Epicurus vs Plato

The philosophical justifications for scientific atheism in our tradition go back to the Epicureans. The Epicureans introduced us to the idea of atomism, which proposes that all matter is reducible to infinitesimally tiny particles they called atoms. I've always been curious as to what logical path led them to this conclusion, because it was a brilliant insight. We think of Epicureans now as being people who like to eat well and live the good life but it was originally a school of philosophy named after Epicurus who founded it. It would be a pleasant sojourn to digress into the history behind the idea but this blog isn't primarily concerned with history. Neither is it meant to be scholarly. What I want to do is extract some of the fundamental ideas that shape our culture and one of the main threads originates with the Epicureans which is a good thing to know.
In essence the Epicureans claimed that the only valid knowledge possible comes through the senses. Everything else in their thinking proceeded from this premise, and it ultimately led to the assertion that pleasure was the most important goal a man could strive for. One might ask how they could be sure, since the argument itself is an example of reasoning, not something that can be known through the senses. I'll give them a little slack, though, because it's been a pretty productive axiom upon which to build a sound observational science.
But science would also be impossible without reason, especially the highly abstract form of reasoning known as mathematics. According to tradition Epicurus was born seven years after the death of Plato, and Plato had an entirely different idea that was probably based on his thoughts on geometry. Geometry and philosophy were popular hobbies among the Greek leisure class of his day. The essential thing that Plato noticed about geometry was that it didn't depend on sensory input. In fact there is no such thing as a line, or a point or a triangle in the real world. And how do we know that a square plus b square equals c square? We know these things because we have the power of reasoning. But what is reasoning? Plato theorized that there was a kind of invisible, purer than earthly light, the light of pure reason, corresponding to the light that let's us see things in our sensual world, that illuminated our minds. This was how we were able to reason.
And ever since then there has been an antagonism between the two conceptions of reality, an antagonism that manifests itself in numerous controversies, but right now I would like to draw attention to these two theories of knowledge, and suggest that this is not an exhaustive list. There are other ways we have of knowing.
A third way of knowing was introduced to western thinking when the Graeco-Roman world came up against a group of Semites which occupied Judea. These Jews worshiped an omnipotent, omniscient, immortal deity, a creator of the entire universe who was not contained within the existence we humans know. This deity could not be seen by us, although in times past he had appeared to various prophets and ancestors; records of these visitations were kept by a priestly class which which arbitrated various rituals, practices, laws of behavior. If the god could not be seen, if the god presided over creation in some ethereal universe beyond the reach of our senses, then how could his existence be known? Through faith, a concept that grew to dominate human thinking for the next 2000 years.
One more way of knowing is the way of the artist, poet, composer, architect, even the philosopher and the scientist: the imagination. Imagination is the faculty we use when we wish to bring something new into the world. A song, a sculpture, a story, an airplane, a theory.
The present day theory of science privileges the senses and reason over imagination and faith. Faith is considered an outmoded, discredited form of ignorance rather than knowledge. Scientific theories are logical constructs that are validated by an appeal to the senses... observations, in other words. This is as true of simple mechanical calculations as it is of quantum theory.
While science is wildly successful at manipulating the forces that make it possible to send a rocket to the moon or develop strains of rice and wheat that are productive enough to feed our billions, it has been less successful at ordering human society. In fact, attempts to scientize social structures, as with the bolsheviks and the fascists who have caused more human destruction and misery than any previous dogmatics in human history.
The poor artists don't know what to do. If there is one segment of endeavor which has been decimated by the materialistic doctrines of scientific atheism more than religious institutions it is art. Without belief in transcendent reality then the artist has no idea where his impulse to create comes from, and so he turns to death. It is what he sees, and it is what he portrays in modern art. No longer can he see the transcendent in everyday things and activities. Instead of heroism he sees brutality. Instead of showing the beauties of the human form he tears it apart and reassembles it in grotesque ways. This is self mutilation. The sad little golem I photographed could not be a clearer expression of 'A portrait of the artist as a dead man.'
We live in an age of terrible demoralization. But why? And is there any way out? What if there has been some terrible misunderstanding? I think there has been. And although I don't claim to know all the answers I think I can raise some good questions and point to a new direction. God help me.