I recently read through Spinoza's Ethics, because I was told, that it shows how an atheist can believe in a god and that the last part disproves my views on life. It is written in quite an old language, so reading it was not easy, but I think I got most of it.
Here he argues that there is only one god, that everything happens in accord with god and that god must exist. However, his idea of a god is very different from the common understanding. Looks like his god does not have any plan, will or even consciousness. God is either the reality itself or its origin. He also throws some good critique on the common idea of gods towards the end. Really, he sounds more like an atheist to me. But saying that according to this logic an atheist can believe in a god is misleading, because he makes the word "god" basically just a synonym for "reality". Apparently, it is called pantheism and it looks like the difference from atheism is mostly just that they worship life.
Not much to talk about here, mostly just descriptions about mind, but also a bit about bodies and physics. He talks about god being a "thinking thing", but I don't think it means god literally thinks, because that would go against what he wrote in the first part. Otherwise, it is hard to understand, but it mostly seems like observations which are obvious to us now. For example, that when a person hears a word, like "fruit", they will recollect the idea of fruit, because they have those two associated by experience. Or that a mind only knows about other bodies through how they affect its body. He also mentions that people think they have free will, because they don't know about the causes of their actions. That actually aligns with my understanding, that what we like and don't like comes from evolution's conditioning.
Similarly to part 2, it is just a description of how emotions work, which mostly matches current understanding. The interesting points are, that emotions power our actions and that we actually don't want good things, but instead consider some things as good, because we want them. Since without emotions we would not do anything, I think that pleasure is a necessary incentive for life and suffering is an inseparable part of it, because to want a reward we must first lack it.
This is an important part, because here it is said that: "Since reason postulates nothing against nature, it postulates, therefore, that each man should love himself, and seek what is useful to him (...), and finally, that each one should endeavour to preserve his being as far as it in him lies." There are other things said here, like that people who commit suicide are powerless souls and that no one from necessity of their nature commits suicide, and these make sense, if we assume that there is no argument against nature. But of course, I do have some arguments against nature.
Another thing of note is Spinoza’s argument that even though animals feel, we should still use and treat them as we wish. From the nature’s point of view, I admit that makes sense. Might makes right etc. There is also stated that "pain is clearly evil". So, Spinoza agrees that suffering is bad and should be avoided. On that note, he also sees people submissive to their emotions as not in power over themselves and argues for guidance by reason and control over emotions.
This is the last part. I tried to find anything that I could interpret as an argument against my position. Here is some of what I found:
I could go on nitpicking at various statements here, but they boil down to arguments about how we love the god/universe, because it is the cause of pleasure.
Ok, the fact is we feel pleasure and pain, one can’t be without the other, just like light and darkness. I don’t mind the idea that pleasure can compensate pain, though I would argue that pain can achieve greater intensity. So, the question that really threatens my belief, that life should be prevented, is, what if someone says they choose to accept life, with both the good and the bad?
Well, you can’t really choose. What we are as a conscious being is determined by our genetics and environment. These have determined your answer for you. Even considering quantum mechanics, it can still be said that we don’t have free will, we just can’t precisely predict what we will do. Simply, a bunch of matter comes together, forms a body and starts a process which makes a consciousness come into existence. Like a slave, it is then coerced into staying and driving the body.
Also, if we imagine pleasure and pain as an axis, where 0 is a neutral state, pleasure is positive and pain is negative, we can have the same system by setting 0 at maximum pain and then it is all just positive pleasure, where some amount of pleasure is our neutral state. Similarly, we can do the opposite, and then it is all pain and going in the positive direction just means experiencing less pain. So, saying that life is worthwhile, because we get to experience moments of greater pleasure, is the same as saying, that it is worthwhile, because we get to experience moments of less pain. Life created a problem (pain) and is selling us the solution. We tend to call that an unethical bussiness practice.
For its time, it is a good book. Even today people reading it can realize some facts about the world around them, that they did not think about before. Also, there is some respect to be had for Spinoza, assuming he really went against the grain during his time by choosing to make his own observations rather than simply assuming the older philosophy books are correct. However, I am still an atheist and I am still of the opinion that we are better off not existing.