Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

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Belinda
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Belinda »

promethean75 wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:21 pm so Spinoza brought us back to the ol' Aristotlean prime mover sans final causes huh... the church wuz shaken beyond measure and the scholastic philosopher unemployment numbers nearly tripled in Europe as churches and universities everywhere fell into crisis and disarray.

okay that's not really what happened but that would have been cool if it did happen like that.
:D
popeye1945
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by popeye1945 »

Spinoza's god is natural, traditional religions, read the desert religions are supernatural.
owl of Minerva
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by owl of Minerva »

Spinoza’s philosophy is speculative like all philosophies and has to be taken with a grain of salt. Of course it enforces the idea that nature is all there is and materialists are happy with that view. Spinoza did away with the Goddess. As his tradition was all about God with the goddess being dubious he did not take that step too far and embrace nature as Goddess.

What did Spinoza know about the forces e.g. the strong, weak and neutral? He passed on before anything much was known, before Newton’s theories. As Chinese philosophy has it nothing happens without three in the world of darkness or in the world of light. Hence a triune force is also seen as necessarily preceding the material forces that underlie matter. Hence the concept of the Trinity, a triune God in manifestation, united as one in transcendence. The one substance that in Spinoza’s view is nature alone.

Spirit, Nature and their dance ‘Spirit and Nature dancing together victory to Spirit and victory to Nature’ indicates bringing forth the Son, human consciousness which can evolve itself all the way to Enlightenment. That is the religious perspective.

Otherwise it is all for naught, repeated cycles that accomplish nothing. The Eastern sages calculated the age of a universe based on multiples of pi as having a day (manifested) and a night {not manifested) until it emerges again. That is also the view of of the multiverse held by some physicists, serial rather than co-existing.

Something should be accomplished in those trillions of years such as the evolution of consciousness, otherwise what is the point of it all.
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attofishpi
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

Sculptor wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 11:59 am
Belinda wrote: Mon Jan 16, 2023 12:34 am Spinoza loved God so much that he spent most of his life proving that God is good, and the more you get to know God through reason and knowledge the closer you are to God. He is not a theist, he is panentheist. I.e. God is not a person.
Almost true.
The trouble with the word pantheist is that it is most often used to describe an omnipresent "personal" God.
For Spinoza god was not conscious; not reactive; has no desires, wants or needs; is utterly determined. God is the essence and substance of everything, the laws of the universe: nature itself; good and bad.

God is so much the same as nature, it always puzzled me why use the term god at all. That might have had something to do with the fact that atheism was a burning issue; in a very literal sense.
What do you think of the term Spinoza used to refer to the essence, the nature of God as "immanent cause"?

I am irked by it.. :)
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Sculptor
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Sculptor »

attofishpi wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 8:52 am
Sculptor wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 11:59 am
Belinda wrote: Mon Jan 16, 2023 12:34 am Spinoza loved God so much that he spent most of his life proving that God is good, and the more you get to know God through reason and knowledge the closer you are to God. He is not a theist, he is panentheist. I.e. God is not a person.
Almost true.
The trouble with the word pantheist is that it is most often used to describe an omnipresent "personal" God.
For Spinoza god was not conscious; not reactive; has no desires, wants or needs; is utterly determined. God is the essence and substance of everything, the laws of the universe: nature itself; good and bad.

God is so much the same as nature, it always puzzled me why use the term god at all. That might have had something to do with the fact that atheism was a burning issue; in a very literal sense.
What do you think of the term Spinoza used to refer to the essence, the nature of God as "immanent cause"?

I am irked by it.. :)
God is not free. Everything that happens in the world is a necessary consequence of the nature of the universe itself.
He means that the universe is wholly deterministic. God does not reflect; does not desire; does not want; nor care.
Care is an emergent quality and is human, all too human.
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attofishpi
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

Sculptor wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 9:01 am
attofishpi wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 8:52 am
Sculptor wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2023 11:59 am

Almost true.
The trouble with the word pantheist is that it is most often used to describe an omnipresent "personal" God.
For Spinoza god was not conscious; not reactive; has no desires, wants or needs; is utterly determined. God is the essence and substance of everything, the laws of the universe: nature itself; good and bad.

God is so much the same as nature, it always puzzled me why use the term god at all. That might have had something to do with the fact that atheism was a burning issue; in a very literal sense.
What do you think of the term Spinoza used to refer to the essence, the nature of God as "immanent cause"?

I am irked by it.. :)
God is not free. Everything that happens in the world is a necessary consequence of the nature of the universe itself.
He means that the universe is wholly deterministic. God does not reflect; does not desire; does not want; nor care.
Care is an emergent quality and is human, all too human.
Yes and I understand that, but I am irked by the term "immanent cause".

I finally found today the research I had done on Spinoza (that was assisted with ChatGPT) before my PC "deterministically" got shagged in a bad way.
This term, an alternative to 'transitive cause' - an actual cause that makes sense to me doesn't make sense.

Is immanent cause a term used widely? There is no causality to it beyond humans applying definitions to things. (retro in time) :wink:
Belinda
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Belinda »

Spinoza was no atheist. Spinoza believed God-or-Nature really exists and is the uncaused cause of everything.

Immanent cause is ongoing and unalterable cause. For Spinoza, God-or-Nature is ongoing and unalterable.
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attofishpi
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

Belinda wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 10:27 am Spinoza was no atheist. Spinoza believed God-or-Nature really exists and is the uncaused cause of everything.

Immanent cause is ongoing and unalterable cause. For Spinoza, God-or-Nature is ongoing and unalterable.
Belinda, I respect you and sincerely apologise if I offended you not so long ago...but I actually think that beyond Spinoza stating deus sive natura - rendering him theist by his own definition of God - he may as well be considered atheist with such a definition devoid of God having any intelligent transitive causal nature.

