53 ms·

Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it?

186 points by Petiver 5y ago

anthk 5y ago
I'm tired of these anti-scientific threads pushing superstituous nonsense as science.
- badinfo 5y ago
  Spinoza's God is interesting not because it's a competitor to the Christian God or Thor or whatever, but because it's a rarely-explored aspect of Einstein's belief system (and confusion) about the origins of, well, everything. Questions of religion vs science plague proper scientists too, Einstein among them, and nobody really has a clear answer about how to proceed. It's the sort of inquiry that is itself perhaps a precursor to eventual discoveries -- what is now "What happened before the Big Bang? Did someone create it?" may one day, if we're lucky, be answered by something like "It depends. Which big bang are you talking about?" But there's no harm in asking the questions... just jumping to conclusions.
  - Bobylonian 5y ago
    >>> Questions of religion vs science plague proper scientists too, Einstein among them This is something you are making up, because in his own words Einstein clealry states opposite of your claim: "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
    - badinfo 5y ago
      You can't just take one quote out of context and use it to paint Einstein as altogether disinterested in religion -- he wasn't. To him, there was a difference between believing in Your Own Personal Jesus™, or some variation of Abraham's fickle, meddling god (as in Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, Islam), vs contemplating religion as a social/moral force and a line of philosophical inquiry about the origins of structure and organization in the universe. The whole point of him mentioning "Spinoza's God" is to underscore that difference. Einstein wrote about religion on more than one occasion, and his views weren't as straightforward as "religion is dumb, I don't think about it." Far from it; he recognized the universe as something inherently profound and beautiful and drew from it a philosophical sense of spirituality. No one is accusing him of being a Bible thumping Jesus lover, but he was definitely interested (on the side) on questions of spirituality, purpose, etc. More info in the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_vi... Or this blog: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Parallel%20Universes/Texts/A%20PERSONAL%20GOD.htm http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Parallel%20Uni... I'm not saying this to defend Christianity; I think it's an absurd religion. Just pointing out that Einstein, like many scientists, thought about these questions frequently. Why wouldn't they? Religion can be approached scientifically too, and many practicing scientists are religious -- to a lesser extent than the general population, usually, but far from zero %. Three random data points, lots more if you search for them: https://phys.org/news/2015-12-worldwide-survey-religion-science-scientists.html https://phys.org/news/2015-12-worldwide-survey-religion-scie... https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1936-6434-6-33 https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118... My own personal take is that Einstein recognized the limits of our understanding and drew peace and inspiration from the boundless complexity yet to be understood. He found it powerfully spiritual, but he did not attribute it to a "personal" god the same way a follower of the Abrahamic religions would. Nonetheless he was interested in these questions, even if he didn't have the answers and didn't believe the Christians did.
      - simondotau 5y ago
        You wrote a lot of words to argue an unrelated point. Whether someone is interested in religion is not the same as whether they find truth in religion.
        badinfo 5y ago
        > Whether someone is interested in religion is not the same as whether they find truth in religion. OK, I agree with that assessment. But I wasn't arguing that Einstein was deeply theistic. I was saying he and other scientists were deeply interested in religion -- not to the degree of a theologian, obviously, but interested nonetheless. I believe that to still be true.
- andybak 5y ago
  Would you feel that way about an article on metaphysics or any other branch of philosophy outside of mathematical logic? How about ethics, anthropology or another branch of the humanities that isn't amenable to the scientific method? I suppose I'm asking where you draw the line between "distinct from the sciences" and "anti-scientific"?
  - Bobylonian 5y ago
    So, your argument is that methaphysics is based on belief and no logic? :) TBF, all of those can be expressed into binary code and mathematical formulas and mathematical logic, however there does not exist proof that there exist God. Science requires proving that something exist - not disproving that something that is made up centuries ago does not exist!
    - andybak 5y ago
      > So, your argument is that methaphysics is based on belief and no logic? I'm really not sure where you think I said that. And I think it's a false dichotomy in any case. Logical argument has a place in metaphysics but logic requires agreed axioms and those axioms are by definition not amenable to logic. In general you seem a little bit unclear about the difference between induction and deduction. I'm always a little uncomfortable when people repeatedly use the word "proof" around when defending or defining science. Science doesn't really "prove" anything except in the most causual and colloquial use of the word. Science is always provisional. Proof belongs in mathematics not empirical science.
  - anthk 5y ago
    >How about ethics, anthropology or another branch of the humanities that isn't amenable to the scientific method? Self-organisation to avoid conflict learnt with over millenia of experience in order to survive under a tribe. Where's the magic in Biology? Saving our asses as a collective with different and useful roles gave us far more chances to survive than trying to fight for resources alone.
calebm 5y ago
Personally, I hold the panentheistic ("all in God") view. It's very similar to pantheism; the distinction is that pantheism would say Universe=God, and panentheism would say Universe⊂God.
forgotmypw17 5y ago
Every moment of our existence brings about a certain amount of suffering, and a certain amount of joy. Depending on our choices and intentions, the amounts of joy and suffering for both us and other viewpoints varies. I believe that Universe is continuously solving for the maximum sum amount of joy from all the viewpoints combined. Of course, a certain amount of suffering is required to bring about the joy, whether by providing a comparison, or by carving our abilities and motivations. When I set my intentions for maximum joy and follow through on them, the Universe "likes" and "assists" this in amazing and miraculous ways, which bring about even more joy, and so on. We are truly fortunate to exist in a Universe which is set up this way.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  You seem to be espousing tenants similar to 'The Secret'. Which if that's what you believe, more power to you; each to their own. I tend to think the opposite though, I think the universe tends towards death, and suffering. In the absence of concerted effort death and suffering is the result. Only through hard work and effort is the chance for happiness attained. Although I guess my ideas also seem to espouse 'The Secret', just focused on a different view point.
