(October 14, 2021 at 12:00 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote: If someone says that the universe is god, then why isn’t this pencil on my desk not another god? Why call it a god? Why not call it zilbracorvem?
The quote that Oldandeasilyconfused gave is really good, I think. A clear definition, without oversimplifying.
Pantheists see God as imminent in every particle and point in nature, as the cause and supporter-in-being of everything. This will only sound atheistic to people who have only pictured God as an angry sky daddy. Standard Christian theology, on the other hand, sees God as imminent everywhere, and similarly cause and supporter of everything. The main difference is that the Christian God is all of nature plus infinity, while for Pantheists God is coterminous with nature.
If you have some reason to think that your pencil is a god, and you also belief that all of nature is God, then you're a polytheist.
Quote:Because if they claim that it is not a personal god and it is not anthropomorphic, then what is it?
I would like to know what god means to them and the wikipedia article was not clear for me.
Only the most naive Christians see God as anthropomorphic. God is the Ground of Being, and the First Cause, and has no human-like body. This part is the same for Pantheists.
Although to be careful we'd have to specify whose pantheism we're talking about. Spinoza's? Emerson's? There are many different flavors.
