Defending Pantheism

[vulcanlogician]

It might make sense to sort of bracket this question and come back at the end of the thread. If I'm understanding you right, you may be saying that pantheism is "everything that exists is holy," whereas just plain non-religion would be "everything just exists." The latter position differing only in that it doesn't see things as holy. 
So if pantheism could be argued for persuasively, then the holiness would take care of itself. 

To Spinoza, who is my one-and-only model for pantheism, each particular thing or event is in no way God-like or holy. What Spinoza calls "God" is the sum total of everything together (including the laws of nature, the seen and the unseen, the stuff science can't detect, and the stuff that it can). If there are other dimensions beyond our own that science will never perceive, these are part of God too. 

As for holiness taking care of itself, it depends on what you mean by that. Human beings don't "make something holy" via consecration or anything else. It's already holy from the get go. You either recognize it or you don't. (And pantheism in no way says anyone ought to recognize it.) A person who recognizes the numinosity of existence is just as much a part of God as one who doesn't.

Unless you're beginning with the definition that nature always and only equals the stuff that human logic and science can examine, and that only this particular kind of nature exists... That may be so. Or it may be that there is all kinds of really existing stuff in the universe which neither human logic nor science can ever get a handle on. Or it may be that in rare cases people have other ways of knowing. Does pantheism per se come down one way or another on this question? I don't want to beg the question and assume that the nature which pantheism calls holy is only that which people know in the two ways you specify. 

I'm not beginning with that definition. Nature is nature, whether science can understand it or not. It's just that, as far as understanding nature goes, we've yet to find a better/more accurate tool than science. Second to science (in my estimation) is philosophical inquiry. But, yes, even things beyond the grasp of science (so long as they exist) are God in Spinoza's conception. It's that they exist and are therefore necessary (as Spinoza puts it) is what makes them God.

I got into a debate with a troll some time ago, and during the course of the debate, I ended up parsing through some of Spinoza's metaphysics. Reading the quote below might clarify some things, including the notion that pantheists don't view "each particular thing" as God, but rather "the sum total of all things." In that thread we were discussing Spinoza's notion that "determination is negation." ie. when you consider an object, let's say a beer can, as separate from everything else in the universe, you (in doing so) negate what it really is. It is a necessary part of the whole first and foremost. Calling it a separate beer can might help you to easily quantify it in some respects, but in doing so, you can no longer see it as a necessary part of the whole-- which is what the beer can is first and foremost.

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PROP. VIII. Every substance is necessarily infinite.

Proof.—There can only be one substance with an identical attribute, and existence follows from its nature (Prop. vii.); its nature, therefore, involves existence, either as finite or infinite. It does not exist as finite, for (by Def. ii.) it would then be limited by something else of the same kind, which would also necessarily exist (Prop. vii.); and there would be two substances with an identical attribute, which is absurd (Prop. v.). It therefore exists as infinite. Q.E.D.

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Definition II. A thing is called finite after its kind, when it can be limited by another thing of the same nature; for instance, a body is called finite because we always conceive another greater body. So, also, a thought is limited by another thought, but a body is not limited by thought, nor a thought by body.

PROP. V. There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute.

PROP. VII. Existence belongs to the nature of substances.

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In short, the substance in the universe is necessarily infinite. He calls this substance "God" ... though this is the sort of God that even atheists believe in. It is in fact the whole of nature that Spinoza calls "God." And in the above quote, Spinoza thinks he's shown nature to be necessarily infinite. But what does this have to do with Determinatio negatio est? When we refer to a specific thing, say, the desk in front of us, we say: "That is a desk." And in doing so we negate it's being because in fact it is not a desk, but rather "God" or "the infinite substance" that stands before us.

With regard to the statement that figure is a negation and not anything positive, it is obvious that matter in its totality, considered without limitation [indefinitè consideratam], can have no figure, and that figure applies only to finite and determinate bodies. For he who says that he apprehends a figure, thereby means to indicate simply this, that he apprehends a determinate thing and the manner of its determination. This determination therefore does not pertain to the thing in regard to its being; on the contrary, it is its non-being. So since figure is nothing but determination, and determination is negation [Quia ergo figura non aliud, quam determinatio, et determinatio negatio est], figure can be nothing other than negation, as has been said.

Pay attention to the bolded part to get at Spinoza's meaning. Also this:

When we apprehend a finite thing, we see it as having a shape or figure. In so doing, we mark that thing off from other things, giving it a determination. But it only has being as part of the infinite matter from which it is now separated. So, its determination pertains to its non-being, not its being. So, as determination is a negation of being, and figure is a form of determination, figure is a negation.

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https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/97865/2/d...0final.pdf

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