I think Jess has it down to a séance.

Ahhh... I truly love you all....

I am completely un-biased in my picking...

Peace...

Unfortunately I'm not feeling in the optimum biological form right now to be considering deeply philosophical notions at the moment. I know that in my own personal life I have yet to find any logic that refutes pantheism. Especially in the face of quantum mechanics. I mean, let’s face it, classical logic refutes quantum mechanics too, but that doesn’t mean we reject it.

Your arguments here seem trivial to me because you can’t really define “oneness” without having an unambiguous definition of what it is you are calling “One”. Even the formal abstract mathematical definition of One is not without ambiguity.

On top of all that, I have no interest in trying to ‘prove’ Pantheism. All I have ever claimed is that it is the least ambiguous of all philosophies I’ve yet encountered. It is in perfect concord with all that we know scientifically. And for this reason it is not in conflict with ‘science’ even if you believe that it might be in conflict with some idealized ‘pure logic’.

As I say, can you explain quantum mechanics using your ‘pure logic’. If not, then why even bother pointing your logic at Pantheism when the real world already flies in the face of that logic?

In other words, quantum mechanics shows that your 'logic gun' is already firing blanks.

I am eating chocolate chip cookies at the moment and they are yummy, but not good for my body. I shall detox later, but for now the craving must be logically ministered to.

logic is a word with Greek roots in 'logos' meaning word. or signature. or by extension, thought.

Webster defined logic as 'the art of thinking and reasoning justly'.

Watts said this about logic. "Logic is the art of using reason well in our inquiries after truth, and the communication of it to others".

God has always been depicted by the ancients as talking to man, and likewise man talking to God.

I have that experience.

I have also had the experiences of indistinguishable voices speaking to me too. That stopped many years ago.

Most people recognize such a phenomenon as that. The rest just won't admit to it having occured upon their person.

But every voice must have a distinction, or it is random.

There are random voices and there are voices that are distinct.

Inspirational voices need an identity or they are just random acts of violence.

If everything is illogical then man's propensity for violence has an excuse.

But that doesn't explain the notion of God and a distinct voice that belies illogical man. Man, if illogical, cannot invent God.

Evolution can be invented, but not discovered.

God can be discovered, but not invented.

But logic is not logic without discovering logic.

Logic must be pre-existent for reason and purpose to exist, or illogical as a description for the lack of logic would be unreasonable and to be unreasonable, there must be reason.

Or it is all random and indistinguishable from noise.

If that makes sense , then God exists.

If that doesn't make sense, then man is illogical and this is white noise.




Funches, this has your name on it , my friend.

Care to take a stab at it?

In another thread the consideration of an actual happenstance logically refuted the notion of one manifesting their own reality with thoughts, feelings, and actions. It was a false conclusion. A true premise cannot logically lead to a false conclusion.

So the journey began, once again, through the train of pantheistic thought that had been witnessed by myself in these forums. While looking for the hidden flaw, it showed itself apparently so...

The notion of 'God' perceiving itself via means of creation and/or manifestation of itself neccessitates this 'God' to be nothing more than an afterthought of it's own manifestation and/or creation.

If this notion of it's own self-perception were the case, then what constitutes it's Godliness before manifestation? For if a 'God' needs it's own manifestation and/or creation in order to perceive itself, then it does not exist without. It is dependant upon manifestation and/or creation to be aware of it's own existance, therefore it does not exist. There could be no purpose(self-perception) without the ability to perceive, which could not happen until manifestation and/or creation.

Pantheism is a cloaked atheism... not that I disagree or agree with either...

Just my observations of what has been expressed...

Which god?



I don't understand any of this....


The label won't stick, no matter what I do...

Exactly Lee....



