I labeled myself a Spinozan Theist after a bout with depression resulting from a very painful divorce and a bunch of other issues I've been toting around for a good many years. I had a breakdown and experienced something which now seems like a distant memory. From my reading I gathered that what I went through is not that unusual, a sudden burst of religious certitude, a seeming transformation, or "regeneration", I suppose the evangelicals might call it. I kept it mostly to myself except for a few rather silly outbursts here, and over time this feeling of sudden faith and newfound purpose gradually evaporated. I literally cannot believe some of the things I was thinking during those few weeks. At no point did I feel like a Christian or anything nameable, I just felt as if God had grabbed hold of me. It felt very real. I believed it. All in all it was not as dramatic as it may sound since I've always had a strong interest in religion and theology, my whole life. I love cathedrals and churches, religious iconography, particularly old Catholic. I love sacred music, Tallis, Byrd, Bach, Haydn, etc; but at the same time I was essentially an atheist, in that I didn't believe in God, gods, souls or anything supernatural. It happens. George Santayana was a famous poet and philosopher who spent his last days in a convent. He loved the Catholic church but had no actual god-belief.
I explain it to people by trying to get across the idea of reverence. There seems to be precious little reverence left in modern society. One of the things I admire about Ayn Rand was that she was a reverent person. She revered reason and Man. Man (and Woman!) was a being deserving of reverence and admiration, not the whole species, lock, stock, and barrel, but one at a time, individually, and certainly not every man. Not hardly. There were, and still are, real heroes in the world, and were it not for the intellectual giants who stood head and shoulders above their fellow men and women, I would not have the way of life I have now, nor the general safety and security in which to live it. I'm a reverent and grateful person. Someone asked Einstein if he believed in God, and Einstein's answer was, "I believe in the God of Spinoza." Though I had heard of Spinoza all my life I never read him. After my depression and breakdown, I bought his complete works, and fell in love with them. I'm trying to heal myself, to stay alive so I can continue to work and save money and hopefully fund the education of my two sons, should they choose to continue with it after high school. They are both extremely bright and it would be a shame if they allowed their fears and phobias to hold them back the way I did. 'At's about it.
I explain it to people by trying to get across the idea of reverence. There seems to be precious little reverence left in modern society. One of the things I admire about Ayn Rand was that she was a reverent person. She revered reason and Man. Man (and Woman!) was a being deserving of reverence and admiration, not the whole species, lock, stock, and barrel, but one at a time, individually, and certainly not every man. Not hardly. There were, and still are, real heroes in the world, and were it not for the intellectual giants who stood head and shoulders above their fellow men and women, I would not have the way of life I have now, nor the general safety and security in which to live it. I'm a reverent and grateful person. Someone asked Einstein if he believed in God, and Einstein's answer was, "I believe in the God of Spinoza." Though I had heard of Spinoza all my life I never read him. After my depression and breakdown, I bought his complete works, and fell in love with them. I'm trying to heal myself, to stay alive so I can continue to work and save money and hopefully fund the education of my two sons, should they choose to continue with it after high school. They are both extremely bright and it would be a shame if they allowed their fears and phobias to hold them back the way I did. 'At's about it.
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