Spinoza and the Author of the Pentateuch

  I have a different point of view on the topic of Moses authoring the Pentateuch. Even today the authorship of the Pentateuch is controversial among Christians and atheists. Spinoza could have run into the Papacy as the absolute authority on scripture. I have no problem like that. Today the problem is the popular wise guy atheism of the broadcast media if any.

16th and 17th century Holland was a challenging time for religion. The reformation and Catholic traditions met uneasily. Protestant sects had theological differences too. Spinoza was really out on a limb in being a self-standing, free-thinking theologian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_religion_in_the_Netherlands

Spinoza was cast out of his Jewish synagogue. People have written that his theological ideas run toward pan-theism, yet he appears to have been Christian too if one can rely on his letters. In either case each way of thinking would be inconsistent with membership in a synagogue I suppose, unless they all become reformed Christians.

I will provide a quote from wikipedia- “I do not think it necessary for salvation to know Christ according to the flesh : but with regard to the Eternal Son of God, that is the Eternal Wisdom of God, which has manifested itself in all things and especially in the human mind, and above all in Christ Jesus, the case is far otherwise. For without this no one can come to a state of blessedness, inasmuch as it alone teaches, what is true or false, good or evil. And, inasmuch as this wisdom was made especially manifest through Jesus Christ, as I have said, his disciples preached it, in so far as it was revealed to them through him, and thus showed that they could rejoice in that spirit of Christ more than the rest of mankind. The doctrines added by certain churches, such as that God took upon himself human nature, I have expressly said that I do not understand; in fact, to speak the truth, they seem to me no less absurd than would a statement, that a circle had taken upon itself the nature of a square. This I think will be sufficient explanation of my opinions concerning the three points mentioned. Whether it will be satisfactory to Christians you will know better than I.

• Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg, November (1675)”

  Let me explain about Moses. I believe he invented the aleph beth as a linguistic syncretism made possible by an Egyptian hieroglyphic literate Prince escaping to Israel with his Hebrew Semitic people. Moses received the stories of Israeli history from the captives in Cairo as well as from other sources. He was a consolidator and led his people to the promised land. Moses foretold that one day a Jewish leader would devote himself to writing down everything Moses did and said. I believe it probable that fellow was King David.

  King David devoted himself to the word of God provided in various documents as a legacy from Moses centuries before. David's son Solomon commissioned that they be formally consolidated and assembled as the Pentateuch. Some scholars believe that a J writer was the first to work on the project, and there were others that followed. The topic has quite a lot to it and few knew about that until the 20th century. After that it became more common knowledge for theologians.

 Spinoza ran into the problem of secular establishments that would repress knowledge. Unions do that too in areas besides scholarship. Corporatists and communes also perp repression when they regard people as products for marketing or alternatively nails that should not stick up and require hammering down. They repress this or that individual inconvenient for their public social narrative. Kierkegaard's method of Socratic irony questioned social zeitgeist and social organization. Skeptics are not the only philosophers to discover faulty thought. Socrates worked on that in his dialogues too of course.

I am sure Thomas Hobbes was a well-intentioned scholar. For me though his Leviathan is far too much. He could have equally been describing the Devil's absolute power in hell. Saddam Hussein was the perfect Hobbsean absolute ruler. Perhaps the west should feel some recalcitrance about ending Hobbes' Leviathan fulfillment figure. For myself I think it's the aftermath that was tragic rather than the demise of Saddam Hussein.

Hume's Existential Historical Analysis (Essay I-III-11)

Hume thought hereditary monarchies have non-violent transitions in comparison to non-hereditary. Yet we know from reading Shakespeare and the history of Byzantium that is not so.

Hume assumes the Roman Republic was a democracy that didn't work as the plebes in cities ran it to ruin. If one reads Livy one learns about the Roman Senate and its power as well as that of the consuls and master of the horse during war. Those were not powerless people. The plebes never came in to their own until they demanded Caesar have power, then they made his emperor. I believe Hume's Roman analysis is very poor. 