  - forgotmypw17 5y ago
    Have you heard that there is no objective reality, that each of us is living their own subjective experience, a reflection of our own mental models?
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    Your position is basically that of Camus' absurdism, if you wanted to dig further into the philosophy.
    - wonderwonder 5y ago
      Thank you, I will check it out
- badinfo 5y ago
EMM_386 5y ago
I am extremely scientific and I believe in god. Not quite Spinoza's, more of a pantheistic view. If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. And it's learning about itself.
- seiferteric 5y ago
  I don't believe in any particular god but I do think that the universe and our experience is ultimately unexplainable. So science can never have these answers therefore I am open to theistic arguments but ultimately even these arguments are unsatisfying because it just moves the level of unexplainability up one more level... who created god?
  - EMM_386 5y ago
    > who created god That is why whatever that "thing" is, that's full-stop. That's why we refer to it as god. It requires no explanation, it must be. It's sort of like asking "why do we have something instead of nothing?". Because apparently that's the way it must be. That sounds crazy to scientifically-minded people, myself included, because we want answers to everything. But the turtles will go all the way down until you just decide that there is a "god", whatever that is, and it is necessary. And here we are.
    - seiferteric 5y ago
      That's why I say it is unsatisfying and the universe is ultimately unexplainable because either there is this final "god" and we are incapable of understanding it or there is not and there is infinite levels and we are incapable of understanding it also.
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        Cf. apex (e.g., YHWH) versus non-apex (e.g., the Tao) conceptions of the numinous.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Barrin92 5y ago
>For one thing, it manages to create a profound metaphysical intimacy with God without denying His transcendence. this kind of thinking which I often see when people express pantheistic views is exactly what turns me away from it. It's just as much of an anthropomorphization as the article accuses traditional conceptions of God of. I guess you can think that the universe is in some vague sense conscious, although I don't think the arguments for that are great either, but to jump from this to thinking one can experience 'intimacy' with it (and explicitly not "him") is I think already making mistakes. One can experience intimacy while being in nature but not 'with nature', Intimacy is a human emotion, 'nature' does not empathize back. To me pantheism just seems like a misapplied psychological need. People have a (understandable) revulsion against seeing the universe as mechanic, or random, or 'cold' or what have you, and pantheism not unlike Gaia type theories are comforting.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- brutusborn 5y ago
  Out of interest, what do you beleive in? I agree that pantheism is a misapplied psychological need, but no more so than any relgion or beleif system. I've decided that to fill this need, it is useful to choose a fundamental belief system of some sort. I have choosen Taoism and parts of other Philosophical systems, like Stoicism, where I feel there are gaps.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    > Out of interest, what do you beleive in? not very much, that is to say I'm skeptical of metaphysics altogether. I'm partial to Wittgenstein's attitude, that is to say I think projects like pantheism deflate if you scrutinize them and inquire to what degree they say anything meaningful or well-defined about the world, or if they're really expressions of psychology or linguistics or desire. I do agree with you that all kinds of belief systems may fulfill legitimate needs, but I think they're just that, personal, subjective and private expressions of the individual's attitude towards the world, not meaningful claims about the world as such.
Giorgi 5y ago
it"s pretty much "scared atheist's" apology for a god
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  I don't know, kind of struck me as god in the machine or algorithm approach. Everything works together to create an outcome but the process is unknowable but assumed to be weighted towards kindness. I identify as an athiest and I don't hate it.
  - foxhop 5y ago
    Replace kindness with LOVE. God is the totality of the universe, the Truth. We embody God and comprehend the universe using our 5 senses (some access a 6th) which give people a connection to Truth and nature of reality. We have FREEDOM to operate our bodies on a spectrum, free will of God. We are the universe witnessing the universe. Freedom sets off action which could be labeled "good or evil" based on the morality of the times. The strongest bonds form in LOVE. LOVE drives voluntary cooperation from atoms to cells, to bodies to masses. Another name is the law of attraction.
- kierkegaard7 5y ago
  Doesn't make sense if there's no punisher
  - foxhop 5y ago
    Read my sibling comments.
lalaland1125 5y ago
It seems like the main purpose of Spinoza's God is to have an unfalsifiable God. The problem with other Gods like the Christian God is that they tend to come with requirements about the world that are easy to disprove. For example, the Christian God is not very compatible with the existence of natural evil. By removing all of those implications and other attributes, you arrive a Spinoza's God, a God so vague / powerless that it cannot be argued against.
- brutusborn 5y ago
  Aren't all gods unfalsifiable? And I'd be interested in reasoning behind the God-natural evil argument? I imagine a few Christian Theologians have found a way around it by now.
  - tasty_freeze 5y ago
    > Aren't all gods unfalsifiable? No, that is exactly counter to the point the person you were replying to was making. Amorphous, fluffy definitions of god can be unfalsifiable. But if you declare detailed attributes of your god, they can be in contradiction and thus the claims about that god are falsifiable. But in practice, people are terrific at rationalizing and will overlook all those contradiction and continue to believe their god is the right one.
    - brutusborn 5y ago
