Sacred Sacrifices—Part 1

I found myself thinking recently about the ancient practice of sacrifice—whereby our deep ancestors made offerings to the gods, in the hope that the sacrifice would please them and they'd in turn grant the entreaties made in their name. There are countless examples of our forebears making oblations to their gods.

Why sacrifice? Those ancients did not understand how most natural events came about. Beneficial happenings—such as good rains, victory in battle, and good health—were believed to be delivered by the gods. Likewise, harmful happenings—disease, earthquakes, and floods—were also dispatched by the gods. The ancients believed that the gods could be helpful or harmful; it depended on their mood. In order to curry favor or placate them, the ancients often engaged in elaborate sacrificial ceremonies.

But what does it really mean to sacrifice? It has a wide variety of connotation—depending on the topic and the situation. My dictionary defines sacrifice as no less than six kinds of events: (1) an act of offering to a supernatural figure, in the way of slaughtering an animal (or person!) or surrendering some possession; (2) an act of giving up something of value for the sake of acquiring something else regarded as more important; (3) Jesus offering himself for the redemption of mankind; (4) a chess move, whereby one offers an opponent a piece, for strategic or tactical reasons; (5) in baseball, a bunt that puts the batter out, but advances one's team's base runner; (6) in bridge, a bid that is made with the belief that it would be less costly to be defeated, than to allow your opponents to make their contract. Those various definitions surely cover a lot of sacrificial ground!

Returning to our deep ancestors' sacrifices to the gods in exchange for favorable circumstances: their acts were essentially based on an ignorance of the natural world. An ancient Greek philosopher (Epicurus, 5^th century BCE) and a later Roman poet/writer (Lucretius, 50 BCE) both put forth the argument that earthquakes, floods, and bountiful growing seasons were not due to the capriciousness of the gods. They were natural happenings. In fact, these sages reasoned that the gods had better things to do than either bedevil or bless humans. Hence, they counseled that sacrifices were for naught. It was a fool's errand to appeal to the gods. Don't waste your prize goat.

However, their message fell on deaf ears, as humans continued to make sacrifices. Why? It is quite natural for us to conceive of storms, drought, and diseases as events far larger than ourselves—events that must be caused by a super being. Thus people carried on with the practice of offering something of value to the powers that be. Many acts of sacrifice demand our giving up something we really value—otherwise, it's a hollow deed. So our forebears came to choose the most perfect of their animals to slaughter. In the case of Abraham, he was even ready to kill his own son, to please God!

I wonder how the sacrificial ceremony and its aftermath might have played out differently, for those living in polytheistic versus monotheistic cultures. For example, in ancient Greece or Rome, people often selected one of many gods to be their personal deity. They had an altar in their home, with icons and other paraphernalia relating to their god of choice. The family developed ceremonies and appropriate sacrifices to their private god.

I wonder what did they do when their offering seemed to be spurned? “Hey, I killed my prize goat and we still had a crappy harvest!” Did they conclude that their sacrifice was not up to snuff and thus select two perfect goats next time, or did they get pissed off at their god and decide to worship another one? They had a sizable pantheon to select from.

Then along came monotheism, introduced by the Hebrews. Now there was only one God to sacrifice to. I wonder what did the monotheists did, when their sacrifices failed to deliver the goods? They were not afforded the opportunity to switch deities. They either had to embellish the next sacrifice, or conclude that God works in mysterious ways and muddle on. Luckily, humans later came to understand that many good and bad events indeed are natural happenings that do not call for sacrifices for which one will be granted favors or to be spared from tragedy. The hope of influencing events lives on, however, in the form of prayers offered for favors.

More on sacrificing next time...

Three Ancient Teachers—Part 2

The second message: Democritus' atomistic and natural teachings interestingly connect directly into my second point: death is not what people fear or say that it is. This second idea was promulgated primarily by my second Greek teacher, Epicurus. Starting with the concept of atoms and how that led to the idea that our world can be understood by natural events, he came to the conclusion that previous beliefs that the world was governed by supernatural forces were wrong. In his time, supernatural meant that the gods were the driving force in the world—the gods decided (often in their capricious manner) how things were constructed and how they behaved. Later (in the West) the Greek and Roman gods were replaced by the sole Abrahamic God.

