Methos

I define myself as both an atheist and a pantheist. I don't believe that there is a god, so that puts me in the weak atheist camp. But I also think that the universe itself is worthy of reverence. I don't attribute any divine quality to the universe, so I guess that I would probably fall under the scientific pantheist category. Technically a pantheist will say that the universe is god, and god is the universe. But I just see it as terms and labels that are synonymous and really don't have any special meaning.

For all intents and purposes I'm an atheist, but I guess you can say that what I believe in is nature and the universe. I see it more as a way of viewing the world around me rather than some kind of theistic belief.

A good website for how atheism and pantheism can be compatible is found <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/ego/pdf/ng/ft/atheism-and-pantheism.html" target="_blank">here</a>.

Eric

Kent Stevens

I would say that Pantheism and Atheism as normally defined are incompatible. This is shown in the following definition of terms.

Atheism = belief that no god exists.

Pantheism = belief that god exists and that everything is god.

The way these terms are defined here shows contradiction. It is similar to believing that someone is tall and that they are short simultaneously. It would be the similar to believing that I am Kent Stevens and that I am not Kent Stevens.

Whatever form of atheism you have weak/ medium/ or strong, this all results in the lack of the belief in god.

Now many people are in awe of nature. They agree that the Universe is beautiful, enormous in extent, and amazingly complex. But this does not make these people theists necessarily. Instead they can be world reverers, or world celebraters. Most of these people realise there are some imperfections in nature. Some of those so called "pantheists" are simply world reverers.

Jobar

Kent, and all- this is by no means the first time I have discussed pantheism, and not the first time I have seen Kent's objection. He is, in a way, correct- the 'theos' in (a)theism is the God of monotheism- separate from, entirely other than, His creation (the universe.) The 'theos' in pantheism is different- see Watts' commentary on the matter, which I posted above.

Here is another post I have made on the topic. (I would simply link to it, but most of the thread is worthless for this discussion.)

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-I'll be the roundabout. The words'll make you out'n'out- Yes

Well. I was severely tempted to dress up in my Zen Master costume, and jump out from behind a tree and beat Trebaxian about the head and shoulders with a stick- but I will refrain, and try to talk about something that may be inexpressible.

Pantheism equates reality- existence- with God. As many here have pointed out, this equation really tells us nothing useful about existence, or God. Our knowledge of the physical universe is not increased, and our understanding of what God is, or might be, stays at zero.

But- the concept of unity, of one-from-many and many-from-one, is profound. Look at the thrust of scientific knowledge. We start with a world of many many things, and by persistent study we discover that the vast variety is made of a few dozen elements, which interact through gravity and electromagnetic energies. With further study, the elements prove to be made up of a few simpler particles- electrons and nucleons. We discover new forces, but in time it begins to look like all these forces may reduce to four, then three, then perhaps one single force- which is also, in ways hard to understand and describe, the very matter doing the interacting. As we look at the many things of the world intensely, they seem to approach being ONE thing.

We are constantly trying to reduce the number of theories we *must* use to understand things. Right now, we have no Unified Field Theory. (Although that may be found in our lifetimes.) And after that, we will search for a TOE- a Theory of Everything. One physical theory to describe all of reality!

As we get closer to such things, they get harder and harder to understand, and useful in more and more constrained conditions. It may be that the Theory of Everything will only apply to the first quantum instant of the Big Bang! After that instant, we must use theories in which the Ultimate Force is split up into separate ones- but (assuming such a theory is possible) this one Theory will explain- everything. The entire universe. All time, all space, all matter, all energy.

I find the parallels between our scientific search, and the philosophical/theological searches of the great teachers of pantheism and mysticism, extremely striking. Our science describes a reality which, as you try to describe it, becomes harder and harder to talk about. Impossible to focus on clearly. Until, at the level of ultimate observations, ultimate understandings, it tells us- perhaps- nothing of practical, day-to-day use.

