Defending Pantheism

[vulcanlogician]

Can you define the numinous for me? I searched the thread, I couldn't find any titles with numinous in it. I've seen in mentioned in a variety of threads, but those that elaborated on it, seem to be theist.

We can go by google's definition for now. If we don't want to agree on it for the purposes of our discussion, we can adapt it:

nu·mi·nous
adjective
adjective: numinous
having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.
"the strange, numinous beauty of this ancient landmark"

I was using "holy" and "numinous" colloquially and merely suggesting that such words might be used to describe natural phenomena (like a landmark... or the entire universe). I don't think my entire argument rests on how these words are defined. I could easily construct my argument without using these words.

[Acrobat]

Can you define the numinous for me? I searched the thread, I couldn't find any titles with numinous in it. I've seen in mentioned in a variety of threads, but those that elaborated on it, seem to be theist.

We can go by google's definition for now. If we don't want to agree on it for the purposes of our discussion, we can adapt it:

nu·mi·nous
adjective
adjective: numinous
having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.
"the strange, numinous beauty of this ancient landmark"

I was using "holy" and "numinous" colloquially and merely suggesting that such words might be used to describe natural phenomena (like a landmark... or the entire universe). I don't think my entire argument rests on how these words are defined. I could easily construct my argument without using these words.

The google definition is perfectly fine for me, because I'm a theist, and I don't have any qualms about the presence of divinity, but as to what I should take what the "presence of divinity" means for non-theists, is unclear. 

Perhaps I can try to offer a less theistic definition, in hopes of putting us on the same page:

A deep sense that reality is more than the sum of its material parts, a sense that it possess a sort of poetic resonance, encapsulated in a song, a beauty that's part of its very makeup, and not one extrinsically afforded to it by us, that when perceived by us, it causes us to shutter and feel overwhelmed, and humbled by it. For some it might be called God, and for others just a Mystery.

[The Grand Nudger]

Can you define the numinous for me? I searched the thread, I couldn't find any titles with numinous in it. I've seen it mentioned in a variety of threads, but those that elaborated on it, seem to be theist.

I'd be curious to hear you tell us what you mean by it, particularly if there's any real points of disagreement with the descriptions provided by Otto, and Lewis? 

Can you elaborate on when was the last time you experienced it, and what evoked it? Was it evoked by some observation of some human interactions, features of human relationships, a mother and child so to say, or more evoked by the stars, or cosmos, or some other non-human element of reality?

If you were hypothesize, why do you think biological creatures like our selves experience the numinous? Do you think it was something evolution explicitly selected for that benefits our survival and reproduction?

I experience the sense of the numinous on a daily basis, lol.  I think it's a sideline benefit of something else that was selected for.  Human beings (despite the cynics constant claims to the contrary, lol) have an expansive intellect and determined pattern seeking compulsion.  Pleasure isn't the biological purpose of sex, but it's a pretty sweet sideline deal. The same is true of experiences like these.

I have a bunch of awesome kids, a badass wife, and I work in ag.  It's hard -not- to feel as though I'm in the constant presence and favor of what other people refer to as the divine.  I'm headed out in a few hours to surf fish hatteras, I'm going to be floored, like I always am, by staring out over the ocean and smelling the salt air.  That's home for me.  I'll even get to see a sunset over water, optical illusion....but a rarity for we east coasters.  I'll shit talk the rays, and I'll whisper sweet nothings onto my braid,  past the breakers, like I'm casting a magic spell on a shark.  I get to drive through the Danny Boone to get there.  Then, when I get back, I'm going fishing for muskie and trout in Cave Run, then Wolf Creek.  When all of that is done, the tomatoes I started on a heat mat under lights will probably put their first flowers on.  My beagle will be pregnant, my entire family is ten minutes away from me (we've been living 14 hours away for the last decade).....and I have to mill white ash and black walnut for woodwork on their house.  I'm connected at every conceivable level to the people around me, nature around me, the all.