      Thanks for the explanation, makes sense that Gods can be falsifiable the same way a good scientific theory is.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  > Christian God is not very compatible with the existence of natural evil See https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1022.htm#article2 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1022.htm#article2
- foxhop 5y ago
  There is no such thing as natural evil. The Inverse of love is fear. Whether something is good or evil has more to do with the social constructs of the times than any morality. That said, a morality based on Truth, Freedom, and Love is cooperative as above and below. The unfalsifiable god is the Truth god.
foxhop 5y ago
I've been thinking a lot of god and have come up with the following, please be kind: --- The Right Way, The Trivium, The Path Towards Illumination. TRUTH - The all knowing all seeing omnipotent natural universe which we have a special connection and natural understanding of. Nature. God. The Universe. In binary this would be 1. The Unified Field. Father. FREEDOM - Sun. The Child Spirit To Play and Create. Son. LOVE - Voluntary Passion, Drive, Motivation, Law of Attraction. Cooperation. Amplifier. Replicator. Wu Wei. Waters. Godly Bodily Fluids of Head and Genitals. Blood. Holy Spirit. The only time Fear is more powerful than Love is when the Truth is hidden and individual Freedoms & essential Property including Body are subject to tyranny. Therefore to stop tyranny in all forms we must live our lives according to natural law and the 3 pillars outlined above. When we do this, together we live our best lives and create the best works of art and science and support each other to great heights. --- This article only focuses on Truth God or Universal god.
- murat124 5y ago
  > The only time Fear is more powerful than Love I think I get what you're saying but above sentence is not correct. Evolution favored fear over love on short term gains and fear very much assisted survival skills for billions of years and love is only new (a few million years?). Not saying that love doesn't have a chance against fear but it is true that negativity (hate, fear, etc) spreads faster than positivity (love, hope, etc). No idea what the solution might be to this fundamental feature(bug?) of our existence.
  - foxhop 5y ago
    Your body wouldn't function without the loving cooperative cells, all parts, all working to make you, a perfect for this current space time human! <3 cooperation or love. Same is true about society, we will rebuild and pivot into a stronger more distributed form, if we follow Truth, Love, And Freedom in our mandates.
    - murat124 5y ago
      That would be a great EPIC: Follow Truth, Love, And Freedom, if only we had a consensus of what they mean.
unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
I'll try to state the thought more simply. "God" is a name we assign to the force behind the original, unexplained creation. Presently that would be the force behind the origin of this amazing universe, light, space. Maybe we push that envelope further in the future, but the boundary always exists. In our understanding there always is a 'first'. We have only the vaguest idea in a cosmic sense how that first came to be. It's pretty neutral and sensible to call "everything" the creator, as Spinoza apparently did, cuz "nothing" sure didn't make the universe. And as a matter of definition, that would be God. What's so fascinating is where this thought exercise may lead. We are talking about everything, acting by law unknown, generating an impossible, unexplainable result. What then don't we know of everything and what possibilities does that raise, relative to its consciousness and intelligence on unimaginable scales of time and of space. I mean, are we gnats on God's ... I'd say eyeball but everything clearly is not human so ... presence? I'm not sure how a serious person who considered the question openly could avoid these conclusions.
- bloopbloop10000 5y ago
  Is there a name for this line of thought? I’ve run into it a few times and find it compelling.
  - analog31 5y ago
    To me it seems equivalent to the "first cause" argument of Thomas Aquinas.
  - tjader 5y ago
    Deism?
  - notsureaboutpg 5y ago
    I mean, it's just theism. Atheism is the rejection of this belief. I think it's a pretty logical step from this to, if our origin is unknown there are two options: 1) Our origin was an accident (and whatever creative force there was was undirected and intentionless), this logically leads down the road to nihilism. 2) Our origin was purposeful (and the creative force behind us was directed and intentioned), this logically leads to some kind of religion.
sorokod 5y ago
A meta question, what is it called when humans get to mould the supreme deity that suits them best?
- bsanr2 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure this was the plot of at least two separate Final Fantasy games. The answer, in one of them, was "France."
mmarq 5y ago
My pet theory in high school was that Spinoza lived in a time when being an atheist could get you arrested and killed, so he came up with this Deus sive natura thing, which is a good cover and in practice is not too far from atheism.
- theroncross 5y ago
  The difference between that and atheism is using a capital G.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  It's not just your pet theory, but a dominant reading of him. Both present and in the past Certainly many of his contemporaries (including Leibniz) and many who read him later saw him as a covert atheist and hated him for it. I'm not sure it's explicitly a cover. I'm not sure he would have actually said "there is no God"; such a phrase might have been actually very difficult for someone to compose in that era, not just because it was shocking but it would be hard to think. Especially one raised in a devout Jewish community (from which he was expelled) (I spent many years studying Spinoza, both in school and in private.)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
Please read Spinoza Ethics. There seems to be much misunderstanding of Spinoza Philosophy going on in here. Which isn't unlike how he was misunderstood during his time.
- anomosmarxist 5y ago
  Ya, wtf. clearly this is a reply chain of intelligent people (?) but not a single post about the actual text. like tldr for spinoza, his writing is far beyond these grasping confusions which could be avoided if anyone cared to have an actual philosophical discussion
Osiris 5y ago
The biggest problem with using the English word "God" is it is loaded with assumptions, beliefs, and huge variability from one person to another. Just uttering the word "God" to someone will create an entirely different mental image for that person than for you (despite similarities or differences of life experience and belief). Thus, any discussion about God starts from the beginning with a huge gulf between the parties involved. You can see it right here in this thread and the way people are responding to the use of the word God.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  And yet it was the only way to speak about these topics in the 17th century when Spinoza was writing.
