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

prospectmagazine.co.uk

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

#31

Post by murat124 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

>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 d…

Pantheism is a compromise between the existence of an Abrahamic monotheistic god and lack thereof. It's a belief system without submission nor worship which are the cornerstones of judeo-christian religions including islam by extension. You might argue that the psychological need for a superhuman all-powerful deity is in our genes and it may well be the case, but canalizing the need it onto nature/universe while cutting down submission sometimes is not enough because submission (intimacy, feeling vulnerable in the company of a powerful being) is as much a powerful need as believing in something.

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

#33

Post by anthk »

EMM_386 wrote: post #4

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.

>I am extremely scientific and I believe in god

I am vegan and I eat steak on weekends.

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

#34

Post by renewiltord »

mynameisash wrote: post #7
EMM_386 wrote: post #4

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.

> If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it This seems like quite a leap. Parts of the earth are conscious, so is the earth conscious? Parts of the universe are alive, so is the universe alive? Every member of my family is conscious*, but I wouldn't say that "my family" is conscious. *Solipsism notwithstanding

The natural problem is drawing the line between which parts of you are conscious and which parts of you are merely the portion that surrounds the consciousness. Is merely your brain¹ conscious? The whole body? The brain+(not-brain body) system is conscious but the distinction isn't all that different from the brain+(not-brain body)+(not-you Earth) system being conscious.

I have to say I started with thinking that clearly containment vs. identity are separate but now for this question, I find myself confused. I bet someone has thought up this notion of what a being is already. If anyone has the keywords that will let me quickly search up the appropriate concepts in a dense fashion (i.e. without lots of unrelated stuff) I would be appreciative.

¹ Or whatever nervous system subset you find suitable, m.m.

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

#35

Post by NikolaeVarius »

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #20
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you think about it, the universe is conscious, because our conscious minds are part of it Hell of a leap. I subscribe to the notion the consciousness is a illusion via chemical whatever and the universe doesn't give a damn anyway.

How could you possibly deny the existence of your subjective experience? This is just utterly incomprehensible to me.

Because, thinking the existing of subjective experience that is any way special is just societal programming that claims that humans are special and important in the universe.

If you step away from the bias, there is no reason to think our consciousness is anything special. Who cares about subjective experience, it all disappears into the void when those chemical reactions stop.

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

#36

Post by brutusborn »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #13

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 / powerl…

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.

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

#37

Post by anthk »

EMM_386 wrote: post #17
seiferteric wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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…

>Because apparently that's the way it must be.

Bullshit, please. Prove it or GFTO with that nonsense. Science is found on evidence, not on "what if...s" .

If you told me that an ARM Cortex A9 is faster than a current i7, and then you put the excuse of "God made it" argument over the table you would look like a lunatic.

With the Universe origins is the same. Replace "God" with "Santa" and the argument gets equally ridiculous.

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

#38

Post by lhorie »

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

>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 d…

I don't think "comforting" is an apt description of pantheism; in fact, it postulating a cold mechanical universe (as opposed to the idea that a God must necessarily be omnibenevolent) is often cited as a criticism of pantheist frameworks.

I find that panentheist flavors tend to dabble more with metaphysical supernatural stuff, but that pantheism is characterized by its rejection of blind belief. Talks about intimacy and experience feel strongly panentheistic to me, whereas a pantheist might instead summarize their position with something along the lines of "the laws of physics are omnipresent and omnipotent, and that's the hard scientific evidence of the conceptual thing you call God"

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

#39

Post by jonnybgood »

Barrin92 wrote: post #9

>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 d…

> 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.

Pantheism is nothing more than seeing the universe, or nature, as god. What you’re reading is one particular flavor of pantheism. A pantheist can also view god, or universe, or nature, as cold and mechanical as well.

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

#40

Post by keithnz »

EMM_386 wrote: post #4

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.

the universe could be considered to have achieved consciousness through humans (and possibly other life forms), but the only known consciousness is those lifeforms outside of those lifeforms there is no known trait of consciousness, its going to be a very transient trait of the universe as well, the universe will only have it for a blink of an eye.
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