Pantheism

[Ouroboros]

What's a pantentheist?

Pantheism: God and the Universe are one and the same.

 

Panentheism: God is the Universe but more than just the Universe.

 

Like the word "home." It's not just the house that you call home, but more things that come to it, like the garden and the people that belong there but can come and go as they please. Home could also incorporate the cars and perhaps the street outside. So home is not just the wooden (or stone) structure.

 

I believe there is a multiverse, and that there are more universes than just ours.

[Ouroboros]

Of all the views of the divine pantheism makes the most sense to me. Nature as God, god in everything.

Yup.

 

And we in God. God in us.

 

 

There was a day not to long ago when I was preparing to dig a ditch for some pipe. And while I was preparing for the task there was a moment when it seemed like clouds lifted from my mind. And I saw the grass, each blade of grass. I saw and heard birds, each bird. And I even sensed the tractor with which we were going to dig. Everything was vivid and connected. The mundane was sacred. I knew the mystery and beauty of existence, and everything was one.

That was exactly the same experience I had a couple of months after my de-conversion. The details were of course different, but it was the same feeling.

 

I was out walking my dogs late at night. One path lacks lighting and since the sky was clear, the stars and the moon were intensely visible and bright. I had that extreme sense of oneness with everything. Life and death took a new meaning from that moment.

[Legion]

That was exactly the same experience I had a couple of months after my de-conversion. The details were of course different, but it was the same feeling.

I wonder if it's possible to do things to prime our minds for having this kind of experience. It was a blissful feeling for me. I don't know if I'd want to try and operate in that state of mind all the time, but it would be nice to be able to induce the experience. You know?

[Ouroboros]

That was exactly the same experience I had a couple of months after my de-conversion. The details were of course different, but it was the same feeling.

I wonder if it's possible to do things to prime our minds for having this kind of experience. It was a blissful feeling for me. I don't know if I'd want to try and operate in that state of mind all the time, but it would be nice to be able to induce the experience. You know?

I have not tried it, but I suspect meditation could. I haven't had the exact same feeling since, but I have had similar. Listening to certain music, having headphones on, sitting in a comfy chair, and just glide away in daydreaming thoughts, can sometimes bring about a similar experience in me.

[Legion]

That was exactly the same experience I had a couple of months after my de-conversion. The details were of course different, but it was the same feeling.

I wonder if it's possible to do things to prime our minds for having this kind of experience. It was a blissful feeling for me. I don't know if I'd want to try and operate in that state of mind all the time, but it would be nice to be able to induce the experience. You know?

I have not tried it, but I suspect meditation could. I haven't had the exact same feeling since, but I have had similar. Listening to certain music, having headphones on, sitting in a comfy chair, and just glide away in daydreaming thoughts, can sometimes bring about a similar experience in me.

Hmm... I hope some other members will offer their suggestions too. One thing I remember was how engaged I was with the universe. Everything seemed near to me. I don't know if "disengaging" or retreating within my own mind would do it.

 

For some reason I keep thinking about acceptance, a profound acceptance of existence as it is.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

What's a pantentheist?

Pantheism: God and the Universe are one and the same.

 

Panentheism: God is the Universe but more than just the Universe.

 

Like the word "home." It's not just the house that you call home, but more things that come to it, like the garden and the people that belong there but can come and go as they please. Home could also incorporate the cars and perhaps the street outside. So home is not just the wooden (or stone) structure.

 

I believe there is a multiverse, and that there are more universes than just ours.

I believe there is a multiverse, and I view all the multiverse as God, that would make me a panentheist wouldn't it?

[Shyone]

That was exactly the same experience I had a couple of months after my de-conversion. The details were of course different, but it was the same feeling.

I wonder if it's possible to do things to prime our minds for having this kind of experience. It was a blissful feeling for me. I don't know if I'd want to try and operate in that state of mind all the time, but it would be nice to be able to induce the experience. You know?

LSD would do it.

 

Or, for some, LDS.

[Legion]

That was exactly the same experience I had a couple of months after my de-conversion. The details were of course different, but it was the same feeling.

I wonder if it's possible to do things to prime our minds for having this kind of experience. It was a blissful feeling for me. I don't know if I'd want to try and operate in that state of mind all the time, but it would be nice to be able to induce the experience. You know?

LSD would do it.

Well I was hoping for something a little less heavyhanded than that. Something more subtle.

[Ouroboros]

Hmm... I hope some other members will offer their suggestions too. One thing I remember was how engaged I was with the universe. Everything seemed near to me. I don't know if "disengaging" or retreating within my own mind would do it.