dukeofdoom 5y ago
Things have come full circle. "Science" is the new Religion. A preacher was court ordered to preach science in Canada, just yesterday. Source: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/an-anti-mask-pastor-has-been-court-ordered-to-preach-science-fined-23000-in-calgary/ar-AAPwIPK?ocid=uxbndlbing https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/an-anti-mask-pastor-has...
intrasight 5y ago
The military-industrial-consumer complex was created by the universe for the sole purpose of supporting the tiny contingent of otherwise non-productive consciousnesses (physicist) who are in a race to document the system in high fidelity before the edifice crumbles - the "system" being the one set of physical constants, out of the infinite number of permutations that didn't make the cut, that resulted in a semi-stable universe.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
The universe became conscious in the form of Spinoza and said ‘who made this?!’
nassimsoftware 5y ago
In math there is the concept of having a first element of a series and no one questions what was the element before the first element because if you can find an element before the first element then by definition that element you thought was first is not the first. In light of this when people try to disprove God by saying then who created God. God is the first element so if you find out that who you think your God is is created then by definition he fails to fulfill the conditions required to be God. You have to look elsewhere. Ok in english the term God is not precise enough, I'll turn to arabic to try to explain my point because this is what I'm the most familiar with. Ilah is the arabic word for divinity. Wahid means 1. Ahad means the only one. Allah means The God (The only God). I don't find it absurd to think that there is The God (Allah): - A being who transcends time because he created time. - A being who transcends logic because he created it and all its rules. - A being who transcends the physical world because he created it.
- flyingchipmann 5y ago
  I agree the logic. To me conceptually god and the creator in cthulhu maybe the same
- 1e-9 5y ago
  > In math there is the concept of having a first element... There is also the mathematical concept of not having a first element of a sequence, where each element has an infinite number of elements indexed before it. You seem to be arguing that the existence of a mathematical concept implies that the universe must follow it. In this case, you have one concept that implies a first element and another that implies no first element. They can’t both be true.
  - nxmnxm99 5y ago
    No, he’s implying that an infinite series doesn’t have to be infinite in both directions to be infinite.
    - 1e-9 5y ago
      >...doesn’t have to be... That argues that there might be a first. To be clear, I’m not saying there isn’t a first. I’m just saying this particular argument doesn’t support the assertion.
ssklash 5y ago
I feel that there is an often unasked question when it comes to discussions about the existence of god. So what? What if he does exist? Why does it automatically follow that we should worship him, pray to him, live our lives for him, etc? Why immediately assume he's good? What if ants in an ant hill see the relatively god-like figure of a 6 year old come and stand over their hill? It's probably 50/50 that he's there to dump water on the hill and destroy it or he is there to simply observe, let alone give them eternal life. I've yet to see a convincing explanation for the existence of suffering. Mostly a lot of handwaving about "mysterious ways" and "plans". We fail to hold god to the same standard we'd hold ourselves to if we could prevent childhood cancer or genocide with the snap of our fingers. You'd be a monster to withhold that power if you were a human being, but somehow god does it out of "love".
- glopes 5y ago
  These questions are exactly why you should read Spinoza’s Ethics.
cratermoon 5y ago
I have a problem with this article because of the sentence, "He loathed groupthink and thought most organised religion, not least of the Judeo-Christian kind, fuelled delusion and sectarianism". I don't have the words to unpack the problems with the term "Judeo-Christian" myself, so I'll leave it to Emily Burack at Alma: https://www.heyalma.com/the-myth-of-judeo-christianity-explained/ https://www.heyalma.com/the-myth-of-judeo-christianity-expla...
Maraguy 5y ago
IMO man can never truly, truly deal with his freedom that is why the search for a God persists.
anomosmarxist 5y ago
so even this decent article is just a surface overview of a brilliant thinker and this reply chain continues such lack of attention towards careful reading and discussion of his text. instead we have everyone sounding off on their own conclusions about god, reality and religion. yet most of these comments are lacking. what exactly? they are lacking thorough, exacting, and critical thinking. sure, healthy opinions are couched in smart minds, but go a step further and read a book, then you can catch up beyond your clumsy, simple, internet level brains.
anomosmarxist 5y ago
here is a quote: "from the necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinite number of things in infinite ways-that is, all things which can fall within the sphere of infinite intellect"
amai 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism
amai 5y ago
"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity." Carl Sagan
- dsign 5y ago
  So God is only confusing notation we are better off without.
  - layer8 5y ago
    The tension is that many people are actually better off with a notion of god in their inner life for their psychological wellbeing, but to avoid cognitive dissonance they also want everyone else to subscribe to the same notion, a conflict which makes society/culture worse off. I don’t think this can be fully resolved.
    - ASalazarMX 5y ago
      > many people are actually better off with a notion of god in their inner life for their psychological wellbeing Much in the sense that lonely children are better off with an imaginary friend, but they're expected to outgrow that as they mature and become well adapted to their environment. Keeping the imaginary friend trades one psychological issue for another.
nsajko 5y ago
See Bostrom's 2003 paper, "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?": https://fermatslibrary.com/s/are-you-living-in-a-computer-simulation https://fermatslibrary.com/s/are-you-living-in-a-computer-si... PDF: https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf
arisAlexis 5y ago
The article first tells us what Spinoza thought and said and the last paragraph is the personal interpretation of the author but one that tries to show that was wht Spinoza thought.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

