Editing Openai/6923f6d0-6398-800f-88a6-895979bdbe94 (section)

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Europe at Spinoza’s birth was dominated by religious power, political control, and fear.
Even Amsterdam, though more tolerant, was not intellectually free — especially within the Sephardic Jewish community, which had escaped the Inquisition and punished any deviation harshly.

Spinoza declared “God = Nature” for four main reasons:
# A defensive reaction against religious oppression He saw that a personal God was used as an instrument of political control. If God = Nature, no church or authority can monopolize the voice of God.
# A rejection of dogmatic theology By identifying God with infinite reality, he removed the possibility of divine commandments, punishments, or religious intermediaries.
# The desire to build an ethics independent of the Church A naturalistic God means moral knowledge must come from understanding, not from obedience.
# A deep personal wound After being excommunicated at age 23, he concluded that the “official God” was hostile to free thought. Thus he created a concept of God that political or religious power could not weaponize.

In essence:
Spinoza’s God = Nature was a philosophical rebellion born from oppression, fear, and the desire for intellectual liberation — not a spontaneous or joyful discovery.