If the gods are in charge of our existence, then we are susceptible to their will. Our lives are literally controlled by their whims and wishes... and there wishes are often whimsical. Epicurus said, however, that there are natural explanations for it all; it's not the gods stringing us along, thus our lives are really in our own hands. We are in control and are responsible for ourselves. This is a very liberating idea! 

Those who believed that the gods ruled, believed that their lives—and their deaths—were dictated supernaturally. More to the point, what happened to you after your death, was also in the hands of the gods. If they wished, they could torment you forever, and you had little alternative, except to try your best to curry their favor in this life. Epicurus saw that the anxiety over this belief caused people a lot of torment and filled them with fear.

A more modern expression of this concept has recently been offered by Yuval Harari, the Israeli author of a recent groundbreaking book, Sapiens. He makes the point that, in recent centuries, modern interpretations no longer see death as the fundamental source of meaning of life. Previous beliefs—from Christians all the way back to the Romans and Greeks—held that the meaning of life comes from what happens to you after death. Instead, he maintains that modern ideologies—such as socialism, liberalism, feminism, and communism—teach us that life has meaning on its own; we don't need death for meaning. It is interesting that my three favorite philosophers reached this modern conclusion millennia ago. It's yet another way that shows they were far ahead of their time.

Epicurus felt that he had—through his natural explanations of the world—shown that belief in an afterlife was unfounded. There are no supernatural events—in this world or the hereafter. You live and then you die. Quit fearing what will happen after you die, since there will be no you. Put your attention to what you're doing while you are alive. I don't think he actually said it, but one message I take from his teaching is, regardless of what happens after I die, if I put attention toward living a moral life, I'll be OK. The main point: I can take comfort in the fact that I will not be tricked by the gods. Epicurus in fact never denied the existence of the gods—he simply maintained that they have their own affairs to attend to, so why should they waste time tormenting humans? In today's monotheistic worldview, I feel the same. I neither believe in nor deny the existence of God. If there is a God, I can't see why God would bother with my trivial life. It's my responsibility to use it wisely and morally, or lose it. Why would God interfere?

The third message: Live simply, rather than pursue money or power. This idea follows quite closely from the first two propositions. If we're all made of atoms and thus are all united (are all made of the same stuff), what does that tell me about how to treat my world and my fellow humans? If I abuse my world, am I not abusing myself? Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius all reached the same conclusion: that treating our world with respect means that we should live a frugal life. To exploit the world in search of wealth is simply selfish and wrong.

We are part of the natural world. We live and die, as all creatures do. We need not fear death or the gods. So how do I fit most sensibly into this incredible world? I do so by having regard for it; by nurturing it and my fellow creatures. These three masters realized that this truth of our being an integral part of the natural world meant that we share the same aims all creatures do: to seek happiness and contentment, while avoiding pain and suffering. Living simply and frugally is an excellent way to achieve those aims.

Three Ancient Teachers—Part 1

I have written before on this blog about how several ancient philosophers (mostly from Greece) came to influence my outlook on life. In each case I was already leaning in the direction of their messages, so when I came upon them I was quite ready to absorb their lessons. I think this is a common experience for many of us. I'm not referring to what happens when we are cruising through life and suddenly become a convert to a completely new (to us) idea; one that immediately transforms our views and even turns us into a devoted disciple.

Instead, I'm describing how we might already be thinking along certain lines, but with a limited understanding of the subject we are pondering... we're just muddling along, but with some sense of direction. Then one day we encounter a teacher who clearly describes this same issue, and suddenly the fog lifts and we see the bigger picture. Our former simple and limited understanding thus becomes far more complete and convincing. We're not taking a radically new direction at all, but getting confirmation that the direction we were going in is OK, and now we get a boost that urges us farther along that path. I love those kinds of discoveries.

The three ancient teachers I'm writing about here are Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius. The first two lived in the 5^th century BCE in Greece. Lucretius came along about 400 years later, and was a resident of Rome. The two earlier Greeks were familiar with each other and taught similar things, but their message later got shunted aside by competing Greek philosophers. A few centuries later Lucretius revived their teachings in a beautiful epic poem, On the Nature of Things. His message was also sidelined and his poem was repressed—this time mostly by the Catholic Church.

