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Pantheism

Started by frosty, December 27, 2013, 03:06:20 AM

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SNP1

Quote from: frosty on December 27, 2013, 03:06:20 AM
I've often heard by Theists that since Atheists do not believe in an immaterial world, than they must by default worship the natural, or material world, that they are pure naturalists that worship nature and only the things they can see.

Psh. I am an ontological materialist. That means that I accept that immaterial things can exist, but are the byproducts of the material, and do not exist independent of the material.
"My only agenda, if one can call it that, is the pursuit of truth" ~AoSS

Ace101

It's just another form of theism

Solitary

No it isn't Ace! You are missing the point of evidence by stressing factors that may support a conclusion other than the one proposed.

Pantheism is derived from the Greek πᾶν pan (meaning "all") and θεόÏ, theos (meaning "God" if used as a noun, or "divine" if used as an adjective). There are a variety of definitions of pantheism.

As a religious position, some describe pantheism as the polar opposite of atheism. From this standpoint, pantheism is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing, immanent God. All forms of reality may then be considered either modes of that Being, or identical with it.

Some hold that pantheism is a non-religious philosophical position. To them, pantheism is the view that the Universe (in the sense of the totally of all existence) and God are identical (implying a denial of the personality and transcendence of God).Because of this, some pantheist groups avoid usage of the word 'God' for its association with a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god, and use other words like 'universe' or 'nature'. The universe and nature are objectively real, so can't be transcendent, or imaginary, like a god or God. Solitary



Hinduism
Main article: Hindu views on Pantheism
Hindu religious texts are the oldest known literature containing pantheistic concepts. The Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism teaches that the Atman (true self; human soul) is indistinct from Brahman (the unknown reality of everything).
The branches of Hinduism teaching forms of pantheism are known as non-dualist schools.All Mahāvākyas (Great Sayings) of the Upanishads, in one way or another, seem


Taoism
In the tradition of its leading thinkers Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi, Taoism is comparable with pantheism, as the Tao is always spoken of with profound religious reverence and respect, similar to the way that pantheism discusses the "God" that is everything. The Tao te Ching never speaks of a transcendent God, but of a mysterious and numinous ground of being underlying all things. Zhuangzi emphasized the pantheistic content of Taoism even more clearly: "Heaven and I were created together, and all things and I are one." When Tung Kuo Tzu asked Zhuangzi where the Tao was, he replied that it was in the ant, the grass, the clay tile, even in excrement: "There is nowhere where it is not… There is not a single thing without Tao."

Albert Einstein is considered to be a pantheist by some commentators.
In 2008, one of Albert Einstein's letters, written in 1954 in German, in which he dismissed belief in a personal God, was sold at auction for more than US$330,000. Einstein wrote, "We followers of Spinoza see our God in the wonderful order and lawfulness of all that exists and in its soul ["Beseeltheit"] as it reveals itself in man and animal," in a letter to Eduard Büsching (25 October 1929) after Büsching sent Einstein a copy of his book Es gibt keinen Gott. Einstein responded that the book only dealt with the concept of a personal God and not the impersonal God of pantheism. "I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly," he wrote in another letter in 1954.
Pantheism is mentioned in a Papal encyclical in 2009 and a statement on New Year's Day in 2010, criticizing pantheism for denying the superiority of humans over nature and "seeing the source of man '​s salvation in nature". In a review of the 2009 film Avatar, Ross Douthat, an author, described pantheism as "Hollywood’s religion of choice for a generation now".
In 2011, a letter written in 1886 by William Herndon, Abraham Lincoln's law partner, was sold at auction for US$30,000. In it, Herndon writes of the U.S. President's evolving religious views, which included pantheism.
"Mr. Lincoln’s religion is too well known to me to allow of even a shadow of a doubt; he is or was a Theist and a Rationalist, denying all extraordinary â€" supernatural inspiration or revelation. At one time in his life, to say the least, he was an elevated Pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understands that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force. Subsequent to this he rose to the belief of a God, and this is all the change he ever underwent."
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.