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| Samuel Hirszenberg, Excommunicated Spinoza |
I woke up today wondering if the psychological connection between religion and mental illness has been studied. Of course it has.
I just did a quick google – it’s been looked at a LOT.
The connection, the relationship between religion and craziness is deep and messy deserving much exploration.
Current high levels of religious psychosis in this country are disturbing to say the least. Maybe the US has always been this way. After all, the Puritans came to Massachusetts in 1629 after getting kicked out of England. They were booted for trying to impose their beliefs on the Church of England. Totally bright move, eh?
The Puritans were hardly a stable, love-thy-neighbor lot. Well, only if their neighbors were clones of themselves. Our uptight friends were in search of a place they would have freedom to worship as they wished but that freedom was only meant for themselves. YOUR beliefs and ideas, if in any way different, were considered abject heresy. Puritans feuded with Catholics, Quakers, and other Protestants. Roger Williams was ixnayed, moved south and formed the Providence Plantations, which became the colony of Rhode Island. It was set up for “liberty of conscience” – ironically, religious freedom. Freedom from the religious freedom colony.
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| Barend Graat, Probable portrait of Spinoza |
The Puritans – do they sound like any current assholes we might know, hmmmmmm? You know, like the white Evangelicals AKA white Christian nationalists who fill the ranks of the Republican party? Think Rapey Pete Kegseth, Holy Mike Johnson, head of the White House “Faith Office” Paula White, and Stephen Miller (though Jewish he def falls into this camp) to name just a few.
It’s difficult, for me anyway, to keep in mind that NOT ALL Christians are tiny brained, close-minded, hate mongering ambulating stacks of doberman diarrhea.
Einstein, you remember him, right? He favored the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza’s take on god and religion.
"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."
Spinoza argued that whatever exists is in God. The divine being is not some distant force, but all around us. Nothing in nature is separate from Him: not people, animals or inanimate objects. Today, the view that God is synonymous with nature is called “pantheism,” and this term is often retrospectively applied to Spinoza. (source)
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| Statue of Spinoza by Nicolas Dings |
Pantheism
- a doctrine that equates god with the forces and laws of the universe.
- the doctrine that the universe conceived of as a whole is God and, conversely, that there is no God but the combined substance, forces, and laws that are manifested in the existing universe.
- the belief that God and nature are inextricably entwined.
This is, more or less/close enough, a reasonable summation or approximate illumination of my take on the whole god business.
Some featherbrains used to believe that smoking the Devil’s lettuce led to shooting smack. Apparently, similar mini-minds jumped to the sure, firm “knowledge” that Spinoza leads to Nietzsche. Pantheism leads to atheism. 🙄
The anthropomorphic version of God condemned by Spinoza paved the way for the remote God of later centuries, who sat apart from the universe and, having created it, left it to unfold autonomously, according to mechanical laws. From this “thin” conception of the deity it was a short logical step to Friedrich Nietzsche reading Him the last rites. (source)
Spare me and also, who cares! We're, at best, briefly lived fireflies in this big fat universe. We're born. We're here to enjoy the hell out of life, do some good, and then we die. Dat's it.
According to a recent Gallop poll the percentage of US Americans who say religion is “very important” in their lives has leveled off at just under 50%. The most significant drop, since 1948, was in Protestants. People identifying as Catholic or “other” remained the same, more or less. Folks who claimed “none” (i.e., no religious affiliation) rose from 2% to 24%. Given all the god salesweasels, Jesus botherers, and religious scamsters, this comes as no fucking surprise.
Yes, I’m starting today on the DEEP side of the old brain.
The mind of God is all the mentality that is scattered over space and time, the diffused consciousness that animates the world.
~ Spinoza
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