**Cicero on the nature of the gods** 1 Nature of gods not solved Inactive? Or all things by them Recounts the ancients who say gods don't work Many various opinions on this, hateful to one another Introducing the learned subjects in Latin Reason over authority Pythagoreans guilty of this Disputing all things, doing nothing certainly from Socrates through Carneades Presents different philosophers Some situation, 3 schools representatives talk Stoics and peripatetics on honesty vs profit Creator God's Timaeus vs Providence of Stoics 8 gods, including Sun and Moon Is world the deity or the mind? Insensible being? Then prayers wrong 2 Zeno in Athens a genius, falling into false doctrines Some philosopher doubling the time to respond to the question about gods A priest will assume they exist as most men agree on that Many peoples so savage that no deities Some singular atheists Books burned and exile for agnosticism What body mind life do the gods have? Every place is occupied by body so no atoms Gods made of atoms? Then not eternal Epicurus that senses infallible from confirmation holism Quasi body and quasi blood No more beautiful form than the human one But all creatures like their own form Mention body transformation into triton, etc How few are beautiful Defects often pleasing Some Cthulus at 22.30 Barbarian nation do more beasts Egyptians Ibis form Different forms to Juno, and Jupiter and Jupiter Amon different Many gods Many languages, many names Men lived shorter, so men taken form of gods Zeno abusive language to many Called Socrates buffoon How monkey alike to man?! Egyptians gods better as useful? That Ibis kill serpents But sport, gods should be active Creatures appearing in fire, burning furnaces Aristotle says Orpheus was not a real person Pleasures of the gods? Poets say that feasts, nectar and ambrosia Some man who uprooted all religion 59.00 3 4 questions Existnece Goodness ? Interventions Omniponent omnipressent Who believers in hippocentaurs? Chimaeras? Universal Jove Deities just appeared Romans best specifically in religion, ,avoiding calamities 11.50 World the only perfect thing Animals for man man for contemplation Attainable perfeciton sometimes attained 45 Stars have lively fire so must give rise to quick intellect As evident from creeatires of water and air and earth Also humans the smartest in clear sky climates Starz must moce on tveir own as no gorce grestet 365 days and 6 hous Nature this greater fire and artist 3 Gods no felsh and bone Almost inifite number Hojour as deity as great powr Diana temple burned down the same night Alexander was born 15.30 Stories about titans are folly Goss in every part of nature Religious from re-legendo so rereading 34 regular and immutable motions of the univese3 39 Inviolable regularity of courses Sun much larger than Earth Eclipses explianed Book 2 part 3 11.55 What most wonderful is that the world is durable 47 Sky into knowledge of the Gods into piety into justice All made for us, including Gods and Men Reasonable beings = living by justice and law 53 In the golden age a crime to eat cows Providence watching over us almost Epicurean That Epicurus against divination but its real Providence of Gods over man Illustrious men of Rome and Greece must have had divine inspiration Have been warned of many things through entrails of victims etc so later evolved into divination Book 3 part 1 4 in religion submits to high priests Must believe religion of ancestors without any proof? 9 proofs less important, tradition more Only the most impious deny the Gods 12 fabulous old women stories Chrysippius quoted a lot as agreeing with the the opponent 26 World must have a taegtand it would be arrogant for that to be men, so it must be gods 28 One divine spirit in Nature as disputed 31 Sensibility of pleasure implies pain implies death 41 the oldest Heraclea fought Apollo Some in Egypt some in India 3 Jupiter's Nymphs not gods but have temples Genealogy or deities and it's uncertainties Cryptic mention of sea marriages Ad absurdiym is every phantom of imagination a deity? Rejdefitng gods of the barbarians? All the various animals? But superstition Lucathia Many border cases Storms showrs ad deities So either infinite deities or none Great people of the past Godsess inventing of chariots Part 2 So are the deiti4ws or natural things? Altar to bad fortune as an error in phislophy Ceres as intelligence of the Earth, Neptune od the sea 6 Providence coming form Stoics All opinion is Reason and many suffer from it - all vice from it Poetical deities, poetical fictions Quote form Telemon that is there was Providence good me would be happy bad miserable Basically a theodicy Zeno of Elea died from torture Some famous robber of temples that went unpunished Importance of conscience But gods ignore tribe things Pythagoras sacrifice to the muses after a new discovery - as a false thing For good fortune it foes not mattr how tou lived Gods like kings have their limits That deity cannot be angry Doe they ignore cities or nations? So why not all humanity? Suppose Providence does heaven rotations and other stuff So thus a big argument against Stoics divine Providence Cicero as academicians judges probability not certitude