Pantheism is the belief that God and the world (the cosmos) are identical. It's not acceptable from a Christian standpoint. There is another belief known as "panentheism," which is the belief that God is in the world or the world is in God. This can be illustrated by fish in a body of water; the fish represent creatures and the water represents God. Philosophically speaking, God would be the Ground of Being.
Many who claim to believe in a personal God have ideas of God which could really be termed "anthropomorphic" - from the Greek "anthropos" - man or human being. That is, their idea of God is so restricted that it is as if they are worshipping a humanoid. In the JW/Bible Student tradition this was true to the extent that it was at one time speculated that God lived in the constellation of the Pleiades.
Some of the Bible writers did have a more elevated view of God. Paul is reported as saying, "in him we live, and move, and have our being." (Acts 17:28) The early Church Fathers attempted to harmonize a philsophical view of God with the Bible, and took anthropomorphic representations of God to be symbolical. They concluded that, among other attributes, God is omnipresent - everywhere present - whereas the WT, with its anthropomorphic tendencies, cannot accept this. This does not mean that God is not also personal, but God does not have the limitations of human personality.
So what is the relevance here with regards to our "recovery" from a cult? It's this: We have to be willing to step out and take the middle ground if we do not wish to be permanently enmeshed in a conflict of extremes. Otherwise, the battle of the atheists vs. the fundamentalists will continue. It's not enough to compare the teachings of the WT with the Bible in and of itself. There's a whole history of interpretation of the biblical text. There has always been an interaction between the text and a given community, both with the Jewish and the various Christian communities. It's not enough to ask, "Is that really in the Bible," but: "Is this a better explanation of the biblical text than another explanation?"
Taking the middle ground opens us up to attack from both extremes, but we'd better do it if we want a conceptual framework in which to operate. So we can't just study the Bible. We need to study the Fathers and the theologians throughout the ages of different traditions.
The same is true with the issue of biblical inerrancy. Let the atheists and the fundamentalists hammer away at each other. There are critical scholars who have noted discrepancies in the biblical text, and have used these to come to edifying conclusions which would have never been possible if it had not been realized that various writers wrote from different standpoints. Faith in God and the biblical message was maintained, not jettisioned. Keep seeking, for "they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being." (Acts 17:27-28)
