I apologize for this delayed response.

You understate your achievement. Yes, I realize that Spinoza
is a genius and that basically what you have done in your essay is
to understand what he said and relate and interprete some part of
these ideas to the modern world.

Yes. But it’s a particularly small set of people that have done
any such thing.

I could have put in a link to Spinoza’s texts and if a thousand
people went to those texts I’d know ahead of time that not one would
get it.

I put in a link to yours, and the odds of understanding are significantly
increased.

It’s also possible — I don’t know — that your interpretation, your
lucid reasoning about what Spinoza means, is unique.

Here are the nails that you drove that particularly jumped out at me.

a. Spinoza is arguably the beginning of the modern era. Many of
his propositions are now taken as default assumptions. These
propositions seem ordinary and unexceptional today because we assume
them, but at the time they were disturbing.

b. The shoe is still dropping. Although many of Spinoza’s ideas
are now the unexamined assumptions of modern man, some parts have still
not been appreciated.

c. Spinoza’s work is in part a proof that God (in the sense that is
normally meant) does not exist.

d. We now know that one of Spinoza’s basic assumptions has been peculiarly
falsified.

e. Since Spinoza’s reasoning is a good part of the foundation of science
and many other things, all these things now have a hole at their
foundation.

f. No solution to the problem is in sight. The universe seems a wilder
and stranger place than what was at one time believed. In particular
the possibility of the existence of some kind of God has been reopened.

Ok.

Moving on to your self-deprecrating assertion above that you are a “ignorant
fundamentalist hillbilly,” I think I understand what you’re saying.

By “ignorant” you mean in the trivial and ordinary sense that of all the
possible things to know you know hardly any, while in the particular
sense it’s a political comment that you don’t necessarily believe what
the in-clique — the right sort of people — believe. It means you’re
proud you flunked Political Conformity 101.

By “hillbilly” you mean you were raised in the Appalachians.

By “fundamentalist” you mean you’re parents were fundamentalist and
you yourself were raised in that tradition, and you don’t believe that
fundamentalists are the monsters that those who major in Conformity
believe. But I refuse to believe that you yourself think that the Bible
is to be taken literally.

I realize that you’re a very smart person and it’s possible you’re
going to take my disbelief as a challenge to make the implausible sound
plausible, but I’ll tell you already I’m not buying it.

I just noticed your comment other at the Science Blogs, and now this
one here.

Here’s my response. Which I also posted there.

We love criticism. Especially intelligent criticism. If the Chief got a little more of that, he might even write a few more essays. As it is, he is sulking in his wilderness home.

Cheshire Cat

And when I do it’ll be to make a few criticisms. But despite
that, please understand: I wish I could write and think this
clearly.