garthoverman

Alright, this is what I get for not having an internet connection at home. I'll try to address everybody's responses. I must say I am pleased to see such willing interaction. So, who's first...
Not necessarily, it simply requires you to reach for a deeper understanding of the unique holiness of everything. While everything may be holy, nothing is identically holy, IMHO.
Good to see I'm not alone, though I didn't expect to be. I liked your post, you appear quite knowledgeable. Did you take any time to skim through the essay I linked to in my second post. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts in particular.
Basically because they seem to explain a lot of things that have up to now been unexplainable. It is the corroboration within the reality I encounter that supports my beliefs empirically(sp?).
The physcial effects can be measured, and are. Its the non-physcial source of things that cannot be proven because all of our sensory perception and instrumentation are so rooted in physcial existance. Why do you think that Quantum Theory is still just a theory?
Actually no, Overman is my actual surname. I did find the coincidence rather appealing. I have gotten shat on before, however, on forums like this one where others got the impression I was trying to elevate myself. "Garth-over-Man"
That's exactly why I don't like the term "god" when speaking of the supreme state of existance/unity/whatever you want to call it. I did begin using a "proper" name for it, however, for easy reference: All That Is. I did not coin the term.
Evil is. Period. We subjectively label it as negative. The moral spectrum is merely a result of our linear peceptive patterns. Pantheism does not purport to control evil, and the solution to the existence of evil does not lie in the hands of the pantheist only. It is in the hands of the individual, regarless of theistic stance.
More like the encouragement to read a book or try a CD that I liked. I do think that pantheism has made my life better. But I didn't hear about pantheism and then change my beliefs. Instead, I formulated my beliefs and then found out that they were called 'pantheism.' Would you like me to recommend some books?

There. I hope nobody feels left out. A couple of off the topic questions:

Can you underline when formatting the text or is it only bold and italic?
I thought I read about a 'rating' system of 'feedback' system when I registered, is there one? Or is it simply a gradation based upon the number of posts you have?
Not that I'm a feedback whore, I just like to read others remarks to get an idea about who I'm talking to.

If there a way to preview your post?

Yours,

Garth

Jobar

Hi garth- we are presently using UBB, and none of the things you asked about are 'doable'. However, plans are in the works to switch II over to vB- the software is already purchased- and when that's done, all of that and more will become possible.

Kent Stevens

If you agree that evil exists do you revere it or do you detest it? If Hitler was evil do you revere him or do you detest him?

Hitler was part of the Universe. If you revere the Universe then this suggests that you also revere Hitler as he was part of the Universe.

If you can look at the good part of the Universe and come up with Pantheism, you can look at the bad parts of the Universe and come up with Pansatanism. Pansatanism being the belief that everything is satan.

Both Pantheism and Pansatanism fail because they are not realistic. Pantheism fails because it is unduly optimistic, while Pansatanism fails because it is unduly pessimistic.

"Pantheists" are not often theists at all. They have no real afterlife. They constitute not so much a religion as a philosophy. "Pantheists" are really world reverers or world celebrators, who while commending what is good also condemn what is evil.

garthoverman

I detest his acts, but on a larger scale I revere the universe that brought his actions to be. I am amazed by Hitler and the holocaust, but I do not necessarily 'revere' him in the way that I revere a beautiful piece of art or music.
Here you are confusing this theism with Christianity. There is only one 'deity' and you can all it whatever you want. It is All That Is. Satan is a Christian concept and doesn't exist the same way Jehovah doesn't exist.
Fails what?
Oh I have eternal life, and so do you. Everything is eternal for that matter. I don't get your meaning about condmening good and evil. I don't condemn either.

Yours,

Garth

"Your world is not in dire straits because you trust yourselves, but preceisely because you do not"--Seth

Keith Russell

Greetings:

Atheism is the belief that there is no God or that there are no gods.

Pantheism is the belief that everything is part of God.

How can pantheism by a type of atheism?

If one believes that anything (or everything) is God, one isn't an atheist.

Keith.

Perchance

Hi Jobar and Garth,

This is going to be a somewhat longish post, since I'm trying to explain some of the reasons why I reject pantheism, and it's not easy.

I suppose my main explanation still returns to (what I see as) the triviality of it. If opposites are reconciled in pantheism, then possibly one could say that "all is divine" and "nothing is divine," and that would be a way of reconciling atheism and pantheism. But again, just as the word "god" starts losing its meaning if you start twisting it around, what prevents "divine" from losing its meaning the same way? Why agree that everything is holy, when you could just as easily agree that nothing is? Or is it a personal choice, a way of perceiving the world?

