Little bit of background:
Spinoza is living in between the Age of Discovery (15th - 18th centuries) and just before the Scientific Revolution. He published his Ethics in the early 1630's. Isaac Newton's Principia was sixty years later 1687. He's still seeing the Christian Reformation and the European Colonial period and the Industrial Revolution is just getting started. Engineers are using lathes, making canons, ships, and factories that are powered by water mills. Stock markets have existed since the 15th century, so people are buying and selling stocks. Countries still believe that they must hoard gold in order to be strong. There are no assembly lines, and everything is custom made. Clothing is made by hand. Illness is as mysterious as the weather.
I have not read Spinoza or Maimonides, but I listened to the video.
Comments about the video:
In the video they say that Spinoza thinks God is being and is energy or nature. They refer to this as "The atheist's God" and say that to Spinoza people tend to be controlled by feelings and images rather than rationality. And Spinoza feels that religion and politics are both necessary to help people cope with those feelings and images at times when their rationality fails them. They say he expresses hope that people will improve their true knowledge of God and begin to rely more upon rationality and less upon religion or politics to get along with others. They comment that Spinoza marks a radical shift from the teaching of Maimonides.
I'm not aware of what the thinking on God was before Maimonides, not having read about him; but I'm aware he was considered a heretic in his time. Therefore I don't know if Spinoza is returning to a theological point of view from before Maimonides or is original -- cannot comment upon that. I mention it, because the video producers mention Maimonides but not what came before leaving a bit of gray area about Spinoza's theological shift. They allege that Spinoza is probably expelled from his community over his views on God. I don't know why they say 'probably was' rather than just saying whether it was or was not the case. It sounds like they want it to sound like it is true but cannot back up their claim. That annoys me, but its probably just a poor turn of phrase rather than a sleight of hand.
Spinoza's comments about love sound interesting. Are our communities today more or less loving? I'm not sure. I think he's right that people must love one another more if they are to live more rationally and less like sheep.
