Is Pantheism atheistic or theistic?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Again, why would such a force and entity need to be to an anthropomorphic being? In fact, I can't reconcile the notion of there being an infinite, all-encompassing, omnimax being and it still possessing ego and emotion akin to us hominids.

Neither can I. Like I said, it's about relating to ideas. To do this, the ideas have to be expressed using relatable characteristics. It may very well be that it's implausible or even impossible for these things to possess the characteristics being asigned to them, but the process is about emotion, not logic.

That's my take on it, anyhow.

 

[Ouroboros]

Wow, great discussion in the last few pages. Many interesting views. I just want to comment on this one from a Gnostic perspective. Yes, there is a god of this aeon, this spacetime dimension we call the universe, and everything in it is an expression of that deity. Generally good, that is good from the perspective of sentient beings who experience it, certainly wonderful and awe-inspiring, but also seriously flawed and imperfect, resulting in chaos and disharmony. And this truth is reflected in human beings themselves since they too are an expression of the god of this aeon.

Interesting.

So far so good. But rather than seek to live in harmony with this situation (which it would seem you are espousing)

Yes. That's my view. I think we can find harmony.

the gnostic desires above all to rise above it. For the gnostic perceives he has another nature, a spiritual one, that is in conflict with his lower natures that derive from the demiurge. The gnostic perceives there is another deity, a higher one, that is perfect, and who is not the (direct) source of this imperfect and transitory world below. It is with this highest deity that the gnostic wishes to be in union and to attain eternal life in his aeon.

I see it all as one, but still, your view is appreciated and interesting. Now I understand better where you're coming from.

 

[Caladan]

At first I was going remind you that there is no point outlying Gnostic dogma in a thread about Pantheism, but I'll try to address your post and pin it into a Pantheism context.

Wow, great discussion in the last few pages. Many interesting views.

Cheers, it's always cool to build an interested crowd to talk to.

I just want to comment on this one from a Gnostic perspective. Yes, there is a god of this aeon, this spacetime dimension we call the universe, and everything in it is an expression of that deity. Generally good, that is good from the perspective of sentient beings who experience it, certainly wonderful and awe-inspiring, but also seriously flawed and imperfect, resulting in chaos and disharmony. And this truth is reflected in human beings themselves since they too are an expression of the god of this aeon.

While obviously you must realize that this is a subjective belief, many pantheists, at least me do not have this sense of urgency to seek perfection. The natural world is what it is and my goal is to be as comfortable with it as possible, and to develop skills to understand its ecology, and in addition to develop skills to operate in it more proficiently, whether in terms of fieldwork or exploration. I do not really seek harmony as a permanent state you might point to. Developing the ability to experience harmony and calm is important, but I do not consider the world to be a harmonious place in the spiritual sense, since it is objectively not a harmonious place when you imply that there is a different and higher realm without conflict or strife, or even entropy. I do not believe that your higher spiritual realm outside this world exists, and such beliefs to me are distraction from addressing realistic problems and natural mechanics to understand.
So no. Not at all. I do not seek to alter the fact that there is also lack of harmony in the world. I seek to relate and function in the world. I do not seek the promise of the hereafter. Nor seek salvation by subjective spiritual initiation or enlightenment from this world, but instead my salvation is found in having the honesty and capacity to be crafty in THIS world. Now that is the real challenge.

So far so good. But rather than seek to live in harmony with this situation (which it would seem you are espousing) the gnostic desires above all to rise above it. For the gnostic perceives he has another nature, a spiritual one, that is in conflict with his lower natures that derive from the demiurge. The gnostic perceives there is another deity, a higher one, that is perfect, and who is not the (direct) source of this imperfect and transitory world below. It is with this highest deity that the gnostic wishes to be in union and to attain eternal life in his aeon.

Perhaps this dogma would find more audience in a thread about Panentheism...

 

[nazz]

I see it all as one, but still, your view is appreciated and interesting. Now I understand better where you're coming from.

Awesome

Just to clarify I also see it as all one in an ultimate sense since even this aeon and its deity are in turn an expression of the higher deity albeit a flawed and imperfect one. All the goodness and beauty of this world is from the one above as that is all the demiurge has to work with as a raw material. But in reworking it he perverts it, causing it to be an imperfect reflection of eternal perfection.

 

[nazz]

While obviously you must realize that this is a subjective belief, many pantheists, at least me do not have this sense of urgency to seek perfection. The natural world is what it is and my goal is to be as comfortable with it as possible, and to develop skills to understand its ecology, and in addition to develop skills to operate in it more proficiently, whether in terms of fieldwork or exploration. I do not really seek harmony as a permanent state you might point to. Developing the ability to experience harmony and calm is important, but I do not consider the world to be a harmonious place in the spiritual sense, since it is objectively not a harmonious place when you imply that there is a different and higher realm without conflict or strife, or even entropy. I do not believe that your higher spiritual realm outside this world exists, and such beliefs to me are distraction from addressing realistic problems and natural mechanics to understand.
So no. Not at all. I do not seek to alter the fact that there is also lack of harmony in the world. I seek to relate and function in the world. I do not seek the promise of the hereafter. Nor seek salvation by subjective spiritual initiation or enlightenment from this world, but instead my salvation is found in having the honesty and capacity to be crafty in THIS world. Now that is the real challenge.

I do understand that perspective. But how does this play out in real life? Can you give me some examples from your own life?

Part of the problem as I see it is that your perspective in the wrong hands can lead to some truly horrific results. Should the child molester seek to be at peace with his own nature (to use an extreme example)? I also see that archontic (power based) religious systems, that are basically imitating the ways of this world, have caused incredible harm and suffering in the world. They seek to justify this suffering as the "will of god".

Also you say in reference to what I am talking about you do not believe it exists. I suggest it does and the evidence for it is found inside of each of us. That restlessness we feel with the imperfection with this world. Those pangs of conscience we feel when we act out aspects of our earthly nature. The very fact we can concieve of something better, something perfect.

Perhaps this dogma would find more audience in a thread about Panentheism...

Perhaps but then again I think Gnosticism includes both pantheistic and panentheistic perspectives depending on what is being looked at.

 

[Caladan]

Sorry no offense... but please read your post to see the irony embodied in it. Give me something serious to work with without comparing myself to a child molester or with more than your refusal to accept that this is the world we live in, and the laws of physics and nature are here to stay, have been here for billions of years and will continue for several more without inventing spiritual realms to cope with that fact.

 

[Father Heathen]

Neither can I. Like I said, it's about relating to ideas. To do this, the ideas have to be expressed using relatable characteristics. It may very well be that it's implausible or even impossible for these things to possess the characteristics being asigned to them, but the process is about emotion, not logic.

That's my take on it, anyhow.

Yet humans are capable of grasping quantum mechanics without the necessity of dressing it up as Lord Quantumus, who demands animal sacrifice.

 

[nazz]

Sorry no offense... but please read your post to see the irony embodied in it. Give me something serious to work without comparing myself to a child molester or with more than your refusal to accept that this is the world we live in, and the laws of physics and nature are here to stay, have been here for billions of years and will continue for several more without inventing spiritual realms to cope with that fact.

I wasn't comparing you to a child molester. I was just commenting that if we are to seek harmony with our own nature, the nature we inherit from this universe, would that not also apply to such a person? But I guess that more refers to what Ourobouros was saying and maybe you don't agree?

Where do you get that I refuse to recognize the world we live in? Not only do I recognize that fact but I see clearly what it is and it is often not so pretty. Am I required to see the ugliness as beauty?

 

[Caladan]

I wasn't comparing you to a child molester. I was just commenting that if we are to seek harmony with our own nature, the nature we inherit from this universe, would that not also apply to such a person? But I guess that more refers to what Ourobouros was saying and maybe you don't agree?

I see nothing in my description of my Pantheistic views to merit any point being made through an analogy involving child molesters. My suggestion to them is to seek psychiatric help.

Where do you get that I refuse to recognize the world we live in?

Right there:

Not only do I recognize that fact but I see clearly what it is and it is often not so pretty. Am I required to see the ugliness as beauty?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yet humans are capable of grasping quantum mechanics without the necessity of dressing it up as Lord Quantumus, who demands animal sacrifice.

Quantum mechanics (or human knowledge of it, anyhow) is also only about a century old. If there's an idea that human beings have been grappling with for millenia, there's an anthropomorphism of it: Gaia, Lady Luck, Mother Nature, Father Time, the Grim Reaper, the Fates, the Muses, God, etc.

 

[nazz]

I see nothing in my description of my Pantheistic views to merit any point being made through an analogy involving child molesters. My suggestion to them is to seek psychiatric help.
Right there: [/b]

OK, you've lost me now. So seeing ugliness in the world is not seeing the world as it is? Well I guess you could argue that is a subjective viewpoint but that is rather my point. This universe has produced beings unhappy with the present state of affairs. I thought the point was being made we should just be happy with things as they are. But frankly I'm not really sure where you are coming from.

 

[Caladan]

Sorry I am just going to save us both some time and running in circles. I simply do not find any of your arguments or analogies (or beliefs but that's besides the point at the moment) to be serious enough to debate. No harm done I guess.

 

[Sees]

Humans relate as humans, dogs as dogs, butterflies as butterflies...none of it wrong or perfect.

 

[illykitty]

Question, is there such thing as pandeism and if so, what would differentiate it from pantheism?

Deism in pandeism refers to the lack of interference doesn't it? Yet I thought I saw some replies refer to this as pantheism.

Would a pantheist believe in some interference? That makes it sound more to the side of theism, while deism sounds to me more in line with atheism.

 

[idav]

Question, is there such thing as pandeism and if so, what would differentiate it from pantheism?

Deism in pandeism refers to the lack of interference doesn't it? Yet I thought I saw some replies refer to this as pantheism.

Would a pantheist believe in some interference? That makes it sound more to the side of theism, while deism sounds to me more in line with atheism.

That is true that deism is more about a deity that doesnt interfere. Though with pantheism there is potential for interference because god is physically part of the universe. With deism god is never part of the universe and remains seperate so cant/wont interfere.

 

[Windwalker]

Maybe I was too vague in my way of defining "person". A simpler way might be to say a person (in my view) is an extension of a human being. A human has personality, a mask, a face, a behavior, that makes that person. Person to me requires to be human, limited, finite, etc.

The term person is tricky. Everything you point to that defines a "person", will either make only some humans a person, or make all sentient life a person. For instance, does an infant out of the womb have a personality? Does it have an ego, a locus of self-identity differentiated from others tied to his collection of history, social networks, family ties, likes and dislikes, etc? Not really. Yet we call an infant a person. Yet a chimp has all the traits that a toddler does, much more advanced than an infant, yet is not a person? When does a human become a person? And so forth.

Japan I believe it was just declared dolphins to be persons, in order to prevent the harvesting of them for food. Is it incorrect to call a dolphin a person? And why? They are just as intelligent as we are, if not more. They have names they identify with (they have shown they have certain sounds they make to call specific dolphins out, that identify themselves with those sounds individually). They work cooperatively in groups. They have communication. The only thing they don't have is opposable thumbs in order to make tools and advance technologies. Is technology what defines a person? Is the opposable thumb? Is creativity? Is personality?

You see the problem? What I see as being more the defining characteristic as what people think in their minds when they thing "person", is the human form. Homo Sapiens. But when we say person, that somehow translates into "not animal". But we are animals. So in this sense, yes God, or Gaia, or dolphins are not persons, because they are not human. It just made me think, historically, those of a tight ethnocentric group in fact did not/do not see others outside that group as persons either. The Holocaust comes to mind off that bat.

If I would put the same attributes on the universe, I would diminish the universe. Also, it would be a form of categorical fallacy. Just because a whole consist of parts, the whole is not the same as the parts. We consist of cells, doesn't mean I'm a giant cell.

I'm actually trying to lead to a certain perspective through jogging free some of these assumptions about individuality we make. This point here is getting to the heart of it. What you are saying here is true and not true. And by the way, this does tie into the discussion of pantheism very much so.

