The Book

Concerned about the fate of the oppressed and exiled Tibetan people, Gyatso [the Dalai Lama] once asked Elie Wiesel what has helped the Jews. Wiesel identified three things: a book, solidarity and memory. -Caspar Henderson, the Book of Barely Imagined Beings, p.168

Epicurus was a pragmatist: what good is philosophy if it didn't increase human happiness? Therefore, skepticism had to be rejected, and something had to be identified as truth. Thus he concluded that philosophy had to be dogmatic. "The wise man will not be a doubter but will dogmatize."   He developed the Canon: the criteria of Sensations, Anticipations, and Feelings.

Of course, to dogmatize, there has to be a book. Epicureanism was the first missionary philosophy, and the first universal philosophy. It provided the template that Christianity took over (more on this later). But, as Henderson continues,

To promote solidarity across tribal boundaries it would help if the book were less amenable to sectarian interpretation and contained more truth about the world than the Bible.

He goes on to suggest "the book of life," but this is a cop-out. Where are the Epicurean Little Epitome and Big Epitome for today? Mao's little red book of Physics?

"He insisted that his teachings were the same for all men, assuming that each would benefit by them to the limit of his capacities and opportunities." -NWD, p. 22.

While dogmatism seems repulsive to the scientist, surely we would be better off with articles of faith distilled from physics, geology, and biology, than iron age mythologies. The first missionary religion co-opted the structure of the first missionary philosophy. "As Epicurus rightly discerned, human institutions arise from the evolution of the unintended." -NWD p. 26. Could this debasement be reversed?