186 points by Petiver 5y ago

anthk 5y ago

I'm tired of these anti-scientific threads pushing superstituous nonsense as science.

badinfo 5y ago
Spinoza's God is interesting not because it's a competitor to the Christian God or Thor or whatever, but because it's a rarely-explored aspect of Einstein's belief system (and confusion) about the origins of, well, everything. Questions of religion vs science plague proper scientists too, Einstein among them, and nobody really has a clear answer about how to proceed. It's the sort of inquiry that is itself perhaps a precursor to eventual discoveries -- what is now "What happened before the Big Bang? Did someone create it?" may one day, if we're lucky, be answered by something like "It depends. Which big bang are you talking about?" But there's no harm in asking the questions... just jumping to conclusions.
- Bobylonian 5y ago
  >>> Questions of religion vs science plague proper scientists too, Einstein among them This is something you are making up, because in his own words Einstein clealry states opposite of your claim: "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
  - badinfo 5y ago
    You can't just take one quote out of context and use it to paint Einstein as altogether disinterested in religion -- he wasn't. To him, there was a difference between believing in Your Own Personal Jesus™, or some variation of Abraham's fickle, meddling god (as in Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, Islam), vs contemplating religion as a social/moral force and a line of philosophical inquiry about the origins of structure and organization in the universe. The whole point of him mentioning "Spinoza's God" is to underscore that difference. Einstein wrote about religion on more than one occasion, and his views weren't as straightforward as "religion is dumb, I don't think about it." Far from it; he recognized the universe as something inherently profound and beautiful and drew from it a philosophical sense of spirituality. No one is accusing him of being a Bible thumping Jesus lover, but he was definitely interested (on the side) on questions of spirituality, purpose, etc. More info in the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_views_of_Albert_Einstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_philosophical_vi... Or this blog: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Parallel%20Universes/Texts/A%20PERSONAL%20GOD.htm http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Parallel%20Uni... I'm not saying this to defend Christianity; I think it's an absurd religion. Just pointing out that Einstein, like many scientists, thought about these questions frequently. Why wouldn't they? Religion can be approached scientifically too, and many practicing scientists are religious -- to a lesser extent than the general population, usually, but far from zero %. Three random data points, lots more if you search for them: https://phys.org/news/2015-12-worldwide-survey-religion-science-scientists.html https://phys.org/news/2015-12-worldwide-survey-religion-scie... https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/ https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1936-6434-6-33 https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118... My own personal take is that Einstein recognized the limits of our understanding and drew peace and inspiration from the boundless complexity yet to be understood. He found it powerfully spiritual, but he did not attribute it to a "personal" god the same way a follower of the Abrahamic religions would. Nonetheless he was interested in these questions, even if he didn't have the answers and didn't believe the Christians did.
    - simondotau 5y ago
      You wrote a lot of words to argue an unrelated point. Whether someone is interested in religion is not the same as whether they find truth in religion.
      - badinfo 5y ago
        > Whether someone is interested in religion is not the same as whether they find truth in religion. OK, I agree with that assessment. But I wasn't arguing that Einstein was deeply theistic. I was saying he and other scientists were deeply interested in religion -- not to the degree of a theologian, obviously, but interested nonetheless. I believe that to still be true.
andybak 5y ago
Would you feel that way about an article on metaphysics or any other branch of philosophy outside of mathematical logic? How about ethics, anthropology or another branch of the humanities that isn't amenable to the scientific method? I suppose I'm asking where you draw the line between "distinct from the sciences" and "anti-scientific"?
- Bobylonian 5y ago
  So, your argument is that methaphysics is based on belief and no logic? :) TBF, all of those can be expressed into binary code and mathematical formulas and mathematical logic, however there does not exist proof that there exist God. Science requires proving that something exist - not disproving that something that is made up centuries ago does not exist!
  - andybak 5y ago
    > So, your argument is that methaphysics is based on belief and no logic? I'm really not sure where you think I said that. And I think it's a false dichotomy in any case. Logical argument has a place in metaphysics but logic requires agreed axioms and those axioms are by definition not amenable to logic. In general you seem a little bit unclear about the difference between induction and deduction. I'm always a little uncomfortable when people repeatedly use the word "proof" around when defending or defining science. Science doesn't really "prove" anything except in the most causual and colloquial use of the word. Science is always provisional. Proof belongs in mathematics not empirical science.
- anthk 5y ago
  >How about ethics, anthropology or another branch of the humanities that isn't amenable to the scientific method? Self-organisation to avoid conflict learnt with over millenia of experience in order to survive under a tribe. Where's the magic in Biology? Saving our asses as a collective with different and useful roles gave us far more chances to survive than trying to fight for resources alone.

calebm 5y ago

Personally, I hold the panentheistic ("all in God") view. It's very similar to pantheism; the distinction is that pantheism would say Universe=God, and panentheism would say Universe⊂God.

forgotmypw17 5y ago

Every moment of our existence brings about a certain amount of suffering, and a certain amount of joy. Depending on our choices and intentions, the amounts of joy and suffering for both us and other viewpoints varies. I believe that Universe is continuously solving for the maximum sum amount of joy from all the viewpoints combined. Of course, a certain amount of suffering is required to bring about the joy, whether by providing a comparison, or by carving our abilities and motivations. When I set my intentions for maximum joy and follow through on them, the Universe "likes" and "assists" this in amazing and miraculous ways, which bring about even more joy, and so on. We are truly fortunate to exist in a Universe which is set up this way.

