RE: Isn’t pantheism the same thing as atheism?
November 23, 2021 at 10:07 am
(This post was last modified: November 23, 2021 at 10:20 am by The Grand Nudger.)
I don’t know that any amount of clarification would have helped in his own time. I can’t help but recommend Crosbys religion of nature whenever I think about what Spinoza might have said if he were transported to today.
Ultimately, though, if contemporary god believers glom onto Spinozan pantheism - it could only be an improvement, imo.
Fatal for specific types of gods, maybe- but if we’re exploring the god that is, rather than the god we might wish there to be- we have to consider the space left for a god in a fully deterministic universe - just as we’d have to consider ourselves as we are instead of how we wished we were in the same.
Fwiw….gods have never been traditionally seen to have the kind of free will demanded of them in this convo. They had fates, even the Abrahamic god wasn’t ( and still isn’t) free to do this or that…and , ofc, he has that little issue with ferrous metal. Even if there were room for free will in our world ( and hey, who knows…there might be) it’s unclear that a god would occupy that space, or that we do.
As far as morality, what does a god have to do with morality? They might be moral, immoral, amoral, some combo. No shortage of examples in our gods stories. A god could be any of these things and still be a god, just as a god could inhabit a world where there was (legitimately) such a thing as moral significance…or one in which there was not.
Ultimately, though, if contemporary god believers glom onto Spinozan pantheism - it could only be an improvement, imo.
Fatal for specific types of gods, maybe- but if we’re exploring the god that is, rather than the god we might wish there to be- we have to consider the space left for a god in a fully deterministic universe - just as we’d have to consider ourselves as we are instead of how we wished we were in the same.
Fwiw….gods have never been traditionally seen to have the kind of free will demanded of them in this convo. They had fates, even the Abrahamic god wasn’t ( and still isn’t) free to do this or that…and , ofc, he has that little issue with ferrous metal. Even if there were room for free will in our world ( and hey, who knows…there might be) it’s unclear that a god would occupy that space, or that we do.
As far as morality, what does a god have to do with morality? They might be moral, immoral, amoral, some combo. No shortage of examples in our gods stories. A god could be any of these things and still be a god, just as a god could inhabit a world where there was (legitimately) such a thing as moral significance…or one in which there was not.
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