Treks
Well-Known Member
Probably one thing I object to is quoting and paraphrasing Nietzsche, an old view as relevant today.
Yes, but we're talking about traditional Stoicism vs modern Stoicism, and Nietzsche's criticism can be applied to modern Stoicism moreso than the traditional because Nietzsche neglects the divine in his criticism as much as modern Stoics do in their Stoicism. The quote is a device to further the discussion of the topic..
As a Baha'i I believe in the inherent unity of Nature (scientific description of existence), and the spiritual, God's Revelation and Creation. God Created by natural processes that science falsifies from the human perspective not absolutely correct, but progressively accurate as the knowledge of c=science evolves. . Traditional Theists often separate them, the scientific versus the theist perspective, and often in adversarial opposition. I actually do object to the association of science directly with materialism.
I view alternate worldviews objectively and not as adversaries as many Theists do. The materialists see our existence from the same Methodological Naturalism as Theists like myself who support the scientific view of our existence as it is, without Theistic presuppositions. What is described as Mechanism is no longer remotely believed by materialists today (philosophical naturalists) nor scientists today.
Would you describe yourself as a pantheist, then?
Actually I will argue different perspectives, particularly misrepresentation of other beliefs, in the Greek logic of Socratic adversarial debate and every position can be defended if the logic or the information is flawed.
Actually I consider the philosophical naturalist position concerning the nature of our physical existence to more consistent with reality than most Theists, but yes, I disagree with them concerning their philosophical assumptions concerning God. Also I disagree with most Theists concerning their adversarial position on science, or their conditional acceptance of some science but not all, based on their priority of beliefs.
For classical Stoics, science (or more accurate perhaps, physics) was one of the 3 areas of learning: Physics, Logic and Ethics. As essentially pantheists, the universe and the God were one and the same. Nature is God and we are part of it.