Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Michael McMahon]

“God knows YOU, personally and individually. You are not distant from, unknown to, or forgotten by God; You are remembered & personally known to Him. He holds you very close in His heart.”
-liketreesplanted website

I think this logic can lead to an identity problem due to the monotheistic assertion of a religious omniscience. It wouldn’t be like a usual normal friend that understands you but an all-knowing entity. So that small aspect of God that consciously knows everything about you would automatically be equivalent to you yourself. If God were to sentiently know everything about your daily experiences and motivation, then I would fail to see the exact difference between the subset of God that knows you and then you yourself. Pantheism could solve this problem by viewing life as a temporary infinitesimal part within an infinite series. The experiential component of an external God’s knowledge of you would have to be quite limited inside a monotheistic framework which would seemingly undermine this claimed omniscience. Unless God’s knowledge of you is somehow just semantic, academic or hearsay, any reference to an omniscient entity is inherently panentheistic despite the religious protestations:

“Belief in a Creator and creation out of nothing is radically different from any pantheistic worldview. Christians do not see God as “immanent” in or identical with the universe. We understand that God is “transcendent” (the antonym), and that He created the universe with order and wisdom.”
- Stacy Transancos

I think Pantheism can be a very pluralistic viewpoint. It doesn’t intrinsically prescribe any other values, traits, political beliefs etc.. So two avowed pantheists could still be very dissimilar to each other. I think it’s largely compatible with the world’s religions as long as you preclude having a literal interpretation of any divisive unquestioned beliefs. Religious prophecy is a spiritual matter and is not the same as fortune-telling.

“Missionary (or apostolic) prophets are those who maintain that the religious truth revealed to them is unique to themselves alone. Such prophets acquire a following of disciples who accept that their teachings reveal the true religion. The result of that kind of prophetic action may lead to a new religion, as in the cases of Zarathustra, Jesus, and Muhammad. The founders of many modern religious sects also should be included in this type.”
- Brittanica

Fortune-teller definition: “a person who is supposedly able to predict a person's future by palmistry, using a crystal ball, or similar methods.”

So the present-day applicability of the different claims of historical religious prophets must be moderated and viewed squarely within the prism of their past cultural milieu. Any combative texts of certain religions must be viewed solely within the context of the exact historical conflicts that had occurred in that previous era.


“Doubt is a mental state in which the mind remains suspended between two or more contradictory propositions, unable to be to be certain of any of them. Doubt on an emotional level is indecision between belief and disbelief.”
- Wikipedia

Pantheism is a truly self-reliant perspective. We still need to be nice to others even if there weren’t any allusions to a God.

[Michael McMahon]

“By almost any standard, I understand general relativity better than Einstein ever did. (Most parts of it, anyway.) Not because I’m anywhere nearly as smart as Einstein, but because we’ve learned a lot about GR since Einstein died. Once the theory was invented, he didn’t have a monopoly on it; it was out there for anyone to understand and move forward with. Even if he had repudiated his own theory, it would have had no effect on whether or not it was correct.”
- Physicist Sean Carroll

Even if someone in the future refined or disproved aspects of Einstein’s theory, that obviously still wouldn’t detract from Einstein’s ingenuity. The hard-won discoveries of previous generations are the mere starting blocks for students in school. For example, it could take a mathematician a lifetime to come up with a solution to a complex problem. But it might only take a maths student a week to read through it and understand it. The answer can be extremely easy when you have hindsight. This is particularly true when we don’t appreciate the sheer number of all the other answers in the sample space. So we tend to credit people relative to others in that period in history. Some are viewed as ahead of their time.

So I don’t think its in any way discourteous for people to have the same attitude with spiritual and religious individuals in history. Moral and ethical knowledge can be similar to other subjects in the sense that it’s an ever-expanding field of knowledge. There’s obviously no such thing as blasphemy!

[Sculptor1]

Looks like you are having fun on your own.
You might even start to believe yourself whilst no one challenges you.