 Hume believes that monarchs treat provinces better than democracies. It is strange that he overlooked America in his analysis. King George III was the reason for the rebellion. The U.S. government sometimes has treated its 'provinces' or territories better than the states. Puerto Rico received billions and billions for hurricane relief in 2017-18 for example. I think Hume realized who buttered his bread in the England of his day- the nobles. Maybe they should have been named something else such as power goons level I, II III etc.

 Spanish monarchs allowed slavery in Latin America as did England in what became the U.S.A. Slavery was brought to half the world in fairly modern times thanks to monarchy. About 16 million aboriginal Americans perished during the era of Spanish royal power. it wasn't a pretty time.

  Hume use the term "government after the eastern manner" a couple of times. That might have been a bete noir of the time. Oriental despotism was a cliche. The Chinese imperial court was terribly lax. It was apparently quite authoritarian at times as was I suppose the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan.

  Hume posits various pure forms of government (three forms actually) and describes them as strong or mild versions and considers them in a mildly Aristotelian (the Politics) way, ineffectively. I agree with Hume's method of existential historical analysis yet he needs better though about human social organization. There are an infinite number of possible forms of human social organizations; well, at least as many forms as their are configurations of pieces on a chess board. The goal is to make the pieces work well together, and to assure that all the pieces have equal rights of value though some are more powerful than others. Human for some cause lacked the insights provide by the mathematical concept of Hilbert space permutations applied to political structures and ideal ways of responding to emergent issues, such as is possible today.

On Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion's Conclusion

David Hume was a great British philosopher yet I must stipulate that his work seems especially dated to me. Some concepts seem wrong or off key so far as they have any claim to scientific accuracy. The Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a kind of epistemological work. The 'copy principle' of mind and perceptions that is used in Human Understanding tends to be the criterion for that on Natural Religion too. In a way it is all kind of social solipsism with impressions drawn from historical circumstance. Some may of course feel that Hume was being a deadpan existential relativist concerning religion. At the end he seems to recognize the irresistible logic for it although he may be doing so while having already disqualified all human knowledge as historical circumstance. In particular per example the problem Hume found with cause and effects was taken badly for generations. That seems an unrealistic way of viewing empirical, material affairs. Newton's third law for example, of action and reaction, easily can represent cause and effect even if there is a proceeding cause of the proximal cause.

Hume's concluding discourse by Philo is apposite to the Christian paradigm that he seldom mentions- the unspoken natural religion he is often speaking of. In fact it is a surprising logical affirmation of certain important Christian theological points. God is unapproachably perfect and good and is offended by sin. Mankind has original sin and could in no way have a relationship with God except through an intermediary acting to renormalize saved elements of humanity to God. That individual is the Lord Jesus Christ. I shall quote the relevant section from chapter twelve pages 248-9; “It is contrary to common sense to entertain apprehensions or terrors upon account of any opinion whatsoever, or to imagine that w e run any risk hereafter by the freest; use of our reason. Such a sentiment implies both an absurdity and an inconsistency. It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause. It is an inconsistency to believe, that, since the Deity has this human passion, he has not others also; and in particular, a disregard to the opinions of creatures so much inferior. To know God, says Seneca, is to worship him. All other worship is indeed absurd, superstitious, and even impious. It degrades him to the low condition of mankind, who are delighted with intreaty, solicitation, presents, and flattery. Yet is this impiety the smallest of which superstition is guilty. Commonly, it depresses the Deity or rather indeed endeavour to entertain, suitable notions of his divine perfections: As the only persons, intitled to his compassion and indulgence, would be the philosophical Sceptics, a sect almost equally rare, who, from a natural diffidence of their own capacity, suspend, or endeavour to suspend, all judgment with regard to such sublime and such extraordinary subjects. If the whole of Natural Theology, as some people seem to maintain, resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined proposition, That the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence: If this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more particular explication: If it affords no inference that affects human life, or can be the source of any action or forbearance: And if the analogy, imperfect as it is, can be carried no farther than to the human intelligence; and cannot be transferred, with any appearance of probability, to the other qualities of the mind: If this really be the case, what can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as it occurs; and believe that the arguments on which it is established, exceed the objections which lie against it? Some astonishment indeed will naturally arise from the greatness of the object; some melancholy from its obscurity; some contempt of human reason. that it can give no solution more satisfactory with regard to so extraordinary and magnificent a question. But believe me, Cleanthes, the most natural sentiment, which a well-disposed mind will feel on this occasion, is a longing desire and expectation, that heaven would be pleased to dissipate, at least alleviate, this profound ignorance, by affording some more particular revelation to mankind, and making discoveries of the nature, attributes, and operations, of the divine object of our faith. A person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with that he can erect a complete system of Theology by the mere help of philosophy, disdains any farther aid, and rejects this adventitious instructor. To be a philosophical Sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian; a proposition, which I would willingly recommend to the attention of Pamphilus :”

