Defending Pantheism

[The Grand Nudger]

Anyhoo...in a pantheistic objective morality, morality would be among the long list of natural facts the same as any other.  Part of what they consider god, but not dependent on some god to be true, since that's not how facts work in the first place.

You in other post and discussion, have indicated that what you consider a natural fact, in regards to morality, is purely a matter of descriptive elements, like. x is harmful, where the ought is not a natural fact. It's not a natural fact that I ought not do harm, in your view of morality.

In some views, pantheistic, etc... the "ought" is as much a natural fact (a part of the fabric of reality) as the "is",  as sort of intrinsic laws of the cosmos, as the buddhist scholar Bodhi put it, even if you don't agree with that view.

I'm giving Vulcan the opportunity to articulate his views, rather than naively assuming they align with yours.  These sort of non-Dawkins/Dennett/Coyne type atheists that seems sympathetic to spiritual views of reality, subscribe to ideas like the numinous, are a new found curiosity, and I like to give each individual an opportunity to elaborate on their perspectives.

If you spent as much time listening to atheists as you do inventing shit to bicker about with atheists, you'd realize that the majority of us experience the sense of the numinous, which is...l-o-l, a natural fact of human experience. In -any- objective moral view, an ought is derived from what is against some evaluative principle. It doesn't matter if we approach it from pantheism, atheism, theism, what have you. That's what objectivity means in the moral context. You have failed to understand my views for the same reason that you've failed to realize what vulcan is doing. Some of us are capable of extolling and advocating for positions which we do not adhere to. In his case, pantheism, in mine, non-natural moral facts.

The only difference between an atheist and a theist is that one of them doesn't believe in gods. We're still human, we live in the same world that you do, and experience the full range of human emotions and stimuli. There's a fair chance that I have those experiences much more often than the average god-botherer, since I actively seek out those circumstances that produce them, and surround myself personally and professionally with the same. As with moral statements, I simply have no need to include some god as an ineffectual addition, nor is it likely that you, if you no longer believed, would cease to have those experiences. The sense of the numinous is a thing that happens to human beings regardless of any additional fact of the existence of a god, natural or otherwise.

In the main, pantheism seeks to redirect that sense to it's proper locus, to more deeply and directly acknowledge the source of that awe, rather than some metaphoric intermediary being.

@vulcanlogician

There is no similarity between pantheism and atheism. Atheism is a single line item rejection of the central and defining plank of the other position. There are similarities between how atheists and pantheists view other forms of theism. One of those enemy of my enemy moments, where a larger agreement seems to be manufactured not by any compatibility of principle, rather, by an agreement between both parties on the paucity thereof when it comes to those Other Fuckers™. I really can't recomend that book enough, as it leaves behind the neccesary cover baggage of a spinozist pantheism, the immanence of divinity, and more sharply sticks to the underlying contention of a pantheist ideology as it can now be expressed without fear of execution.