[Jack D Ripper]

Pantheism is "a doctrine which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God". I find myself agreeing a lot with pantheism. I think it has many advantages over traditional theism.

For starters I find it hard to conceive of a truly external omnipotent God.

If you want easy, try atheism. No god to believe in at all. No religious controversy to solve, because one has no religion. Nothing could be simpler than that.

How could God have free will if he must always be good?

There is a lot to unpack in that. I would ask, what, precisely, you mean by "free will", but I know from experience that asking that question pretty much never gets a clear, coherent answer. But if you are up for it, please do. If not, then you can be like most people and not really know what you are talking about.

Also, is having free will a good thing? Why or why not?

Why would you believe that always choosing good would mean one lacks free will? Are you saying that one is not always free to choose what is good if one has free will? That one must choose evil, at least some times, if one has free will? If that is what you believe, why do you believe it?

It does not seem like one's will is free if one is forced to choose evil occasionally.

How do we know this God isn't temperamental?

How does one know that there is a God at all?

Then we'd be left with the problem of the "evil demon" or the "deceiving god" who could capriciously put us in hell.

I think there are also problems with the idea of heaven. It's a very hedonistic concept. I don't think eternal life is psychologically possible even if it were physically possible. Surely one would eventually get exhausted and mentally fatigued by the accumulative stress of living thousands of years!

Also, there's a difference between wisdom and knowledge! Wisdom appears to be more visceral. So would an omniscient God have any true wisdom? Indeed, could an omnipotent entity feel any pain at all?

Pantheism, on the other hand, avoids these pitfalls. It's simply the belief that a single energy lives through all conscious entities.

Atheism avoids all of those pitfalls. And it avoids the pitfalls of pantheism, of what, exactly, is going on in this universe-mind-god thingy that is far from clear about what it means. How would one tell the difference between such a universe and a universe in which there is no god of any kind?

It's not solipsistic as everyone is separated by the totality and completeness of death. Rather it's a monistic idea that asserts that we're all interconnected and derivative from the same infinite entity. This is really it's sole tenet which means that it doesn't lend itself to any unjustified dogmatic beliefs.

It's perfectly compatible with humility as there are other reasons to be humble besides one's belief in a certain God.

Atheism is perfectly compatible with humility. One cannot be in the image of God if there is no God.

(Also, compatible with humility is not a reason to believe something is true. You seem to be making an aesthetic choice, rather than trying to find out the actual truth by looking at evidence and reason.)

The problem of evil is really a separate debate. (I think there may be a small degree of indirect justice in the fact evil people often attack other evil people).

It is, however, relevant to whether this god-universe thingy is good or evil. Certainly, there is a lot of suffering in the universe. This god-universe thingy does not stop it from happening. So either it is impotent to stop it, or it does not care about it. Either way, it does not seem like much of a god.

Indeed, it behaves remarkably like no god at all.


Also, saying that there is " a small degree of indirect justice" is pretty much admitting that there is a huge amount of direct injustice.

The best thing about pantheism is that the golden rule naturally follows from a belief that we're all sort of associated. The golden rule is "the principle of treating others as one's self would wish to be treated".

Any thoughts?

I don't see how the golden rule is necessitated by such a thing. If one follows the example of the universe, one will be coldly indifferent to the suffering that occurs.

[Arjen]

It is, however, relevant to whether this god-universe thingy is good or evil. Certainly, there is a lot of suffering in the universe. This god-universe thingy does not stop it from happening. So either it is impotent to stop it, or it does not care about it. Either way, it does not seem like much of a god.

Indeed, it behaves remarkably like no god at all.

[Jack D Ripper]

It is, however, relevant to whether this god-universe thingy is good or evil. Certainly, there is a lot of suffering in the universe. This god-universe thingy does not stop it from happening. So either it is impotent to stop it, or it does not care about it. Either way, it does not seem like much of a god.

Indeed, it behaves remarkably like no god at all.

