Stoicism Vs Epicureanism

The nature of the gods is a dialogue in which Cicero compares various schools of thought which are attempting to prove God’s existence, mainly Epicureanism and Stoicism. To do this, he writes a conversation that occurs between Velleius, who is an Epicurean, and Balbus, who is a Stoic. After this comparison, Cicero concludes that Stoicism is a better argument for proof of god than Epicureanism is. In this essay, I will briefly describe the dialogue, and then attempt to logically dissect each argument given to deduce whether Cicero’s initial conclusion is good or bad. The dialogue begins with Velleius, the Epicurean. Velleius has a very unique perspective on the Gods that is rarely seen, in that he believes that the Gods do exist, however they simply do not care about or interact with

His reasoning for this belief is as follows: Most of the schools associate the gods with divinity, in the sense that they have omnipotent control over humans and the world we live in. They believe that the gods watch over humans, and that if they are not properly pious and grateful to the gods for allowing their continued existence, that the gods will come down and smite them. Therefore, most schools conclude that in order to live a blessed life they must follow the will of the gods. Epicureanism, however, does not believe in this definition of a blessed life. Velleius explains that Epicureans believe the world is derived from atoms, rather than caused by gods. Epicureans do believe in gods, however instead of the common opinion that gods created our world and carefully watch over us as we interact in it, Epicureans believe that the gods have simply reached the most blessed form that we are unable to take. In the Epicurean