Defending Pantheism

[Alan V]

I do not agree that a God can be something without consciousness and willfulness, deserving or otherwise.  That's why I think pantheism is unreal.  There's no there there.

According to the quotes from Spinoza that Vulcan offered before, pantheism is clear that we shouldn't snip apart the parts of the universe and pretend they are independent. Everything is merely a portion of the whole, and if it seems somehow isolated that is a limitation of our perception. 

If that's true, then humans are a part of the universe. And humans have consciousness and willfulness. Therefore, the universe has consciousness and willfulness. How those things manifest and appear to us can vary -- and we know so little of the whole universe that it may well manifest differently elsewhere. But the universe does have consciousness, because we are conscious. 

And I like your new picture, by the way.

It would be nice if we all formed a unity with the universe, but alas I do not think it is true.  At best we share an isolated environmental system and our atoms.  Our consciousnesses are all discrete from one another.

Thanks.  The picture is a detail of a painting I created, after Odilon Redon of course. And I changed my username because I am no longer enough of a Thoreauvian. It became inaccurate.