Very often, people don't like giving up on talking about a god, even though they may end up with empty words after discarding bits that they found problematic. To illustrate this, consider the following:

Let us begin with a parable. It is a parable developed from a tale told by John Wisdom in his haunting and revolutionary article "Gods."[1] Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener." So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves." At last the Sceptic despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?"

...

https://web.archive.org/web/20160912194 ... ation.html


The rest of the article is worth reading at the above link.

For the benefit of those who need it, the gardener in the story is like god. When people started off affirming that there was a god, they meant something by it, but that does not mean that there is anything left to "god" by many modern people who affirm a belief in a god. A god who "loves your children" and lets them burn alive in a fire, what kind of love is that? It seems a lot more like indifference than love. It is more like there is no god than that there is one who cares about them.

When someone affirms that there is a god, what, exactly, are they affirming, and what would be different about the universe if there were such a god versus a universe without such a god? If there is no difference, then it seems to be empty verbiage rather than a meaningful assertion.

[Arjen]

I have often found that people unfairly try to prove the nonexistence of something in this way. Just that a person does not know what it is that is taking place, does not make it not taking place. Just that the person trying to prove it can't does not make it untrue that something is taking place. There are many actual things that we can't see, hear or smell. And, what a "God" is, is also open for debate.

I do appreciate investigations into the matter (and any matters), but the researcher(s) should also be scientific in NOT finding something. Does that prove nothing is taking place? Or that they just have limitations?

[Jack D Ripper]

I have often found that people unfairly try to prove the nonexistence of something in this way. Just that a person does not know what it is that is taking place, does not make it not taking place. Just that the person trying to prove it can't does not make it untrue that something is taking place. There are many actual things that we can't see, hear or smell. And, what a "God" is, is also open for debate.

I do appreciate investigations into the matter (and any matters), but the researcher(s) should also be scientific in NOT finding something. Does that prove nothing is taking place? Or that they just have limitations?

The story is about the meaning of the term. When someone states, "God exists," they are either making an actual claim or they are not. If they are making an actual claim, then the term "god" must mean something. They should tell us what they mean by the term. But very often what people tell us does not fit reality, and so they change their story rather than give up on the claim which has been shown to be false. So they gradually end up claiming nothing in the end.

Whenever someone makes a claim, they should be able to explain whatever it is they are claiming. If then cannot, then they are just saying words with no meaning. If they mean something, then they can explain what they mean.

When someone says, "God exists," they should be able to tell us something that would be different from what would be the case if God did not exist. If they cannot, then they are just empty words devoid of meaning.

[Arjen]

I understood the narrative, but do you understand what I was saying?

A lot of things that someone is trying to figure out start with naming that thing for themselves. Let's name it "God". Then someone trying to help might ask: "what is this God?". The other might explain a flash of light that came out of nowhere and then waking up 2 hours later. So, in order to clarify, they visit to spit of the fkash of light, but find no evidence. They examine the witnesses body, but find no evidence. Yet, the witness sticks to the story.

Likely, something did happen. But it remained undiscovered.

Do you know what I mean?

[Michael McMahon]

“I would ask, what, precisely, you mean by "free will", but I know from experience that asking that question pretty much never gets a clear, coherent answer.”
- Jack D Ripper

It wasn’t so much the metaphysics of free will that concerned me. If a criminal does evil they might get caught and get sent to jail. If a country becomes evil there may be international wars and hopefully the good side wins. But if an omnipotent God-like being chose to do evil, there’s just no limit as to how much evil that entity could do. Entire galaxies could be destroyed if this being got into a bad mood! I suppose the problem is that there’s no “separation of powers” for God as there would be for a democratic country.





“Certainly, there is a lot of suffering in the universe. This god-universe thingy does not stop it from happening.”
- Jack D Ripper

It is indeed a terrible aspect of reality. I don’t pretend to have all of the answers. But if the universe is only full of misery, then why do so many scientists even bother themselves to study it? Distant black holes and the Big Bang are discussed by scientists in a very impersonal, impartial and objective way. But the big questions that science asks are so inherently profound that there’s an inevitable slightly mystical aura about it.