That which words can describe is not the true way...

dude, that sounded so aristotelian
Now being serious.
I believe God is in everyone and everything because each thing and each one of us is a creation of God.
Therefore, we have traces of God within of ourselves. That is why most of us (notice I'm saying most of us, not all of us) have the need to look for something bigger.
Whenever we identify that "something bigger" as God, and we start searching for more. Then His presence within us grows.
Our actions become more according to His will even though we are the ones who freely are choosing such actions.
The same works with those who choose not to believe in God, they freely choose to behave and act in the way they do.
In the measure that we look for God, He grows more and more within us. And as simple logical consequence we start finding that everything which surrounds us is fulfilled with God's presence. God's is omnipresent. Then it follows that fact that God is in everything, and also because He is the creator.

Of what has been expressed by whom?

I think Pantheism can be viewed in many different ways by different people. It's not an absolute. It a concept, and as with all concepts it's malleable by perception.

For some, Pantheism can be a sort of solipsism. For other’s it’s not even close to solipsism.

I think much of it has to do with how the imagination is caught, and how free your brain is from aberrant dust bunnies.

There was a time when I too had a problem with the ‘one-in-many’ or the ‘many-ness of one’.

I no longer have that problem because I can conceive of how it can work in my mind. And that’s good enough for me.

My only question to you would be, “Can you imagine something better?”

I’ve always felt that you should try to imagine the best possible “God” you can possibly muster.

That has to be as close to truth as you can get. Because anything less would be,…. well duh,… it would be LESS. And surely God can’t be less than the imagination of men.

So imagine the most perfect picture of God you can muster and rest assured that God is better than that.

That’s all you have to do.

For me, Pantheism is the best I can muster so far. In my mind is it perfect. I can’t find a flaw with it. It’s a win-win situation with no losers. Sure beats some other pictures of God where almost everyone is a loser, even the so-called “winners” end up being nothing more than inferior eternal servants to some external entity who will always rule over them as their ultimate fascist dictator.

At least Pantheism ends in total egalitarianism whether you want to think of that as ‘oneness’ or not is up to you.

just pick a god and you have a reference point for god.

it doesn't matter which one, Jess.

they are all distinctive 'guiding lights' of each and several family clans, or tribes, that inspired cohesion in the group.

Pharoah's god butted heads with the Abraham's god and the Pharoah's seers opted to say, oops. it is the finger of god, what can we do about it? They agreed that they were fighting with gods fighting gods.

So, think of them all as angels jockeying for position in an heirarchy. One is eminent and the others are eminent depending on which family one talks to.

But collectively, they appear to be created and all stop short of overcoming the Creator, which cannot be seen touched smelled or sensed but by gods. Maybe only one in particular. Such a distinction would not necessarily be universally accepted in light of so many having distinctions that set them apart one from the other.

But if they are all teflon then they are white noise.

If it is all white noise still , then there can be no distinction made I would think. As long as it is but white noise, it is not distinct. There can be no false god where there is no distinction present.

But these gods tend to agree that there is a god over the god of the family god.

the Father, Zeus, etc.

It is this God of god(s) that is being discussed, I think.

Is that logical?

peace

I don't think of Pantheism as a description of "god".

I think of it more as a "world view" that embraces everything, and therefore it "includes" god, rather than trying to define "god"

After all, God is nothing more than a manmade concept.

Hi wouldee.....


How do you know the gods said there is a boss god?


Who told you?

Yes, I do understand this point.

And I agree.

Now I will define God as... non manifest awareness

(In the beginning was the word.... and the word was without form..)

Form did not exist. So what did? Nothing?

Well, nothing cannot exist in form or manifestation, so what was there?


It was a single thought of the idea of "being." It could only perceive the void and Itself perceiving the void.

It did not exist except as awareness and the void until....

As it directed Its attention to the void and back to Itself again, it created a vibration. That vibration was the shifting of Its attention from itself to the void. Now there were three things.

1. Itself
2. The void
3. The movement or vibration. (The word)

The word is the vibration.

All things thereafter was formed out of the vibration.

JB

one of them told me.


after he booted out the others that I had gathered, unawares, in my youth.

Which led me study these 'gods' and how they are described in words, historically. It even came down to seeing the carefullness of the Jewish God, JHWH. Even there, that one is careful to say that he 'was sent' to say things to the Jewish people. This same carefullness of speech is in the record of Jesus' words.

