1. Cardinal O’Connell of Boston who attacked Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity told a group of Catholics that:
“The theory cloaked the ghastly apparition of atheism and befogged speculation, producing universal doubt about god and his creation”

2. A New York rabbi faced Einstein with the simple five word cablegram:

3. A New York rabbi faced Einstein with the simple five word cablegram:
“Do you believe in God?”

4. A New York rabbi faced Einstein with the simple five word cablegram:
“Do you believe in God?”
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of Human beings.”

5. Just who was this Spinoza guy?
So –
Just who was this Spinoza guy?

6. Spinoza lived in Amsterdam and in 1656 he sent a letter to the synagogue authorities.
from
Spinoza in 90 Minutes
Paul Strathern

7. He outlined, in precise detail, his philosophical views, backing them with logical arguments which he claimed were irrefutable.

8. The synagogue authorities decided that they had no alternative:

9. They would have to demonstrate to the Christian community that they no longer would have anything to do with this guy.

10. As far as they were concerned, Spinoza was now a non-person, an ex-Jew.

11. In a grand ceremony of excommunication, Spinoza was banished from the Jewish community.

12. …A great horn was blown, candles were extinguished one-by-one and a curse was read out:

13. “With the judgement of the angels and saints we hereby:

14. “With the judgement of the angels and saints we hereby:
excommunicate,

15. “With the judgement of the angels and saints we hereby:
excommunicate,
execrate,

16. “With the judgement of the angels and saints we hereby:
excommunicate,
execrate,
and anathematise

17. “With the judgement of the angels and saints we hereby:
excommunicate,
execrate,
and anathematise
Baruch de Espinoza.

18. “With the judgement of the angels and saints we hereby:
excommunicate,
execrate,
and anathematise
Baruch de Espinoza.
AND …

19. Cursed be he by day

20. and
cursed be he by night

21. cursed in his lying down

22. cursed in his rising up

23. cursed in his going out

24. cursed in his coming in

25. “…The Lord shall destroy his name under the sun and cut him off for his undoing from all the tribes of Israel.

26. None may speak with him by word of mouth nor by writing nor shew any favour to him, nor be under one roof with him, nor come within four cubits of him….

27. …nor read any document written by him

28. …I got to read this guy

29. Oh – no – it’s in Latin!

30. Spinoza’s God
A Universal God who can be properly apprehended only by the application of reason to the world around us. This suggests that Spinoza’s “religion of disenchantment” could in fact be a prescient description of modern science: a pantheistic universe whose truth we can apprehend only by the use of reason, mathematics and rational experiment.
“Spinoza in 90 minutes” Paul Strathern

31. Years later Einstein expanded on this in a letter to Solovine, the survivor of the Olympia Academy (check Google?).

32. Years later Einstein expanded on this in a letter to Solovine, the survivor of the Olympia Academy (check Google?).
“I can understand your aversion to the use of the term “religion” to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza, but I have not found a better expression than ‘religious’ for trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason.”

33. So now we know who this guy is that:
“… does not play dice!”

34. Big U