I will delve into their stories only briefly here—just to sketch the overview. My main objective is to offer a three-part, connective summary of the aspect of their teachings that has had a strong influence on me. As I wrote above, I was already inclined to be thinking along these lines, and when I discovered their philosophies, they gave me the courage to have more confidence in my thoughts and to rededicate myself to the philosophical and moral paths that they laid out.

The three messages are: (1) the composition of all matter is explainable by the existence of atoms, (2) death is not what we think it is, and (3) live simply, rather than pursue money and power. While these three lessons may seem to be a bit dissociated, they are in fact tightly interwoven, I think, and form a broad and coherent philosophy of life and how to live it. I'll try to explain.

The first message: Everything is made of atoms; in other words, it's atoms all the way down. The Greeks of Democritus' time (the first true scientists) were pondering the fundamental reality of the world. A central question they pondered: What are things made of? There were several competing arguments at the time, and most of them perceived matter as a continuum. Epicurus took another tack and put forth the proposition that matter was not continuous, but really was granular—being constituted of tiny building blocks that he called "atoms" (from the Greek word atomos, meaning indivisible).

What is extraordinary, is that Democritus arrived at his theory of atoms, without any chance of proving their existence; it was just a mental construct. The necessary proof of his insight had to wait for some 2500 years, until powerful microscopes could be invented. His insight essentially founded the science of physics. It was an elegant and prescient concept. He wrote that every kind of matter is made up of similar kinds of elementary building blocks... thus everything in the world is related. (More on that later.) This fundamental insight led to a completely new way of looking at the world: that the composition and nature of everything is both natural and explainable—thus, things and events are neither supernatural nor magical.

More on ancient teachers next time...

Lucretius' Prescience--Part 2

Greenblatt chronicles the miraculous rediscovery of Lucretius’ tome On the Nature of Things, 15 centuries after he wrote it—literally pointing humanity once again in the direction of truth. It blows my mind when I think about how much more knowledge we could have today about the reality of the universe, if not all this time had been lost.

Not all of Lucretius’ theories of the workings of nature were accurate. For example, his ideas on vision were quite off base, but his descriptions of the basic properties of matter are astonishingly on target.  

Several Lucretius’ theories on spirituality remain controversial. They touch on concepts such as the nature of the soul, the existence of an afterlife, the nature of free will, and the influence of organized religions in the world. These ideas were what brought him into disfavor with both the religious beliefs of Greece and Rome in his time, as well as those of Christianity that followed. In fact, I think that some of these postulates may never be proven right or wrong, since they tread into the realm of the supernatural.

So let’s stick to the natural world, and to the theories he proposed, that science has subsequently verified—to demonstrate how prescient his insights were:

1.    Everything is made of an uncountable number of “invisible particles.” (He tended to avoid the word “atom.”)

2.    These particles are limited in their variety (sort of like just so many kinds of Legos blocks or letters of the alphabet) and each kind will combine with only a limited type of others (just as there are only so many letter combinations that make useful sounds).

3.    The particles are capable of forming an unlimited number of material objects (just as we can form an unlimited number of words from a limited alphabet).

4.    The particles (i.e., atoms) are eternal, but the things they form are constantly coming into being and then disintegrating (just as a tree or person is born and then later dies and decomposes back into their constituent atoms). These first four ideas correspond very closely to chemistry, as we understand it today.

5.    Nature ceaselessly experiments and, in the process, creates some living beings or plants that will quickly perish and others that will succeed and endure. This is an ancient insight into the process of evolution.

6.    Humans are not unique. We are much like any other animal. We have awakened to this truth only in the last few decades.

7.    Our early human ancestors lived a difficult life. They struggled to survive and did so primarily by cooperating with one another.

8.    Humans today are different from long ago. We are constantly changing and evolving.

All these ideas were described in a very long poem—over 2000 years ago! How could anyone have conceived of such an accurate picture of reality that long ago? I have a suggestion that I cannot prove, but seems logical to me: The truth about the nature of the universe and the details of how things are, exist independent of the human mind; they don’t just sit around, ever since the Big Bang, waiting for us to uncover them or for us to draw up laws that explain them. The universe just is; and we slowly discover its qualities.