To the same degree, only through a cursory knowledge on my part as assumed to be the case, is Buddhist teaching also careful.

And Islam, though they fall short of embracing the entirety of the Jewish God, as far as I can tell.

The Hindus likewise. and the Sikhs.

The Native American view, as best as I can tell, is such as well.

There exists in mankinds hostory this distinction. Though it gets blurred somewhat within certain disciplines. But yet, it is there.

In the end, it appears that religions are all inspirations externally infuenced upon man's person. Then comes tradition and the watering down of the efficacy of the distinction.

It has come to my attention that there exists different addresses to the same destination of man, ultimately.

The one criteria that seems to echo most in all men that believe in a supreme being is that each must exercise judgement within oneself to find peace with acknowledging this being.

Jesus is taught as being this supreme being(by some), but he is recorded as saying that he only speaks for this being, and offers the same connection to his followers, but as successive and conditional upon his person's charge that it be so for his followers. That is so to me. He is testified of to me by this voice and presence, but that is as close as I can get to it. I can go no further, and further than that I need not go as it is enough just to grow in that which I am given and I have not mastered that yet. I am not even close to being ready for more


But....enough about me.

I think the discussion is about the Creator and whether or not it is distinguishable or not for man to comprehend and ffind some congruent understanding of the concept.

At least that is my perceptin. Michael is rather deep.

Logically speaking, god is logicless. So to logic a god premise at all cannot be done.

Man created god so god shows all the humanness of man in all of his "logic" and illogicalness.

The idea of being one with the universe for me fits in the sense of feeling at one with my surroundings and myself. I feel this from personal growth not from a book or taught premise.

I do not discriminate, I am one with believers and non-believers, there is no prejudice in me at all of my brethren, they are family whether I want them or not, j/k

I recommend you get firefox instead of internet explorer... it has spell check with it! <misspelled word here that I corrected>. Anyway, those red lines are distracting to me! Now to read your post...

I don't believe in the first paragraph, moving on.

One is made up of three letters. Those letters of atoms... you get my picture!

Maybe we're God's little germs?

Maybe there was no beginning and man disrupted that thought... God didn't write the bible, man did. How do you know that the beginning wasn't just a dream? And God said that rest. But lets take God out of the picture. We would go back to the same thing, no one knows for sure. Lets go back to what we do know. The universe is vast. We have cells in our bodies, and the outside word (to our cells) is vast. How do you know that we're not just cells or germs to a larger body?

I agree we are all one in a sense. We are all created from the same creator but we are all obviously seperate. Maybe I don't understand the question really.

I don't want to be like some and be judgmental even if I think they are wrong. There are many who think I am wrong. I can imagine a God without human traits by thinking of a living coral reef maybe.

But if he didn't have human qualities why would he want to create humans? That to me doesn't make any sense.

If you're bored, would you want to stare at your leg all day?

Actually God didn’t set out to create humans. That’s the biblical picture. But that’s not what’s printed in the universe. According to the universe humans evolved from a whole line of lesser animals. God was experimenting the whole way along. Humans are merely a phase that God is going through. Clearly God enjoyed being dinosaurs for a while. They lasted about 300 millions years. It must have been fun being a dinosaur.

Humans are barely one million years old yet. In fact, modern humans as we know ourselves are barely even a half-millions years old. And if you want to only consider are extreme modern form we’re only just born.

Humans were hardly the “goal” of the universe by a long shot.

Just because we happen to be humans doesn’t mean that the creator of this universe is like us. After all, we aren’t the only creatures in this universe. With over 100 billion galaxies and 70 sextillion stars just in the observable part of the universe alone, I seriously doubt that planet earth is the only planet containing life.

We can’t just look at planet earth and think of god’s motives. There’s a whole vast universe out there that is so vast it’s beyond our ability to comprehend. To believe that we are modeled after God is truly naïve. What about all the rest of the animals, what are they modeled after?

Now that everbody is thinkin'...


Would it be ok if I just built a sandbox over there--------->

So I can make some sandcastles with moats and stuff?