>>This makes me think of Antony Flew’s Invisible Gardener. A God who’s indifferent to human suffering might as well be a gardener who’s undetectable by empirical means. One can’t say for certain he doesn’t exist, but if we are left to fend for ourselves in this harsh world, does it even matter if God’s out there or not?

Epicurus said pretty much the same thing: Yes, there are gods, but they are on such a different plane from us that they don't care what we do or what happens to us. Pretty radical for a time when most people thought things like earthquakes and plagues were completely in the hands of the gods, and your community risked disaster if you didn't propitiate them in precisely the right way.

His philosophy became very popular in the Greek and Roman world - and early Christians did all they could to bury it. Hence 'Epicuranism' now means 'to enjoy food and drink'.

Too much to put in a response, but check out Stephen Greenblat's "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern" for a readable into to Lucretius, a Roman adherent of Epicurus - everything else got destroyed (or not preserved - paper only lasts so long) by those pesky Christians - and how that was re-introduced into the European Renaissance.