Hume ended Kant's dogmatic slumber, though I cannot recall what it was Hume wrote that stimulated Kant to think along lines leading to the Critique of Pure Reason. Perhaps it was Hume's propensity for reasoning about things itself, even if not perfectly in key these days. The idea of the prime mover of causality may have been Hume's target in devising his thought leading to the end of causal relations. I would tend to have a modern point of view on the topic myself that would view matter in its quantum context; as emergent elements in a Higgs field as particles containing elements of force. Hilbert spatial representation and physical content bring selected and necessary states of configuration into being. In the steady-state quantum configuration of matter in-the-Universe mass follows thermodynamic principles. Not to labor the point, I believe one need use a fuzzy logic accounting system for attributing causes and effects. High pressure and low pressure, high temperature and low temperature, Boyle's law, equalization of pressure and temperature and allocation of a force follow consistent lines.

Hume wrote in chapter twelve of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion that “still it must be acknowledged, that, as terror is the primary principle of religion, it is the passion which always predominates in it, and admits but of short intervals of pleasure.” I don't agree at all that mankind has stimulus-response S/R conditioning and fear of worse in eternity as his primary motives. Knowledge is an end-in-itself that mankind tries to get. A sentient being has just so much that he or she may do; physical and intellectual things running even toward the spiritual. Seeking a knowledge of God for-himself rather than trying to explain away all of human experience and interests as biological activities solely and dismissively are quite opposite activities. The former seeks to enlighten the mind while the latter acts to extinguish thought.

David Hume's approach is one of reason, yet it is revealed knowledge; grace from God, that is the credible reason for belief of Christians,  rather than a posteriori logic.

Mainstream Media; Mostly Foes of the President

It is amazing checking out some of the news pages on the internet such as MSN. The overwhelming majority of the articles are plainly foe points of view concerning the President. CNN seems something like an intifada against the President seeking for new angles to attack by the hour.

The mainstream media is owned by the rich. Corporatists have a very different point of view about national sovereignty, and it is not a democratic (not the party named that) point of view. President Trump generally supports American national interests while the media do not.

Corporatists seek to make collectives of society that are malleable to coercion passively. They have some scientific support as well as that of homosexual leaders. Humanity is regarded as biomass that is over fecund and needs to be trimmed and without self-determination except insofaras it benefits the most rich.

The problem (well one of numerous problems) with rule by the rich is that it is unhuman and promotes the most corrupt values. It is as bad as mindless communist collectivism or crowds of fans at N.B.A. games in urban deserts where all the wildlife is gone and global warming gasses are the primary wild product many don't believe in. Collectivism and corporatism minimize individual rights and try to put the dirty wool sweatshirt over the head of the masses so they may be beaten down and plundered. Individualism is descried as is actual democracy and free expression because that could increase taxes on the most rich.

The democrat party itself is a tool of the most corrupt globalists and Harvard elements. Since the Carter administration it has lost moral bearings. Kennedy, Clinton and Obama destroyed it. Each worked for the downfall of the U.S.A. and strong U.S. nationalism in their own way. In some respects Boston is the root of all evil in the U.S.A.

Does FBI Have Right to Infiltrate Partisan Political Campaigns?

It hadn't occurred to me that the Obama era F.B.I. led by an Obama appointee would infiltrate Donald Trump's Presidential campaign with an informant. If Richard Nixon had thought to send infiltrators into the Democrat National Committee he could have avoided sending crass burglars to the Watergate Hotel.

