There was no single moment of creation, but a gradual evolution, with many false starts and dead ends. Various tools were added to help species survive. Eyes are a good example. But survival is not a foregone conclusion. Many species have been and gone, and maybe we are in self-destruct mode ourselves owing to selfishness, greed and the passion for power. When we are history other species will take our place. The bonobos?
Is this your exegesis built upon Darwinian theory, or is this Epicurus’ teaching? If the latter, then he was extremely prescient with his ideas. I suggest you are, however,as an Epicurian, interpreting his teaching through the eyes of the biological understanding we have today.
I think that is a fair comment. You cannot expect Epicurus, equipped with the meagre scientific knowledge of his day, to have put forward a full Darwinian theory of life. Science builds gradually step by step. Scientists today talk about the Wave Structure of Matter, where every wave center is vibrating and exchanging information with everything else. This is a sophisticated version of the Epicurean idea that atoms “swerve’, join together, form a huge array of objects, then dissolve into something else. Knowledge of the universe moves on, but without Epicurus and his fellow atomists, the work of professional scientists who came after him might never have happened.
My main point is that both Epicurus and modern day scientists believe that the universe developed over billions of years in stops and starts and accidents, and that there was no particular week 6000 ago when, miracle of miracles, everything in the universe from the mightiest sun to the tiniest mouse, was created from scratch. This is a creation myth, cleverly devised by primitive man, but a fairy tale nonetheless.
Many cultures have devised Creation myths in a attempt to explain the world, using the understanding they had at the time.
However, what I question is your assumption that scientists would not be at the stage of knowledge they are today had it not been for Epicuras. Isaac Newton claimed that he could see further because he was standing on the shoulders of giants, but I doubt very much that it was Epicurus he was .thinking about. As far as I know he never acknowledged him as his inspiration . NEither has any particle physisist,who mainly extrapolate their theories from mathematic not from philosophy.
Then I suggest you should read “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern” by Professor
Greenblatt of Harvard University. You can buy it on Amazon. I assure you it is not long, not a philosophy lecture, but is very well written and very interesting historically, a must if you are interested in this subject.
What he is basically saying is that by chance a single copy of the poem by Lucretius, “The Nature of Things” was discovered in a German monastery by a humanist Italian in the early 15th Century. The Catholic church had destroyed everything it could find about Epicurus, and branded him an atheist and an organiser of orgies. This one book survived and the finder, Poggio Braccolini had it copied and circulated. It took time, but in due course the idea of atomism and all that Epicurus, through Lucretius, had to say, altered society’s approach both to the Catholic message and to science. Modern particle physicists may not know much about Epicurus, but it influenced a huge number of opinion-makers – Gassendi, Moliere, John Evelyn, Hobbes, Edmund Spencer, Francis Bacon; the list go on and on. Without this poetic catalyst modern science may not have taken off – certainly the Catholic church did its utmost to crush it. Actually Newton was a bit like you – he described himself as an atomist (so he was influenced by Epicurus), but he still thought that God had created the atom. So he was wavering somewhere in the middle. And wasn’t Newton also the man who dabbled in trying to turn base metals into gold? Scientific progress isn’t linear.
I find your comments quite interesting, overall very thoughtful and done with a inoffensive manner, except in areas of religion. You said there was no moment of creation, that is more difficult to prove than it is to prove creation. There are many arguments for and against creation, but in the end the evolutionist must still answer the question, what is the first cause? They are stuck with the claim that nothing developed into something, how does that work?
You also state that as evolution progressed various tools were added for our survival, added by who or what?
Even Darwin stated that the eye was a problem for his theory, unless all components of the eye are functioning completely there is no sight, therefore it is not poor sight evolving into better sight but would have to be no sight evolving into perfect sight, Darwin knew this was not possible. All the components of the eye would have to evolve at the same time and to perfection for there to be any sight.
You have created a great blog, very thought provoking.