wonderwonder 5y ago
You seem to be espousing tenants similar to 'The Secret'. Which if that's what you believe, more power to you; each to their own. I tend to think the opposite though, I think the universe tends towards death, and suffering. In the absence of concerted effort death and suffering is the result. Only through hard work and effort is the chance for happiness attained. Although I guess my ideas also seem to espouse 'The Secret', just focused on a different view point.
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  Have you heard that there is no objective reality, that each of us is living their own subjective experience, a reflection of our own mental models?
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  Your position is basically that of Camus' absurdism, if you wanted to dig further into the philosophy.
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    Thank you, I will check it out
badinfo 5y ago

EMM_386 5y ago

I am extremely scientific and I believe in god. Not quite Spinoza's, more of a pantheistic view. If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it. And it's learning about itself.

seiferteric 5y ago
I don't believe in any particular god but I do think that the universe and our experience is ultimately unexplainable. So science can never have these answers therefore I am open to theistic arguments but ultimately even these arguments are unsatisfying because it just moves the level of unexplainability up one more level... who created god?
- EMM_386 5y ago
  > who created god That is why whatever that "thing" is, that's full-stop. That's why we refer to it as god. It requires no explanation, it must be. It's sort of like asking "why do we have something instead of nothing?". Because apparently that's the way it must be. That sounds crazy to scientifically-minded people, myself included, because we want answers to everything. But the turtles will go all the way down until you just decide that there is a "god", whatever that is, and it is necessary. And here we are.
  - seiferteric 5y ago
    That's why I say it is unsatisfying and the universe is ultimately unexplainable because either there is this final "god" and we are incapable of understanding it or there is not and there is infinite levels and we are incapable of understanding it also.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      Cf. apex (e.g., YHWH) versus non-apex (e.g., the Tao) conceptions of the numinous.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Barrin92 5y ago

>For one thing, it manages to create a profound metaphysical intimacy with God without denying His transcendence. this kind of thinking which I often see when people express pantheistic views is exactly what turns me away from it. It's just as much of an anthropomorphization as the article accuses traditional conceptions of God of. I guess you can think that the universe is in some vague sense conscious, although I don't think the arguments for that are great either, but to jump from this to thinking one can experience 'intimacy' with it (and explicitly not "him") is I think already making mistakes. One can experience intimacy while being in nature but not 'with nature', Intimacy is a human emotion, 'nature' does not empathize back. To me pantheism just seems like a misapplied psychological need. People have a (understandable) revulsion against seeing the universe as mechanic, or random, or 'cold' or what have you, and pantheism not unlike Gaia type theories are comforting.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
brutusborn 5y ago
Out of interest, what do you beleive in? I agree that pantheism is a misapplied psychological need, but no more so than any relgion or beleif system. I've decided that to fill this need, it is useful to choose a fundamental belief system of some sort. I have choosen Taoism and parts of other Philosophical systems, like Stoicism, where I feel there are gaps.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  > Out of interest, what do you beleive in? not very much, that is to say I'm skeptical of metaphysics altogether. I'm partial to Wittgenstein's attitude, that is to say I think projects like pantheism deflate if you scrutinize them and inquire to what degree they say anything meaningful or well-defined about the world, or if they're really expressions of psychology or linguistics or desire. I do agree with you that all kinds of belief systems may fulfill legitimate needs, but I think they're just that, personal, subjective and private expressions of the individual's attitude towards the world, not meaningful claims about the world as such.

Giorgi 5y ago

it"s pretty much "scared atheist's" apology for a god

wonderwonder 5y ago
I don't know, kind of struck me as god in the machine or algorithm approach. Everything works together to create an outcome but the process is unknowable but assumed to be weighted towards kindness. I identify as an athiest and I don't hate it.
- foxhop 5y ago
  Replace kindness with LOVE. God is the totality of the universe, the Truth. We embody God and comprehend the universe using our 5 senses (some access a 6th) which give people a connection to Truth and nature of reality. We have FREEDOM to operate our bodies on a spectrum, free will of God. We are the universe witnessing the universe. Freedom sets off action which could be labeled "good or evil" based on the morality of the times. The strongest bonds form in LOVE. LOVE drives voluntary cooperation from atoms to cells, to bodies to masses. Another name is the law of attraction.
kierkegaard7 5y ago
Doesn't make sense if there's no punisher
- foxhop 5y ago
  Read my sibling comments.

lalaland1125 5y ago

It seems like the main purpose of Spinoza's God is to have an unfalsifiable God. The problem with other Gods like the Christian God is that they tend to come with requirements about the world that are easy to disprove. For example, the Christian God is not very compatible with the existence of natural evil. By removing all of those implications and other attributes, you arrive a Spinoza's God, a God so vague / powerless that it cannot be argued against.

brutusborn 5y ago
Aren't all gods unfalsifiable? And I'd be interested in reasoning behind the God-natural evil argument? I imagine a few Christian Theologians have found a way around it by now.
- tasty_freeze 5y ago
  > Aren't all gods unfalsifiable? No, that is exactly counter to the point the person you were replying to was making. Amorphous, fluffy definitions of god can be unfalsifiable. But if you declare detailed attributes of your god, they can be in contradiction and thus the claims about that god are falsifiable. But in practice, people are terrific at rationalizing and will overlook all those contradiction and continue to believe their god is the right one.
  - brutusborn 5y ago
    Thanks for the explanation, makes sense that Gods can be falsifiable the same way a good scientific theory is.
bobthechef 5y ago
> Christian God is not very compatible with the existence of natural evil See https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1022.htm#article2 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1022.htm#article2
foxhop 5y ago
There is no such thing as natural evil. The Inverse of love is fear. Whether something is good or evil has more to do with the social constructs of the times than any morality. That said, a morality based on Truth, Freedom, and Love is cooperative as above and below. The unfalsifiable god is the Truth god.