It’s as if there is a conscious ether that permeates all space and contains the complete truth of everything. Some people might call it the mind of God, but I wish to avoid the inevitable and controversial dogma that follows such a call. I prefer to view it simply as an unnamable, inconceivable cloud of knowing that the human mind is capable of tapping into, either by dint of spiritual maturity (through plain, hard work) or by grace. In any case, our individual consciousness is, I think, capable of connecting to and getting glimpses of the truth from this universal consciousness. It is as if it was The Complete Book of Knowledge, just waiting for us to wake up and explore. We don’t create it or formulate it; we simply tune into it.

From time to time, we can receive insights and ideas from this ultimate-knowledge reservoir. When we “discover” something, we are often inclined to think that these ideas are ours, that we own and created them—when in fact, they’ve been around all along. It’s the only explanation I can come up with for Lucretius’ fantastic insights as to the reality of the universe: On the Nature of Things. Whatever the truth is, it's an amazing accomplishment.

Lucretius' Prescience

Nearly 2100 years ago—a generation or two before Jesus was born—a Roman poet created an astounding work of art and science. Although it was regarded at the time as an achingly beautiful poem, it was also a prescient description of the workings of this universe—literally a scientific treatise that would require nearly 2000 years to prove its veracity. The Roman author of the work was Titus Lucretius, and he titled it De rerum natura in Latin, which translates to On the Nature of Things. It’s an extensive work, running some 7400 lines of verse, grouped into six books.

Lucretius based his insights on earlier Greek schools of thought, some of which taught that everything in the universe is made of invisible building blocks, which they called atoms, from the Greek word atomos, which means “indivisible.” The notion of the existence of atoms had originated over 400 years before Lucretius came along. It began with ancient Greeks such as Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus. These atomistic ideas competed with several other theories of matter, but eventually faded; losing out to the Greek schools headed by more wealthy and aristocratic scholars—particularly Aristotle. In addition, the concepts promulgated by Aristotle and his cohorts fit more comfortably with religious teachings of the time, and then were embraced by the Christian Church, after it came to power.

Lucretius expanded upon the teachings of the early Greek atomists and incorporated several other ideas, laying out an astoundingly accurate description of the physical world, long before humans had the scientific instruments to prove the truth of his writings.

Science has historically developed its understanding of how the universe behaves in two contrasting ways: via intuition and by experimentation (as well as by some combination of the two). Those who made intuitive discoveries usually puzzled over some natural phenomenon for a lengthy period, before an insight suddenly came to them. Einstein brooded about relativity for years—nearly losing his mundane job because of his daydreaming—and then the elegant answers suddenly came to him, almost like in a dream. Isaac Newton had escaped London’s black plague and for months sat scribbling safely at his country desk, before realizations came to him of the nature of forces and their effects on bodies.

Both of these men’s insights were expressed through elegant descriptions and mathematics. It was many years before other scientists could conduct the necessary experiments that could verify their theories—either because the necessary instruments had not yet been invented or no one had even conceived of such experiments.

The second principle way of scientific exploration is by experimentation. With instruments in hand, an experiment is conducted, that explores some aspect of the natural world, and often leads to some new understanding of how nature works.

What is astounding about Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things is that he was two millennia ahead of his time—rather than just a couple of decades, as in Einstein’s case. It fascinates me that, strictly through mental effort, Lucretius and his cohorts could have had such profound insight, so far ahead of their time. How could they have anticipated that everything in the universe is composed of endless combinations of tiny building blocks that were far beyond their ability to see or touch? Not only that, but Lucretius also anticipated evolution (1800 years before Darwin!) and expounded a philosophy that touched on spiritual matters. His thoughts in these areas are amazingly modern in tone.

A just-published book by Stephan Greenblatt (The Swerve) describes how Lucretius’ book barely escaped being lost to history; it was remarkably discovered in a German monastery some 1500 years after he had penned it. His insights had lain dormant until the 15^th century, and, when rediscovered, played a major role in fueling the scientific achievements of the Renaissance, and giving modern science its kick-start.

Why had Lucretius’ prescient ideas not become the foundation of scientific understanding during his time? Primarily because they clashed with the philosophical and religious beliefs that came to prominence in the centuries after the early flourishing Greek culture. For centuries—up to and throughout the so-called dark ages—the Western world based its views of the natural world on dogma that stifled scientific discovery.

More on Lucretius’ insights next time…