RE: Isn’t pantheism the same thing as atheism?
March 14, 2021 at 3:01 pm
(This post was last modified: March 14, 2021 at 3:14 pm by Seax.)
These are all excellent questions.
The claims in Genesis are even more absurd than a 6,000 year old earth & the earth existing before the sun. That the earth is around four and a half billion years old is not really intuitive, nor is it apparent from most men's daily experience that we live on a rapidly spinning sphere orbiting the sun. These things have only relatively recently become apparent, from radiocarbon dating & astronomy. The really absurd claims are the Garden of Eden, which early Christian apologists like Origen defended as allegorical, rather than literal, truths. The story was ridiculous to most even in a time when things like ceremonial magic went unquestioned.
But to the main point.
Pantheism is not, strictly speaking, a monolithic thing. It comes in many forms, and my explanation may not fit every form of pantheism. Pantheism is generally associated with idealism, but some forms are materialistic. Most are naturalistic, but some are more supernatural or animistic. I will explain my own personal views.
To really grasp pantheism, you have to grasp the difference between dualism and monism. Dualism is the idea (applied to anything, be it metaphysics, ethics, God, the soul, ect.) that there are two fundamental kinds of elemental things that cannot be reduced to each other or to a common thing. Monism is the idea that only one kind of fundamental thing exists, to which all others can be reduced. Materialism, which most atheists here probably hold to, or the belief that everything can be reduced to matter, including the mind, is a form of substance monism.
Christianity is essentially dualistic in most ways, though many Christians, especially Catholics, hate the term. They believe that God is separate from nature & regard much that is natural, and in my view healthy, as ungodly. While Christianity doesn't condemn reproduction, all traditional Christian sects believe that complete celibacy is morally and spiritually better. The Pagan Greeks saw lust, hunger, pride, ect. as natural healthy impulses which could get out of hand, and believed that good lay in healthy exercise of them; between the extremes of wantonness and total denial. Moderation and selfcontrol; enjoying food without overeating, sex without becoming a letcher, wine without overdrinking, feeling anger without becoming a slave to rage; this was the Pagan ideal. The Christian view is that these impulses are inherently sinful and wicked, and that while moderating them is fine and well, avoiding them completely is even better. The Christian God is thus opposed to nature, and Christianity sees nature as base, if not outright evil. Christianity has to keep God separate from nature, otherwise He would be violating their idea of what God ought to be. Christianity has to maintain all the supernatural hockuspockus & divine intervention, because otherwise the Christian God necessarily seems to have abandoned the world. In early modern France many of the more sensible and educated took exactly this view, and believed that God had created the world but never intervened in it (deism). Antony Flew held a similar view after he embraced deism, though he did believe that the earliest forms of life had been intelligently designed. (I personally find Flew's arguments not very persuasive, but I respect him for his convictions that lead to him being denounced by atheists & endlessly pestered by Christians.)
Pantheism is a monist conception of God. It is logical and coherent. God would not create a universe with laws opposed to His Will. So we must assume that all of nature, the entire universe, is in accord with God. Once this is understood, we can away with supernatural interventions, because God acts through natural laws, which are His Will. If naturals laws and actions are the Will of God, then it follows that everything is an act of God and everything is part of God. The dualistic distinction between God & nature is
meaningless. Everything from vertebrates outcompeting the giant arthropods of the Carboniferous to the development of highly cognitive mammals and the biological evolution of human morality has been the Will of God, and everything that will happen will be the Will of God. Those that are ungodly are dealt with through natural laws; the Christians that reject nature & believe sex is evil & never reproduce are punished with genetic extinction, as are the secular anti-natalists & other anti-natural nutcases. If we continue to destroy our planet we too will be punished severely for it with ecological catastrophes. Maladapted animals are eliminated through natural selection, and when extinction creates a gap, speciesification quickly fills it. Nature always triumphs.
Both pantheism and materialism-atheism are monist theologies. Both are naturalistic insofar as they rely on natural explanations over the supernatural. The difference is that atheist monism rules out God, while pantheist monism rules out
everything else. The atheists looks at the trees, the stars, outer space & says 'I don't see any God.' The pantheist sees nothing but God. Atheism sees the universe and its laws as meaningless, pantheism sees them as the Will of God. As for how a brainless thing can have meaning, I see not why we should assume that anything with a brain has meaning out of the blue either. I hold that meaning comes from God, from nature.
(March 14, 2021 at 11:45 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote: Allo all,
I call myself an atheism since it is clear that certain gods do not exist, most notably the jewish god (The tanakh claims that this universe/Earth is 6000 y old, that the Earth is fabricated before the Sun, that the Earth is fabricated on day 1, etc.
The various domains of science say no and I go with the science.)
I also call myself an ignotist. The word god has no particular meaning. No sample has been observed. The word god means many things to many people.
Back to pantheism:
Some people call it Spinoza’s god. Based on what I read, it looks like they are labeling the “sum total of the universe” as the god.
So, they are calling the universe a god?
It look like they accept that the universe is a brainless thing, just like me.
So, what is the difference between a pantheist and me?
I do recall that Seax wrote that
“the universe having fundamental purpose and meaning”
but how can a brainless entity have purpose and meaning just out of the blue?
A brain is required to build something, for example a watch, a VHS player, a telegraph, a walkie-talkie, a sheet of glass, indium foil, a diode made of lead sulfide.
Even if the device is simple, such as a sheet of glass, the brain has a use for it in its everyday life.
Albert Einstein has said that he believes in Spinoza’s god but I think back then, it was harder to come out of the closet.
At least he was clear enough when he said that he doesn’t accept the anthropomorphic god that is the jewish god.
(I only mention the above since it comes up often in conversations.)
--Ferrocyanide
Einstein took a lot of flack for his pantheism, Dawkins writes about it in the early part of
The God Delusion. He certainly didn't express pantheistic views because he thought it would protect his reputation. He called himself a 'deeply religious nonbeliever.'
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