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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!
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To: Brumar89 who wrote (94219)1/21/2005 12:35:40 AM
From: cosmicforce  Read Replies (2) of 108807
 
What is it you think Franklin believed in EXACTLY? Certainly something that didn't need or want to be prayed to (which is at odds with almost every modern monotheistic religion!) God is Nature is how Spinoza put it. Hard to argue with that, but some consider it too poetic to be scientifically useful. There is a strong case for that position.

Compare Franklin or Spinoza to any modern religious doctrine. Franklin was expressing the same idea that which has become routinely identified with Spinoza years later. Did he read Spinoza? Don't know.

If I personally was to believe in God, and I have considerable doubt about the need, it would be THAT god of Spinoza. Total awareness, maybe. It is clear that Franklin wanted to believe in a higher power (a Cosmic Force, perhaps?) but it also is clear that it was so far above humanity as to be nearly inert from the human perspective outside of contemplation.

There might be an organizing force, a Cosmic Force if you will, and each of us is a little "c" cosmic force. It is only useful as a metaphor. IMO.

friesian.com

Spinoza's God is not the God of Abraham and Isaac, not a personal God at all, and his system provides no reason for the revelatory status of the Bible or the practice of Judaism, or of any religion, for that matter.
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