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Goodbye Jesus

Atheism and Pantheism


pug

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Theists and other critics have often regarded pantheism as atheism in disguise.

Yet atheists often mistrust pantheism and see it as theism in disguise.

 

Some atheists are so concerned with combatting the enemy - theism - that they leap to the opposite extreme, reducing life to blind selfish genes or the universe to bleak meaninglessness.

 

But many atheists - even among the best known and most militant - have also had powerful feelings towards nature and the universe: feelings of reverence, love, awe and sense of belonging to nature and the material universe. Below on this page you will find quotes that show these feelings very clearly, from Hume, d'Holbach, la Mettrie, Shelley, and Sagan.

 

They are so close to the feelings that believers have towards their deities, that they may be called religious. This is exactly the position of scientific pantheism.

 

A number of atheists have gone further than this. Some have spoken of "religious atheism." Monism, Cosmism or Affirmative Atheism have been other names for the same approach.

 

Carl Sagan, a prominent atheist and humanist, wrote:

 

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. [Pale Blue Dot, 1994]

 

That religion already exists. It is modern, scientific pantheism.

It would be possible to go through every classical atheist attack on theism, and not one point would apply to scientific pantheism. Atheists' opposition to pantheism is often based on a misunderstanding of modern pantheism. The usual assumption is that all pantheists agree with Spinoza, who believed that the universe had an intelligent mind and infinite qualities. Yet many modern pantheists do not agree with Spinoza on this.

 

Modern pantheism does not believe in any creator or personal God outside nature and the universe. Scientific pantheism does not believe in any spirit or soul of the universe. Scientific pantheism accepts that only the material universe exists - but has a religious reverence for it and for nature.

 

In other words, pantheism does not believe in the type of God that atheism attacks any more than atheism itself does. Pantheism is just as scientific, and scientific pantheism is just as materialist, as atheism.

 

The only real difference is that pantheists have strong feelings of reverence, awe, love and sense of belonging to nature and the universe, and they wish to express those feelings through meditation, ceremony, and ethical action.

 

Pantheists don't just want to be negative about Gods and heavens beyond this world. They want to be enthusiastically positive about this life, this earth, this universe.

 

So Atheists now have a religion?

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So Atheists now have a religion?

 

A religion I suppose would include doctrine and dogma, usually in a written down form. Atheism doesn't have a holy bible/quran

 

Atheism would be consider a belief system rather than a religion.

 

I wouldn't call Agnostics having a religion, but they would certainly have a belief system

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So Atheists now have a religion?

 

What's this "now" business? Eastern religions have been atheistic for thousands of years. Buddhism and Taoism for sure. And they are as reverent as any xtian.

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Ditto what nightflight said.

 

Also, the recognition of something aweworthy is not the same as recognizing an omnimax God-being. As I understand it, athiests typically reject an omnimax god as part of the definition of atheism. It doesn't rule out some sort of force or law of nature that is beyond our current understanding. Some athiests are against any attempt to name this force and pay homage to it, and some are loosely pantheists; but the athiest/pantheist's god is not one that can be related to or understood. This force doesn't have a personality, it is just technically another aspect of nature.

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The difference between "atheism" and "pantheism" is one of attitude, IMO. The only thing pantheism adds is a sense of the sacred extended into existence as a whole. It's not a question of the facts of the matter, really, but how you approach the world around you.

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Uh. Right. Asimov, I think I'll let you answer this one. Go nuts. :grin:

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What's this "now" business?  Eastern religions have been atheistic for thousands of years.  Buddhism and Taoism for sure.  And they are as reverent as any xtian.

 

A religion I suppose would include doctrine and dogma, usually in a written down form. Atheism doesn't have a holy bible/quran

 

Atheism would be considered a belief system rather than a religion.

 

Buddhism and Taoism are atheistic but they do have doctrine and dogma in written form. So they are atheistic religions.

 

So Western type of atheism is different?

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**Theists and other critics have often regarded pantheism as atheism in disguise.

Yet atheists often mistrust pantheism and see it as theism in disguise.**

 

Pantheism still believes in a god, it is just the “Unity” or the universe itself. Non-personal, but existing in and about all things. Basically, as I understand it, the universe is the body of god and all that exists is part of that “Unity”. I did a bit of reading on this before I started to post, but other than that this type of faith has not been in my view finder. Sounds a lot like the faith in the “force” from the start wars flicks.

 

I can not say I view this as theism in disguise, but as another flavor or alternative ideology to place faith in. No disguise, just another view of god.

