Hi Carlos and All,

Good to see another Spinoza egroup. I visited it and used the
language "translation" facility at AltaVista to help with my rather
limited Spanish language skills. This might give me another good
reason to brush up.

I tend to agree with your comments and would like to share a few
of my own that might relate in some way and I hope bring another view
to help focus in on Spinoza's expressed ideas. You wrote in part:

-----------------
> I´d like to comment a sentence from a message. Paul Laurendeau
> wrote:

> > (...)
> > Spinoza believes in a "god". All the way. It is the
> > definition he gives of it which heads directly,
> > through pantheism, to atheism.
> > (...)
>

> I´m not sure Spinoza´s definition of God heads to atheism.
>

<snip>

> But I´m not sure Spinoza is a pantheist.

> I find really interesting the description of
> Spinoza trying to revive the pre-rabinic judaism, influenced by the
> Spanish medieval Cabala, Ibn Latif, Hasdai Crescas... and the
> rationalism of Moses Maimonides...
-----------------

If a subject comes up that I'm not familiar with what can I do? I
might consult an encyclopedia or the web or talk with other people,
etc. So what do I get from this? Usually a collection of terms that
are new, vaguely familiar, or for which I have an already established
association from my own life experiences. Imagination is a term
Spinoza uses to refer to the mechanism of this association and for
any new terms, new associations with existing terms and images will
begin to develop.

Atheism, Pantheism, Cabala, Rationalism, and each term we are
using here probably already has some association for each reader.
These associations come into play whenever we use any language to
communicate with each other. Spinoza, in one of his letters, denied
being an atheist and to the extent that we can determine what the
term meant to him and those he communicated with we might be able to
determine whether it agrees with our own usage.

What might the term Atheism be associated with in a given
imagination? If a person was brought up in an environment, or by any
other means, has arrived at a point where they favor, lean toward, or
in any way take pleasure in something that might be termed Theism or
Theology or Religion or Faith or etc. the term Atheism might be used
to refer to anything that does not seem to also favor or lean toward
or that in any way seems to be negatively disposed toward what they
term Theism etc. On the other hand a person who's life experiences
cause them to associate the terms Theology or Religion, etc. with
oppression, exclusivity, etc. might come to favor, lean toward, or in
some way take pleasure in something that might be termed Atheism. The
first person has a negative association (a pain for them) while the
second person has a positive association (a pleasure) with the same
term; Atheism. Other might just say; Huh?

It seems to me that trying to decide if Spinoza's ideas involve
Atheism or Pantheism, etc. without studying his expressed ideas is
futile. It also seems to me that in studying Spinoza's expressed
ideas, if we can somehow set aside to a degree our preconceived ideas
(or what we may begin to see are simply fortuitous associations of
words and experiences), they will lead us to true Understanding and
these imaginations will become, for us, insignificant.

Regards,
Terry