Defending Pantheism

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, the universe actually exists. We can look around and see it (and -man!!- isn't it fucking amazing!?). We don't have to resort to reading ancient scriptures to find evidence that the pantheistic God exists. It is immediately available to the senses. It contains more power and love than any god a theist ever imagined. And it really is the source of all our joy, sorrow, indispensable moments, and numinous feelings.

As misplaced as a pantheist's reverence may be, at least is is aimed toward something that exists.

Is it, though?  Or is it the same sort of trait-making that got those silly theists in trouble in the first place?  The universe exists, sure enough.  But is the universe an existent manifestation of immanent divinity?  That is, after all, the difference between "just the universe" and the pantheistic god.  If we take this away, it's no longer pantheism.  

Consider this.  If I wanted to convince you that christ existed, and that you believed in christ ..I could
Name my cat jesus, point at my cat, and shout qed.

You wouldn't find it a compelling argument for christ, though, just a cat.   You could very accurately remind me that it's not the existence of cats that you doubt, but of christ.  In this way, the "just the universe" argument for pantheism is both less-than-compelling, and self defeating.  

Beyond that, a thing doesn't have to be a manifestation of divinity in order to be the source of power or love, or joy, sorrow, indispensible moments, and numinous feelings.  Alot of those are not proper properties of "the universe" but of agents within the universe, humans specifically.  Far from resolving the noted mistake of other forms of theism, pantheism compounds and reasserts those mistakes by the same name.   This amounts to a subtle anthropomorphization of divinity all the same, as the source of [insert human shit here], manifesting in the immanence of divinity (with all of the baggage carried by those propositions).  In truth, it really is no different than any other god claim, no more or less credible on account of how it's gods are different from others. All of the gods are different from each other. If the whole of the case for pantheism is that all of these things that others misattributed to beings they called gods, so then we should call the universe a god..well..that's not a case for pantheism at all.

I asked the only question that pantheism could answer to establish the veracity of it's claim. Why should I regard the universe as a manifestation of immanent divinity? "It exists" doesn't answer that question. So do I. So does cat jesus. So does a rock. I don't doubt that the universe exists, I know that it isn't a god, lol.

We already covered that before here. Pantheists don't anthropomorphize God. Below is a quote I've shared before. It is Spinoza's reasoning for why people think that God must be anthropomorphic. Here he really is trolling the theists.

Insomuch as pantheism eschews that sort of thing, it heads in a better direction than other forms of theism, though it isn't completely free of the tendency.    

Maybe he was trolling a little bit. But the religious trolled him more than he ever trolled them. He was expelled from his Jewish community for having "dangerous ideas." He was attacked with a knife by a fanatic who shouted "heretic!" He was compelled to publish his greatest work posthumously. His books were banned across Europe. And this is a guy who everyone, even his outspoken critics, noted was a modest, gentle, and nonviolent person. He turned down teaching positions at prestigious schools so that he could concentrate on completing his work in philosophy. He supported himself by grinding lenses. If they really valued humility and righteousness, you'd think the Christians might have held him in high esteem. Instead he was attacked in the street by ranting bigots. He didn't troll them. They trolled him.

Sure.  It was a pretty rough time to be a heretic, lol.  

So, anyway. Post is long. Below I've included a passage from the Ethics that covers some of the supra-atheist thinking that he did. What do you make of it? Does it sound like straight atheism to you?

We've already established that spinoza uses terms like god in novel ways, and doesn't always mean exactly what he writes.  So, you know, I'm not going to hold any of the more batty things quoted against him.