My second objection rests on terms that I don't understand again (surprise, surprise ). What do "worship" and "reverence" mean in this context? Do pantheists, or some of them, actually perform rituals in honor of the universe the way that some Pagans perform rituals in honor of their gods? Do they say prayers at all? Do they caution people to avoid "sins?" I've talked to Pagans online who, for example, seem to cling to the idea of anger and pride as sins. Does pantheism do the same thing? Is not revering the universe, for example, a sin? Since worship so often seems to involve cowering before a higher power, I have a very hard time conceiving of kneeling before something I can see but which can't communicate with me in any way, just as I can't imagine cowering before something I don't believe is there. What does worship mean here, and does it still insist on binding human pride the way the other concepts of it seem to?

My third objection concerns what parts of the universe pantheism honors. A lot of people seem to speak of it as synononymous with nature-worship. However, if pantheism includes all that is, wouldn't that mean that computers, skyscrapers, CD's, windows, and even litter are part of the all? How do worshippers choose what to honor? And if they only honor, for example, the humans who produced the things I just mentioned, why? Someone who speaks of honoring the universe, but then only worshps nature, strikes me as a little dishonest. He seems to be saying that he'll only actually honor those things he finds beautiful.

My fourth objection is lesser than the others, and concerns my main personal reason for being unable to accept pantheism. I don't and can't honor all the world. For example, I love the look of sunlight on leaves, and I get almost manic on days that are sunny. Yet I can look at bushes that others say are beautiful and not be moved at all. For me, how beautiful I think a natural object is matters fundamentally to how I think of it, and beauty in natural things for me seems to be linked to shades of color. (I don't like rain, and I get depressed when the sky is gray). I don't think I could reconcile myself to saying, "All is beautiful, even if I don't understand it and don't agree. Oh, well."

My apologies if this is somewhat incoherent. I'm trying to fix the thoughts that come to me, before they dash off somewhere else .

Hopefully it explains some of my objections to pantheism and reasons I don't understand it, though.

-Perchance.

MrDarwin

I consider myself a strong agnostic with leanings towards pantheism. But in my conception of pantheism it encompasses not just the universe, but also everything material and immaterial (meaning not the supernatural, but things like energy and time, the past and future, the sum total of human knowledge). In other words, God is everything that is, was, and will be; God is time, space, energy, and matter. God is knowledge and consciousness, here on earth and wherever else there may be intelligent life. God is basically synonymous with existence and reality. No omnipotence, no omniscience, no omnibenevolence--only omnipresence, by definition.

The problem is, why call this a "god"? The word "god" implies personhood or awareness of some kind, and as far as I can tell, the universe has no inherent consciousness or self-awareness. But the universe does have consciousness and self-awareness, in the sense that we humans have consciousness and self-awareness, have acquired knowledge about the universe, and have shared and recorded that knowledge and passed it on to subsequent generations--and we are a part of that universe. In this sense, the universe has awakened itself and become self-aware. I have no expectations of immortality or an afterlife of any kind, but the mere fact that I have existed, that my physical body and my sense of identity and self-awareness have come from unconscious matter and energy, is something I find mind-blowing.

Does any of this require or even merit worship of any kind? Well, no. But for me, the alternative to worship is seeking truth and acquiring knowledge, about myself and about the world around me, and sharing that knowledge. And who knows, maybe a thousand or a million years from now, future humans will be sharing that knowledge with another race of sentient beings on another planet--and the universe will find out a little more about itself.

garthoverman

Hello, Perchance. Thanks for your post. Now, I'd like a chance to explain my beliefs in light of your objections.

First realize that pantheism is a highly personal belief system, I do not propose that my explanations will exactly match any other pantheist's. We are loosely held together under one common theological term from which it seems we cannot escape. I will get to this near the end.
This illustrates one of my key understandings in pantheism, as Jobar also described earlier. There is an understanding of the unity existing amongst even the most seeming ly polar opposites that really cannot be expressed verbally without glaring contradiction. To feel the unity and absolutely apprehend it is to experience the divine. So everything is devine and nothing is devine = absolute true statement. No one entity is the stand-alone 'deity,' but instead is only a piece of it. Simultaneously, that entity hold within it the latent patterns of the rest of the universe - the rest of the divine. That applies from the most minute particle to the largest animal or plant.