Very true.

 

I did actually get very strong feelings recently while watching a couple of shows about the universe. To me, to learn and realize the greatness of our Universe is awe-inspiring.

 

For some reason I keep thinking about acceptance, a profound acceptance of existence as it is.

But did the feeling leave completely? I feel that I still have some of it left, and I can experience just a tad of that sublime feeling every day.

[Shyone]

That was exactly the same experience I had a couple of months after my de-conversion. The details were of course different, but it was the same feeling.

I wonder if it's possible to do things to prime our minds for having this kind of experience. It was a blissful feeling for me. I don't know if I'd want to try and operate in that state of mind all the time, but it would be nice to be able to induce the experience. You know?

LSD would do it.

Well I was hoping for something a little less heavyhanded than that. Something more subtle.

I think just taking the time to contemplate that stuff is enough. Stars, time, space, infinity, and so on. The very vastness is dumb-founding. Grass, blades, evolution, life, family - and we are related to those plants, or we wouldn't be able to get nutrition from them. Our interconnectedness is dumb-founding.

 

You can do that with almost anything. It's live thinking of a loved one - let the emotions flow over you; remember the past, consider the present, imagine the future, and it all becomes one.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

Just stimulate your temporal lobe and you'll have an out of body experience and have a profound, deep, personal, religious experience. No need to do it with harmful drugs. Anyone see that episode through a wormhole? The one about god?

[Legion]

To me, to learn and realize the greatness of our Universe is awe-inspiring.

Yeah I agree. The more I learn about nature, the more awe inspiring it becomes.

 

For some reason I keep thinking about acceptance, a profound acceptance of existence as it is.

But did the feeling leave completely? I feel that I still have some of it left, and I can experience just a tad of that sublime feeling every day.

It's funny that you should ask that Hans. I think I've always been close to having this type of experience. In some sense this why I would describe myself as "spiritual". But there are times, like that time you were walking your dogs at night, when it becomes intense.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I describe myself as spiritual not because there is something metaphysical, but because I know that its the same thing neurologically that religious people experience when they are in a group thinking of god. Except with exitement instead of fear, and none of that selfdepression. Just aweinspiration and being proud to be a part of something so great.

 

It does just become more and more aweinspiring.

[Antlerman]

That was exactly the same experience I had a couple of months after my de-conversion. The details were of course different, but it was the same feeling.

I wonder if it's possible to do things to prime our minds for having this kind of experience. It was a blissful feeling for me. I don't know if I'd want to try and operate in that state of mind all the time, but it would be nice to be able to induce the experience. You know?

I have not tried it, but I suspect meditation could. I haven't had the exact same feeling since, but I have had similar. Listening to certain music, having headphones on, sitting in a comfy chair, and just glide away in daydreaming thoughts, can sometimes bring about a similar experience in me.

Hmm... I hope some other members will offer their suggestions too. One thing I remember was how engaged I was with the universe. Everything seemed near to me. I don't know if "disengaging" or retreating within my own mind would do it.

 

For some reason I keep thinking about acceptance, a profound acceptance of existence as it is.

Wow, I'm sorry I hadn't seen this discussion until today. This is great LR. Unfortunately I don't have the time to talk about it right now. I'll try to find time later.

[Ouroboros]

I believe there is a multiverse, and I view all the multiverse as God, that would make me a panentheist wouldn't it?

At least the way I see it. I would say so.

 

The problem I have found the last couple of years is that labels are deceptive. Don't get stuck or too fond of a label because most of the time they describe things that you might not believe. That's why I tend to put a bunch of different labels together, all of them apply to some part but not fully.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I thought it meant you believe in something metaphysical, that's why I didn't look into calling myself such. I just don't believe in anything supernatural.

[Ouroboros]

Just stimulate your temporal lobe and you'll have an out of body experience and have a profound, deep, personal, religious experience. No need to do it with harmful drugs. Anyone see that episode through a wormhole? The one about god?

I did, well, not completely. I started but didn't finish it. It's recorded though.

 

Did you watch the series by Hawking? It was also great.

 

I have a video by National Geographic about the Universe too, on blue-ray. The first time I saw that movie I was like, whoa, wow, gasp!

 

Just to get the glimpse of the immense size and power of a pulsar or quasar makes the mind go *bam!* Just the thought of it right now gives me goosebumps. The gamma ray jet-streams from a quasar are at least the width of our solar system. I mean, you have gases pulled into a super-massive black hole, in such a speed and amount that it can "swallow" it all, but instead, the matter shoot out at the poles at extremely high speeds. I can't even put it in words...

