Boss
Take a Memo:
I've been reading through the religion and ethics forum and see a wide variety of imagination, coupled with passionate viewpoints and insightful knowledge as to how man thinks regarding his spirituality. I have to admit, this is a fascinating topic for me personally. I am a Spiritualist. I don't subscribe to organized religious belief. Regardless of how many times I've put that out there, I am always attacked as if I am Jerry Falwell or Benny Henn. I'll jump into an argument to defend a Christian, but it's more because I detest bullying than anything else. I respect what is in the Bible and I respect the Christian's right to believe it, but their religion doesn't define my God. I'm more of a 'Spinoza's God' type of guy.
In the universe anything that happens comes from the essential nature of objects, or of God/Nature. According to Spinoza, reality is perfection. If circumstances are seen as unfortunate it is only because of our inadequate conception of reality. While components of the chain of cause and effect are not beyond the understanding of human reason, human grasp of the infinitely complex whole is limited because of the limits of science to empirically take account of the whole sequence. Spinoza also asserted that sense perception, though practical and useful for rhetoric, is inadequate for discovering universal truth; Spinoza's mathematical and logical approach to metaphysics, and therefore ethics, concluded that emotion is formed from inadequate understanding. His concept of "conatus" states that human beings' natural inclination is to strive toward preserving an essential being and an assertion that virtue/human power is defined by success in this preservation of being by the guidance of reason as one's central ethical doctrine. According to Spinoza, the highest virtue is the intellectual love or knowledge of God/Nature/Universe.
In the final part of the "Ethics", his concern with the meaning of "true blessedness", and his explanation of how emotions must be detached from external cause and so master them, foreshadow psychological techniques developed in the 1900s. His concept of three types of knowledgeopinion, reason, intuitionand his assertion that intuitive knowledge provides the greatest satisfaction of mind, lead to his proposition that the more we are conscious of ourselves and Nature/Universe, the more perfect and blessed we are (in reality) and that only intuitive knowledge is eternal. His unique contribution to understanding the workings of mind is extraordinary, even during this time of radical philosophical developments, in that his views provide a bridge between religions' mystical past and psychology of the present day.
Given Spinoza's insistence on a completely ordered world where "necessity" reigns, Good and Evil have no absolute meaning. The world as it exists looks imperfect only because of our limited perception.
Now I don't know if I completely agree with Spinny on that, nor do I know much about his religious upbringing. He was Jewish but they tossed him, apparently. And it wouldn't be a problem if he was a Jew, I have no disrespect there, the Jewish people are smart and resilient. There are obviously some perks to being "God's chosen people."
But Spinoza makes a valid point that I have often made as well, our entire experience in this "reality" as we perceive it, is nothing more than time and space, which is just the universe expanding. Our concepts and understandings are limited to our five senses, of which we're not even the masters of on our own planet, individually. Other things can see, smell, taste, hear and touch better than humans. Other things are stronger, quicker, more poisonous. A sperm, which is technically not even a living organism, can find an egg to fertilize.
It makes it extremely naive to think that our five inferior senses are all there is to reality when we can observe so much more going on. Be it on a molecular level or even a sub-atomic level, there are things happening every day in our universe that we are completely oblivious to, we simply can't experience them through our five limited senses.
Now, if we KNOW that there are these things happening on different levels that we can't sense, doesn't it stand to reason we can have a spiritual Creator? A 'something' that is ultimately in charge, guiding the ship, controlling the destiny? To me, it's obvious we do have such a power that our senses can't detect in a physical sense. We connect to it spiritually, and man has been doing this since his inception. Skeptics will chortle... but where is the PROOF? ...and the "proof" for me is found in one simple question: What Does it All Mean?
With everything living in nature around me, I see amazing wonder. Insects, plants, birds, bees, fish, critters.... all in a system of interdependence with each other. Connected in a universal cycle to uncanny perfection in mechanics and operation. The billions of things happening on a planetary scale each second, all working together and growing... WHY?
I look at the marvels of humanity over the past 1,500 years. The technology we've invented, the creative mind at work. I see the great philosophies and breathtaking works of art... Millions and millions of books and literature... FOR WHAT?
The thing that has always perplexed me about the Atheists is this unanswered question. They seem to be perfectly content with discerning it's all for nothing. It doesn't mean anything. There is no reason for any of this. We have no purpose or destiny. We're nothing more than a rudderless ship on the ocean, drifting aimlessly into the abyss.
I can't bring myself to think of living in such a delusional reality. I'm not sure that I could make it without suffering major depression and possible suicide. How do you get up and face the day knowing it's for nothing? That nothing really matters? We're just here to feed the worms?
