Defending Pantheism

[vulcanlogician]

"Pantheism" is simply another superfluous gap label.

It isn't, though, because the pantheist doesn't try to explain any phenomenon in nature using their god concept. To the pantheist, if science (or another reliable investigative method) hasn't found the answer, then humankind simply doesn't know the answer to said question. There is no "godidit" in pantheism. The pantheistic God doesn't do anything. It just is.

The universe is not a "God" of any kind, it is simply a giant weather pattern in which life is simply riding in as a temporary blip.

This assessment of the universe is not at odds with pantheism at all.

We do not need to make up metaphoric language to describe our observations.

You're right there. Calling the universe God is something of a metaphor. But so what? Metaphors can be accurate. Calling a southern abolitionist a "beacon of light shining over dark waters" is a poetic rendering of what the man is. You could more "accurately" say that he was "a man who lived in the south in 1820 whose views concerning slavery differed from those around him."

But you lose something in the second less metaphorical rendering of what the man is. That means that the first rendition, the metaphor, has something that the non-metaphorical description lacks.

That's what interests me about pantheism. It has something that the "ordinary," purely scientific description of the universe lacks. But this doesn't contradict or oppose a naturalistic view of the universe. Again, pantheism makes no claims about the nature of the universe. It simply pronounces the universe holy.

I think Walt Whitman conveys the sentiment best:

"To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle."