HumanisTim

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Keith Russell:
[QB]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.


I consider myself an atheist, but prescribe to much of the pantheist world view. Especially the scientific pantheist one. I don't like the idea of calling the universe god. When it has a perfectly suitable term already. As a way of looking at the universe, I think pantheism and atheism can be compatable. Just as atheism and humanism are.

garthoverman

You have a good point here, Tim. Perhaps pantheists would do much better if they completely excluded the term 'god' from its definition. In fact, I'm learning that the term 'god' is most people's stumbling block when trying to understand pantheism. Basically, in using the term 'god' and defining pantheism, we are calling for a complete redefinition of what the term implies. Being that the term has been misconstrued (from my POV, at least) for ages, that type of paradigm shift is difficult.

Yours,

Garth

Kent Stevens

Then why do you call your ideas pantheism? The theism part of Pantheism implies Jehovah. Another term something like Cosmosism or Universalism would logically represent your ideas better.

There are problems with an ideology that is called something like Pansanta. Pansanta does not believe in a divine person called Santa as such, but rather has the universe being good and awe inspiring in a way similar to the way Santa was portrayed. Just as Santa use to cheer us up as children, the universe as seen to be similar to Santa, now enlivens us. Under Pansanta believers are not scientifically nieve enough to write letters to Santa at the North Pole or leave out cookies and milk for him, as a personal Santa does not exist. Rather the universe is seen to be Santa like. We get the warm fuzzies from the universe in the same way that we got those spiritual feelings from when we thought that Santa actually existed. Just as with Santa there is no figure of evil there is no evil clearly shown to exist in the universe. That is unless you believe in the Christmas Grinch in a metaphorical way.

Pantheism gets into similar problems as this made up philosophy of Pansanta. Until you get the theism or santa part out of the name of your philosophy, you are still partly attached to this idea of Santa Claus aka God.

garthoverman

You're wrong and then right. The -theism part of pantheism does not imply Jehovah any more than it implies Allah or Vishnu or Buddha. It is your own experience that associates the -theism part with Jehovah, but that is merely a subjective interpretation. Its not a direct association by definition.

While I haven't critiqued them in contrast to eachother, the system of thought called "Holism" also is pantheistic and may be a better reference term.
I think it is better said that a determined effort needs to be made to educate people as to what is acutally connotated with the -theism part. Damn Christians have permeated western thought to such an extent that a dramatic paradigm shift will be necessary before such understanding can come about.

Your immediate association of -theism with the Christian God is a perfect example of the type of root assumptions that will need to be uprooted, so to speak, in order to shift it. The truly free-thinkers don't have a hard time doing that.

Yours,

Garth

Jayhawker Soule

Pan?

What is this 'god' you're including or excluding? Is it intentional, purposeful?

garthoverman

'god' = All That Is. Existence in its totality. Its intents and purposes are everything's intents and purposes, as everything is an agent/aspect of All That Is.

Yours,

Garth

Jayhawker Soule

Thanks for (exactly) nothing.

Kent Stevens

Under the religion of Pansantism or Pansanta we have the following definition. 'Santa Claus' = All That Is. We use the term Santa only as an approximisation of our true feelings about the Cosmos. We think of Santa as a depersonalised principle of nature.

This turns into word abuse if you use God, when all you mean is the cosmos or the universe. I can define what is normally thought of as apples to be called instead oranges, but then I would be getting into similar word abuse to what Pantheists tend to end up doing. Clarity of thought means that you try to not get your apples confused with your oranges.

Kent Stevens

Your Holism philosophy only makes sense if you also acknowledge the distinctiveness of things as well. For example, I may be similar to you in terms of biochemistry and genetics, but I am also distinct from who you are. Everyone is distinct as individuals from each other.

Anyway, it is part of Santa's revenge that we end up talking a great deal about his non-existence. In this case I am getting Pansanta's revenge by writing about Pantheism. Hopefully, his revenge will not end up taking up huge amounts of thinking lives.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

And we're back to semantics.

So, pantheism (as I've said all along) simply substitutes the word 'universe' with the word 'God'.

A rose by any other name...?

Keith.