foxhop 5y ago

I've been thinking a lot of god and have come up with the following, please be kind: --- The Right Way, The Trivium, The Path Towards Illumination. TRUTH - The all knowing all seeing omnipotent natural universe which we have a special connection and natural understanding of. Nature. God. The Universe. In binary this would be 1. The Unified Field. Father. FREEDOM - Sun. The Child Spirit To Play and Create. Son. LOVE - Voluntary Passion, Drive, Motivation, Law of Attraction. Cooperation. Amplifier. Replicator. Wu Wei. Waters. Godly Bodily Fluids of Head and Genitals. Blood. Holy Spirit. The only time Fear is more powerful than Love is when the Truth is hidden and individual Freedoms & essential Property including Body are subject to tyranny. Therefore to stop tyranny in all forms we must live our lives according to natural law and the 3 pillars outlined above. When we do this, together we live our best lives and create the best works of art and science and support each other to great heights. --- This article only focuses on Truth God or Universal god.

murat124 5y ago
> The only time Fear is more powerful than Love I think I get what you're saying but above sentence is not correct. Evolution favored fear over love on short term gains and fear very much assisted survival skills for billions of years and love is only new (a few million years?). Not saying that love doesn't have a chance against fear but it is true that negativity (hate, fear, etc) spreads faster than positivity (love, hope, etc). No idea what the solution might be to this fundamental feature(bug?) of our existence.
- foxhop 5y ago
  Your body wouldn't function without the loving cooperative cells, all parts, all working to make you, a perfect for this current space time human! <3 cooperation or love. Same is true about society, we will rebuild and pivot into a stronger more distributed form, if we follow Truth, Love, And Freedom in our mandates.
  - murat124 5y ago
    That would be a great EPIC: Follow Truth, Love, And Freedom, if only we had a consensus of what they mean.

unyttigfjelltol 5y ago

I'll try to state the thought more simply. "God" is a name we assign to the force behind the original, unexplained creation. Presently that would be the force behind the origin of this amazing universe, light, space. Maybe we push that envelope further in the future, but the boundary always exists. In our understanding there always is a 'first'. We have only the vaguest idea in a cosmic sense how that first came to be. It's pretty neutral and sensible to call "everything" the creator, as Spinoza apparently did, cuz "nothing" sure didn't make the universe. And as a matter of definition, that would be God. What's so fascinating is where this thought exercise may lead. We are talking about everything, acting by law unknown, generating an impossible, unexplainable result. What then don't we know of everything and what possibilities does that raise, relative to its consciousness and intelligence on unimaginable scales of time and of space. I mean, are we gnats on God's ... I'd say eyeball but everything clearly is not human so ... presence? I'm not sure how a serious person who considered the question openly could avoid these conclusions.

bloopbloop10000 5y ago
Is there a name for this line of thought? I’ve run into it a few times and find it compelling.
- analog31 5y ago
  To me it seems equivalent to the "first cause" argument of Thomas Aquinas.
- tjader 5y ago
  Deism?
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  I mean, it's just theism. Atheism is the rejection of this belief. I think it's a pretty logical step from this to, if our origin is unknown there are two options: 1) Our origin was an accident (and whatever creative force there was was undirected and intentionless), this logically leads down the road to nihilism. 2) Our origin was purposeful (and the creative force behind us was directed and intentioned), this logically leads to some kind of religion.

sorokod 5y ago

A meta question, what is it called when humans get to mould the supreme deity that suits them best?

bsanr2 5y ago
I'm pretty sure this was the plot of at least two separate Final Fantasy games. The answer, in one of them, was "France."

mmarq 5y ago

My pet theory in high school was that Spinoza lived in a time when being an atheist could get you arrested and killed, so he came up with this Deus sive natura thing, which is a good cover and in practice is not too far from atheism.

theroncross 5y ago
The difference between that and atheism is using a capital G.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
It's not just your pet theory, but a dominant reading of him. Both present and in the past Certainly many of his contemporaries (including Leibniz) and many who read him later saw him as a covert atheist and hated him for it. I'm not sure it's explicitly a cover. I'm not sure he would have actually said "there is no God"; such a phrase might have been actually very difficult for someone to compose in that era, not just because it was shocking but it would be hard to think. Especially one raised in a devout Jewish community (from which he was expelled) (I spent many years studying Spinoza, both in school and in private.)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

TrispusAttucks 5y ago

Please read Spinoza Ethics. There seems to be much misunderstanding of Spinoza Philosophy going on in here. Which isn't unlike how he was misunderstood during his time.

anomosmarxist 5y ago
Ya, wtf. clearly this is a reply chain of intelligent people (?) but not a single post about the actual text. like tldr for spinoza, his writing is far beyond these grasping confusions which could be avoided if anyone cared to have an actual philosophical discussion

Osiris 5y ago

The biggest problem with using the English word "God" is it is loaded with assumptions, beliefs, and huge variability from one person to another. Just uttering the word "God" to someone will create an entirely different mental image for that person than for you (despite similarities or differences of life experience and belief). Thus, any discussion about God starts from the beginning with a huge gulf between the parties involved. You can see it right here in this thread and the way people are responding to the use of the word God.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago
And yet it was the only way to speak about these topics in the 17th century when Spinoza was writing.