Of course, if captured the President and F.B.I. Director could disavow any knowledge of the activity. Yet it seems that some believe the victim of an FBI  political spy campaign have no right to self-defense.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/20/trump-to-demand-justice-probe-whether-feds-spied-on-campaign-for-political-purposes.html

Blitz Chess 3M English Opening-Symmetrical Variation Botvinnik System

I played black. I am down a hundred-fifty points so it's good to recover a few.

Human Social and Intellectual Evolution Are Works In Progress

Knowledge generally is compartmentalized except for some very basic common shared public education and information about certain matters. As great philosophical changes and insights arise those ideas usually are interpreted in ways that run toward extremes without consideration of the need to understand the idea as a discovery that can change or interact with numerous ideas instead of being self standing. Evolution is such an idea.

Evolution was taken to be in conflict with Biblical data. In fact evolution was in conflict with what people had understood the Bible to mean on certain matters in the absence of scientific information that was more accurate and detailed than that provided by non-scientific clergy. In fact the Bible is not in conflict with evolution theory and in many regards is consistent with it. Clergy over history have been heavily involved with politics and political evolution of mankind and human social organization, mostly for the good. Original sin; human nature wrapped up in thermodynamics and the processing of food for energy, procreation and so forth, implicitly renders mankind violent and thoughtless of the rights of others to exist. In plainly evolved nature also known as the wild kingdom anything not kin is just food if its edible.

The kingdom of God is different than that. The kingdom of God entails all of the rights of modern mankind as thinking, civilized beings one could want. There were basic commandment; a decalogue that set forth the right course for mankind differentiated from animals and renormalized to go so long as they could follow all of those rules. Of course mankind could not, for a number of reason. The Old Testament is replete with copious lamentations and complaints of God about the faithlessness and wanderlust of Israel.

Christians too have often some trouble in accepting the facts of evolution and the genomic foundation or etiology of mankind. As biological beings some have a surfeit of pride concerning human ancestry. If 14 million years ago homo erectus was a humble ancestor with innumerable lines that evolved into various later species of hominid that eventually were all killed off except for homo sapiens sapiens, they might think that mankind came from apes, instead of realizing that mankind is today one of five species of primates- apes without tales.

Adam and Eve (adamas means brown dirt and Eve’s initial name was Edith) ate of a cultivated fruit tree. Cultivating fruit trees is a result of a tree of knowledge; a rise of knowledge about how to graft trees with various branches to produce better fruit. When they ate of the apple (only little crab-apple sized fruits without cultivation) they also discovered they were naked and needed clothing. God kicked them out of the garden of Eden where humans as just animals could live the animal life and made them work and bear children. Humanity was ready for social evolution rather than simple animal evolution at that point.

Adam and Eve may have lived in a space-time anomaly without the passage of time; perhaps as pure spirits, or they may have represented a local people that became learned about manufacture and clothing, there are several ways to interpret the ancient literature or Biblical historical account written for people of the era of 2000 B.C. to the present day, yet it is plain that they were sent from a paradise of easy living to labor in the normal Earth. When Cain the blacksmith killed his brother Abel the goat herder, Cain was marked and sent out into the world of pre-existing peoples. He had sons and became established. His may have been the first civilization that was eventually destroyed during the time of Noah.

The lost first human civilization and the flood are amongst the easiest to account for as well as to misunderstand. During the late Pleistocene about 12,000 B.C. sea levels rose. A Mesopotamian civilization near the Persian Gulf behind a river deposition berm might readily have been flooded by a tidal surge, storm and glacial melting flood from the great rivers upstream. Survivors of the flood; Noah and his family might have been deposited on the hills of Ararat or Urartu as it was known before transliteration by Jewish scribes in the first millenium B.C. The borders of ancient Urartu- a vanished kingdom were generally uphill from the Persian Gulf with rather vague boundaries.

 The interpretation of ancient Biblical material in such a way as to more correctly understand its references is a work that requires an interdisciplinary approach with history, linguistic philosophy and Biblical scholarship as well as science; geology biology and astrophysics cannot harm either.

