Pantheism - a foundation for unity?

[Koldo]

I'm not sure what you're saying here - how is a principled lack of interest in the existence/non-existence of deities a basis for unity in a world in which the existence of deities is a fundamental belief of so many people?

I think that's the answer for unity: god belief has to cease to be a fundamental belief.
Let me clarify on where I am headed with this: If my liking for chocolate is fundamental to me and if your dislike for chocolate is fundamental to you, then I don't quite think we will ever truly be able to get along all that well. We might tolerate each other and we might even cooperate sometimes, but unity.... ? Forget it. Now, of course I am not saying that unity is something that should be sought after at any cost.

 

[Bear Wild]

I was taught that there are two forms of Pantheism, and that they cannot be considered a force for unity.

These theistic and atheistic forms exist only as minority fringe elements of two completely opposed positions: apologetic and largely insincere outreach attempts, if you will. They are designed to perpetuate disunity rather than create it.

And if we imagine what it would take for these two camps to reach consensus, taking away from each- there would be nothing left.

Pantheism is a theistic religion which like all religions has variations. The atheistic religion that is very similar in viewpoint to Pantheism is Religious Naturalism which also holds all of nature as sacred. Putting these two groups together leaves with the belief that the world is sacred and must be treated with respect including all human and non-human life. The group would then contain those that still believe there is theistic aspect and those that don't but they would function with respect to the world the same way. So they would not take away from each other.

The two believe in respect for the living and non-living, recognize responsibility to the world that we live in and the importance of reciprocity in giving back to the world in kind to what we take. In many ways they have similar views to the First American religions with respect to this concept of reciprocity seeing what humans get from their as gifts rather than entitlement and giving back as equally important. Thus both views see a sustainable world as most important rather than a exploitable world for ones own gains with not respect for those that share this world.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

While I certainly understand the lure of pantheism, I consider it a lesser form of religion.

There is an obvious awe and mystery of Nature that inspires us to a kind of worship. But that worship should be of the Source of nature, not of nature itself.

If you saw a great work of art, which would be more important: the artwork, or the artist?

I see no reason to believe that the cosmos requires any sort of outside creator. In my religion, nature creates and sustains itself. The gods come into being within it and then regulate it until all things are dissolved at the end if the cosmic cycle (what is called Ragnarok in Norse religion) and then the cycle starts again, over and over for eternity.

So the artwork and the artist are the same in my view, making your question irrelevant.

 

[Bear Wild]

I am not saying one cannot appreciate nature. I'm saying that when it comes to assigning Godhood, it is the source or creator of nature that gets that honor, just as it is the artist and not the painting.

This is a human centric view of the world. Humans paint thus we conclude if humans create thing with our intelligence than that is the only way things can be created. The human centric view of the world is a limited view founded only our perception of the world. The gods we create therefor function like humans. This view has made so many errors in the past such as humans live on earth thus the earth must be the center of the universe. Humans are the only life that have cognitive ability to learn, all other life is only instinct driven non thinking things with no similar cognitive abilities to humans.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

A painting is a representation not the reality.

Many paintings are abstractions.

 

[Bear Wild]

Many paintings are abstractions.

I am quite aware that paintings are abstractions. Painting and the creative forces of the natural world are not the same. My problem is with your statement that pantheism is a lesser religion. Please explain.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I am quite aware that paintings are abstractions. Painting and the creative forces of the natural world are not the same. My problem is with your statement that pantheism is a lesser religion. Please explain.

I already have. You simply cannot accept my explanation. You find it insulting, and cannot allow yourself to see its logic.

 

[Bear Wild]

I already have. You simply cannot accept my explanation. You find it insulting, and cannot allow yourself to see its logic.

No your logic is not clear but your arrogance is clear. But maybe you can explain why pantheism is a lesser religion better to someone who failed to grasp your logic.

 

[siti]

I think that's the answer for unity: god belief has to cease to be a fundamental belief.
Let me clarify on where I am headed with this: If my liking for chocolate is fundamental to me and if your dislike for chocolate is fundamental to you, then I don't quite think we will ever truly be able to get along all that well. We might tolerate each other and we might even cooperate sometimes, but unity.... ? Forget it. Now, of course I am not saying that unity is something that should be sought after at any cost.