dukeofdoom 5y ago

Things have come full circle. "Science" is the new Religion. A preacher was court ordered to preach science in Canada, just yesterday. Source: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/an-anti-mask-pastor-has-been-court-ordered-to-preach-science-fined-23000-in-calgary/ar-AAPwIPK?ocid=uxbndlbing https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/an-anti-mask-pastor-has...

intrasight 5y ago

The military-industrial-consumer complex was created by the universe for the sole purpose of supporting the tiny contingent of otherwise non-productive consciousnesses (physicist) who are in a race to document the system in high fidelity before the edifice crumbles - the "system" being the one set of physical constants, out of the infinite number of permutations that didn't make the cut, that resulted in a semi-stable universe.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

The universe became conscious in the form of Spinoza and said ‘who made this?!’

nassimsoftware 5y ago

In math there is the concept of having a first element of a series and no one questions what was the element before the first element because if you can find an element before the first element then by definition that element you thought was first is not the first. In light of this when people try to disprove God by saying then who created God. God is the first element so if you find out that who you think your God is is created then by definition he fails to fulfill the conditions required to be God. You have to look elsewhere. Ok in english the term God is not precise enough, I'll turn to arabic to try to explain my point because this is what I'm the most familiar with. Ilah is the arabic word for divinity. Wahid means 1. Ahad means the only one. Allah means The God (The only God). I don't find it absurd to think that there is The God (Allah): - A being who transcends time because he created time. - A being who transcends logic because he created it and all its rules. - A being who transcends the physical world because he created it.

flyingchipmann 5y ago
I agree the logic. To me conceptually god and the creator in cthulhu maybe the same
1e-9 5y ago
> In math there is the concept of having a first element... There is also the mathematical concept of not having a first element of a sequence, where each element has an infinite number of elements indexed before it. You seem to be arguing that the existence of a mathematical concept implies that the universe must follow it. In this case, you have one concept that implies a first element and another that implies no first element. They can’t both be true.
- nxmnxm99 5y ago
  No, he’s implying that an infinite series doesn’t have to be infinite in both directions to be infinite.
  - 1e-9 5y ago
    >...doesn’t have to be... That argues that there might be a first. To be clear, I’m not saying there isn’t a first. I’m just saying this particular argument doesn’t support the assertion.

ssklash 5y ago

I feel that there is an often unasked question when it comes to discussions about the existence of god. So what? What if he does exist? Why does it automatically follow that we should worship him, pray to him, live our lives for him, etc? Why immediately assume he's good? What if ants in an ant hill see the relatively god-like figure of a 6 year old come and stand over their hill? It's probably 50/50 that he's there to dump water on the hill and destroy it or he is there to simply observe, let alone give them eternal life. I've yet to see a convincing explanation for the existence of suffering. Mostly a lot of handwaving about "mysterious ways" and "plans". We fail to hold god to the same standard we'd hold ourselves to if we could prevent childhood cancer or genocide with the snap of our fingers. You'd be a monster to withhold that power if you were a human being, but somehow god does it out of "love".

glopes 5y ago
These questions are exactly why you should read Spinoza’s Ethics.

cratermoon 5y ago

I have a problem with this article because of the sentence, "He loathed groupthink and thought most organised religion, not least of the Judeo-Christian kind, fuelled delusion and sectarianism". I don't have the words to unpack the problems with the term "Judeo-Christian" myself, so I'll leave it to Emily Burack at Alma: https://www.heyalma.com/the-myth-of-judeo-christianity-explained/ https://www.heyalma.com/the-myth-of-judeo-christianity-expla...

Maraguy 5y ago

IMO man can never truly, truly deal with his freedom that is why the search for a God persists.

anomosmarxist 5y ago

so even this decent article is just a surface overview of a brilliant thinker and this reply chain continues such lack of attention towards careful reading and discussion of his text. instead we have everyone sounding off on their own conclusions about god, reality and religion. yet most of these comments are lacking. what exactly? they are lacking thorough, exacting, and critical thinking. sure, healthy opinions are couched in smart minds, but go a step further and read a book, then you can catch up beyond your clumsy, simple, internet level brains.

anomosmarxist 5y ago

here is a quote: "from the necessity of the divine nature must follow an infinite number of things in infinite ways-that is, all things which can fall within the sphere of infinite intellect"

amai 5y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism

amai 5y ago

"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity." Carl Sagan

dsign 5y ago
So God is only confusing notation we are better off without.
- layer8 5y ago
  The tension is that many people are actually better off with a notion of god in their inner life for their psychological wellbeing, but to avoid cognitive dissonance they also want everyone else to subscribe to the same notion, a conflict which makes society/culture worse off. I don’t think this can be fully resolved.
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    > many people are actually better off with a notion of god in their inner life for their psychological wellbeing Much in the sense that lonely children are better off with an imaginary friend, but they're expected to outgrow that as they mature and become well adapted to their environment. Keeping the imaginary friend trades one psychological issue for another.

nsajko 5y ago

See Bostrom's 2003 paper, "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?": https://fermatslibrary.com/s/are-you-living-in-a-computer-simulation https://fermatslibrary.com/s/are-you-living-in-a-computer-si... PDF: https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf

arisAlexis 5y ago

The article first tells us what Spinoza thought and said and the last paragraph is the personal interpretation of the author but one that tries to show that was wht Spinoza thought.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]