An Idea

[Lloyd Gillespie]

SPINOZA: ATHEIST OR BELIEVER IN GOD?

Spinoza had a great influence on Einstein. Einstein stated, in fact, that he believed in "Spinoza's God." Desperate to transform Einstein into an atheist, atheists must first transform Spinoza's views into atheism. Spinoza's great work, "Ethics," elucidates his views on the Divinity, and leaves no doubt that he held a firm belief in God's existence. The following proposition alone should show this quite conclusively.

PROP. XI. God, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists.

I'm sure Einstein and Spinoza love for you to speak on their religious beliefs Lloyd especially since both are dead[So, I guess they can't have any feelings about me__can they...?]. I like Einstein and Hawkings want to know God's thought the rest are but details.[Juicy atheistic details__I'm Irish ya know__I don't much care for priests advantaging children...] Back to your details Lloyd and maybe you should speak for yourself, at least there you'll have it correct.[The logic is what says Einstein, Hawking, Spinoza and God were all atheists__not I... I'm just a simple messenger of others' honest and truthful voices...]

That's why I stated Spinoza was a wise atheist__he cut the cross-hairs of his ethical ideas so close, the church sees him as a deist, while all atheists see and know him as a true atheist. Many philosophers have written on this subject for years. You can research it yourself. Just type this into google with the + sign; Spinoza + atheist ...you'll find plenty of facts, but I'm sure you're too afraid to...

Why do you think he stated 'god, or substance' in your above quote__either or, for both church, not to off his head, and the atheist scientists' respect of his ideas. Spinoza is truly one of the greatest genius' in the world. I read him in the `80's and have recommended him highly to others, all through the years... I read him as the atheist he is, as is god__since he could only believe in himself/herself... Even a Jew told me that god was an athiest, once__I loved his honesty and truth...

693,000 hits on Google for Spinoza as atheist...
4,520,000 hits on Google for God + atheist...
Sharpton vs. Hitchens__god and atheism video debate...

[austintorn@aol.com]

[SIZE=2][QUOTE=Profpat;113562]

Nature is too restrictive to be God, plus, the equaling is but a tautology.


Great we have Lloyd speaking for Einsrein and Spinoza and now you going to speak for God

I have to speak for the Guy, since he's not there.

Nor can He ever be insulted, for the same reason.

Being became of stuff moving around, taking 13 billion years. We still show the basics of this, such as in motion relating to notions of past and future.

Best not to put a spin on Spinoza.

[Max™]

Relativity says they are all the correct rates.
Uh, how are you using correct there, I mean that different masses moving at different velocities along different directions results in a slightly different rate of interaction with time, and importantly, different definitions of simultaneous events.

Picture two people standing several feet apart.

*Dude A sees this:*
[Dude A] ------------- [Dude B]

[Object 1]
[Object 2]

*Dude B sees this*
[Dude B] ------------- [Dude A]

----------------------[Object 1]
------------------[Object 2]
Dude A claims that Object 1 and 2 are lined up one in front of the other, directly in front of him. Dude B claims they are slightly skewed from each other, and from Dude A.

Both claims are correct.

Now replace the objects with events, Dude A says they are simultaneous, Dude B says one happened before the other.

I would never eliminate free will surely our thoughts affect the formation.
Alternatively, the formation affects our thoughts, either view is valid from a perspective unrestrained by our illusionary impression of time as a process.

Around the corner or in front of us.
It is further along the direction that your awareness detects motion through, but it is not visible as being spatially in front of us, our perspective is too narrowly focused, forcing us to look at time in slices, rather than the actual state it exists in.

???????
Think about it for a second.
I'm going to ask you to pick a color after you read the next sentence.
You didn't know which color you picked before you finished this.
Now that your perspective has panned further across time, you are aware that you selected [insert your color here], you did not truly receive an impression that corresponds to choosing to decide. Instead you found you decided to choose a particular color.

It's what moves everything.
I would argue that your awareness is constantly adjusting the angle at which it observes the Universe along the temporal axis, and that process of updating the temporal coordinate which your sense of self identifies itself as being located at is what makes everything appear to move!

