RE: Anyone here a Category 7?
September 28, 2018 at 7:08 pm
(This post was last modified: September 28, 2018 at 7:14 pm by vulcanlogician.)
(September 28, 2018 at 6:22 pm)Khemikal Wrote: The universe isn't a being. People are and have beings. Investing the universe with that concept is what brings it closer to the set of other beings we call gods.
I think you're arguing with the dictionary. You also seem to be forgetting that (to the pantheist) everything that is an aspect of the universe is an aspect of God. Do rocks exist in the universe? Then God has rocks. Are there calcium deposits on those rocks? Then God has calcium deposits. Are there people in the universe? Then God has people. Do people have being? Then God has being. In the pantheist conception you are looking at the whole and nothing but the whole. There is no such thing as a part. A part is a handy tool for us to make sense of shit, but in Spinoza's conception looking at a single part is (in the grand scheme) a grave omission.
Also, the universe is --and anything that is has being, and (in that way) is a being. People have written entire books on what being actually may mean. Your post misses Spinoza's meaning.
I can't explain pantheism any more than I have. I feel like at this point, for me to go any further would be to drift into grimy apologetics. I think pantheism is an admirable and accurate way to conceive of the whole. I like it... much the same way some people like Buddhism but are not Buddhists. I like pantheism but am not a pantheist. For the ardent defense you require, you need to find a genuine pantheist. I've done all I can do here.
That said, I think you should read the Ethics at some point in your life. You would dig it, man. I promise. And I also think you would dig where Spinoza is coming from. The book is not "all about pantheism." It is an endorsement of a materialistic worldview (at a time when this was very controversial), an analysis of how a rational person might analyze his own emotional states, and (as the title promises) an ethical exposition that is tied to all that metaphysics, tempered with inspiration from ancient Stoic philosophy. You might want to wait until you are an empty-nester though. It is the most difficult work I've ever read. Many parts of it I just left without puzzling them out, so I could go ahead and complete it.
edit: If you take anything from this post, I want it to be this: "God has rocks."
I'm getting to Jor's epistemology question next....
