Question for Bosse de Nage.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Thus, he was shamed into groveling for it. Intellectual honesty demands a stand regardless of how others around us receive it. Perhaps even rejection stands in the wings, waiting to reward the cast of our meager singular vote.

Why should anyone establish self rules for intellectual honesty based on someone else's standards?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Thus, he was shamed into groveling for it. Intellectual honesty demands a stand regardless of how others around us receive it. Perhaps even rejection stands in the wings, waiting to reward the cast of our meager singular vote.

But this is my very question: Why, if he was so articulate on his
beliefs about (what he called) God and especially since he defended
himself against the very claim of being an atheist, did he maintain
that he was a theist?

Obviously, he didn't have any shame in making his unorthodox
claims about who he thought God was even though it was radical and
pointed.

Did he have a different understanding of what it meant to be an
atheist than has come to be now? That is, by his criteria (if they are
discussed somewhere), would bbarr, starrman, or rwingett be theists?

I suppose I'm guessing that, somehow, he must have thought there
was a 'remainder' that distinguished him from the atheists of his day.
Whether he articulates it or not, I don't know (I've read nothing
except excerpts I can find on the internet).

Nemesio

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Thus, he was shamed into groveling for it. Intellectual honesty demands a stand regardless of how others around us receive it. Perhaps even rejection stands in the wings, waiting to reward the cast of our meager singular vote.

Spinoza didn't take stands? Please.

I don't agree he was an atheist according to the accepted use of the term. His views seem closer to some kind of pantheism.

EDIT: This doesn't sound particularly atheistic:

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things. All things which are, are in God. Besides God there can be no substance, that is, nothing in itself external to God. [I.17]

http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/spinoza.htm

Originally posted by Nemesio
Does that mean that he is only a theist in nomine, that his
identification of God as identical to the Natural World -- as
opposed to the Natural World's being part of God's infinitude --
means that he is in actuality an atheist?

Nemesio

Naturalistic Pantheism isn't exactly atheism, because it affirms the divine characteristic of nature.

Personally, I don't consider Spinoza an atheist.

Edit - I posted this before seeing no1marauder's post. Sorry for the repetition.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Spinoza didn't take stands? Please.

I don't agree he was an atheist according to the accepted use of the term. His views seem closer to some kind of pantheism.

EDIT: This doesn't sound particularly atheistic:

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things. All things which are, are in God. Besides God there ca ...[text shortened]... is, nothing in itself external to God. [I.17]

http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/spinoza.htm

Read the TTP. You'll find that he will use theistic language throughout, but will also maintain throughout that his theistic language can be reduced to naturalistic language.

Originally posted by bbarr
Read the TTP. You'll find that he will use theistic language throughout, but will also maintain throughout that his theistic language can be reduced to naturalistic language.

All speculation by any human about a god does not determine whether there is or is not a god. If 6 billion people decided there was a god or specific attributes of a god, it cannot change the reality of the situation, whether there are 6 billion atheists proclaiming there is no god when the fact may be there is one or the opposite, 6 billion theists proclaiming god to be a fact when there is not one will not bring one into existance. My point is we need to concentrate more on the problems existant on earth and people than obsessing about whether there is a god and how and why to worship one. Religion has only one good purpose: binding of social values in a society. The problem with that is, because no god has come forth and announce its presence in a world-wide way, we are left with men who pronounce to the world they have had a singular contact with god and then proceed to convince followers who have absolutely no way to prove or disprove it, only to be convinced by these deluded individuals they had a message from god. If there was an all powerful god, it would not need to just contact one individual and thus establish a heirarchy when in fact a real god could just as easily 'talk' to every mind on earth at the same time, including ones who may be intelligent but not humans, like dolphins or bonobos or elephants. Since that did not happen we can only conclude either there is no god or if there is a god it has left the entire solar system or maybe the entire universe to its own devices. Either way we are at the mercy of anyone deluding himself into thinking he has had a unique contact with god who then can convince many followers and can then make up his rules as he goes along. The problem with that of course is this: there are many deluded individuals on the planet, any of which can simply state some contact with god and his own take on the matter which of course leads to contradictory religions bent of the destruction of other religions or sects within the same religion. Do you see my point here? If there was a heirarchy in fact, then the individuals involved would get the same message and the religions around the world would have the same rules but as it is the rules just reflect the prevailing mores of an individual society and thus inevitably clash with others. This clashing is what tells me either there is no god or this god has rolled the dice and let it go and gone on to other pursuits.

Originally posted by Nemesio
But this is my very question: Why, if he was so articulate on his
beliefs about (what he called) God and especially since he defended
himself against the very claim of being an atheist, did he maintain
that he was a theist?

Obviously, he didn't have any shame in making his unorthodox
claims about who he thought God was even though it was radical I don't know (I've read nothing
except excerpts I can find on the internet).

Nemesio

The definition of 'atheist' has indeed changed over the years. It used to be that atheism was used as a slur for those who didn't believe in a specifically christian god. Thomas Jefferson was widely denounced as being an atheist in his day. But Jefferson did believe in a Deist god, so by today's definition he would not be considered an atheist. It seems a similar case with Spinoza. He was a theist by today's standards, but an atheist by the prevailing standards of the day.

Originally posted by bbarr
Read the TTP. You'll find that he will use theistic language throughout, but will also maintain throughout that his theistic language can be reduced to naturalistic language.

I hate homework. Is it full of those fancy, schmazy "technical" philosophical terms that us dunderheaded yokels have no hope of understanding?😛

Originally posted by Palynka
Naturalistic Pantheism isn't exactly atheism, because it affirms the divine characteristic of nature.

Personally, I don't consider Spinoza an atheist.

Edit - I posted this before seeing no1marauder's post. Sorry for the repetition.

Spinoza echoes Blake's "everything that lives is holy", albeit in very different language and without illustrations.

For some reason I am finding the statement "I am an atheist" ridiculous; perhaps Spinoza did too!

Originally posted by Moritsune
^^^^ This is oddly comforting to me.

Knowing that even back then people were gnawing at well established opinions. So much so that their questions would still be very much relevant today.

Do you happen to have any more reading on Spinoza in mind other than the link you posted in another thread Bosse?

Sorry, I don't--I'm just reading slowly through his Ethics. I started because I wondered why Borges held him in such high regard; now I'm falling under his spell.

Bbarr's the big brain around here, he could provide a reading list I'm sure.

I'm curious as to why you're interested in this stuff yourself.

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
What does the universe think about, in your view? Does it wonder how its own consciousness emerges from a strictly material universe?

Cease thy conceptual idolatry!

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
What does the universe think about, in your view? Does it wonder how its own consciousness emerges from a strictly material universe?

I wonder if it worships Muffy?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I wonder if it worships Muffy?

If we all forgot about Muffy, would She cease to exist?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
For some reason I am finding the statement "I am an atheist" ridiculous

Hey! Only us atheists may say that about you theists! 😠

😉

We've been found out?!?! GASP