EPICURUS

(341-270 BC) Good is pleasure, pain is evil. Uncontrolled pursuit of pleasure results not in more pleasure but in pain. Therefore we must live austere to avoid pain. Pain, fear of death, and fear of the gods were the greatest threats to man's happiness. If the world (including man) were just chance combinations of atoms, then we would feel pain only as long as we are alive; but when we die, the atoms dispense and we cannot suffer any feelings of evil or fear. The gods are merely combinations of atoms, with no power to rule or punish men. If lightning strikes a man, it is a natural accident and not Zeus hurling a thunderbolt to punish him. These fears should not disturb a person's tranquility (i.e., religion and concepts of God arise through ignorance and fear).