So saying that God doesn’t exist or that God won’t solve the problem of evil, doesn’t itself let science off the hook. How then does science, evolution or atheism solve the problem of evil? Pain evolved in humans to a far greater extent than animals or insects. Humans are rational creatures and are uniquely self-aware that one day they will die and that everyone is mortal. The physical sensation of pain is intrinsically related to the problem of evil. Painkillers notwithstanding, it’s an involuntary response that we can’t completely turn off. If someone punches us, we are biologically compelled to experience the pain response at the site of injury. So in a genetic and neurological sense, all moral evil is technically just a subset of natural evil. But natural evil is caused by natural phenomena and thus falls under the purview of science. So is evil a mere evolutionary glitch? If we could somehow completely 100% permanently turn off the pain or fear emotions in humans, would that paradoxically to a small extent reduce the sacredness of human life?

Non-human species don’t appear to physically feel pain to the same extent humans do. Pets such as dogs can certainly show signs of stress, fear or happiness. But the pain response seems to be extremely limited in a few peculiar insects. There’s actually instances of insects biologically enjoying what would otherwise appear to be very painful:

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/phys.org/ne ... balism.amp

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news ... halloween/

I’m not at all comparing insects to us humans! But if evolutionary arguments (of there being evil in the world) are being made against God, then I don’t think it’s too inappropriate to ponder the evolutionary function of that very pain response.



It’s often mentioned how there’s no honour among thieves. An additional advantage is that good people also tend to be far more united against evil. This is compared to how much evil people are in alliance with other evil individuals to attack good people. Evil gangs seem to often hate and feud with their rival gangs to a degree more than their contempt of the police or civilians. We all have a sense of empathy.

[Jack D Ripper]

...
“Certainly, there is a lot of suffering in the universe. This god-universe thingy does not stop it from happening.”
- Jack D Ripper

It is indeed a terrible aspect of reality. I don’t pretend to have all of the answers. But if the universe is only full of misery, then why do so many scientists even bother themselves to study it?

Scientists study it because they are curious about it and interested in it. Whether it is good, bad, or indifferent is irrelevant to this.

Distant black holes and the Big Bang are discussed by scientists in a very impersonal, impartial and objective way. But the big questions that science asks are so inherently profound that there’s an inevitable slightly mystical aura about it.

So saying that God doesn’t exist or that God won’t solve the problem of evil, doesn’t itself let science off the hook. ...

There is no "problem of evil" if there is no omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent thing. The reason why you, for example, don't stop all of the evil in the world is easy to understand. You don't know all of what is going on (not being omniscient), you can't stop even all that you know about (not being omnipotent), and I won't bother with commenting on the third quality, as we already have enough to explain the general matter at hand. The same idea applies to everyone else. The problem comes up when there is supposed to be a being that has those three qualities, because such a being is inconsistent with there being evil in the world. So that inconsistency is the "problem" with believing in such a god.

The problem of evil is a proof that there is no omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being, because if there were such a being, there would be no evil, and yet there is evil. Consequently such a being cannot exist.

[Jack D Ripper]

I understood the narrative, but do you understand what I was saying?

A lot of things that someone is trying to figure out start with naming that thing for themselves. Let's name it "God". Then someone trying to help might ask: "what is this God?". The other might explain a flash of light that came out of nowhere and then waking up 2 hours later. So, in order to clarify, they visit to spit of the fkash of light, but find no evidence. They examine the witnesses body, but find no evidence. Yet, the witness sticks to the story.

Likely, something did happen. But it remained undiscovered.

Do you know what I mean?

Your post is pretty garbled and unclear, so although I could make a guess at your meaning, I think it would be better for you to try again, being as clear as possible. Particularly regarding this (bold emphasis is added):

A lot of things that someone is trying to figure out start with naming that thing for themselves. Let's name it "God".