[Ouroboros]

I thought it meant you believe in something metaphysical, that's why I didn't look into calling myself such. I just don't believe in anything supernatural.

Agree. I don't believe anything is supernatural. If something exists beyond our physical world, it's still natural to me. It's just a matter of expanding the concept of what "natural" is.

 

I'm just afraid by using the label "pantheist" or "panentheist" people think that I believe that the Universe or Multiverse is sentient, which I don't. I do, however, believe that consciousness and sentience is part of the potentials of Nature. Put it this way, if Nature couldn't become sentient, we wouldn't be sentient. Sentience must be part of the potentials of Nature. It doesn't mean that it always is sentient, only that it has all the components for entities to become sentient.

[agnosticator]

I'm just afraid by using the label "pantheist" or "panentheist" people think that I believe that the Universe or Multiverse is sentient, which I don't. I do, however, believe that consciousness and sentience is part of the potentials of Nature. Put it this way, if Nature couldn't become sentient, we wouldn't be sentient. Sentience must be part of the potentials of Nature. It doesn't mean that it always is sentient, only that it has all the components for entities to become sentient.

 

WOW. This is exactly what I have thought. Will all of you guys get out of my head?!

 

Edited to add:

I referring to all the posts in the wonderful thread. Our minds are one.

[agnosticator]

Hmm... I hope some other members will offer their suggestions too. One thing I remember was how engaged I was with the universe.

 

For me, It happens when I am totally immersed in an activity or just taking in nature. At times I would become "one with the music" in performance, feeling like I WAS the music. Also, sometimes when I am out in nature away from noise and people, I stop and take everything in. Then my sense of self seems to disappear. I don't think about what I see, hear, smell, or feel. I think my conscious self is "tuned down" a bit by my unconscious self. When my sub, un, (whatever) self is at the helm, I become at one with whatever I'm experiencing.

[lunaticheathen]

I thought it meant you believe in something metaphysical, that's why I didn't look into calling myself such. I just don't believe in anything supernatural.

 

This is why I add "animist" to most belief-type descriptors. Pantheist fits me in one fashion, but it's more than that as well. Many shades of belief and words fit all of us, I think.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I'm just afraid by using the label "pantheist" or "panentheist" people think that I believe that the Universe or Multiverse is sentient, which I don't. I do, however, believe that consciousness and sentience is part of the potentials of Nature. Put it this way, if Nature couldn't become sentient, we wouldn't be sentient. Sentience must be part of the potentials of Nature. It doesn't mean that it always is sentient, only that it has all the components for entities to become sentient.

I haven't encountered that yet, but no I don't believe the universe is sentient nor conscious, and I hope no one assumes I think such.

[Ouroboros]

I haven't encountered that yet, but no I don't believe the universe is sentient nor conscious, and I hope no one assumes I think such.

And I didn't assume you did.

 

On the other hand, can we say for sure that we know it isn't? If consciousness could take form within other kinds of complex structures, besides the brain, which allows processes, it perhaps could be possible that the quarks are part of some super-giant brain...

[Franko47]

Hmm... I hope some other members will offer their suggestions too. One thing I remember was how engaged I was with the universe.

 

For me, It happens when I am totally immersed in an activity or just taking in nature. At times I would become "one with the music" in performance, feeling like I WAS the music. Also, sometimes when I am out in nature away from noise and people, I stop and take everything in. Then my sense of self seems to disappear. I don't think about what I see, hear, smell, or feel. I think my conscious self is "tuned down" a bit by my unconscious self. When my sub, un, (whatever) self is at the helm, I become at one with whatever I'm experiencing.

 

 

 

Sort of like a modulation between "ego-driven mind" and the intuitive and counter-intuitive state of the "transcendental" mind. Although I like your explanation a bit better, especially about the music thing.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I haven't encountered that yet, but no I don't believe the universe is sentient nor conscious, and I hope no one assumes I think such.

And I didn't assume you did.

Lol, I didn't think you thought I did. I was just clearing that up in case someone were to ask.

 

On the other hand, can we say for sure that we know it isn't? If consciousness could take form within other kinds of complex structures, besides the brain, which allows processes, it perhaps could be possible that the quarks are part of some super-giant brain...

Hey, who knows? Though such an incredible claim would require an incredible amount of evidence, though where would one get it?