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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

15. Cursed be he by day

16. and
cursed be he by night

17. cursed in his lying down

18. cursed in his rising up

19. cursed in his going out

20. cursed in his coming in

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

22. 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….

23. …nor read any document written by him

24. …I got to read this guy

25. Oh – no – it’s in Latin!

26. Spinoza was the chief challenger of the fundamentals of: revealed religions, received ideas, traditional morality and what was everywhere regarded in absolutist and non-absolutist states alike divinely constituted political authority

27. Democracy
Racial and Sexual Equality
Individual liberty of lifestyle
Full freedom of thought, expression and the press
Eradication of religious authority from the legislative process and education
Full separation of church and state

28. 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

30. and cursed be he by night,