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Non-Anthropomorphic Immanent God = Atheism?

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
There are different theologies where 'all is defined differently. I pantheism 'all' is the physical cosmos where 'God=Cosmos.' Other world view include spiritual worlds, and existence with the cosmos as 'all.'

If the spiritual worlds exist, they are within the God perceived in pantheism.

There are world views that do not believe in a transcendent anthropomorphic being as God. and consider spiritual worlds beyond our physical existence inclusive of the 'all.' There are religions that consider the transcendent 'Source' some call God or God(s) as anthropomorphic. Your generalization fails when you consider the diversity of belief systems.

How does view in the first sentence differ from pantheism?

The second sentence has nothing to do with my "generalization."
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Scripture does not follow secular English convention.
It does when it's in English.

Now... in English, "it" carries another connotation: that the thing being described isn't a person. I could accept an argument that "He" is meant to convey personhood, not gender, but that's still assigning human attributes to God.
ignorance of the nature of a religions beliefs, is not knowledge from your perspective.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. My point was that both Islam and the Baha'i faith are very detailed about what God can do, what he has done, what he wants and likes, what he commands for humanity, etc. This level of detail suggests - if the religion is based in truth - that you know quite a bit about a supposedly unknowable god.

A religion around an actually unknowable being just wouldn't work:

- Hey, let's create a religion dedicated to this unknowable being.
- Well, why? What's so special about this being that justifies creating a religion in his honour?
- I don't know - this being is unknowable.

- Well, what tenets would this religion have? What does the being want us to believe?
- I don't know - this being is unknowable.

- What rituals would there be? What code of behaviour? How does this being want us to act?
- I don't know - this being is unknowable.

- Well, this isn't helpful. Is there some prophet somewhere who knows more about this being than you do who we could ask?
- Nobody else knows more about this being than I do. This being is unknowable.


Attributes of God are not God, they are attributes of Creation and humanity.
Can you rephrase this? The way I'm reading it makes no sense ("humanity is God," basically), so I'm assuming I'm not getting your intended meaning.
 
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idav

Being
Premium Member
Your bouncing around citing marginal and fringe beliefs, and not responding when your backed into a corner. Of course anyone can believe anything, but belief systems do have definitions, and fundamentally pantheism does not believe in the transcendent, and there is nothing in existence but the cosmos, which is basically the same as atheism.
Your acting like that offends me. I quoted showing more detailed views of pantheism. The one closer to atheism, as I said, would be natural Pantheism. Most other pantheists won't really agree with your atheist assessment. Me I think it's fine, I said the major difference is belief in God, atheists don't have that. I've had many debates and have been accused of everything like simply relabeling reality and no atheists thought I was theists due to my belief that everything is God. What are pantheists not allowed to believe in science? I am a gnostic theist that believes god is knowable especially through science.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
[shunyadragon, post: 5423728, member: 61872"]Scripture does not follow secular English convention.
It does when it's in English.

Now... in English, "it" carries another connotation: that the thing being described isn't a person. I could accept an argument that "He" is meant to convey personhood, not gender, but that's still assigning human attributes to God. [/quote]

Your asserting your world view in how English 'must' be used. English can be descriptive of different world views, as well as differnt languages without complying with what you believe.

My answer stands

A religion around an actually unknowable being just wouldn't work

Only when you demand that others comply with your egocentric world view that you believe is the only one possible.


Can you rephrase this? The way I'm reading it makes no sense ("humanity is God," basically), so I'm assuming I'm not getting your intended meaning.

Humanity is not God?!?!!? Nothing in my posts remotely implies this.

ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ARE NOT GOD!!!!!
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Your acting like that offends me. I quoted showing more detailed views of pantheism. The one closer to atheism, as I said, would be natural Pantheism. Most other pantheists won't really agree with your atheist assessment.

Reread your citation as I described in my post. It is only the cited fringe versions that are not equivalent to 'atheism,' and main schools of pantheism described that there are no spiritual worlds, nor God(s) outside our physical existence, like atheism.