You have some silly god that got strung up on a stick..I have all of that.  Your god would be incapable of producing the sense of the numinous I experience, at least in me..whatever it does for you.  Far too small and petty in comparison. For others, this sense is, in a way, tourism. They go to a state park and feel it. It comes over them in the presence of their family at a reunion. Some people even have spots that they go to so that they can feel this. LOL, I trashed my "normal life" so that I could just bask in it all the time. Others still, theists in particular, engage in ritualism at a sacred place or by proscribed incantation to produce the feeling. I just walk out my door, every day.

The "presence of divinity", for non theists, is the exact same feeling. We just don't believe in gods - the thing you attribute that feeling too, in ignorance.

[Acrobat]

I experience the sense of the numinous on a daily basis, lol.  I think it's a sideline benefit of something else that was selected for.  Human beings (despite the cynics constant claims to the contrary, lol) have an expansive intellect and determined pattern seeking compulsion.  Pleasure isn't the biological purpose of sex, but it's a pretty sweet sideline deal.  The same is true of experiences like these.

Except of course, it's pretty easy to see why sexual pleasure was selected for, because without it, we wouldn't be all that inclined to have sex. If sex didn't feel good, we probably would have died off very early on. SO we can easily see why evolution would have selected for elements that made sex pleasurable for creatures as ourselves. To hear why you hypothesize an element like a sense of numinous was selected for, would be interesting, as to what sort of survival and reproductive benefit it afforded creatures like ourselves.

I have a bunch of awesome kids, a badass wife, and I work in ag.  It's hard -not- to feel as though I'm in the constant presence and favor of what other people refer to as the divine.  I'm headed out in a few hours to surf fish hatteras, I'm going to be floored, like I always am, by staring out over the ocean and smelling the salt air.  That's home for me.  I'll even get to see a sunset over water, optical illusion....but a rarity for we east coasters.  I'll shit talk the rays, and I'll whisper sweet nothings onto my braid,  past the breakers, like I'm casting a magic spell on a shark.  I get to drive through the Danny Boone to get there.  Then, when I get back, I'm going fishing for muskie and trout in Cave Run, then Wolf Creek.  When all of that is done, the tomatoes I started on a heat mat under lights will probably put their first flowers on.  My beagle will be pregnant, my entire family is ten minutes away from me (we've been living 14 hours away for the last decade).....and I have to mill white ash and black walnut for woodwork on their house.  I'm connected at every conceivable level to the people around me, nature around me, the all.

It seems to me that you're conflating a sort of gratitude for the fortunate life you have with the numinous. I can completely relate to such gratitude, I have a great wife, a good marriage, two wonderful daughters that brighten up any room, great friends, a good relationship with my family and community, have a good job, live a very comfortable life, all of which I'm tremendously grateful for, and composes a pretty a happy and healthy life. It seems that this is the same feeling you're describing here.

But this is not what's meant by the numinous, nor what I mean by my experience of it, that aligns with these basic descriptions. That experience isn't contingent on any aspect of my life, whether I'm married, or unmarried, have kids, or not, whether I'm sick, or in good health, poor, or rich. In fact sometimes in the midst of sorrow, it felt even more.

To describe to someone who might not have had a similar experience, is to borrow for the CS Lewis description, it's more akin to terror, than gratitude, expect it's not really terror at all, but a sort of awe, a monstrous sort of beauty, a recognition of our inadequacy, how little we are in comparison to it, like a living body approaching the lip of an event horizon, but welcoming it. As Otto would suggest, the original source of all the god-stuff.

Or as Hitchens would put it "there is something beyond the material, or not entirely consistent with it, what you could call the Numinous, the Transcendent, or at its best the Ecstatic. […] It’s in certain music, landscape, certain creative work, without this we really would merely be primates. "

And not the sort of experience of gratitude you described above.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm only telling you how, why, and when, I feel that sense of the numinous.  It's your problem, entirely, if you don't get that from any of those things. You do realize that you don't actually get to characterize -my experience-, yes? If you feel that your ridiculous beliefs are threatened in any way by non theists having this sense..well...tough titties. We do, and commonly so.

We have all of the same...human...experiences that you do, we just don't believe in gods. There is no need of reference to gods in human experiences, just as there is no need of reference to gods in objective moral systems.

