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That meant, of course, that you don't have to worry about heaven and hell since, when you're dead, there's nothing left of you. You just dissipate. Nature itself cannot be acted upon by the gods. Nature is self-subsistent and eternal. We pass away, but the atoms exist eternally.

But he was postulating a theory that he didn't really have any scientific evidence for.

He couldn't possibly have known about something called the eternal, unbreakable atom because there weren't such things as microscopes then.

What are some of the primary differences between the Epicurean worldview and the Christian worldview?

It's almost impossible not to find the difference, because they were created as opposites all the way down the line, both in regard to their view of nature, and in regard to human nature. But let's take some really obvious ones. Epicurus, trying to get rid of the gods, argues that nature is eternal.

Christianity says nature came into being from nothing. You've also got the notion in Epicurus and Lucretius that things may look intelligently designed, but they are really caused by sort of the connection between variations of one kind, material variations, and some aspect of chance.

So what does it matter that Christians and Epicurians disagree on this point?

If you view human beings as you would any other animal, and as having come about by chance, your morality has got to follow suit. Your morality can't be as it were written into your nature, given to you by the gods. Even your nature itself is subject to change.

Now, we saw the fall of Epicureanism within Caesar's time because they chose Stoicism over Epicurean thought.

It was pounded. You find all kinds of acidic remarks and diatribes against Epicureanism as Christianity rises. And at the dawn of the Renaissance, interestingly enough, the texts of Epicurus and Lucretius, which had literally been buried in monasteries — were rediscovered and published all over Europe. You can follow the thread of their influence from the 1400s to the 1600s. By the 1800s, it's really set in stone as the view of science. Darwin simply revived the evolutionary account, which was part of the original Epicurean framework more than 2,000 years ago.

How do you see that Darwin's brand of Epicureanism became the basis for moral decline in the West?

We can use some really very obvious examples, such as euthanasia. If you're going to treat human beings as another animal, with nothing to look forward to other than the pleasure they can get from this life or the pain they need to avoid—that's Darwin—you're going to treat them the same way you would your dog or your cat.

So what difference does it make that Darwinism is simply kind of an update of an ancient idea?

First of all, note that Darwinism is not something that was discovered. It's not a scientific discovery. And the sign of this is that it was 2,000 years old before it could have ever had any scientific vindication of it. It's a philosophical account. And that means it's an account of nature that filters out evidence that would contradict it. That's what the Intelligent Design movement is saying: this is not a science, it is a kind of metaphysics. It's a philosophical view that defines science in such a way that will only allow more evidence that supports it.

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June (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47