This is the most mature and convincing form of theism that I have encountered: Pantheism.
God is conventionally described as eternal, extremely powerful, creative, everywhere etc. The universe is eternal, filled with power, creative, and everywhere.
Most of the pantheists that I have talked to don't believe that God ( the universe ) is a personal force except in the human aspect of existence. The pantheistic version of God is similar to the Dao or Brahman. It's not like Yahweh or Allah.
Some Pantheists believe that the universe is, ultimately, non-dualistic and others believe it is, ultimately, dualistic. But both of them share in common a framework of perceiving and feeling that existence is profound and aesthetic. I likewise view existence, the universe as profound and aesthetic. I used to call myself a pantheist when I was more into Eastern mysticisms, but I find the word " God " to be bastardized; too many negative connotations. A better term to describe me would be " Profound-Atheist".
Another thing that turns me off from conventional pantheism is that most of its followers tend to fall into the noble-savage framework of viewing nature, i.e., they seem to highlight or only accept the nice and comforting aspects of existence, e.g., a beautiful sunset, a baby deer in the meadow, etc. They tend to leave out the more barbaric, gory, brutal, and ferocious aspects of nature. But I accept both. The ocean may seem calm and beautiful on the surface, but if you delve deeper, you will discover a war of monsters.
There are those who claim that Pantheism is nihilistic as it claims that all is God, all is one, thus it seeks to level humanity. This maybe true, but maybe it's not. Perhaps all is, fundamentally, interconnected. The claim that pantheistic-monism is an attempt to level humanity could merely be an appeal to motive fallacy. I do think monism is, probably, anti-nature and an attempt to eradicate the perception of differentiation. Is there a prime mover? An unmoved mover? If it does exist, then we are extensions of it, emanations of it just as rays of light are emanations of the sun. Our fundamental nature would be THAT, God.
For me, a reverence of Nature based solely on it's pretty, inoffensive aspects is quite shallow and pathetic. A more honest and life-affirming pantheism would be like the one of the Stoics; Nature as the ultimate decider of what is ultimately lasting and Real. A sort of sobering litmus test, if you will. To look to Nature for guidance is to see the futility of purely Human concepts and projections: love, comfort, compassion, peace, good and evil, other-worldliness. Upon this realization, one came come to analyze things without false judgement or emotional pretexts. To understand Nature is to understand the Being of things, to understand the Being of things is to posses faultless judgement, to posses faultless judgement is to master Reality.
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 37186 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
I agree with Eulogy. you can call nature whatever you like, you can imagine it as a guy with a long beard and say God, but you cannot say that it has an intent or is conscious beyond it producing life which can become conscious.
"Forces have no intent, no motive, no end. Being weak is not the same as being a slave."
No way to know for sure, but to me they seem to have functions.
"My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (--its will to power:) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on--"
from The Will to Power, s.636, Walter Kaufmann transl.
You are correct in stating that weakness is not equivalent to slavery, but I didn't mean to insinuate that. I meant that we would still be bound or determined by other forces.
Use the word Panpsychism; it's more neutral and less defined. God as an actual concept is a contradiction of terms, one cannot be all knowing and all powerful at the same time. Pantheism is useless as a term, x does not equal y, yet it would comforting to some. I prefer the term Godlike; it represents a striving and becoming, to an ultimate overturning of the laws of nature. We appear godlike to mice who in turn appear godlike to cockroaches. This illustrates a war of becoming. A Competition of survival. I am against all odds the result of all of my billions of ancestors winning. That was all life battling life, a seemingly eternal gladiator war. Preparation for the last war, that of polar opposites life vs death, matter vs oblivion, and all of the infinite variables of Ying and Yang. We are in a war against the limitations of nature; essentially entropy. Thus nature is the devil on top of the throne and man is the mortal who must replace him. God is in the Neurons.
The supernatural is that which exists outside of the universe. The only current theory that explains this universes constants is the multi-verse. The constants of all universes are then eternal and exist outside of space and time. Math can then be thought of as supernatural, an ultimate truth, but not the only, others must exist. Nihilists hold that the truth is unknowable and thus they are free to make up their own reality. I hold that the truth is unknown, yet knowable, and that man should search it.