Well God either exist or doesn't regardless of our belief.

I lack the ability to believe, but I can examine the concept of god logically to determine if it is self contradictory, thus far I have yet to find a description of a deity which does not weaken it's own argument.

If a logically sound god did exist, the Universe did not need a cause, so the idea of applying reverence to said being for an act of creation which itself is not logically sound... is not logically sound.

[Felix Schrodinger]

Also, Prof, it's not a large hardon, but the large hadron collider!

Austin, I think Pat got it right; for most particle scientists it's the Large Hardon Collider. It's being used to search for the Higg's bosom.

regards
Felix

[Profpat]

Why do you think he stated 'god, or substance' in your above quote__

PROP. XI. God, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exists.
Proof.--If this be denied, conceive, if possible, that God does not exist: then his essence does not involve existence. But this (by Prop. vii.) is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists. Spinoza

I think most thinking people recognize the Spinoza and Einstein were at least Deist Lloyd. But like most atheist you lie about who was an atheist to try to support your lie. Liar. liar pants on fire.

P.S. In case you are not aware God is substance Spinoza and the rest of the thinking world know that Lloyd.

[Profpat]

Austin, I think Pat got it right; for most particle scientists it's the Large Hardon Collider. It's being used to search for the Higg's bosom.

regards
Felix

Actually Austin may have a small hardon.

[Profpat]

[QUOTE=austintorn@aol.com;113584][SIZE=2][QUOTE=Profpat;113562]

I have to speak for the Guy, since he's not there.

I guess that means you believe he exist you just have found him yet Austin, keep looking inside.

[Profpat]

[The logic is what says Einstein, Hawking, Spinoza and God were all atheists__

A perfect example of your screwed up logic Lloyd keep them coming. LOL.

BTW: Hawkings is NOT an atheist by his own admission, just another one of your lies.

So of the 4 you have listed above as atheist ALL lies. Shame on you LLoyd.

[melanie]

The ancients used the metaphor of a painting on a Canvas,
as a map to describe how we may return to the direct experience of our True Self.
Our true Self is just behind the Canvas, on which we paint countless false identities.

False ID's means that there is no God.

There is only No-Thing (non-conceptual) and Every-Thing (conceptual)

= ( Consciousness)

We just happen to call Consciousness God, in the same way we call a dog a dog and a cat a cat.
Yet, none of these objects exist, except as concepts arising in Consciousness.

[Max™]

Stricly speaking, incidentally, I can not state that I am atheist, as it is utterly illogical.

Stating with certainty that a given subject of belief does not exist, is a statement of belief itself.

I like the term "Imaginary Agnostic", if you think of belief as resting on a number line:


-1 . . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . . . 1
Atheist ... Agnostic ... Deist~Theist

Logic demands your "belief value" rest at 0, as a belief is by definition a statement taken as being a fact, without the qualities of a proven/provable/observable nature demanded of facthood.

However, I have yet to encounter a description of a deity which accounts for both the mistake in the assumption that our perception of time is absolutely accurate, and that the Universe (which itself contains all of what we can label causally) is related causally to something else through a belief in some type of meta-time.

I have found a handful of honest enough statements regarding a deities properties that they do not violate logical possibility too severely, unlike the idea of the infinite/omnipresent/omniscient/omnipotent/omnibenevolent, yet unobservable, type of deific postulate which is self-contradictory on numerous levels.

Indeed the possession of one (in some cases) or more (in most of the other cases) of those attributes contradicts the very definition of those statements, as well as destroying the possibility that there is anything corresponding to an actual a priori reality, of both the finite type, and of the infinite non-self-contradictory/Plato-esque mathematical type.


So, I therefore state that I can not honestly place myself on that axis of belief regarding any deity I've learned of to this date.

As the square root of -1 is not located on the real number line, requiring a new orthogonal axis, labeled as "imaginary" in most cases, I state that with regards to any self-contradictory deity I've learned of, I possess an imaginary amount of skepticism, making me an Imaginary Agnostic.