Lucretius: The Roman Poet of Freethought. (Great Minds).

From: Free Inquiry | Date: December 22, 2001| Author: | Copyright information

The Roman philosopher-poet Lucretius (99-55 B.C.E.) was a stalwart progenitor of free inquiry and an ardent foe of supernaturalism. In De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), he insisted that humans must unshackle themselves from superstition, irrational fears, and hollow pieties; they must exercise reason and adopt a scientific mindset.

Lucretius is sometimes classified as an atheist. He wasn't, not exactly; but the gods in which he purported to believe were singularly ungodly. They didn't create the universe, stage-manage events, answer prayers, reward virtue, punish ...

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