Morality is subjective. In fact everything is subjective. Nothing exists objectively. No, I don't perform rituals to worship the mouse that keeps nibbling at my bread in my cupboard at night. There is again an understanding that is inexpressible of the mechanics of life, the necessity of give and take, the participation by every bit of living matter - and there truly is no "dead" matter. Anger and pride are not necessarily sinful, in fact a safe expression of both emotions is quite healthy. It is the action upon those emotions that can turn ugly. However, with the perspecive of unity that comes with pantheism, I wouldn't inflict upon any other person plant or animal anything that I wouldn't inflict upon myself because I would be inflicting it on myself. Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself and he wasn't kidding!

Well, with that inexpressible understanding that I keep conveniently falling back on, you can understand where your values can be best assorted to maximize your experience. The wolf understands that he is one with nature, yet he also understands that he must slay the hare to make it through the winter. You don't need to try to avoid stepping on ants or not swat the flies in your house in order to honot them properly. Your values are not the best applied there. So that begs the question, "Where are they best applied?" And nobody can answer that for you but you. Masses of people flock to popular organized religions to seek that pre-packaged assortment of values mostly because they don't trust their own judgement and are deathly afraid of a world where every individual would be allowed to define that for themselves. You are not required to be democratic with your reverance, but underneath any 'favoritism' you understand that all of it is part of 'God's plan.' I use the Christian terminology only because its convenient and recognizable.

That is all perfectly fine. If you don't like certain shades of color for reasons that you can only dance around in your mind, you are touching on that inexpressible understanding. I'll suggest you read an author in a minute but I will quote him now: "You create your reality according to your beliefs and expectations, therefore you should examine these carefully. If you do not like some aspect of your world, then examine your own expectations." --Seth. What I'm saying is your life is driven towards value-fulfillment. However without a conscious understanding of your own values, you will forever feel subject to exterior forces and drifting away in a life without meaning, or at least I did. If you don't need to call yourself a pantheist to be certain of your own values, great! Pantheism to me is a means to that end.

Now, I suggest you read a book. This book will appear to be a load of tree-hugging, hippie new-ager psycho-babble. But everything in my experience, including my conversion away from Christianity and my experience in quantum mechanics and particle physics, and every experience I have to this day can be explained in the context of this book's material and its counterparts. Read it as a recreational read. You don't have to buy into any of it, though you may be out 12 bucks to get the book.

I quoted the author above, his name is Seth. You may have heard of him. I used to feel hesitant about talking about him because when I explain him it sounds quite rediculous. Basically, Seth calls himself an "energy personality essence, no longer focused in physcial reality." He channeled his material through a woman named Jane Roberts in the seventies and eighties. He has about 12 books or more, I've read 5 or 6. Nothing he has ever said has ever been contradicted by science or phsychology. In fact a number of his points are only now being confirmed by science. Here's a link to the book I think you should start with:
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1878424076/ref=pd_gw_qpt_1//104-9108916-1005505?v=glance" target="_blank">Seth Speaks</a>

Like I said, it sounds rediculous. You don't have to read it. But if you're really looking for some answers, or at least a very workable model, I assume that you've read a lot of books - this should be one of them. Run a Google search for "Seth Quotes" and read some of the pages you find, they're neat-o mosquito.

Questions?

Yours,

Garth

"Your world is not in dire strait because you trust yourselves, but precisely because you do not"--Seth

garthoverman

[accidentally posted it twice]

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: garthoverman ]</p>

Kent Stevens

Every religion tends to have their evil entities which as a group could be refered to as Satan. Perhaps there is a way of interpreting Pansatanism without resorting to a belief in a physical deity. Just as Pantheism manages to have no personal deity maybe Pansatanism just says that all the Universe is bad and that it will decay and die. My use of Satan here is confusing, as Satan is normally thought of being a physical entity. But it is difficult to give up the idea of this mythological creature altogether.


Unfortunately, I thought I was going to die at some point. Usually an afterlife means that as a mental entity I am going to continue to exist. A pantheist afterlife does not let me cheat death or prepare for Nirvana.

I think most people commend what is good. If someone gives a lot of money to charity they say this is a good deed. Most people would condemn what happened with the twin towers. However, a majority of people do not take the twin towers as a component of a proof, that even a partially powerful god does not exist.

Anyway, pantheists and deists I still classify as freethinkers. Any differences I have with them is minor compared to the differences I have with other religions, that believe fairy tales to be true. These religions then get into elaborate imagings to prove that Jack and the Beanstalk is absolute fact.

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Kent Stevens ]</p>