[Acrobat]

I'm only telling you how, why, and when, I feel that sense of the numinous.  It's your problem, entirely, if you don't get that from any of those things. You do realize that you don't actually get to characterize -my experience-, yes?  If you feel that your ridiculous beliefs are threatened in any way by non theists having this sense..well...tough titties.  We do, and commonly so.

I'm telling you  that I experienced exactly what you describing when it comes to my family, that the feeling you described one that I feel as well, daily just like you do, a form of gratitude of the fortune lives you and I have. 

But this experience of gratitude, is not the same as an experience of the numinous. That nice feeling you get from the wonderful life you have, is not the feeling/experience of what's referred as the numinous. 

I'm not discounting your feelings, I'm just indicating that the experience of numinous, as described by Otto, Lewis, even Hitchens is distinct from it. 

Now maybe you've experienced something like this too, but conflating with the gratitude you feel for the good life your a part of, is not suggestive of this. And this has nothing to do with you being an atheists either, as if atheists are excluded from such an experience.

[The Grand Nudger]

Entirely your own problem.  I'm only telling you what is a common fact of human experience.  You can either accept that, or launch some batshit argument.  Your call.

This is becoming quite the pattern for you. You invariably spool up some "but how could you x without a god" question, and when presented with an answer, lose your shit. How hard would it be, honestly, to just say "oh, guess I never thought of it that way"...eh?

[vulcanlogician]

You've left out the most important portion of pantheism in framing the discussion, why it's pan-theism- instead of pan-deism-, or just plain and simple atheism.  The immanence of divinity.  

I have a simpler and putatively more accurate term for all things, two of them, in fact.  The cosmos, and the universe.  Neither are an immanent manifestation of divinity.  Perhaps you can explain why I should regard the universe as an immanent manifestation of divinity when there is no evidence whatsoever to that effect?

Well, the universe actually exists. We can look around and see it (and -man!!- isn't it fucking amazing!?). We don't have to resort to reading ancient scriptures to find evidence that the pantheistic God exists. It is immediately available to the senses. It contains more power and love than any god a theist ever imagined. And it really is the source of all our joy, sorrow, indispensable moments, and numinous feelings.

As misplaced as a pantheist's reverence may be, at least is is aimed toward something that exists.

As a comment on the misplaced reverence and personification of the natural world,...

We already covered that before here. Pantheists don't anthropomorphize God. Below is a quote I've shared before. It is Spinoza's reasoning for why people think that God must be anthropomorphic. Here he really is trolling the theists.

Further, as [human beings] find ... many means which assist them not a little in the search for what is useful, for instance, eyes for seeing, teeth for chewing, herbs and animals for yielding food, the sun for giving light, the sea for breeding fish... they come to look on the whole of nature as a means for obtaining such conveniences. Now as they are aware, that they found these conveniences and did not make them, they think they have cause for believing, that some other being has made them for their use. As they look upon things as means, ... they are bound to believe in some ruler or rulers of the universe endowed with human freedom, who have arranged and adapted everything for human use. They are bound to estimate the nature of such rulers (having no information on the subject) in accordance with their own nature, and therefore they assert that the gods ordained everything for the use of man, in order to bind man to themselves and obtain from him the highest honor. Hence also it follows, that everyone thought out for himself, according to his abilities, a different way of worshipping God, so that God might love him more than his fellows, and direct the whole course of nature for the satisfaction of his blind cupidity and insatiable avarice. Thus the prejudice developed into superstition, and took deep root in the human mind; and for this reason everyone strove most zealously to understand and explain the final causes of things; but in their endeavor to show that nature does nothing in vain, i.e. nothing which is useless to man, they only seem to have demonstrated that nature, the gods, and men are all mad together.

Spinoza, and I know we've had this convo before..was most likely a very clever atheist troll in a time when any divergence of belief was still a death sentence.  More than anything, he used his rhetorical device to criticize the foundational conceit in theological power structures of the time within the context of accepted and sanitized beliefs.

