Single Idea 5731

[catalogued under 28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism]

Full Idea

Why does Jupiter never hurl his thunderbolt upon the earth and let loose his thunder out of a sky that is wholly blue?

Gist of Idea

Why does Jupiter never hurl lightning from a blue sky?

Source

Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], VI.400)

Book Reference

Lucretius: 'On the Nature of the Universe', ed/tr. Latham,Ronald [Penguin 1951], p.229


A Reaction

Nice question! It really doesn't take very much to see through superstition, and the fact that most people believed such things shows how staggeringly uncritical they were in their thinking, until philosophers appeared and taught them how to reason.