Anyone here a Category 7?

[vulcanlogician]

Lemme see if I can split the baby.  I'd say that where pantheism is competent is in showing that much of what is attributed to a god is, more accurately, misattribution.  However, it's incompetence comes from ignoring those things attributed to gods which distinguish them -from- "the universe"...and this is why it's silly to call the universe a god.

Let's say my kids never see me bake cookies, in their ignorance, they think my brother Jake bakes cookies.  If they find out that I'm the one baking the cookies..would it be sensible, then, for them to start calling -me- Jake?  Is that the rational way to go on that one?

"Do you agree that Khem exists and bakes cookies?  Yes, well..then, Jake exists!"  -no.

There is another way to present your example. "God" is a title, not a name. And if anything deserves such a title it would be the cosmos itself (including what caused the cosmos, what lies beyond the cosmos, everything that is--hence my use of the term the all). "King" is, similarly, a title. When a person has the title of king his subjects are required to recognize his authority, honor him, and do their part to keep his kingdom fine and prosperous. Let's say this king resigns due to ill health. Then the title passes to another person, and the subject's obligations transfer to the new king. They do not vanish into thin air. Although it is clear that this new king is a much different kind of king and serving his kingdom will have a much different sort of requirements. But it has requirements nonetheless.

Now let's look at a new example. One where some of the subjects realize they don't have to serve a king because he never existed in the first place. "The king" was just an illusion orchestrated by the state church Now what? Some peasants continue to recognize the illusion of the king (theism). Others recognize "hey! We've been fed a line of bullshit!"(atheists). But still others recognize that (even without the illusions of the clergy) the kingdom still moves as a unified whole. In other words, "the kingdom itself is the king" and these particular people (pantheists) try to look into the various aspects of the kingdom using reason and logic to try to decipher the "real" king's edicts. Pantheists seek to understand this new king just like the subjects of "the old king" tried to understand and serve him.

One of my favorite poets, Gibran, wrote "You are a cell in the body of God." I think this sums how a pantheist views his place in the universe. Why don't you dust off your copy of the Bhagavad Gita and read the first 11 chapters with Spinozian pantheism in mind? There is a reason that atheists often nod their heads when reading the Gita (one of the most theistic pieces of philosophy ever produced).

Let's look at your cookie example. If we use the word "baker" (as a title of sorts, like the king). At first, your kids think that Jake is "the baker"... but Jake is found out not to be the baker of any cookie whatsoever. Instead, it was Khem all along. Therefore Khem is the real baker.

To address the question "Why call it God?" I don't know if I can go any further than I have. I don't identify as a pantheist and I'm not a Spinoza scholar (only a fan). Some interpretations of Spinoza's God render him a conscious entity. Remember that Spinoza followed in Descartes' footsteps and presented the first rejection of Cartesian dualism. To Spinoza "thought" and "material" were not distinct substances. He was a monist. He saw thought and material as different attributes of the same substance. Therefore, when you say that God is the sum total of all things... "all things" includes "all mind." But just as all matter is unified into a seamless whole in Spinoza's pantheism, so are all minds considered one whole. And (in this way) God possesses a vast mental character. Whether one would call that consciousness on God's part is debatable, and there is much debate on that subject among Spinozian scholars. Unfortunately, Spinoza himself could never weigh in on this because he published the Ethics posthumously.

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And if one were to define "God" as "Laphroaig 10 Year Old single malt", well, then -- Hallelujah! -- I'm a category 1 believer.

Laphroaig is the only scotch I drink. And it is rather godlike.

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-and the whole time you were debating that..he believed in an anthropomorphized supernatural entity that held authority over the functions of this world.

Also keep in mind that it is the anthropomorphized gods that Spinoza called absurd.