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Nox
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 Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:04 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Good grief... I think they're trying to at once claim something supernatural and then deny it's supernatural because supernaturalism is sneered at by the elite academia. |
I make no claims of supernaturalism, nor did any of the founders of pantheism to my knowledge.
| Quote: | | Unity, Geist, Tao, the force from Star Wars, whatever you want to call it. What is it? They seem so ambiguous, confused, and noncommittal in their explanation that I'll go ahead and call this one a failure to assert. |
I think that unity is very clearly laid out for those who would like to examine it. Have you read the Tao Te Ching? Thoreau's writings on transcendentalism? Spinoza? They're very clear on what they experienced/ believe.
| Quote: | | Nox, does your take on pantheism accept supernaturalism? |
No. |
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transientangent
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:44 am Post subject: |
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I'm going to come out of the wilderness here because this sounds like an interesting fellow. I'm also going to make the claim that atheism and pantheism are really not at odds, and that the words differentiate between those with different attitudes and perspectives more than anything. It's good to be back.
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everything is changing
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our existence - a photograph
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Eyedunno
The Great JuJu at the Bottom of the Sea
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:51 am Post subject: |
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| transientangent wrote: | | I'm going to come out of the wilderness here because this sounds like an interesting fellow. I'm also going to make the claim that atheism and pantheism are really not at odds, and that the words differentiate between those with different attitudes and perspectives more than anything. It's good to be back. |
I've mentioned this in another thread, but Dawkins had a great line when he said that "pantheism is sexed-up atheism" (and deism is watered-down theism).
Of course we're not at odds, but I'll refrain from ever calling myself a pantheist, as I'm not too fond of bullshitting myself or others, and as such, I'd prefer to stick with the common usage of the term god, where gods are conscious, supernatural entities. |
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Gettin' In Tune
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 5:05 am Post subject: |
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Welcome,
Anyways, pantheism goes unsupported. There is not even a causality test for pantheism. It is a vague assumption. I do not know how one arrives at pantheism nor provides a test for it. Care to expand?
Welcome to the forum. |
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Moloth
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:33 am Post subject: |
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| Gettin' In Tune wrote: | | Anyways, pantheism goes unsupported. There is not even a causality test for pantheism. It is a vague assumption. I do not know how one arrives at pantheism nor provides a test for it. Care to expand? |
and yet you support Deism? 
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Last edited by Moloth on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total |
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Nox
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:55 am Post subject: |
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| Eyedunno wrote: | | transientangent wrote: | | I'm going to come out of the wilderness here because this sounds like an interesting fellow. I'm also going to make the claim that atheism and pantheism are really not at odds, and that the words differentiate between those with different attitudes and perspectives more than anything. It's good to be back. |
I've mentioned this in another thread, but Dawkins had a great line when he said that "pantheism is sexed-up atheism" (and deism is watered-down theism).
Of course we're not at odds, but I'll refrain from ever calling myself a pantheist, as I'm not too fond of bullshitting myself or others, and as such, I'd prefer to stick with the common usage of the term god, where gods are conscious, supernatural entities. |
When I read The God Delusion and came to that line, the first thing that came to mind was "once again to the left of the point, Dawkins." I would disagree with Dawkins primarily because pantheism necessarily entails unity and divinity whereas atheism does not. Even though it isn't entirely accurate, it might help to look at pantheism as a sub-set of atheism.
| Quote: |
Anyways, pantheism goes unsupported. There is not even a causality test for pantheism. It is a vague assumption. I do not know how one arrives at pantheism nor provides a test for it. Care to expand? |
That's like saying there isn't a causality test for utilitarianism or optimism.