 Anthropology and archeology enable one to discover that human farming did begin about 12,000 B.C. Before that people were hunter gatherers and perhaps animal herders. Cain killed Abel. Settled agricultural cities eliminated the pastoral societies the historian Arnold Toynbee noted. The children of Noah went out in the world and became the founders of nations. They changed the societies they arrived in with the cultural dispersion of knowledge that has evolved human societies forward since, well since Adam and Eve left Eden.

Genesis 10; “1 Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.
2 The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.

3 And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.

4 And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.

5 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.”

Giants mentioned in Genesis, of the era were probably a few remaining Neanderthals with a larger body size comparable  in physical development to pro football players amongs clerks. European and Oriental genomes have a small percent of Neanderthal or denisovan components respectively.

It would be interesting to account for the creation account in Genesis. People often find it in conflict with scientific cosmology yet I think it is remarkably accurate myself, considering when it was written and for whom it was given. I wrote a book that is free to download on the topic ;

http://www.lulu.com/shop/garrison-clifford-gibson/god-cosmology-and-nothingness-theory-and-theology-in-a-scientific-era/ebook/product-22947558.html

Cultured atheists are not the only ones that are dismissive of the church. The church is of course different than the Bible. The ideal Christian church before the third coming of Christ (the second was after resurrection) to Earth differs from the actual church on Earth that has a structure most often reflecting that of hierarchical or corporate organizations instead of a priesthood of believers as Martin Luther pointed out. Church structures make pew sitters instead of peer participants out of people, and poorly educated in science, evolution, Bible scholarship and philosophy church leaders have tended to make little fiefdoms of their churches wherein they are petty nobles whom commoners tithe. It is a wrong and inefficient way in an advanced post-industrial society.

So much of the atheism that sends so many people on the road to hell happens in the absence of an inclusive church that welcomes all people as beginners, intermediates and elders to priesthood of believers churches where all share the three levels of roles and where all lead in professing true, non-hypocritical faith. God is true yet evolution is true. God is a personal God who is omnipotent and omniscient yet the world is pre-determined concurrently with humans having free will. Actually one ought to be a scientist as well as a philosopher, historian and theologian with some anthropological training as well to better understand the Bible.

 The final point I will make here is that the end times mentioned in the Bible book of the revelation of John as an apocalyptic event occurred in the first century ad. The destruction of Jerusalem was one of numerous events foretold by the Lord Jesus. He said they would occur before the last of the present generation was dead. They did. He was the greatest prophet as well as the Son of God and an equal member of the trinity. After that the kingdom of God was supposed to increase until most of the people were Christian. There is no particular end date to that besides it being when the age of the gentiles is fulfilled. When humanity can go no farther of its own efforts. When human destiny is fulfilled all will be resurrected for judgement.

EU Chastises Pres Trump With Its Ivory Tusk

The leader of the EU Council Donald Tusk said about President Trump "“Looking at the latest decisions of President Trump, some could think, with friends like that, who needs enemies?”

 Belgium after the first world war took control of what is today's Rwanda and Burundi and administered them so badly that the future problems of those nations, even so far as genocide, were partially formed. Learning from the arrogant dehumanization of Africans in the Belgian Congo, Belgian poilitical authorities took a walk on the dark side of the force- skimming proplits. President Trump is leading America now. Maybe he can recover somethng from Belgium that will help pay off the national debts of Rwanda and Burundi, as improbable as that seems.

It is good that President Trump appears to like his job. Many people would not want to visit Belgium; land of the waffle stomper school of diplomacy, for insults.

Sicilian Defense- French Variation -3 Min Blitz Chess

I played white...

Comment On Faster than Light Travel

There is a book named 'Flatterland' that is good non-tech reading about mathematics of dimensions. I prefer the transporter approaches over spaceships. Since all particles and mass are expressed or entangled in the Higgs field, it might be that spatial distances are contingent aspects of that steady state of mass, therefore superposition of particles is a normal Higgs attribute and relocating mass as information to anyplace would not require spatial travel. Instead it would require moving information- reassembled in the steady state as entangled mass. Instead of travelling through space-time the techniques to slip past it hold more interest.