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[[File:Baruch Spinoza.jpg|right]]

[[File:Baruch Spinoza.jpg|right]]

'''Benedict de Spinoza''', or '''Baruch d'Espinoza''', lived (1632-1677) in [[Amsterdam]].   He was a glass grinder whose philosophical work caused his excommunication from the Jewish synagogue.  

'''Benedict de Spinoza''', or '''Baruch d'Espinoza''', lived (1632-1677) in [[Amsterdam]]. He was a glass grinder whose philosophical work caused his excommunication from the Jewish synagogue. His excommunication declared: "By the decrees of the Angels and the words of the Saints we ban, cut off, curse, and anathematize Baruch de Spinoza… with all the curses written in the Torah. Cursed be he by day and cursed by night, cursed in his lying down and cursed in his waking up, cursed in his going forth, and cursed in his coming in; and may the Lord not want his pardon, and may the Lord’s wrath and zeal burn upon him… and ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are all alive today." The excommunication then warns that anyone who aids or abets Spinoza or "reads anything composed or written by him will suffer the same fate."<ref>Dr. Steven Smith, "What Kind of Jew Was Spinoza?" In "Modernity and Its Discontents: Making and Unmaking the Bourgeois from Machiavelli to Bellow," p. 89. </ref>

Spinozism includes the belief that all existence consists of only one substance, such as [[God]] or nature. Under this view, everything from mind to matter is merely a manifestation of the one true reality.  Evil has only a fleeting existence in the mind or heart, and is extinguished in due course by the divine Whole.

Spinozism includes the belief that all existence consists of only one substance, such as [[God]] or nature. Under this view, everything from mind to matter is merely a manifestation of the one true reality.  Evil has only a fleeting existence in the mind or heart, and is extinguished in due course by the divine Whole.