Because there are so many different kinds of pantheism its hard to peg down just one way to arrive at it (Spinoza's philosophical discourses are very different from Lao Tzu's writings). I would, however, strongly challenge your notion that it is a vague assumption - even Lao Tzu, who said that which could be spoken of was not Tao, was very specific at describing what he experienced and how one could arrive at it. The concepts of enlightenment or samadhi are helpful here - the idea of the boundaries between objects vanishing in our minds. James H. Ausin is a neuroscientist who has done extensive research on and work within Zen Buddhism has an excellent account of his own enlightenment; while not a pantheist himself, his experience is essentially the same as that of a transcendental/ Taoist pantheist:
| Quote: | | It strikes unexpectedly at 9 am on the surface platform of the London subway system. (Due to a mistake)...I wind up at a station where I have never been before....The view is the dingy interior of the station, some grimy buildings, a bit of open sky. Instantly the entire view acquires three qualities: Absolute Reality, Intrinsic Rightness, Ultimate Reflection. With no transition, it is all complete....Yes, there is the paradox of this extraordinary viewing. But there is no viewer. The scene is utterly empty, stripped of every last extension of an I-Me-Mine (his name for ego-self). Vanished in one split second is the familiar sensation that this person is viewing a city scene. The new viewing proceeds impersonally, not pausing to register the paradox that there is no human subject "doing" it. Three insights penetrate the experient, each conveying Total Understanding at depths far beyond simple knowledge: This is the eternal state of affairs. There is nothing more to do. There is nothing whatever to fear. |
The idea of observation without an observer is a common experience - Thoreau wrote about the "I" disappearing and being replaced by an "eye," an account of a Buddhist monk that I read describes how, upon hearing a ringing bell, he suddenly found that there was not a bell, the sound of ringing, and himself, but merely the sensation of ringing, ect.
For me, arriving at pantheism came from:
- Accepting, if not the entirety of his philosophy, Lao Tzu's fundamental idea of Tao
- Accepting non-dualism, and thus viewing an underlying unity and oneness to existence
- Embracing the natural world's ordered and inter-connected nature as divine.
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SalsaShark
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:56 am Post subject: |
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| aileron wrote: | | SalsaShark wrote: | | Well, if everything is God (as a pantheist would say), and consciousness is in the set of everything, then yes, consciousness is, presumably, God. I see nothing personal about this God though... |
I find it hard to define consciousness as the set of everything. |
No, not as. Consciousness is IN the set of everything. There are other things, but consciousness is surely something that is in the universe, for I am conscious and I am in the universe. |
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aileron
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Nox wrote: | | Quote: | | Nox, does your take on pantheism accept supernaturalism? |
No. |
That's fair then. In your concept of pantheism, is the unity conscious, even if not in the sense of human consciousness? If so, how is this possible without a supernatural explanation? If the unity is not conscious and there is nothing supernatural, how can it be claimed that the unity is not the same as nature or is somehow beyond nature? Does the unity in any way, even imperceptibly influence nature or conscious agents? |
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aileron
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:10 pm Post subject: |
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| SalsaShark wrote: | | aileron wrote: | | SalsaShark wrote: | | Well, if everything is God (as a pantheist would say), and consciousness is in the set of everything, then yes, consciousness is, presumably, God. I see nothing personal about this God though... |
I find it hard to define consciousness as the set of everything. |
No, not as. Consciousness is IN the set of everything. There are other things, but consciousness is surely something that is in the universe, for I am conscious and I am in the universe. |
Ah... Right you are. I guess I should learn to read someday. |
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Nox
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | That's fair then. In your concept of pantheism, is the unity conscious, even if not in the sense of human consciousness? |
No. The unity is no more an entity in and of itself than the idea that a book will not pass through a table. Its simply a way of describing the natural world.
| Quote: | | If the unity is not conscious and there is nothing supernatural, how can it be claimed that the unity is not the same as nature or is somehow beyond nature? |
The unity is a way of looking at nature. It's the idea that "half full" and "half empty" are not opposites, but rather the same thing, because fullness and emptiness are really two different ways to describe the exact same concept. It is seeing night and day as one thing - how the light of the sun falls on the earth. It is about shedding the illusion that anything in this world is independent of the universe. It is about transcendence of the ego and boundaries between one thing and another. To quote one of my favorite books on the subject:
| Quote: | Even as you now read the lines of print in this book, if you carefully notice your entire visual field, you will see that your eye isn't just taking in one word at a time. Your eye sees, although it can't actually read, all the words on this page, plus some of the surrounding background, perhaps your hands and lower arms, your lap, a table, parts of the room and so on.
In your immediate and concrete awareness, therefor, there are no separate things, no boundaries. You never actually see a single entity, but always a richly textured field. That is the nature of your immediate reality, and it is completely void of boundaries.