OK - I see what you mean. But I do think it is important not to confuse 'unity' with 'uniformity'. To use your own example, I think it is possible for someone who dislikes chocolate to agree that liking chocolate is still a good thing. I don't have to abandon my dislike of chocolate and neither do you have to abandon your liking of it - I could even attend chocolate lovers conventions and gain a better insight into why it means so much to you. If you stand on a very high cliff and look down on a forest below you see a forest - one thing - a unity. But of you go down below and start analyzing what makes a forest, you find many things. Dig still deeper and you find that all these different things are really physically connected through networks of roots and fungi...a forest, it seems, really is one thing despite the wide variety of elements of which it is composed - and yet bits of it come and go through the natural cycles. How can so many different things 'become' a 'unity'? A human body is a biome - we 'host' more 'non-human' cells than our body contains human cells - and yet without the 'non-human' bits we could not exist - so are they are really not human? They are part and parcel of the system we call a human being - a unity. So uniformity is neither necessary nor even desirable in the quest for unity. It is - as Alfred North Whitehead put it - a process in which "the many become one and are increased by one" - each moment of novelty in the process of the entire world (and each moment is a novelty) simultaneously adds to the multiplicity of "things" and combines them into a new "unity". I see no reason why the 'quest for unity' in religious (and/or anti-religious) ideas should not be the same...each step on the track being, as it were, a "new synthesis" which then immediately sets itself as the antithesis of everything that it is not and challenges us (anyone who cares enough about it) to reconcile them again in a new 'unity'.

So that's all a bit philosophical and not terribly practical I suppose - its about ideas rather than application. But I also don't see why we could not have 'congregations' whose purpose was to promote unity and understanding rather than uniformity and credulity...as long as there is an insistence on promoting a particular religious idea I think you're right to say "unity? forget it" - but if we were ever to establish 'congregations' whose purpose was reflecting on and learning about the deeper realities of human existence and different ways of viewing it we might ultimately end up with a situation in which there were literally billions of different ways of viewing reality but only one religion. And the author of the paper I quoted seemed to think that pantheism/panentheism might provide a more accommodating starting point for establishing tolerance and dialogue among the existing religious traditions - which would be a precursor to my pipe dream of 'churches' as places of learning from rather than indoctrinating one another.

I'm not holding my breath.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

No your logic is not clear but your arrogance is clear. But maybe you can explain why pantheism is a lesser religion better to someone who failed to grasp your logic.

Asked and answered.

When someone is a "true believer," they are only capable of hearing things within their own paradigm. They cannot "switch gears." IOW, this trait is not you specifically; it applies to all true believers of all faiths. It's like trying to convince a Calvinist that having free will doesn't mean that God isn't sovereign or to a Catholic that 80% of his so-called messianic prophecies arn't messianic prophecies at all. It just doesn't compute for them. You are just spinning your wheels.

I'm not interested in "just spinning my wheels" with you. We have many things we agree on. Let's focus on those things, and agree to disagree agreeably on this.

 

[siti]

Asked and answered.

When someone is a "true believer," they are only capable of hearing things within their own paradigm. They cannot "switch gears." IOW, this trait is not you specifically; it applies to all true believers of all faiths. It's like trying to convince a Calvinist that having free will doesn't mean that God isn't sovereign or to a Catholic that 80% of his so-called messianic prophecies arn't messianic prophecies at all. It just doesn't compute for them. You are just spinning your wheels.

I'm not interested in "just spinning my wheels" with you. We have many things we agree on. Let's focus on those things, and agree to disagree agreeably on this.

OK - explain to me then...your "pantheism is a lesser religion" was in response to my post I believe - and I am not a "true believer" in anything - neither am I "spinning my wheels"...but quite apart from the unfounded assumption that the universe had a supernatural but personal creator who deserves 'honor', I can see absolutely no explanation from you as to why you consider pantheism a "lesser" religious idea than monotheism...and frankly, your attitude seems to bear out the idea that perhaps traditional monotheism is not the best basis for establishing religious unity..."lesser" religion or not (depending on what you mean by that), perhaps pantheism represents the basis of a more tolerant and harmonious future for religion or - (as I am sure more than a few around here would agree, better yet) - the beginning of the end of it!

 

[IndigoChild5559]

OK - explain to me then...your "pantheism is a lesser religion" was in response to my post I believe - and I am not a "true believer" in anything - neither am I "spinning my wheels"...but quite apart from the unfounded assumption that the universe had a supernatural but personal creator who deserves 'honor', I can see absolutely no explanation from you as to why you consider pantheism a "lesser" religious idea than monotheism...and frankly, your attitude seems to bear out the idea that perhaps traditional monotheism is not the best basis for establishing religious unity..."lesser" religion or not (depending on what you mean by that), perhaps pantheism represents the basis of a more tolerant and harmonious future for religion or - (as I am sure more than a few around here would agree, better yet) - the beginning of the end of it!

You are simply not being honest. I have already written more than once in explanation as to why monotheism is superior. It is a perfectly clear and logical analogy.

Monotheism is presented in different forms from primitive to more sophisticated. It seems to be the natural outgrowth of polytheism given enough time to evolve within a literate culture. You find forms of it in both the east and the west. Just last Saturday I visited my Chinese freinds who practice Yi Guan Dao, the second largest religion in Taiwan, and I reflected on how amid their altar with its Buddhas, its centerpiece is a fire lit to recognize the presence of God. Monotheism can also be an outgrowth of animism, such as in the Americas -- I draw my circle large enough to include panentheism within its set.

IOW, given enough time, all religion evolves to monotheism in some form.

 

[siti]

You are simply not being honest. I have already written more than once in explanation as to why monotheism is superior. It is a perfectly clear and logical analogy.

You gave an analogy based on the unfounded assumption that there is a supernatural and personal creator corresponding to the artist in your analogy. Without any proof for this assumption, how do we know that this isn't just a case of pareidolia or patternicity? Who painted these - for example:

IOW, given enough time, all religion evolves to monotheism in some form.

Well that's just not true is it? The most ancient religious traditions that still exist in the world have not evolved into monotheism have they? And Judaism became monotheistic as a result of the strident militancy of the Yahwist cult that won out among the competing polytheistic and henotheistic idolatries and monolatries after the Babylonian exile - it did not evolve as an intellectually superior concept of deity, it was established as the dominant theology of Judaism by the, often forceful, often violent, subjugation of worshippers of "the Baals". This tension and the eventual outcome is evident in the books of the Law and the Prophets.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

You gave an analogy based on the unfounded assumption that there is a supernatural and personal creator corresponding to the artist in your analogy.

No. It's not an assumption. It's a conclusion. Big difference.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Well that's just not true is it? The most ancient religious traditions that still exist in the world have not evolved into monotheism have they? And Judaism became monotheistic as a result of the strident militancy of the Yahwist cult that won out among the competing polytheistic and henotheistic idolatries and monolatries after the Babylonian exile - it did not evolve as an intellectually superior concept of deity, it was established as the dominant theology of Judaism by the, often forceful, often violent, subjugation of worshippers of "the Baals". This tension and the eventual outcome is evident in the books of the Law and the Prophets.

Correlation does not equal cause.

I see not connection between military conquest and the development of monotheism. There are plenty of polytheistic conquerors such as the Greeks and Romans. Rather, TIME passed, and with ideas being built upon (given the possibility due to written text) monotheism had the CHANCE to develop, and did so.

If there was any external event that sealed the deal, it was the Babylonian captivity.

The prophets had railed against the polytheism of the Israelites. They had adopted the idols of neighboring peoples in addition to God. God's such as Baal.

The earliest prophets seem to have urged Israelites to worship ONLY God among all the gods, meaning that the other gods were real in some sense. But at some point this changed to the other gods being FALSE gods. There is no greater example of this than Elijah's showdown with the priests of Baal, when Elijah called down fire from heaven, but the priests of Baal could not. But when did Israel accept this for good? In Babylon.

In its past, had Israel been conquered, it would have though to itself, "Hey, obviously the god of our conquerors is more powerful than Our God. We're gonna ditch Our God for theirs." (Good thing they were not conquered in those days.) But when they were conquered by Babylon, they remembered the words of the prophets, that other gods were false, and that the judgment for idolatry was coming. It shaped their assessment of their captivity. Instead of thinking that the Babylonian god was more powerful, they believed that they were being punished for their idolatry as had been prophesied. And THAT meant that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the ONLY God. Indeed, you have to admit, we Jews have never deviated into polytheism since Babylon.

But these prophetic visions of impending punishment for idolatry came from prophets who weren't building upon any conquering history. Their job was to correctly understand God's teaching and this was the ONLY thing they were concerned about.

 

[siti]

But these prophetic visions of impending punishment for idolatry came from prophets who weren't building upon any conquering history. Their job was to correctly understand God's teaching and this was the ONLY thing they were concerned about.

So you haven't read the story of Josiah then? I'll help you...here is 2 Chronicles 34:3-7

"In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. In his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles and idols. Under his direction the altars of the Baals were torn down; he cut to pieces the incense altars that were above them, and smashed the Asherah poles and the idols. These he broke to pieces and scattered over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. He burned the bones of the priests on their altars, and so he purged Judah and Jerusalem. In the towns of Manasseh, Ephraim and Simeon, as far as Naphtali, and in the ruins around them, he tore down the altars and the Asherah poles and crushed the idols to powder and cut to pieces all the incense altars throughout Israel. Then he went back to Jerusalem."
​

Bearing in mind that some of the "towns" and tribes mentioned here were not within Josiah's Kingdom (Judah), I don't know how you can interpret this is as anything other than conquest and subjugation - and there is no doubt that the Yahwist priests and prophets - Hilkiah and Huldah (for example) are named later in the same account - were complicit in this process of establishing - or rather enforcing - a strict monotheistic national religion. I have no idea how genuinely reliable this account might be - given that it was not written down (in the form we now have) until at least a couple of centuries after the supposed events took place, but it does look like the account of a victor - it is the victors who get to write the history after all - and romantically portrays a bold and pious King fearlessly opposing false gods and false worship - but it is equally clear that if the account is true, "the Children of Israel" were not monotheists in the 8th century BCE - but they were by about the 6th - after the Babylonian exile. Monotheism did not evolve among them, it was enforced.

 

[siti]

No. It's not an assumption. It's a conclusion.

Then you need to show your working - what logical argument or empirical evidence is the conclusion that there exists a monotheistic supernatural and personal creator of the universe based on?

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Then you need to show your working - what logical argument or empirical evidence is the conclusion that there exists a monotheistic supernatural and personal creator of the universe based on?

One such example was Baha'u'llah. They are Gods Messenger. They are the 'Self of God' in the age they gave their message.

Thus one has examine His Claim and His Evidence.

Regards Tony

 

[siti]

One such example was Baha'u'llah. They are Gods Messenger. They are the 'Self of God' in the age they gave their message.

Thus one has examine His Claim and His Evidence.

Regards Tony

Well I doubt that @IndigoChild5559 would accept Baha'u'llah's status as a "Manifestation of God" as evidence of the existence of his God. More importantly, how does a human claiming an uncorroborated supernatural experience amount to empirical evidence of the existence of a deity? How do we know he wasn't just another fruit cake claiming to be the Messiah? Please don't answer that - its a rhetorical question - of course there is no way we can know that about any of the founders of the "great religions" - that's why they call them "faiths".

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Well I doubt that @IndigoChild5559 would accept Baha'u'llah's status as a "Manifestation of God" as evidence of the existence of his God. More importantly, how does a human claiming an uncorroborated supernatural experience amount to empirical evidence of the existence of a deity? How do we know he wasn't just another fruit cake claiming to be the Messiah? Please don't answer that - its a rhetorical question - of course there is no way we can know that about any of the founders of the "great religions" - that's why they call them "faiths".

They are indeed a few of the questions.

I personally say that there is no way some choose to know, as that is free will choice.

Regards Tony