God on Spinoza

Spinoza wrote a bit about me, now it's my turn
or, "In God we Trust?"

-Here's the link (Scott Adams' blog) that got me started on all this.
-Spinoza on Wikipedia.

Spinoza quotes (from Wikipedia):
-In 1929, Einstein was asked in a telegram by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein whether he believed in God. Einstein responded by telegram: "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."

-His (Spinoza's) account of the nature of reality, then, seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as one and the same. The universal substance consists of both body and mind, there being no difference between these aspects. This formulation is a historically significant solution to the mind-body problem known as neutral monism. The consequences of Spinoza's system also envisage a God that does not rule over the universe by providence, but a God which itself is the deterministic system of which everything in nature is a part. Thus, God is the natural world and has no personality. (My Chinese birthsign is the boar, lol).

-Given Spinoza's insistence on a completely ordered world where "necessity" reigns, Good and Evil have no absolute meaning. Human catastrophes, social injustices, etc. are merely apparent. The world as it exists looks imperfect only because of our limited perception.

-Good and evil are related to human pleasure and pain.
-Everything done by humans and other animals is excellent and divine.

-Spinoza held good and evil to be relative concepts, claiming that nothing is intrinsically good or bad except relative to a particular individual. Things that had classically been seen as good or evil, Spinoza argued, were simply good or bad for humans. Spinoza believes in a deterministic universe in which "All things in nature proceed from certain necessity and with the utmost perfection." Nothing happens by chance in Spinoza's world, and nothing is contingent.
(perhaps good and evil derive from their relationship to the welfare of...me? you? Jesus? Jesus' dna?)

-The attraction of Spinoza's philosophy to late eighteenth-century Europeans was that it provided an alternative to materialism, atheism, and deism. (It's a M.A.D. world)

aside: (lol)
I think, therefore I am. I am, therefore I think, I think.
I think I am, I think I am, said the little god that could.
I AM! the big god said

Okay, here' my commentary:
In the context of Einstein, I can think of nothing else than his regret. He said, "The release of atom power has changed everything but our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

But it makes sense that an intelligent man would conceive of God as not concerning Himself with the fates of human beings, in view of all the suffering.

Also, he might want to assuage any personal guilt with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which plainly goes against Spinoza's view of evil as in relation to human suffering.

In other words, he thinks humanity is fated to use his ideas to devastate itself, and he thought he f-ed up. But his failure, and his regret, he must have thought fated, anyway. But he was Jewish, and he believed in god, and god is good. But his god was Spinoza's, which is the universe, which Spinoza considered impersonal (and Camus called indifferent in the Stranger), which can only be good if someone like me (say, Jesus) steps in and calls themselves everything, and then proves they are good by dying -painfully- for you, so you can go to heaven, which is whatever you want it to be. Not.

Actually, though, I am going to comment on myself, because I'm an endless mirror of reflection and refraction.

What I want heaven to be is not an afterlife, but an ASAP reality, here on earth (which may never come to fruition, I admit), of absolute minimal suffering, and maximal happiness. Well, the afterlife, too, but as an afterthought. Jesus, while I admit he provides hope for an afterlife of eternal joy, just doesn't make me happy, because it's complete b.s. There is no dichotomy (trichotomy?) between mind, body, and soul. It's just body. Mind is just vibes, like the "spirit of radio," physics and physical, a part of the way we're built. In other words, the difference between body and mind is like the difference between radios (that broadcast, too) and radio waves -which nobody calls "spiritual", lol. Spirit and soul is alcohol and music, and mind (i.e. body). There isn't anything to go anywhere after death. You lose your life, you've lost your mind, you've lost your "soul," when the worms eat your brain. Jesus was psychotic and delusional, or else completely cynical, manipulating everyone. One or the other. Maybe he had no choice, and was smart enough to be both. Happiness is something to be had NOW, not as something to be hoped for as nails get pounded through your wrists and feet. Christ-like? Bah, humbug.

Anyway,
The Universe can be made good, by making yourself good. Ripples outward, from the joy within, in a life of service. That's my philosophy, in a nutshell. Whatever makes you happy, more power to him, her, it. (Also, open yourself to ripples inward from sources that make you happy...although even the worst can make you happy if you turn it into opportunity and action and accomplishment). For example, nuclear weaponry can be abolished, abandoned, and written up as an absurd part of history.

Einstein, on the other hand, in view of my God-as-self philosophy, may have had an overall neutral or even negative affect on human happiness, for all his knowledge and wisdom. We know not what we do? I'm a bit concerned for myself, on that score, and want to live a happier and more giving life. But atomic power, with chain-reactions, in a universe that Spinoza said was all pretty much the same thing? That makes me think of utter annihilation of the entire universe. It doesn't get much worse than that, does it. I wish I could have a conversation with Tesla, Hawking, and Einstein. See, I like to think I'm smart, lol. Maybe I'm just blessed (with some letters in my name?).

I also like the God as everything/Nature/reality concept, which is compatible with the self-deification and other-deification and even paperweight-deification concepts floating around in my blog, because reality is, and if we want to be happy then why not associate I AM with love, even if the universe is indifferent (but only if you see it that way?). If you believe the universe is a kind, loving, personal, rational place that answers your prayers, maybe you'll live a happier life than if you think it's a cruel, random, impersonal, and indifferent one. I think it's all about psychology, and, in the form of religion, community.

South Park's episode on blowing up imagination-land seems relevant. Ha.

Einstein wasn't so bad. His family life, was he in love? That's what really matters, they say.