Nestor, your post made me immediately think of that other thread in which I recommended a book that you have said you have not yet gotten. From that other thread:
The primary focus of those philosophers was on how to live a good life. I particularly recommend Epicurus. (As an aside, the English word "epicurean" almost means the exact opposite of what Epicurus actually advocated. This is because of the lies spread by Christians who hated him and wanted to stamp out his philosophy. Fortunately a few [but only a few] of his writings remain, as Christians destroyed most of his writings in their efforts to stamp him out.)
Here is a sample:
As for your future nonexistence, you should consider how things were for you in the year 1800. Was 1800 a bad year for you in any way at all? That will be how your years will be once you are dead. Nothing bad can happen to you when you cease to exist. Not even boredom.
- I recommend getting an old copy of The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers: The Complete Extant Writings of Epicurus, Epicetus, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius edited by Whitney J. Oates. You can buy this from web sites that sell used books, and it can be currently had from Amazon for about $22 including shipping, though you may be able to find it cheaper elsewhere. It contains a very good translation of Epicurus' works, which I highly recommend to everyone.
The primary focus of those philosophers was on how to live a good life. I particularly recommend Epicurus. (As an aside, the English word "epicurean" almost means the exact opposite of what Epicurus actually advocated. This is because of the lies spread by Christians who hated him and wanted to stamp out his philosophy. Fortunately a few [but only a few] of his writings remain, as Christians destroyed most of his writings in their efforts to stamp him out.)
Here is a sample:
- Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer.
As for your future nonexistence, you should consider how things were for you in the year 1800. Was 1800 a bad year for you in any way at all? That will be how your years will be once you are dead. Nothing bad can happen to you when you cease to exist. Not even boredom.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
