Theli

garthoverman...

Why can't nonphysical things be proven?
If something has an impact on our reality, then it's effects can be observed and traced to the most probable origin/source. If it doesn't have an impact on our reality then it is irrelavent, and we have no reason to assume that it exist.

Or in the words of Spock: "That wich isn't real, doesn't exist" (or something like that).

Theli

I think it's safe to say that the word god (as in gods) describes an embodyment of human ideals, mostly envisioned as a humanbeing (sometimes an animal) with extreme powers and an ideal personality.

Kent Stevens

Pantheism appears to be oxymoronic or a contradiction in terms as it believes in pantheism and atheism simultaneously. Pantheism uses a different definition of theism which must create a lot of confusion in explaining exactly what they mean.

Pantheism is not realistic but optimistic. It tends only to look at the good parts of the Universe and ignore the bad parts. This often happens with monotheistic religion.

How do you prevent the problem of evil eating through pantheism like strong acid? The problem of evil being if there is a god, why is there pain and suffering. If the Cosmos is divine why are there people like Hitler? If the Cosmos is divine why is it predicted that the human species will eventually end?

The Universe is amazing in it's complexity and beauty, but it also has parts of it that die. Maybe it is possible to be a world reverer, a celebrator of the world, while also recognises some of the world's negatives.

Aquila ka Hecate

Kent Stevens said: I was aboutto say 'because that is part of its nature also'.
Then I realized that, if you subscribe to pantheism and work out the problem of evil as being an intrinsic part of the deity, why you're not saying anything much better than monotheists who claim that we don't know what's good for us, only daddy does.

Or are you?

I must admit I'm a little perplexed here.
I've long been a pagan, and now that I'm an atheist I still have an almost uncontrollable urge to celebrate nature.

I guess there's nothing wrong in that, as I don't actually worship it.

Or do I?

Hmm, need to lurk a whole lot more on this one...

Secular Pinoy

What do you mean by "holistic"? Are you using that the way New Agers use the term?

Answerer

Pantheism is a religion that focus on the concept that 'all self are one' while in Buddhism, the main focus is that 'all self are void' or 'everything is interdependent'. Therefore, I seriously don't think Buddhism had anything to do with pantheism(maybe not for some Mahayana sects) at all.

Theli

Kent...

You can't believe in atheism, there is nothing to believe in.

I agree with you on this point. They should use a different word. Calling the universe a "god" seems just missleading.

It also assumes that a certain part is "good", and that the criteria the pantheist use to judge good from bad existed before humans even existed.

The pantheist doesn't refer to "god" as an external being controling the universe, and they haven't claimed that it has a personality.

Why shouldn't Hitler have been divine?

I don't think that divine necessarily equals eternal. If everything in the universe was eternal, there would be no change nor time.

This is all subjective, but a good point nontheless.
What arguments is there for pantheism?

Boro Nut

It certainly is.

Boro Nut

Perchance

</strong>

Hmmm. Well, I suppose it's good that you won't be trying to convert non-pantheists to pantheism.

Yet the next sentence in your post is this:

</strong>

Why do you encourage others to consider it? Is it in the same vein that you would encourage others to read a book or listen to music you like? Or do you think that pantheism really does make life better in some way, even though, as you admit, you can't really prove it?

-Perchance.

[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: Perchance ]

[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: Perchance ]</p>

Jobar

I want to address 3 points here- why pantheism is so difficult to define and talk about; how pantheism relates to atheism; and why the Problem of Evil is nonexistent to pantheists.

How many of you can conceive in your heads that matter and energy are equivalent? In the little-known words of Sir Isaac Newton, "Are not light and gross bodies interchangeable?" Our senses naturally divide motion, heat, light, from the things that move, are warm, are illuminated. Einstein's famous identity E=mc^2 declares the equivalency of the two, but trying to think and talk about it is exceedingly difficult. Discussing things so very far outside the bounds of ordinary human experience in human languages is truly mind-bending.

Pantheism, even if one ignores the difficulties caused by the alternate meaning of 'theos' contained in it, is near-impossible to talk about accurately. Pantheism is a belief in the ultimate union of opposites- and language, indeed any form of human communication down to Morse code or binary arithmetic, absolutely depends upon dualism. How can we talk meaningfully about a system wherein dots equal dashes, figures equal backgrounds, and bits equal spaces? At the deepest level it simply stops the tongue, and can't be communicated! Unity is inexpressible. We need duality or plurality to think or act or speak- yet the universe looks more and more non-dualistic the more deeply we investigate. Any divisions we make, if we look at them closely enough, prove to be only apparent, and not essential. (E=mc^2, remember.)

I call myself an atheist/pantheist. Many of the declared atheists here specify that they are atheists for some conceptions of God (Yahweh for instance) but agnostic for other conceptions (i.e. deism.) So it is well accepted that there are different definitions of God, and that some are more unbelievable than others.

I personally consider the Christian concept of God to be not just unlikely, but impossible- internally self-contradictory. So I am an atheist when we speak of the Western God.

I studied physics at Ga. Tech, back in the seventies. I was an atheist from age 15, but my attempts to understand the nature of physical reality, coupled with the study of philosophy and exposure to Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism (with their radically different god-concepts) led me to think that my professed atheism was not imcompatible with the Tao- which we can, tentatively, call God. ("The god which can be spoken of is not the ultimate God.") I remain a skeptic. I deny the existence, indeed the possibility, of the supernatural. I know that nature itself is so vast that we may never understand it all, and so there may *seem* to be things that are supernatural- until we understand them.

Atheism is not a philosophy or complete worldview- it is the rejection of theism. I see overwhelmingly that atheism is concerned with the Western concept of God- so I feel completely justified in still calling myself an atheist. The personified, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, individual, external God does not exist.

Ah, but that isn't talking about something internal, and unpersonified. Something which doesn't rule, but supports from beneath. Something which doesn't love, or hate, or speak, or act, save in the guise of the material. Something within nature, not supernatural. Something which provides a unified and complete way for humans to observe the entirety of their universe; something to which all our art and science points, if we look closely.

If you insist that God must be supernatural- above nature- then what I am talking about here is not God. That's fine; I don't feel any need to define it so. I don't really worship it, though I do revere it and consider it holy. (Here I see eye-to-eye with the Wiccans, and those who worship nature.)

And- since I know myself to be a facet of this wholeness which *may* be called God, I revere myself, too. I am, in the truest sense, a holy man. (You may kiss my toes. Line forms to the left. )

Kent doesn't understand how the Problem of Evil is no problem to pantheism. Let me quote a famous poem.

"If the red slayer thinks he slays
Or the slain think he is slain
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far of forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanquished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on Heaven."

-Brahma, Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is evil, and suffering, yes. But the perpetrator and victim are at root one; slayer and slain no different matter, no different flesh.

If pantheism can be said to have a god at all, then He is certainly not omnibenevolent; He inflicts terrible pain *upon Himself.* But this pain is only fleeting, and serves as the necessary background for joy.