It is important for Epicureans to be not only tolerant, but to be seen to be tolerant of the views of others. American religious fundamentalists are attacking Epicureans as godless, without values or ethics .  These attacks can only get worse this year in election year, since these people have clear political ambitions that are indistinguishable from the Republican Party.
Maybe we cannot have a rational world, but there is no harm in engaging with moderate Christians and pointing out that you certainly do not have to be a born-again Christian to lead a strong moral and ethical life. To say otherwise is outrageous.
On this blog we try to put forward an interpretation of Epicureanism based on moderation, enjoyment of life, tranquility, friendship, lack of fear. If we can also restore the reputation of Epicurus and his common sense ideas then the effort will not be wasted.
Real Christians believe in love and in the community.
Perhaps we have to confront bigotry, irrationality, and untruths wherever we find them and that, it seems to me, means resisting the “darkness” in whatever social context we find ourselves, as you wrote about yesterday.
We don’t have to become holier-than-thou “virtue mongers” like the old Puritans who flattered themselves that they were a “City on the Hill.” Nor do we speak ex cathedra like the Vatican with its pelvic obsessions. In any area of life, those “I’ve got the truth” groups are a turn-off.
Epicureans and all other people of good will in a relatively democratic system must be tolerant not because it’s virtuous but because it is REALISTIC. We can’t smite everyone, ignorance and coarseness abound but it can confronted and rejected.
That’s not much of a Big Plan, I know, but maybe it’s like using a little megaphone and giving a shout-out over the Garden wall.
An excellent article in Newscientist this week describes the finding that the brain has ‘mirror neurones’. These particular neurones ‘light up’ in scans when a person is presented with various scenarios where OTHER people are seen in situations where they become stressed, angry, sad, distressed (etc).They are the same neurones that ‘light up’ when this same person is, themselves, distressed, angry etc.
According to the scientists involved, this shows that we are hard wired for empathy and therefore to behave ethically. It is therefore logical to assume that every human of whatever religious persuasion has the same basic ethical values. These ethical values will be overlaid, somewhat by cultural differences, but at the same time it puts paid to the modern idea of relativism. (nothing is either right or wrong; thinking makes it so)
A corollary is that maybe there is a deficit in these particular neurones where autistic, psychotic or otherwise damaged people are concerned.
I realise that this theory reduces ethics to reductionism and leaves wide open the argument that therefore people are not personally responsible for being unethical!
Epicurus would not agree with the last remark.
Thinking further about my last post, re ethics being ‘hard wired’ via ‘mirror neurones’ which operate on all but the damaged. This does not explain how the process can be over ridden by brain washing. How could decent, educated people with families they loved and cared about, plan and execute the ‘final solution’ and even watch as whole families including babies were gassed and thrown into ovens.
I must write to Newscientist!
Jane – thanks for your two helpful comments. I’ve been following the research re brain chemistry, “mirror” neurons etc. for awhile now. I’m persuaded by much of what I read, including Antonio Damasio’s “The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness.”
Still, like your second thoughts, I’m uncomfortable with huge leaps from neuronal data to ethical conclusions. Despite this unease, though, I’m attracted to the idea of being “hard-wire” (the meaning of which is hardly scientifically clear) for empathy. That’s one of the suggestions of Damasio’s work in which he theorizes about a particular section of the brain (which I’ve forgotten) and autistic people’s inability to read social cues.
Thanks for BOTH your comments. I love it when people, including myself, “rethink” in an effort to inch to a more truthful view of things. Actually, that’s my default setting — endless rethink. Gets to be a bit of a haul sometimes, though.