There has to be a thing in order for that to happen. It may be that someone is pointing to something, and that can be enough to get one started on the question of what it is. But once one starts calling it "god", usually a whole lot of extra things are intended in the meaning, much more than there just being a thing pointed to, or, to use your example, a flash of light.

Often, of course, one may never know exactly what something was, but calling it "god" when one does not know is just plain stupid. Or a dishonest way of trying to add in things that one does not know to be a part of the thing observed.

[Arjen]

1) I only picked GOD as an example. I could have picked "thunder", "UFO" or "govagi".
2) Likely the term "god" meant something normal initially, but was driven into the obscure by one of the researches like in the example. I expect it sounded more like "good", actually.

Did you understanfld the point of my complete message though?

[Michael McMahon]

“Friendship with person involves acknowledgement of their worth. So friendship with God, the supremely good source of being, involves adoration and worship.”
- Richard Swinburne

“I have discussed the nature of worship and found it to be inconsonant and probably incompatible with pantheism. Given the nature and principal goal of worship, objects of worship must have a personal character. It might be thought that showing the Pantheistic Unity should not, on conceptual grounds, be worshipped is rather uninteresting. That may be right. The implications of this result, however, are anything but insignificant. For the Pantheistic, the practical consequences of worship and prayer being unavailable as forms of religious practice are enormous.

In the theistic view, worship and prayer are practically synonymous with religious practice. And even in (theoretically) non-theistic religious traditions such as Buddhism and Taoism, worship and prayer are frequent if not prevalent. Yet, the pantheist is faced with the difficult problem of finding a way to practice pantheism that is consistent with the finding that worship and prayer make sense only in a theistic context. As a result, one of the defining and most noticeable characteristics of pantheism will be the type of practice it takes up. The practices involved, whatever they are, will be different not only from those in theistic traditions, but also from those in non-theistic ones in which theistic practice is so much a part.”
- Michael P. Levine

I don’t think Pantheism is irreconcilable with worship. For instance, one can view the act of worship in an educational way. No one is perfect and we all have our flaws. Therefore it’s important to be receptive and to have a growth mindset. Worship could foster an appreciation for the mystical side of life. With the right frame of mind, worship may help through holistically keeping life in perspective and humbly acknowledging the need for the “greater good”.

I might try to make a maths analogy! Theists may view God to be something like the lowest common multiple of everything inside the universe. So God would be omniscient over everyone and everything. Perhaps a Pantheistic way to view it would be through the highest common factor. In this case the emphasis would be on our ability to connect and empathise with each other.

Indeed, a further benefit might be how worship can serve as a mindfulness mantra during times of distress.

Dictionary: “Mysticism is a religious practice in which people search for truth, knowledge, and closeness to God through meditation and prayer.”

“A common factor is a factor that is shared by two or more numbers. For example, a common factor of 8 and 10 is 2, as 2 is a factor of 8, and 2 is also a factor of 10. The highest common factor (HCF) is found by finding all common factors of two numbers and selecting the largest one.
A common multiple is a number that is a shared multiple of two or more numbers. For example, 24 is a common multiple of 8 and 12, as 24 is in the 8 times tables. The lowest common multiple (LCM) is found by listing the multiples of each number and circling any common multiples. The lowest one is the lowest common multiple.”
- BBC

“Those who hold a growth mindset believe that they can get better at something by dedication of time, effort and energy. Working on one’s flaws, and the process—not the outcome—are the most important components.”
- tophat website






"It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail."
- Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation.

A scientific approach would preclude any dogmatically held beliefs. But a lot of the “data” on spiritual matters is open-ended. For example, what are we to make of the dinosaurs? Just like the different interpretations of quantum mechanics, we can all come to our own conclusions on their significance.

Did God give the them free rein over the Earth as a sort of consolation prize? He must have known that they’d be eventually wiped out. Or maybe dinosaurs aren’t as sentient as other animals and so those millions of years would have passed by in a millisecond from God’s point of view. Alternatively, maybe this era attests to the absurd and nihilistic aspects of existence. So in this scenario humans would have arose accidentally through one asteroid impact or another. As long as you tolerate other people’s differing standpoints on this issue, you’re entitled to believe whatever interpretation you want!