Oddly enough, throughout history the great teachers of pantheistic religion have agreed with this. The Buddha once said "I gained not one thing from unexcelled, complete awakening- and that is why I call it unexcelled, complete awakening." Lao-Tzu, the (possibly legendary) author of the Tao Te Ching, began his famous work with the statement "The way which can be spoken of is not the ultimate Way." (There have been many translations made of this. "The words which are spoken are not the ultimate Word." "Knowledge which can be understood is not ultimate Knowledge." "Force forced isn't Force." The Chinese characters are like poetry- open to many interpretations.)

I will talk more about the parallels between pantheistic and scientific thought later. Trebaxian, it may interest you to know that some of us consider ourselves to be atheists/pantheists. I do. Atheism is not a complete philosophy or worldview- it is simply the rejection of the reality of a god or gods. Pantheism, however, seems to me to provide a framework for a complete worldview- a philosophical "Theory of Everything". Which, like its scientific counterpart, is both extremely hard to understand, and of astonishingly little practical use!

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My view is that the word 'God' may be synonymous with 'universe' (or perhaps 'multiverse'.) I do not see the need nor the evidence to postulate any sort of supernatural entity or entities- nature is mysterious, indeed mystical, enough for me!

Kent Stevens

If we allow the scientific pantheism equation we can end up confusing ourselves and others. The scientific pantheism equation being:
God = Reality. In contrast western religion usually has:
God = Big Daddy.

God as normally conceived is a Father Christmas type character that does things for you. Reality is not a person. Reality is indifferent to our pleads for various things. Reality will not reward us with lots of good things if we suck up to it. Reality will not punish us with hell or a bad re-incarnation. Reality does not have a moral sense and it is not aware. Reality is not our imaginary friend that many religious people wish for.

As for the theory of everything is this not a pipe dream. For our theories so far have been imperfect and incomplete, and we would expect not to know everything in the future. But in order to have a theory of everything we may need to know everything. We have various cosmological theories but these change over a period of time.

The universe can be thought of being simple or of being infinitely complex. It is simple perhaps at the atomic level but complex at the level of humanity. As examples of humanities complexity there are perhaps an infinite number of possible stories, of songs, and posts written at infidels.org.

G V

This is his last post from 3 Aug, anyone know what became of ol' wavey davey ? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

MrDarwin

I don't know if David Mathews has any intention of returning to this discussion, but if he does, I'd like to ask a slightly different question: would you say that Pantheism and Christianity are compatible?

My understanding of pantheism (and this may just be my own personal misunderstanding of the term) is that pantheism regards God as the sum total of all that is. God is the universe, and everything in it; God is time, and space, and matter, and energy, and all the laws of nature. God is everything that happens, everything that ever has happened, everything that will ever happen. God is everything that we know, and everything that we don't know. In short, God is everything. Nothing can exist, nothing can even be imagined to exist, which is not part of God. Each of us is a tiny, miraculously aware fraction of the sum total we call the universe.

How does Christianity fit into this, if at all?

[ August 11, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

Methos

If anything, I would say that panentheism and Christianity are compatible because panentheism says that all of the universe is inside god, but there is something of god outside the universe. That sounds more like the traditional Christian view of god than pantheism.

Eric

Cosym

(Some forms of) patheism differ from atheism (lack of belief in god/s) only by the terminology used.

It's all actually quite neat, surfing the borders of language and meaning. In the end, it demonstrates that ultimately, "god" is a subjectively applied term: the believer must decide for themselves whether something is worthy of being called god, and ultimately only the believer can determine their own personal criteria for deification. This may make the term "god" pretty meaningless prior to a more specific definition... but that's what's happened to the word over time as more and more people have used it to describe more and more things.

I'm no pantheist, but I have to say: in a theological debate, no one has a more enviable position than a patheist.

G V

His last post was 3 Aug, anyone know what became of ol' wavey davey ?

bump <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

B. H. Manners

David Mathews has apparently left this board. However, he is active on several Christian Forums.
As far as I am aware he and his family are doing well.

[ October 05, 2002: Message edited by: BH ]</p>