Everything and Nothing

God is everything. It's something I've learned since before I knew I was learning it. "There is a little bit of God in everyone, even in robbers," my mother would tell me. [I used to be very afraid of robbers.] Yeah... that was sweet. And it was a nice little sugarspun idea, but the cupcake sort of wore away by the time I knew that there were fully bad people in the world. Pantheism seems too farfetched, too sweet and cute and perfect for me, the jaded teenager, I guess.

Spinoza, evidentally, lives in a little fantasyland, where the worst thing that can happen to you is falling into a big bad molasses swamp, and the point of life is to get to a castle made of peppermint candies and cake. That's what I thought when I first re-heard of pantheism a few years ago. Of course, I didn't know it had a name, I didn't know Spinoza was even involved. But that idea, that God is everywhere - that God is everything - was too ideal, too perfect for me.

That was the prologue. The first question for this [last week's] assignment was: Why do you think the Rabbinical community excommunicated Spinoza? I thought it was obvious at first: his ideas countered theirs and maybe they didn't like that. He was stating that God was not the creator, to copy a quote I used in some other post down there, but instead actually was the creation. Well! How can we worship something we... wait, something we are? I can't worship myself, it goes against Judaism, but that's what Spinoza was claiming. Our existence is God, and our being is God, so therefore, according to my, perhaps twisted, logic, I am God. [I do not think I am God.]

So why excommunicate him? Because they thought he was a little smudge on their perfect drawing? Well that just ruins my entire image of the LEADERS OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY FOR DECADES! No, I think it was something larger. This is me being a pop psychologist, but maybe they agreed with him and the idea that I just stated, that they could be facets of God themselves, was terrifying. Impossible. Chaotic. I could keep going. It would be impossible to be God without disrespecting God, and it would be impossible to worship God and be God, so Spinoza presented them with a paradoxical situation that the Rabbis could not reconcile. Whether excommunication was the right choice, I do not know. Frankly, for a group that "hates to conform," though that is under some debate in my mind @themoment, excommunication seems pretty goyish.

Part II was How can pantheism be meaningful to you [ergo, me]? Well, I don't know. I don't actually agree with it all that much so I don't find it all that meaningful. I believe God is everywhere, but the idea of God being everything, also, seems impossible. It is an incredibly humbling thought. I mean, God is everything, so God is as much of a mouse as he is Oprah. They seem completely different, one on a different plane of existence, but apparently they would not be. I think that's an incredibly cool idea, really, but it also makes me think: then, humans are demigods. We should be more powerful. What would life be like if I could smite those who bothered me? Not that I would, but God knows [lolol] that I sometimes want to.

The idea also brings up questions: Was God Hitler? Was God the Nazis? Is God Hezbollah? Is God the Bio teacher I think should die? Is God my history test, and if so, why did I fail? Little everyday problems, or global genocides, are all God. I can't reconcile myself with a God who kills Jews, or who fails hardworking students. I can't do it. So it means something to me, but in a way, if I subscribe to pantheism, I subscribe to the ending of my own faith. I don't like that it's that way, but for me, it is. So I'm sorry that I wasn't able to adequately answer that question. It wouldn't be possible for me to find that meaningful in a positive way.