Define your "pantheism"

by Narkissos 36 Replies latest jw friends

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  Narkissos

  I read a post by Satanus today which made me think this might be a topic worthy of discussion.

  "Pantheism" is quite an attractive concept on the way of many of us who have been drifting from theism. However it sounds like a problematic concept too. Here are a few questions I'd like to raise:

  What does the "theism" in "pantheism" mean?

  If we reduce the divine (theos) to some notion of transcendance, how does this notion play? Is it the transcendance of the "all" (pan) over its constituents (or, the sum over its parts), in a Stoic way?

  Or, if we discard the notion of transcendance (for a more fuzzy notion of interconnection, for instance), how does the resulting "pantheism" differ from a poetical atheism?

  I guess that's enough for a start...
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  gumby

  First of all, I'm a bit sceptical about replying to a thread that was inpired by a dude named "Satanus". He sounds like some kinds demunized guy or sumthin.

  Second, I wanted to spare this thread from going to page two because of hungover apostates who ain't up outta bed yet from their immoral drunken pagan thanksgiving eve partying. Sick spiritually dead bastards!

  I don't see much of a difference between a Pantheist or a christian......cept for the former doesn't want to give credit to a coherant being...... and would rather give it to chance.

  Are You a Pantheist?

  When you look at the night sky or at the images of the Hubble Space Telescope, are you filled with feelings of awe and wonder at the overwhelming beauty and power of the universe? When you are in the midst of nature, in a forest, by the sea, on a mountain peak - do you ever feel a sense of the sacred, like the feeling of being in a vast cathedral?
  Do you believe that humans should be a part of Nature, rather than set above it?

  Some Pantheist are nothing more than believers with a grudge.

  Gumeist

  Gumby
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  Narkissos

  Thanks Gumby (although you didn't save this thread from sinking to page 4... )

  When you look at the night sky or at the images of the Hubble Space Telescope, are you filled with feelings of awe and wonder at the overwhelming beauty and power of the universe? When you are in the midst of nature, in a forest, by the sea, on a mountain peak - do you ever feel a sense of the sacred, like the feeling of being in a vast cathedral?

  Yes -- and I can't help thinking that the sense of chance, or random, which is essential to all those examples, plays a very important part in the aesthetical or mystical feelings we then experience.

  Do you believe that humans should be a part of Nature, rather than set above it?

  Another central question to me... but I'm inclined to answer that we really cannot choose: we are an integral part of nature, yet the very act of speaking-thinking separates us from it.

  Some Pantheist are nothing more than believers with a grudge.

  Which would confirm my intuition that pantheism mostly makes sense as a resolution of theism -- which would make it a pretty unstable belief.

  Rangumly yours,
• 

  gumby

  which would make it a pretty unstable belief.

  Not only unstable, it has no relationship to be had. A beautiful stone is neat to look at, but it gives no personal consolation to the looker.

  An unidentified deity doesn't give any either, only a hope in the believer that a relationship exists between you and it. Perhaps the latter is a better choice at least to the believer as it gives hope that a conscience entity cares ....and that gives solace.

  Narkmeister......your thread is too deep of material to a buncha apostate window washing college dropouts who don't have sense to quit the door to door work in the rain.

  Gumstein
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  Leolaia

  The interesting thing about looking at the night sky is that we can behold with our naked eyes only a very pale glimmer of what truly is out there in the heavens, which continually proves to be beyond our wildest imaginations (black holes, supernovae, quasars, galaxy clusters, unimaginable distances, etc.)....the ancient intuition that there must be things up there in the heavens which are unseen and scarcely imaginable has proven to be right on the mark...now that we can witness the heavens much better than our ancestors did. It is interesting that our wonder only increases with the more we can see; conversely, the expanding depth and enormity of the cosmos has made us feel smaller and smaller, intensifying the desire to belong to the "great everything" in a spiritual sense...
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  MerryMagdalene

  Wish I could understand what you smart folks is talkin' about...I got out my big ol' dictionary and ever'thing...I looked up deism, theism, monotheism, and pantheism.

  I was raised a JW but had secret pagan tendencies...became something of a non-Christian mystic with Taoist/Immortalist/Daoinisidhe leanings as an adult...then became an unorthodox Christian more recently. For as long as I can remember, I have related to the universe as a whole, and all its bits and pieces, as manifesting God[dess] (a holographic pantheistic universe?).

  I have always been in communion with what I would consider the greater unified consciousness of God[dess], as well as the lesser fragments of consciousness (egos?) of individuals. And I have had some of my best conversations and most fulfilling relationships with rocks and trees.I seek to go from fragmentation to wholeness. I had a most amazing taste of it once

  Does that define my panthesim ok?

  ~Merry
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  rmt1

  The Latin “numen, numinis” was pantheistic in origin but makes a really good word now, “numinal,” “1. A presiding divinity or spirit of a place. 2. A spirit believed by animists to inhabit certain natural phenomena or objects. 3. Creative energy; genius.” The "sacred place, or sacred geography" has undefinable power that no one can appropriate quickly, and its power precedes and is independent of claims the sentient agent divinities. Numinus geography would include locations where uunexpected, unstatistical things happen, frequently in the intersections of earth, sky and water (convex/protruding like cliff over the sea and waterfalls or concave/recessive like caves and pools). Irregularities cause a knot in the spacetime of awareness and accrue numinal sensations.
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  tetrapod.sapien

  i don't mind pantheism very much at all. i honestly do not see a huge difference between it and atheism. i always kind of define "pantheism" as:

  god is nature, and nature is god. or, one is all and all is one. which is cool i suppose. pantheists worship nature? okay, i mean, i kind of worship it too via my awe.

  i am not so sure about the extra hocus pocus stuff, but still, i think if we had to define a god, the pantheist's "god" (nature/universe etc) comes the closest to the real thing. AND, it's testable! :))

  TS
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  JamesThomas

  When there is but silent presence with this moment's expression of life

  When there is no image of a self-separate nor other

  Then there is no me to describe it and no additional to define

  There is only that which is indescribably

  Alive

  

  j
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  gumby

  Tetrabastard, quit actin like you yer smart and ain't ON sumthin right now.

  Gumby....of the three ahead of you class.