Who am I as a person? As an individual? I am a collection of atoms and cells all in relation with each other. Yet there is an "I" that is dropped down around all of them that says "Let's go", and we all get up and go together. But am I a cell? Am I a carbon molecule, personally? In fact, what is a molecule itself, except an "I" boundary dropped over a "we" collection of atoms. And what is a cell, but an "I" boundary dropped around a collection of "we" molecules. What is a biological body, an animal body but an "I" boundary dropped around a "we" collection of cells. And who is this "I" in my mind, but a boundary dropped around the biological organism and all its social collections? Who exactly is "I", and what stage of awareness, and dropped around what collection of "we"?

And then, if we are a collection of interacting, communal "I"s of mind and will and personality and desires and hopes and dreams, etc, is there a boundary that drops around these that can be called an "I"? Is there a "Big Mind" that exists? A great many mystics entering into these spaces say so. I would say so. And if a boundary dropped around a collection of forms up that great chain of being, from matter, to body, to mind, to soul, to spirit, constitutes an "I", then isn't that boundary the same as what we call a "person"?

In reality, it is simply our perceptual awareness of the nature of who or what we are that we call "I", and identify as a person, or a true human being. A child when asked to identify themselves points to their body and declares, "This is me!". A teenager when asked to identify themselves points to their friends and family, and so on. If you ask an adult, they'll cite their jobs, their communities, their roles, the nationality, etc. If you ask the mystic, he will touch the sky and the earth and say "Just this".

Is the mystic a person? And where is the center of his self-identification? And if it All, then isn't that the same all the way down, that it is all God, and all identified with as a person? Take for instance what Jesus said in the Wisdom Gospel of Thomas (I'm not calling it a Gnostic gospel because it's not):

"I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

Where is this I?


I'm out of time here, but this gets more interesting after this.

 

[Erebus]

I'm going to have to join the "Pantheism is Theism" crowd. I can understand why people might argue that it's atheistic since it doesn't always look like other forms of theism. However I think that this stems more from a cultural perception that theism is inherently supernaturalistic. Perhaps there is even an element of shame to admitting to being a theist too?

 

[Ouroboros]

The term person is tricky.

The term "person" is tricky.

Maybe I should redefine it from before. I think we have slightly different ideas of what constitutes a person, but you had some valid points. In my view, a person is a being that is limited in time and space, able to experience, interact with environment and other beings (persons), and have a limited life. That's just my view how I think a "person" is, and that's why I can't in my mind justify the term "person" for a being that does not have any of these limitations. God might be a being (even that makes me cringe), but I can't see God as a person at all.

Where is this I?

It's in me. I comes from where the non-conscious but conscious potential converges to one point in time and space.

 

[mycorrhiza]

As a member of the World Pantheist Movement, to me pantheism is atheistic. The Universe is itself worthy of our reverence. "God" is but a metaphor.

I rarely use religious language to describe my view of pantheism these days. The word "God" just doesn't work for me anymore. I feel like it belittles the Universe. "God" is a much too narrow word for such an expansive and awesome thing as the Universe.

Gods make people feel important, like they're the chosen ones (well, in most faiths at least). The Universe makes me feel tiny, insignificant. As I gaze up towards the stars in awe, I'm comforted by the fact that I'm not even a speck on the map of reality.

Pantheism is not the same as Pantheism. Not even monism unites us. For me, it's definitely atheistic, but for others it's definitely theistic.

 

[Avi1001]

As a member of the World Pantheist Movement, to me pantheism is atheistic. The Universe is itself worthy of our reverence. "God" is but a metaphor.

I rarely use religious language to describe my view of pantheism these days. The word "God" just doesn't work for me anymore. I feel like it belittles the Universe. "God" is a much too narrow word for such an expansive and awesome thing as the Universe.

Gods make people feel important, like they're the chosen ones (well, in most faiths at least). The Universe makes me feel tiny, insignificant. As I gaze up towards the stars in awe, I'm comforted by the fact that I'm not even a speck on the map of reality.

Pantheism is not the same as Pantheism. Not even monism unites us. For me, it's definitely atheistic, but for others it's definitely theistic.

What do you think about Panentheism ?