all forms of religion. Epicureanism follows a man-centered worldview of humanism. In addition, many of those who believe in Epicureanism also believe in Annihilationism. Annihilationism is the teaching that when a person dies, they are annihilated. This line of reasoning is attractive to many people because it allows them to negate in their minds the existence of Hell.
“Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,’ because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? ‘For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.’ For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.” (Book of Acts 17:18-21)