This blog post will show how Spinoza’s concept of God provides a framework for how we apply reason to our limited perceptions to create knowledge. Spinoza defined reality (God or Nature) as all there is, all that ever was or will be. He further stated that while there are an infinite number of ways to perceive reality, we humans have access to only two: 1) thought, all concepts, ideas, theories, dreams and inspiration (mind), and 2) extension, the perceivable physical world (matter energy and natural laws[1]). There is tremendous humility in this acceptance of our limited window into the infinite, but also tremendous power. Our use of reason to build a bridge between thought and extension is the heart of human progress. It is why we live longer, more prosperous lives than our ancestors.  

We live in thought, we observe through extension.

Reason builds the bridge between the two.

Reason constantly tests the bridge, seeking to improve its integrity

All ideas and concepts arise within thought; all observable reality presents itself through extension. Though our perception of reality is limited, it is not illusory. When reason applies itself—testing ideas against observation, refining them through evidence and criticism—it begins to build a bridge between thought and extension. When this bridge becomes strong enough, the idea becomes knowledge. While we may debate how accurately we perceive reality, we cannot deny that reason and knowledge improve the reality we experience. Since our perception of reality, however accurate, is all we have, we should be deeply grateful for how the process of reason begats progress.

While religious myths cannot claim truth in any evidentiary sense, their effects—both uplifting and harmful—can be observed, measured, and filtered by reason. It is often argued that religion is useful, even necessary, to get people to behave (i.e. foster cooperation and morality). These tangible, measurable effects of religion happen whether the myth is true or not. Aligning behind an imagined God is still alignment.

Religion has had, and continues to have, a profound impact on human norms and customs. Reason has not only built knowledge that led to material progress, it has filtered out norms and customs that were once part of religious doctrine. Slavery, burning witches and infidels, and the divine right of kings were all beliefs rooted in broadly accepted interpretations of text which have been largely eliminated by reason and progress.

A God concept with an evidentiary bridge.

Most traditional notions of God are personal, supernatural, and interventionist. They reside entirely in the domain of thought—ideas about what must exist or what we wish existed, but with no reliable bridge to extension. That bridge is either dismissed as unnecessary (“faith”) or built from metaphor and weak justification (fine-tuning, complexity, reported miracles, etc.).

Many religious traditions assert that God is infinite and beyond human comprehension. Spinoza’s definition—God as everything that ever has or will exist, glimpsed only through our limited perception—aligns with that spirit of humility.

But a fork in the road appears when these traditions go further, claiming God has specific intentions: what we should wear, whom we should love, whom we should conquer. From that fork, countless contradictory paths diverge—each elevating a different thought-domain story to sacred status.

There are many examples of compelling mythological or religious stories which contain valuable moral insights. These narratives can comfort and inspire us regardless of whether their characters existed or the depicted events truly occurred. This is as true for religious texts as it is for King Lear or The Lord of the Rings.

Spinoza’s insight—and New Atenism’s stance—is that we should stop at that fork and acknowledge what we do know about everything—about God. This is not only reverent, it’s unifying. If God is truly infinite—everything—then the mere fact that anything exists is evidence of God. The bridge isn’t complete, but it’s real, and has been under construction for centuries.

This theology is anchored not in mythology, but in the ever-growing knowledge of what is. It draws a firm line between verifiable reality and our most powerful, unverifiable stories. It is the crossroads where humanity can align. From the standpoint of current knowledge, revealed by reason, we all stand together.

Skeptics and the faithful rarely agree, but they often unite behind one assumption: that for a concept of God to be valid, “He” must be personal, supernatural, a creator, an intervener—or all of the above. Both camps accuse Spinoza of playing semantic games: rebranding atheism as theology.

To the faithful, I ask: Do you reject other traditions’ definitions of God? If you’re a Christian who believes in the Trinity, do you consider Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses atheists because they don’t? Where does your religious tolerance end?

To skeptics, the pitch is more nuanced. I understand the objections: why not just say “existence”? Isn’t “God” misleading? But this underestimates the unifying power of the word. Billions of people orient their moral and emotional lives around it. If the goal is to move humanity toward reality and away from myth and superstition, why not reframe this powerful anchor instead of discarding it? Why not offer a version of God that requires no faith, yet still speaks to our deep need for meaning and connection?

Language is a tool, not a truth. And “God,” properly redefined, may be the sharpest tool we have to bridge science and the psychology of the human animal. You want to rid the world of superstition—good. But don’t throw away the medicine just because you dislike the bottle it comes in.

Spinoza’s God doesn’t blur the line between science and spiritual yearning—it clarifies it. It marks the unifying crossroads where extension ends and pure thought begins. That distinction keeps us honest. It protects empirical inquiry from mythic contamination while preserving space for moral reflection, aesthetic wonder, and metaphorical narrative.

By placing religious texts and modern mythologies—whether the Gospels or Star Wars—on the same thought-domain plane, we make it clear: these are human creations. Some are profound and worth retelling. But none of them cross the evidentiary bridge into reality.

New Atenism’s reason updated view of the God of Spinoza doesn’t sneak mysticism into rationalism[2]. It builds a firewall between what we know and what we imagine. That’s not ambiguity—it’s the clarity the reality-based community should be championing.

If we’re going to reduce irrational belief, we don’t just need sharp tools—we need tools people will actually pick up.

We can still cherish the wide array of religious narratives and mythologies which include a God or gods, but we must accept that they reside in the domain of thought and not extension. Macbeth’s ambition leading to his downfall, stories of divine revelations which reveal moral truths and Luke Skywalker’s struggle against the evil Empire are all examples of narratives which move us and can help to make us better people. The problem arises when you accept one of these stories as literal truth and reject all others as fiction.

Spinoza called religious narratives “useful fictions,” recognizing their power to comfort, unite, and inspire. We can come together at reason’s fork in the road and from there we are free to dream, to explore ideas, symbols, and stories that lie beyond it. By viewing everything beyond our current knowledge as part of the thought domain—potentially valuable and meaningful but lacking an evidentiary bridge—we can stand united at the foundation reason has revealed.

Compelling narratives about things beyond our current knowledge can provide community, comfort and inspiration, but no single one of them can be accepted as true. This is what religious tolerance should be.

We observe reality. We know something exists.

We apply reason to expand our understanding of that existence.

We call that totality—this infinite and unfolding existence—God.

That’s not faith in the absence of evidence; it’s belief in proportion to evidence that grows as new knowledge fortifies the bridge.

Many skeptics and the faithful reject this definition of God in favor of a personal deity who intervenes in human affairs, performs miracles, and answers prayers. Even though they might accept a range of definitions which include one or more of these traits, they are accepting, and agreeing upon, a broad definition of God. A God with no evidentiary bridge to reality.

So, to the argument that Spinoza and New Atenism are simply re-defining God to acquire an evidentiary bridge I would respond, “Yes, exactly.”

Claiming God for the Reality-Based Community

For millennia, the concept of God has existed solely within the realm of thought—unseen, unfalsifiable, and endlessly debated. Yet despite this, it has proven extraordinarily effective at uniting human beings, shaping civilizations, and driving collective action on scales unmatched by secular philosophy alone.

Spinoza did not, and New Atenism does not, claim God, rather it has been transformed, and continuously updated by what reason reveals. We are not claiming God for any one tribe, Spinozist, New Atenist or otherwise, but for the entire reality-based community—those committed to truth-seeking, self-correction, and collective progress. From the united point at the current apex of human knowledge we can find meaning and purpose in myth, legend, stories, dreams and hypothesis which live in the domain of thought.

This God is not jealous, not wrathful, not anthropomorphic. It is vast, ungraspable, and yet visible in every photon, every breath, every equation, and every moment of awareness.

It is the God of Everything. And because it is universal, it can unite us like no other concept of God can.

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[1] Spinoza didn’t use the term “natural laws” but it captures what he meant.

[2] There’s an argument to be made that Spinoza at least flirted with mysticism (“an intellectual love of God”) but there is also a compelling argument that he merely used flowery language to describe the joy of understanding.