(December 17, 2018 at 10:34 pm)Belaqua Wrote: A lot depends on how we define "rabble rousers." For US foreign policy, it often includes anyone who thinks the profits from local resources should go to local people. Many quiet people who only wanted peace have had their lives ruined due to this foreign policy.
Very true. I was reading an article recently claiming that the CIA assassinated Thomas Merton. So I suppose I have to redact my hermit comment.
Quote:Spinoza, of course, believed in God, and this belief didn't make him more violent.
This is very much a matter for debate. I have a soft spot for Spinoza's "pantheism"... though he never called himself a pantheist... and I have my doubt whether he fits that mould. Perhaps. Perhaps not.
If you want to say Spinoza believes in God you have to include an asterisk. * Spinoza's God is identical with "nature." He says this plainly. He doesn't attach any intentionality whatsoever to the motions of God. God doesn't care about you or have any special awareness about you or your life. To Spinoza, anthropomorphizing God in any way is absurd. God's nature is not human nature... God has no desires, feelings, or motivations. He doesn't prefer any one thing over another.
Except perhaps the Hindu Brahman, among those Hindus who see Brahman as an impersonal force, there is no broadly accepted theistic doctrine that describes anything remotely like Spinoza's God. I personally think he was describing something like the Tao rather than a god. At any rate, his ideas more remble atheism than theism, especially theism in the Abrahamic traditions.
On a side note though, I guess you could say that Spinoza proved that God was real. But it was a bit of redfinition on his part. "Whatever is real, is God." By that definition God is real a priori.