Dictionary: “When people begin an open-ended discussion or activity, they do not have a particular result, decision, or timespan in mind.”

[Sculptor1]

“Friendship with person involves acknowledgement of their worth. So friendship with God, the supremely good source of being, involves adoration and worship.”
- Richard Swinburne

Non Sequitur.
The following is invalidated.

“I have discussed the nature of worship and found it to be inconsonant and probably incompatible with pantheism. Given the nature and principal goal of worship, objects of worship must have a personal character. It might be thought that showing the Pantheistic Unity should not, on conceptual grounds, be worshipped is rather uninteresting. That may be right. The implications of this result, however, are anything but insignificant. For the Pantheistic, the practical consequences of worship and prayer being unavailable as forms of religious practice are enormous.

In the theistic view, worship and prayer are practically synonymous with religious practice. And even in (theoretically) non-theistic religious traditions such as Buddhism and Taoism, worship and prayer are frequent if not prevalent. Yet, the pantheist is faced with the difficult problem of finding a way to practice pantheism that is consistent with the finding that worship and prayer make sense only in a theistic context. As a result, one of the defining and most noticeable characteristics of pantheism will be the type of practice it takes up. The practices involved, whatever they are, will be different not only from those in theistic traditions, but also from those in non-theistic ones in which theistic practice is so much a part.”
- Michael P. Levine

I don’t think Pantheism is irreconcilable with worship. For instance, one can view the act of worship in an educational way. No one is perfect and we all have our flaws. Therefore it’s important to be receptive and to have a growth mindset. Worship could foster an appreciation for the mystical side of life. With the right frame of mind, worship may help through holistically keeping life in perspective and humbly acknowledging the need for the “greater good”.

I might try to make a maths analogy! Theists may view God to be something like the lowest common multiple of everything inside the universe. So God would be omniscient over everyone and everything. Perhaps a Pantheistic way to view it would be through the highest common factor. In this case the emphasis would be on our ability to connect and empathise with each other.

Indeed, a further benefit might be how worship can serve as a mindfulness mantra during times of distress.

Dictionary: “Mysticism is a religious practice in which people search for truth, knowledge, and closeness to God through meditation and prayer.”

“A common factor is a factor that is shared by two or more numbers. For example, a common factor of 8 and 10 is 2, as 2 is a factor of 8, and 2 is also a factor of 10. The highest common factor (HCF) is found by finding all common factors of two numbers and selecting the largest one.
A common multiple is a number that is a shared multiple of two or more numbers. For example, 24 is a common multiple of 8 and 12, as 24 is in the 8 times tables. The lowest common multiple (LCM) is found by listing the multiples of each number and circling any common multiples. The lowest one is the lowest common multiple.”
- BBC

“Those who hold a growth mindset believe that they can get better at something by dedication of time, effort and energy. Working on one’s flaws, and the process—not the outcome—are the most important components.”
- tophat website






"It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail."
- Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation.

A scientific approach would preclude any dogmatically held beliefs. But a lot of the “data” on spiritual matters is open-ended. For example, what are we to make of the dinosaurs? Just like the different interpretations of quantum mechanics, we can all come to our own conclusions on their significance.

Did God give the them free rein over the Earth as a sort of consolation prize? He must have known that they’d be eventually wiped out. Or maybe dinosaurs aren’t as sentient as other animals and so those millions of years would have passed by in a millisecond from God’s point of view. Alternatively, maybe this era attests to the absurd and nihilistic aspects of existence. So in this scenario humans would have arose accidentally through one asteroid impact or another. As long as you tolerate other people’s differing standpoints on this issue, you’re entitled to believe whatever interpretation you want!

Dictionary: “When people begin an open-ended discussion or activity, they do not have a particular result, decision, or timespan in mind.”

End with a tautology. Always a good move.