Epicurus forcefully attacked superstition. According to Epicurus, the gods are passive: They do not intervene in the world. According to Aristippus, Epicurus believed that the greatest good was to have certain pleasures, and to reach a state of mind where there is no fear and no pain. Epicureanism is a form of hedonism, which declares that pleasure is the only good there is. Epicureanism says that the absence of pain is the greatest pleasure; it also advocates a simple life. These ideas make it sufficiently different from "hedonism" as it is usually defined.