Maybe he was trolling a little bit. But the religious trolled him more than he ever trolled them. He was expelled from his Jewish community for having "dangerous ideas." He was attacked with a knife by a fanatic who shouted "heretic!" He was compelled to publish his greatest work posthumously. His books were banned across Europe. And this is a guy who everyone, even his outspoken critics, noted was a modest, gentle, and nonviolent person. He turned down teaching positions at prestigious schools so that he could concentrate on completing his work in philosophy. He supported himself by grinding lenses. If they really valued humility and righteousness, you'd think the Christians might have held him in high esteem. Instead he was attacked in the street by ranting bigots. He didn't troll them. They trolled him.

So, anyway. Post is long. Below I've included a passage from the Ethics that covers some of the supra-atheist thinking that he did. What do you make of it? Does it sound like straight atheism to you?

PROP. XVII. God is without passions, neither is he affected by any emotion of pleasure or pain.

Proof.—All ideas, in so far as they are referred to God, are true (II. xxxii.), that is (II. Def. iv.) adequate; and therefore (by the general Def. of the Emotions) God is without passions. Again, God cannot pass either to a greater or to a lesser perfection (I. xx. Coroll. ii.); therefore (by Def. of the Emotions, ii. iii.) he is not affected by any emotion of pleasure or pain.

Corollary.—Strictly speaking, God does not love or hate anyone. For God (by the foregoing Prop.) is not affected by any emotion of pleasure or pain, consequently (Def. of the Emotions, vi. vii.) he does not love or hate anyone.

PROP. XVIII. No one can hate God.

Proof.—The idea of God which is in us is adequate and perfect (II. xlvi. xlvii.); wherefore, in so far as we contemplate God, we are active (III. iii.); consequently (III. lix.) there can be no pain accompanied by the idea of God, in other words (Def. of the Emotions, vii.), no one can hate God. Q.E.D.

Corollary.—Love towards God cannot be turned into hate.

Note.—It may be objected that, as we understand God as the cause of all things, we by that very fact regard God as the cause of pain. But I make answer, that, in so far as we understand the causes of pain, it to that extent (V. iii.) ceases to be a passion, that is, it ceases to be pain (III. lix.); therefore, in so far as we understand God to be the cause of pain, we to that extent feel pleasure.

PROP. XIX. He, who loves God, cannot endeavour that God should love him in return.

Proof.—For, if a man should so endeavour, he would desire (V. xvii. Coroll.) that God, whom he loves, should not be God, and consequently he would desire to feel pain (III. xix.); which is absurd (III. xxviii.). Therefore, he who loves God, &c. Q.E.D.

PROP. XX. This love towards God cannot be stained by the emotion of envy or jealousy: contrariwise, it is the more fostered, in proportion as we conceive a greater number of men to be joined to God by the same bond of love.

Proof.—This love towards God is the highest good which we can seek for under the guidance of reason (IV. xxviii.), it is common to all men (IV. xxxvi.), and we desire that all should rejoice therein (IV. xxxvii.); therefore (Def. of the Emotions, xxiii.), it cannot be stained by the emotion envy, nor by the emotion of jealousy (V. xviii. see definition of Jealousy, III. xxxv. note); but, contrariwise, it must needs be the more fostered, in proportion as we conceive a greater number of men to rejoice therein. Q.E.D.

https://www.fulltextarchive.com/page/The-Ethics1/

[Aegon]

I only identify as a pantheist because that means I'm God. Join me, so you may be God as well!

(I don't actually identify as pantheist. I prefer not to label myself at this point, but I certainly vibe with the core ideas of pantheism.)

[Acrobat]

Entirely your own problem.  I'm only telling you what is a common fact of human experience.  You can either accept that, or launch some batshit argument.  Your call.

This is becoming quite the pattern for you. You invariably spool up some "but how could you x without a god" question, and when presented with an answer, lose your shit. How hard would it be, honestly, to just say "oh, guess I never thought of it that way"...eh?

Yes you’re telling me a common fact of human experience, one that I share, but this is not what’s meant by the experience of the numinous. This isn’t what Otto, Lewis, or Hitchens are describing, they’re not talking about gratitude or contentment in their personal lives, which is the thing you’re describing amounts too. As someone who experienced both, I can tell you we’re not talking about the same experience