1. Everything is made of invisible particles.
2. The elementary particles of matter –
“the seeds of the things” – are eternal.
3. The elementary particles are infinite in
number, but limited in shape and size.
4. All particles are in motion in an infinite void.
5. The universe has no creator or designer.
6. Everything comes into being as a result
of a swerve.
7. The swerve is the result of free will.
8. Nature ceaselessly experiments.
9. The universe was not created for or
about humans..
10. Human society began not in a Golden Age
of tranquility and plenty, but in a primitive
battle of survival.
11. There is no afterlife.
12. Death is nothing to us.
13. All organized religions are superstitious
delusions.
14. Religions are invariably cruel.
15. There are no angels, demons, or ghosts.
16. The highest goal of human life is the
enhancement of pleasure and the
reduction of pain.
17. The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain;
it is delusion.
18. Understanding the nature of things generates
deep wonder.

SWERVE:

‘”If all the individual particles, in their infinite numbers, fell through the void like raindrops, nothing would ever exist. But the particles do not move lockstep in a preordained single direction. Instead, “at absolutely unpredictable times and places, they deflect slightly from their straight course, to a degree that could be described as no more than a shift of movement.” p. 188

The slightest swerve sets in motion chain reactions. “Whatever exists in the universe exists because of these random collisions of minute particles.”

from: The Swerve; How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt