God of Spinoza

Albert Einstein quotes (German born American Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. 1879-1955)

[Valentinian]

If he had a church, I would go there every Sunday. But wait, Spinoza, does in fact, have one. It is just outside my door. Its floor is the dirt clinging to my toes. Its walls are the trees with Autumn's changing colors as its tapestry. The ceiling above is the crisp blue sky checkered with puffy white clouds. And the choir I hear are the birds and insects singing their playful melodies proclaiming their joy of being alive. Who the hell has time to go to church when God is all around?

[OffgridTV]

I believe in the God of Spinoza - Albert Einstein  God of Spinoza

[Oskoreii]

@borghese1 I'm glad you ansvered in a scivilized manner. There's too much anger going on in the religious discussions. There is one important observation I want to share though. I think the notion "God" is rather meaningless as long as we don't ascribe any sort of "will" to him, meaning that the god of Spinoza is fully compatible with spiritualism, theism, agnoticism and atheism. With that being said, Sagan clearly defined himself as an agnostic.

[Valentinian]

@bananajoe090: That is a great analogy, and I'd even use a different term of 'self-similar equivalent' and just say that they are holograms of each other, or even reflections on different levels.

[coreydoyle]

Couldn't have said it better. Kudos.

-Cheers

[SimulacraMan]

The quest for proof of existence is not wholly relevant to the actual existing. Ones existence is not solely predicated upon outside interaction. It is not so much that one cannot know the being of another outside their own, but one cannot be the being through the spectrum of their own being. However, they can know the being through their own being.

[gdogvibes]

Sinfonia in A major Op. 37 n. 4 (G518) (III. Andante)

[bananajoe]

God and the universe are the self-similar equivalent to brain and body.

[Galoxieview]

It can put the most fundamental common beliefs into an easily presentable package. I dont want to write a Holy Book every time someone asks what religion i am. So i say pantheist mostly and let them do their own homework. I can elaborate later if needed.

[LiquidPromotionz]

Although, I think that it is necessary to bear in mind that one could to some extent claim that Spinoza can be identified as a dualist, in reference to this single substance that he talks about, as both God and nature are the same reality. This is akin to what Descartes says about the Mind and the Body. Perhaps I might be mistaken but there is to some degree a clear parallel between the two concepts.

[AEidoloclast]

Spinoza's God is not "the sum total of things in the universe". For him, God is the essence of the universe, Nature. There's an important difference here. The modes (such as people, happiness, ideas) are just "expressions" of God. They're all mutable, so the universe as a sum of modes is always subject to change. However, the underlying substance is "eternal"--in the sense that whatever it expresses cannot be exhausted. It's also simple, unlike the universe, meaning we can understand it clearly.

[jonathanhalloran]

There are a couple of bold ass assertions in there.

[jeangophile]

“In every man there is an unknown spark which seeks—indeed, demands—to unite with God. And occasionally he is aroused and craves to know God, or deny God which is the same thing” (Ba’al ha-Sullam, Rav Yehudah Ashlag,  The Final Generation).

[abrahamWeizfeldPhD]

No. There is no proof of the non-existence of a diety and likewise there is no proof of such an existence. The absence of an interaction with such an entity proves neither and so makes the question mute, irrelevent and nul. To say that the diety is that which we do not know is to say that the diety is not knowable, which is merely another manner of defining irrelevency.

[gdogvibes]

Care to elaborate? It sounds nice, but how much sense does it actually make? Considering there is a huge disconnect between body and brain. For example, every 10 years ever cell will have been replaced in your body as well as mine. Again I do not know the argument you are trying to make, so please elaborate on your intriguing notion.

[Oskoreii]

If we define God to be the sum of the physical laws that govern the universe, doesn't that make us pantheist?

[Micscience]

Hey I'm cool, God's cool, this song is cool, and the universe and all of it's inhabitants are cool. Fear is not cool, specially when it tries to restrain our instincts.

[TheOHenry]

truth is Einstein didn't Really know what he was. His deistic like views probably changed from day to day. Same with mine.

[YkcorFilms]

He worship the sun and stars its not that hard to understand .... but at the end it's the devil

[thegriggspaul]

nothing is not God? thanks ! thought that was bleeding obvious...!