There is something more powerful than us in play here. Whether you believe this or not, and regardless of what 'incarnation' you believe this power takes, it is certainly there. In order to comport logic with reality, it has to be there. Nothing in our universe happens without reason. Cause and effect are logical principles in this universe. Reality compels us in the direction of finding an answer to this question whether Atheists like it or not.
This means, essentially, that substance is just whatever can be thought of without relating it to any other idea or thing. For example, if one thinks of a particular object, one thinks of it as a kind of thing, e.g., X is a cat. Substance, on the other hand, is to be conceived of by itself, without understanding it as a particular kind of thing (because it isn't a particular thing at all).
In the universe anything that happens comes from the essential nature of objects, or of God/Nature. According to Spinoza, reality is perfection. If circumstances are seen as unfortunate it is only because of our inadequate conception of reality. While components of the chain of cause and effect are not beyond the understanding of human reason, human grasp of the infinitely complex whole is limited because of the limits of science to empirically take account of the whole sequence. Spinoza also asserted that sense perception, though practical and useful for rhetoric, is inadequate for discovering universal truth; Spinoza's mathematical and logical approach to metaphysics, and therefore ethics, concluded that emotion is formed from inadequate understanding. His concept of "conatus" states that human beings' natural inclination is to strive toward preserving an essential being and an assertion that virtue/human power is defined by success in this preservation of being by the guidance of reason as one's central ethical doctrine. According to Spinoza, the highest virtue is the intellectual love or knowledge of God/Nature/Universe.
In the final part of the "Ethics", his concern with the meaning of "true blessedness", and his explanation of how emotions must be detached from external cause and so master them, foreshadow psychological techniques developed in the 1900s. His concept of three types of knowledgeopinion, reason, intuitionand his assertion that intuitive knowledge provides the greatest satisfaction of mind, lead to his proposition that the more we are conscious of ourselves and Nature/Universe, the more perfect and blessed we are (in reality) and that only intuitive knowledge is eternal. His unique contribution to understanding the workings of mind is extraordinary, even during this time of radical philosophical developments, in that his views provide a bridge between religions' mystical past and psychology of the present day.
Given Spinoza's insistence on a completely ordered world where "necessity" reigns, Good and Evil have no absolute meaning. The world as it exists looks imperfect only because of our limited perception.
Now I don't know if I completely agree with Spinny on that, nor do I know much about his religious upbringing. He was Jewish but they tossed him, apparently. And it wouldn't be a problem if he was a Jew, I have no disrespect there, the Jewish people are smart and resilient. There are obviously some perks to being "God's chosen people."
But Spinoza makes a valid point that I have often made as well, our entire experience in this "reality" as we perceive it, is nothing more than time and space, which is just the universe expanding. Our concepts and understandings are limited to our five senses, of which we're not even the masters of on our own planet, individually. Other things can see, smell, taste, hear and touch better than humans. Other things are stronger, quicker, more poisonous. A sperm, which is technically not even a living organism, can find an egg to fertilize.
It makes it extremely naive to think that our five inferior senses are all there is to reality when we can observe so much more going on. Be it on a molecular level or even a sub-atomic level, there are things happening every day in our universe that we are completely oblivious to, we simply can't experience them through our five limited senses.
Now, if we KNOW that there are these things happening on different levels that we can't sense, doesn't it stand to reason we can have a spiritual Creator? A 'something' that is ultimately in charge, guiding the ship, controlling the destiny? To me, it's obvious we do have such a power that our senses can't detect in a physical sense. We connect to it spiritually, and man has been doing this since his inception. Skeptics will chortle... but where is the PROOF? ...and the "proof" for me is found in one simple question: What Does it All Mean?
With everything living in nature around me, I see amazing wonder. Insects, plants, birds, bees, fish, critters.... all in a system of interdependence with each other. Connected in a universal cycle to uncanny perfection in mechanics and operation. The billions of things happening on a planetary scale each second, all working together and growing... WHY?
I look at the marvels of humanity over the past 1,500 years. The technology we've invented, the creative mind at work. I see the great philosophies and breathtaking works of art... Millions and millions of books and literature... FOR WHAT?
The thing that has always perplexed me about the Atheists is this unanswered question. They seem to be perfectly content with discerning it's all for nothing. It doesn't mean anything. There is no reason for any of this. We have no purpose or destiny. We're nothing more than a rudderless ship on the ocean, drifting aimlessly into the abyss.
I can't bring myself to think of living in such a delusional reality. I'm not sure that I could make it without suffering major depression and possible suicide. How do you get up and face the day knowing it's for nothing? That nothing really matters? We're just here to feed the worms?
There is something more powerful than us in play here. Whether you believe this or not, and regardless of what 'incarnation' you believe this power takes, it is certainly there. In order to comport logic with reality, it has to be there. Nothing in our universe happens without reason. Cause and effect are logical principles in this universe. Reality compels us in the direction of finding an answer to this question whether Atheists like it or not.
