Epicurus as the founder of an anti-religious religion
(Harold Bloom, in Genius, in the section on Lucretius)
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Bloom is commenting on Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, calling it a 'poetry of belief.' Lucretius, being a disciple of Epicurus, is seen as one who believes SOS strongly in materialism that his anti-religious perspective takes on religious import. Thus, Bloom names it 'anti-religious religion.'
We see this kind of vehoment atheism today in the writings of Christopher Hitchins and Richard Dawking. They write with religious fervor against religion. Paul Tillich taught us that true faith is about Ultimate Concern. Serious atheists have an Ultimate Comcern about ultimate reality in the same way as Christian theology does. Therefore, their atheism functions as a religion. Even Nietzsche was religious in his own way.
Humans can get away from neither religion nor myth. Both are inherently part of human consciousness. The discipline of science is a form of faith. Science has faith in Order; it is based on the myth of the existence of 'laws of nature.'
I thank God for the religion called Science. Faith in the orderliness of the universe has brought us much progress and pleasure.