Me I think it's fine, I said the major difference is belief in God, atheists don't have that.

Your neglecting the fact that pantheism is using the word 'God' as symbolic' and that the reality is that like atheism there are no God(s) nor spiritual worlds beyond our physical existence, therefore God=cosmos.
 

idav

Being
Premium Member
Your bouncing around citing marginal and fringe beliefs, and not responding when your backed into a corner. Of course anyone can believe anything, but belief systems do have definitions, and fundamentally pantheism does not believe in the transcendent, and there is nothing in existence but the cosmos, which is basically the same as atheism.
When I see thee word transcendent I see the universes ability to be anywhere in space and time, that's called trascendance.

""beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience""
 

idav

Being
Premium Member
Your neglecting the fact that pantheism is using the word 'God' as symbolic' and that the reality is that like atheism there are no God(s) nor spiritual worlds beyond our physical existence, therefore God=cosmos.
What is physical existence to you? To me it includes god and its manifestations. Nature is extraordinary enough that I don't even see atheism as feasible.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
When I see thee word transcendent I see the universes ability to be anywhere in space and time, that's called trascendance.

""beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience""

Pantheism does not propose that our physical existence is beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human existence. Cosmos=God places all within the possible comprehension within human understanding through science.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
What is physical existence to you? To me it includes god and its manifestations. Nature is extraordinary enough that I don't even see atheism as feasible.

Physical existence is a clear and specific concept and does not include the transcendent. The rest of the above is anecdotal.

Well, pantheism does not include god(s) nor manifestations of god(s) beyond cosmos=God.
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
It is incomplete, see my previous post.

Your previous post fails to answer my question.

Moving forward, if I ask a question about your previous post, it means that you lacked specificity in what you posted. It does not mean I didn't read it.
 

idav

Being
Premium Member
Physical existence is a clear and specific concept and does not include the transcendent. The rest of the above is anecdotal.
You may as well say I am talking nonsense or lieing. I don't see that your showing me why. I gave a way in which indeed our universe is transcendent and gave the definition.

I don't know what your talking about that god is just symbolic, sure people sometimes have to use metaphors, god is beyond any word to describe it. When does any of these, nature, all existence, the cosmos, fail to convey something meaningful?

I would describe god the exact same as you with your panentheist, I just leave out the "outside of reality" part which I find to be perfectly reasonable.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Physical existence is a clear and specific concept and does not include the transcendent. The rest of the above is anecdotal.
Nature, itself, is transcendent. From energy to matter, then, from matter to life. Each opening up a whole new realm of phenomenal possibility that did not previously exist. Then from life to conscious awareness; again, opening up a whole new realm of phenomenal possibilities that did not previously exist. Through these expressions of transcendence (and through us), existence has become material, animated, and self-aware.
 

atanu

Member
Premium Member
It was suggested in another thread that a belief structure that views God as non-anthropomorphic and non-transcendent (immanent) is sexed-up atheism.

What are your thoughts on this?

This controversy is not likely to die because 'Pantheism' has different meaning from religious and from philosophical POV. To clarify let me cite from WIKIPEDIA.

Pantheism - Wikipedia

As a religious position, some describe pantheism as the polar opposite of atheism.[10]:pp. 7 From this standpoint, pantheism is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing, immanent God.[11] All forms of reality may then be considered either modes of that Being, or identical with it.[12] Some hold that pantheism is a non-religious philosophical position. To them, pantheism is the view that the Universe (in the sense of the totality of all existence) and God are identical (implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of God).[13]

Philosphically, to Jews and Christians, Pantheism would be dressed up atheism.

But the problem of the controversy, IMO, is in the definition and understanding of Pantheism. For example Spinoza was a self declared monist in Hindu tradition. I cite a small extract from another WIKI article to show that Spinoza was actually closer to Panentheist (Monism of Hindus is Panentheism).

