03 April 2008

Deus sive Natura

"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." Albert Einstein

When I think of the spirituality of people like Einstein, Spinoza and Wittgenstein it is like coming home.  For someone like me -who can't bear the bombasity, blindness, hypocrisy and judgmental ways of the religious right and yet can't stand the cold, stark, unimaginative world of the atheist, where there is no faith, only cool reason- these three together form a nice warm place that I can call home.  Where I don't need to be yelled at and ridiculed by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins (both brilliant men whom I admire) by wanting something more or irritated by the stupidity of the Bill O'Reilly's and Pat Roberston's (whom I do not admire) for saying that there is no Grandfather God dead set on punishing "fags" and converting the "savages."

Similar to Einstein I do not believe in a personal grandpa God who is up there in his rocking chair listening to my problems and sending me guardian angels.  Of course I do not accept the thinking of Einstein, Spinoza, and Wittgenstein as a substitute for my own.  But it is nice to know that there have been others who have felt similarly.  

"If by eternity is understood not eternal temporal duration, but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present."  Ludwig Wittgenstein.  

I don't know that it's ever been said better. Is there hope for the future? Only if you have faith that a future exists for you, you never know what will happen or what will befall you tomorrow or even this evening. Do you want to toil for an eternity you can't grasp, hoping that grandfather god will have mercy on you? Or do you want to enjoy the timelessness of every present moment, of all you have been blessed with right now?