But you can mentally superimpose boundaries on your field of awareness. You can bound of a section of the field by focusing attention on just a few prominent areas, such as "a" tree, "a" wave, "a" bird, and then pretend to be aware of just that particular object by deliberately excluding the rest of the field of awareness. You can, that is, concentrate, which means to introduce a boundary to awareness. You can focus on just these words and pretend not to notice all the other sights in your conscious field.
This is an extremely useful, and certainly necessary, trick, but it is apt to backfire. The fact that you can concentrate and attend to "one separate thing" at a time is liable to make it appear that reality itself is composed of a bunch of these "separate things," while in actuality these separate things are merely a by-product of your superimposing boundaries on the field of your awareness. If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. But the fact is you never really see boundaries, you manufacture them. You do not perceive separate things, you invent them. The problem begins as soon as these inventions are mistaken for reality itself, for then the actual world appears as if it were a fragmented and disjointed affair, and a primitive mood of alienation invades awareness itself. |
-Ken Wilbur, No Boundary
| Quote: | | Does the unity in any way, even imperceptibly influence nature or conscious agents? |
I think this question was asked under the assumption that the unity was an entity/ force (ala a traditional conception of God/ gravity), not an observation about the nature of reality (like the inability of multiple physical objects to occupy the same space). While holding this perspective would certainly influence one's actions, the unity is not an entity in itself capable of exerting influence. |
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aileron
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:45 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks, Nox. I think we are getting somewhere. Pantheism means different things to different people.
So far if I am not mistaken (been known to happen) we have established that: The unity is a way of looking at nature. The unity has no consciousness and does not influence natural events or conscious agents. There is nothing supernatural.
This seems like a form of metaphysical naturalism. I think most people on this board are metaphysical naturalists and the term is far better than atheist for reasons I won't go into here.
If I can indulge your patience one more time though, I'm still unclear on one item.
| Quote: | | It is about transcendence of the ego ... |
If there is nothing supernatural, to where does the ego transcend, or perhaps were you using transcendence in the sense of a personal feeling of reverence and awe? |
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Nox
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| Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:14 am Post subject: |
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So far if I am not mistaken (been known to happen) we have established that: The unity is a way of looking at nature. The unity has no consciousness and does not influence natural events or conscious agents. There is nothing supernatural. |
Sounds good to me.
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This seems like a form of metaphysical naturalism. |
I think that this would be an apt label for it.
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If there is nothing supernatural, to where does the ego transcend, or perhaps were you using transcendence in the sense of a personal feeling of reverence and awe? |
Sorry, that was poorly worded on my part. I didn't mean that the ego transcended something, I meant that we transcended the ego. James H. Austin's account of his enlightenment, while also incorporating some other concepts, does a good job of conveying this idea. To go back to the Ken Wilbur quote, the transcendence of the ego is the removal of the boundary between "self" and "other." Not all pantheists believe this specifically, but its a very common aspect of the transcendental experience, and a key element of Taoist pantheism. |
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Moloth
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| Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:17 am Post subject: |
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it seems men must create meaning where they find none. is it out of strength that they forge it from nothing ness? or weakness because they are slave to its needing to exist?
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Last edited by Moloth on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total |
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Nox
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| Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:25 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | t seems men must create meaning where they find none. |
Existentialism ftw.
| Quote: | | is it out of strength that they forge it from nothing ness? or weakness because they are slave to its needing to exist? |
Non-dualism is not something "forged from nothingness," but rather a philosophy and perspective gleaned from direct observation and logic.
Divinity, however, is certainly imposed. As I could easily live without this divinity (and did so quite happily for 18 years), I don't really consider myself to be a slave to its needing to exist. |
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Moloth
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| Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:30 am Post subject: |
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then why strive so diligently to 'transcend' to find it?
or
then why strive so diligently to create it?
the universe merely is. you merely are. why this need for transcendence of ego? why this need to close a gap that does not exist? we are all the same matter an energy of the universe. every atom. every quanta of energy.
(please note that i'm not trying to 'debate' you or imply that you are wrong.. i am simply flowing with the topic!)
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Last edited by Moloth on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total |
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