(November 25, 2013 at 1:19 pm)Bipolar Bob Wrote: You know pantheism is historically part of the Christian milieu.We (Morgan included), as outsiders, with an understanding of the definition of pantheism recognize that. But it would just be an argument of semantics to point that out to the Christian.
But what we call it doesn't matter because they make sense of it to themselves anyway. We have to discuss the substance of what they believe, and Pantheism/Theism is just the name of the topic. Every person that believes in God believes in the version they've created in their heads. If "energy" is all they mean by "God" then, ok. I've got no problem with that.
I've never heard of anyone worshipping energy, or denying that it exists. I've never heard of anybody killing in the name of energy. But it's being proven that our positive thoughts influence our bodies to do amazing things.
Positive thoughts produce positive results, the opposite is true for negative ones. It's being shown that just the BELIEF that stress is bad for you-is what is bad for you, and that if you can change your mindset about stress, it's actually a good thing. The stress itself is harmless, the belief is what's dangerous. If what people are doing is all in the name of doing positive things, and not doing them because they anticipate a ticket to a fantasy land or out of fear that they'll be subjected to torture by an imaginary friend in the sky, then it seems that they're actually Atheists, but by using the word "God" they are just being misunderstood due to a lack of words in their vernacular to describe such a concept. Either way, I think it's a step in the right direction.