Baruch Spinoza - Wikipedia

....That world is of course "divisible"; it has parts. But Spinoza said, "no attribute of a substance can be truly conceived from which it follows that the substance can be divided", meaning that one cannot conceive an attribute in a way that leads to division of substance. He also said, "a substance which is absolutely infinite is indivisible" (Ethics, Part I, Propositions 12 and 13).[100] Following this logic, our world should be considered as a mode under two attributes of thought and extension. Therefore, according to Jaspers, the pantheist formula "One and All" would apply to Spinoza only if the "One" preserves its transcendence and the "All" were not interpreted as the totality of finite things.[99]

Let me put the above in another fashion. Spinoza held the following three:
  • the unity of all that exists;
  • the regularity of all that happens;
  • the identity of spirit and nature.[101]
The above is closest to Nonduality of Hindus and it does not stop at Pantheism. It is Panentheism.
...........

I hold that if a theist holds a Pantheist view then that person is not clear. What is that God (or essence or Brahman) that gets altered continually as nature? OTOH, if the essence or the all pervading matter is to be equated to God or Brahman, then that essence must be transcendental to all of natures forms.

We can understand this very simply if we use a metaphor used by Shri Krishna in Gita. Brahman is like air that pervades all forms within and without, yet is distinct and unchanged by the forms.
 
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9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Your asserting your world view in how English 'must' be used. English can be descriptive of different world views, as well as differnt languages without complying with what you believe.
Not how it must be used; how it is used.


Only when you demand that others comply with your egocentric world view that you believe is the only one possible.
I have no idea what you're talking about.

Humanity is not God?!?!!? Nothing in my posts remotely implies this.
You said that the attributes of God are attributes of humanity.
ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ARE NOT GOD!!!!!
They're attributes of God and many of them are human attributes.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
To me it includes god and its manifestations.

OK, . . . the question is not what you believe.

Nature is extraordinary enough that I don't even see atheism as feasible.

Our physical existence being perceived as extraordinary from the human perspective is nothing more than our physical existence being perceived as extraordinary from the human perspective.' Atheism and strong agnosticism remains a possible world view regardless.
 
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idav

Being
Premium Member
This controversy is not likely to die because 'Pantheism' has different meaning from religious and from philosophical POV. To clarify let me cite from WIKIPEDIA.



Philosphically, to Jews and Christians, Pantheism would be dressed up atheism.

But the problem of the controversy, IMO, is in the definition and understanding of Pantheism. For example Spinoza was a self declared monist in Hindu tradition. I cite a small extract from another WIKI article to show that Spinoza was actually closer to Panentheist (Monism of Hindus is Panentheism).



Let me put the above in another fashion. Spinoza held the following three:
  • the unity of all that exists;
  • the regularity of all that happens;
  • the identity of spirit and nature.[101]
The above is closest to Nonduality of Hindus and it does not stop at Pantheism. It is Panentheism.
...........

I hold that if a theist holds a Pantheist view then that person is not clear. What is that God (or essence or Brahman) that gets altered continually as nature? OTOH, if the essence or the all pervading matter is to be equated to God or Brahman, then that essence must be transcendental to all of natures forms.

We can understand this very simply if we use a metaphor used by Shri Krishna in Gita. Brahman is like air that pervades all forms within and without, yet is distinct and unchanged by the forms.
Of course in your worldview a pantheist is confused. It changes the interpretation of quantum physics, you think a mind is possible as the observer affect. This isn't Star Wars with the force. Qm "observer" affect is simply physical interaction.
 

atanu

Member
Premium Member
Of course in your worldview a pantheist is confused. It changes the interpretation of quantum physics, you think a mind is possible as the observer affect. This isn't Star Wars with the force. Qm "observer" affect is simply physical interaction.

I do not understand what you say.:) Will you Kindly explain?
 

idav

Being
Premium Member
[QUOTE="idav, post: 5424098, member: 30513" To me it includes god and its manifestations.
OK, . . . the question is not what you believe.



Our physical existence being perceived as extraordinary from the human perspective is nothing more than our physical existence being perceived as extraordinary from the human perspective.' Atheism and strong agnosticism remains a possible world view regardless.
Belief is everything to do with theism.

If your trying to say pantheism conforms more to reality I must agree.
 
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