It's like Skepdick stated - Frank defines his shoe as God - Frank is not an atheist. Spinoza and Frank are rather similar.
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Sculptor
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Sculptor »

Belinda wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 10:27 am Spinoza was no atheist. Spinoza believed God-or-Nature really exists and is the uncaused cause of everything.

Immanent cause is ongoing and unalterable cause. For Spinoza, God-or-Nature is ongoing and unalterable.
Spinoza was an atheist, since what he called god was nature. Mute. deterministic, non intervening,. ANd not at ll how "god" was defined elsewhere. His contemporaries had they the skills to read his ethics would have condemned him as an atheist.
If he had been honest, he'd have been killed.
As it was his own community excomunicated him.
Last edited by Sculptor on Tue May 16, 2023 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Sculptor
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Sculptor »

attofishpi wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 9:12 am
Sculptor wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 9:01 am
attofishpi wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 8:52 am

What do you think of the term Spinoza used to refer to the essence, the nature of God as "immanent cause"?

I am irked by it.. :)
God is not free. Everything that happens in the world is a necessary consequence of the nature of the universe itself.
He means that the universe is wholly deterministic. God does not reflect; does not desire; does not want; nor care.
Care is an emergent quality and is human, all too human.
Yes and I understand that, but I am irked by the term "immanent cause".

I finally found today the research I had done on Spinoza (that was assisted with ChatGPT) before my PC "deterministically" got shagged in a bad way.
This term, an alternative to 'transitive cause' - an actual cause that makes sense to me doesn't make sense.

Is immanent cause a term used widely? There is no causality to it beyond humans applying definitions to things. (retro in time) :wink:
I can't see how "transitive" can help in this context.
unless...
So the idea would be that is a leads to b and b leads to c then it hold that c leads to a. I suppose we could conclude that it simplies a uniformitarianism.
Whilst "immanent" would imply ever present. The idea is that the world evolves according to constant change which, in some ways would also have to bu uniform.
That would make both compatible?
promethean75
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by promethean75 »

one time some n*gga tried to stab Spinz becuz of his radical views against Judaism. those boys went hard af back then u guys. Vigilante Jewish Assassins to kill Atheistic Rationalist Philosophers. 

Spinz had his special battlemage cloak on tho so the blade never found its prize. he kept that cloak as a momento.
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Sculptor
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Sculptor »

I've dug out a couple of quotes from a study I did a few years ago..
It is accepted as certain that God directs all things to a definite goal (for it is said that God made all things for man, and man that he might worship him). I will, therefore, consider this opinion, asking first, why it obtains general credence... I will point out its falsity… and how it has given rise to prejudices about good and bad.[ Ethics Appendix, p75]
Here we see Spin defining what god is in order to challenge it.
[Providence he says]:This doctrine does away with the perfection of God: for if God acts for an object, he necessarily desires something which he lacks.[ Ethics I. Appendix, p77]


His strategy is to pick on eveyday assumptions about god so as to unpack them, as either inconsistent to other ideas, or inherently meaningless.
Providence, vengeance, disappointment, and a rage of other characteristics attributed to god is incompatible with omnipotence omnicience and so forth.
Spinoza's geometic "proof" of god is characterised by unpacking and destorying everything beleived about god.

Some of what I learned about SPinog was through this book.
Mason, R. (1997). The God of Spinoza. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mason was unequivocal in calling him an atheist.
Belinda
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Belinda »

attofishpi wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 10:45 am
Belinda wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 10:27 am Spinoza was no atheist. Spinoza believed God-or-Nature really exists and is the uncaused cause of everything.

Immanent cause is ongoing and unalterable cause. For Spinoza, God-or-Nature is ongoing and unalterable.
Belinda, I respect you and sincerely apologise if I offended you not so long ago...but I actually think that beyond Spinoza stating deus sive natura - rendering him theist by his own definition of God - he may as well be considered atheist with such a definition devoid of God having any intelligent transitive causal nature.

It's like Skepdick stated - Frank defines his shoe as God - Frank is not an atheist. Spinoza and Frank are rather similar.
God-or-Nature is not a person like most Christians believe in. Also God-or-Nature does not intervene miraculously in history.
I don't resent anything you have written to me or anyone else Attofishpi. I feel offended from time to time like anyone else but as soon as the offender writes something interesting I forget the offence.
Flannel Jesus
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Flannel Jesus »

attofishpi wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 10:45 am It's like Skepdick stated - Frank defines his shoe as God - Frank is not an atheist. Spinoza and Frank are rather similar.
I don't think Frank defining his own use of the word God is what decides if other people think he's an atheist or not.

If Melissa McCarthy defines fat as weighing 2000 pounds, I'm still going to consider her obese. I don't use her definition to decide what I think of her.

If Frank doesn't believe in a deity, then it doesn't matter how he chooses to use the word "god" - he's still an atheist. Him telling me he put on a pair of gods in the morning doesn't change that.
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Re: Was Spinoza Actually An Atheist?

Post by Skepdick »

Flannel Jesus wrote: Tue May 16, 2023 6:54 pm I don't think Frank defining his own use of the word God is what decides if other people think he's an atheist or not.

If Melissa McCarthy defines fat as weighing 2000 pounds, I'm still going to consider her obese. I don't use her definition to decide what I think of her.

If Frank doesn't believe in a deity, then it doesn't matter how he chooses to use the word "god" - he's still an atheist. Him telling me he put on a pair of gods in the morning doesn't change that.
Well, we have this settled this then.

It doesn't matter how anybody uses the word atheist - I am going to use my definition to decide what I think of them.

And I've undefined that term - so everybody who thinks they are an atheists is confused.
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