![\"\"](\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_b7Eh98KJ_qI\/TDC03dvMjCI\/AAAAAAAAA_w\/kFxZVZfV5wE\/s1600\/sunday+books.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nEveryone in the DC area should be booking tickets asap to see New Jerusalem at Theatre J<\/a> (major hat tip to Eve Tushnet<\/a>). \u00a0David Ives has done a magnificant job dramatizing Baruch de Spinoza\u2019s trial for heresy in his own synagogue. \u00a0I\u2019ll be writing more about it soon, but don\u2019t wait on me to get your tickets now. \u00a0(I recommend buying seats in the bench section, which puts you onstage for the trial).<\/p>\n In the play Spinoza questions assumptions about the nature of God, and accuses the members of his synagogue of being too quick to anthropomorphize God. \u00a0At one point during the production, I was strongly reminded of a book I\u2019d recently finished: Martin Gardner\u2019s The Flight of Peter Fromm<\/a>. \u00a0Near the end of the book, Peter has gone through many crises of faith, but he has emerged as a kind of Christian deist, who is no longer so troubled by the longstanding mystery of theodicy. \u00a0He tells his old teacher:<\/p>\n Moral evil is the price we pay for freedom. \u00a0Natural evil is the price we pay for a world of natural law. \u00a0Gravity keeps us on the earth. \u00a0If someone falls off a cliff, gravity murders him. \u00a0You can\u2019t expect God to cancel a law ever time its about to kill someone\u2026.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an evasion. \u00a0It\u2019s just an honest confession of ignorance. \u00a0Thinking about anything finally has to end in mystery. \u00a0And why not? \u00a0After all, we didn\u2019t make this world any more than the jellyfish did. \u00a0Why should the human race be easier to understand than time and space and matter and energy? \u00a0Faith in God doesn\u2019t explain an electron. \u00a0Why should it explain evil?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In our highly Judeo-Christian culture, we don\u2019t often conceive of a God without conceiving of him as a kind of superpowered human. \u00a0Someone who loves us as a Father. \u00a0And is omnipotent. \u00a0And has a big beard. \u00a0There\u2019s not much mainstream discussion of why we expect those things of God. \u00a0Discussions of theodicy and limits on miracles<\/a> are standard components of the atheist arsenal but both sides rarely engage with the fact that\u00a0there have been\u00a0many<\/a> religions<\/a>, mythologies<\/a>,\u00a0and even some forms of Christianity<\/a> that saw no contradiction between God\u2019s existence and the presence of evil and misfortune.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Are most theists misunderstanding God, as Spinoza claimed? <\/em><\/p>\n What expectations for God and extrapolations from our experience are reasonable and how are we to judge?<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to crowdsource a cry for help: I now have a powerful yen to read Spinoza. \u00a0Where should I start?<\/p>\n Everyone in the DC area should be booking tickets asap to see New Jerusalem at Theatre J (major hat tip to Eve Tushnet). \u00a0David Ives has done a magnificant job dramatizing Baruch de Spinoza\u2019s trial for heresy in his own synagogue. \u00a0I\u2019ll be writing more about it soon, but don\u2019t wait on me to get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[110,50,119],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-reviewsrecommendations","tag-boring-gods","tag-problems-of-evil","tag-spinoza"],"yoast_head":"\n