RE: Isn’t pantheism the same thing as atheism?
October 13, 2021 at 6:37 pm
(This post was last modified: October 13, 2021 at 6:38 pm by Oldandeasilyconfused.)
(October 13, 2021 at 3:10 pm)Peebo-Thuhlu Wrote: At work.
(October 13, 2021 at 4:15 am)Belacqua Wrote: The essence which can be named is not the true essence.
So....
The diety's 'Nature' is.... 'Unknowable'? 'Unquantifyable'? 'Insert adjective to not understanding here'?
So... you're positing something akin to 'Unobtainium' then?
And this ('Place holder') defies our understanding of reality by.... ?
I'm a bit confused again.
This is how I see it: I'm an agnostic atheist. That means I don't believe in god(s) due to a lack of empirical evidence. I make no claims of knowledge.
I also disbelieve in the soul, angels, demons, heaven hell, an afterlife, the supernatural, the paranormal, including all kinds of fortune telling, mountain trolls, dragons and fairies at the bottom of my garden.
It occurs to me that I may have been in error to lump all of those things with my atheism. Some at least possibly belong under the headings of sceptic/cynic/materialist .
Posts in this thread seem to be suggesting that a person may indeed be both an atheist and a pantheist. BUT, the very name 'pantheism' infers a belief in some form of god(s). As far as I can tell it posits the notion of a deity without an individual existence, such as seeing the universe as 'god'. Please correct me if I'm in error. That sounds like an argument for for first cause.
Can it not be argued that defining reality as divine is so broad as to be meaningless? I am often in awe of natural beauty, and indeed of my notion of life as an 'essence'. It's my position that the meaning of life is itself. I don't mean in a crude egocentric sense, but in the sense of the vast numbers of ways life manages to replicate itself. This suggest but does not infer a prime cause or causes. For me, life and reality just are. A satisfying explanation might be nice, but I don't require one. I have no problem with saying "I don't know'.
From wikipedia:
Pantheism is the belief that reality is identical with divinity,[1] or that all-things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god.[2] Pantheist belief does not recognize a distinct personal god,[3] anthropomorphic or otherwise, but instead characterizes a broad range of doctrines differing in forms of relationships between reality and divinity.[4] Pantheistic concepts date back thousands of years, and pantheistic elements have been identified in various religious traditions. The term pantheism was coined by mathematician Joseph Raphson in 1697[5][6] and has since been used to describe the beliefs of a variety of people and organizations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism
