Whether this is religion or atheism with better manners.
Spinoza's contemporaries called him an atheist; he denied it, and so do modern pantheists. The word has been an accusation for as long as it has existed.
The charge has never gone away, and it is not stupid. If God has no will, no preferences, no plans and cannot be addressed, a critic reasonably asks what work the word is still doing that "universe" would not do. Schopenhauer put it most sharply, saying pantheism is a polite way of showing atheism the door. Pantheists answer that the difference is not in the inventory of what exists but in the response the inventory calls for, and that reverence directed at the whole is not the same posture as indifference. Einstein, asked in 1929 whether he believed in God, said he believed in Spinoza's God — which pleased almost nobody on either side.
The same ground, other faiths
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