 

**Some atheists are so concerned with combatting the enemy - theism - that they leap to the opposite extreme, reducing life to blind selfish genes or the universe to bleak meaninglessness.**

 

The main purpose of life is to reproduce and make more life. This is not meaningless. You have chosen faith in a creator god to give yourself personal purpose, I find my purpose elsewhere. Why attribute a personified characteristic to genes (selfish). Genes just do as their programming dictates. No emotion, no selfishness.

 

Honestly, I have a very positive outlook on humanity and our future. We as a race have the opportunity to explore beyond the womb of earth. If we can keep moving forward, one day I see the human race as a great community of worlds. Well beyond my time of consciousness, but the whole thought of it makes me smile. This is fulfilling the goal of life, to reproduce and spread.

 

**But many atheists - even among the best known and most militant - have also had powerful feelings towards nature and the universe: feelings of reverence, love, awe and sense of belonging to nature and the material universe. Below on this page you will find quotes that show these feelings very clearly, from Hume, d'Holbach, la Mettrie, Shelley, and Sagan.**

 

Being in awe of nature does not a religion make. I am often in awe of the hugeness of it all. At the complexity in the smallest to largest things. I do not place any faith in it, I simply see it as my reaction to a physical reality I will never understand 100%. I can understand the basics of how the aurora borealis forms, but the beauty of it still gives me goose bumps. The concept that the suns radiation directly effects our atmosphere to such an extreme degree as to make visible bands. Simply wow. But it does not make me want to drop to my knees and pray meditate or otherwise “become one” with it all. It makes me see the earth as a huge system that is interrelated and constantly effected by outside forces. Something we can study and understand with time and effort.

 

**They are so close to the feelings that believers have towards their deities, that they may be called religious. This is exactly the position of scientific pantheism.**

 

How so? From what I have read there is no book of faith, no set of guidelines as to how the scientific pantheist should act and live, no religious dogma. I see it as a theistic world view, but not religious in the sense of xtianity.

 

**A number of atheists have gone further than this. Some have spoken of "religious atheism." Monism, Cosmism or Affirmative Atheism have been other names for the same approach.

 

Carl Sagan, a prominent atheist and humanist, wrote:

 

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. [Pale Blue Dot, 1994]**

 

I agree with Sagan that this will likely come to pass in the future. But not a religion that treats humans as the lowest of the low without salvation unless they bow to a petulant child of a god that personally like fucking with people to prove its power. Revering nature (that which exists around us), knowledge and understanding in a practical and empirical sense would be a positive step toward uniting people to search for answers and not placing faith in that which can not be proven to exist and effect his universe.

 

I am going to stop here and call shenanigans on Pug!

 

If you are going to cut and paste someone elses work on this board at least give them fucking credit you lying little loon.

 

Where he got this. Not his work!

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Okay, for the sake of the argument Atheists are Pantheists (totally ridiculous, typical Christian style of argument), and Christians are Pantheists too (they believe in the trinity), would that mean that Christians actually are Atheists?

 

Pantheist means belief in Many Gods

Atheist means not believe in any God

 

This thread is a joke.

 

---

 

Arguments that twist meanings of words are stupid and time wasters.

 

This way we can make Naturalism be Deism, Deism be Pantheism, Pagan be Christian, Wicca be Hinduism, Christianity be Islam, bascially all religions and all non-beliefs all together are... Atheism. In the end it's completely childish reasoning to go this path.

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I am going to stop here and call shenanigans on Pug!

 

If you are going to cut and paste someone elses work on this board at least give them fucking credit you lying little loon.

 

Where he got this tid bit.

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Okay, for the sake of the argument Atheists are Pantheists (totally ridiculous, typical Christian style of argument), and Christians are Pantheists too (they believe in the trinity), would that mean that Christians actually are Atheists?

 

Pantheist means belief in Many Gods

Atheist means not believe in any God

 

This thread is a joke.

 

---

 

Arguments that twist meanings of words are stupid and time wasters.

 

This way we can make Naturalism be Deism, Deism be Pantheism, Pagan be Christian, Wicca be Hinduism, Christianity be Islam, bascially all religions and all non-beliefs all together are... Atheism. In the end it's completely childish reasoning to go this path.

 

Pantheism has two definitions:

 

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pantheism

 

This thread is as pointless as pug is stupid.

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Theists and other critics have often regarded pantheism as atheism in disguise.

Yet atheists often mistrust pantheism and see it as theism in disguise.

 

And even still some atheisms often see theism as stupidity in disguise!

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Pantheism has two definitions:

 

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pantheism

 

This thread is as pointless as pug is stupid.

Oooops! A little mind-noodle-shortcut. I was thinking Polytheism... shame on me! :Doh:

 

"the doctrine or belief that God is the universe and its phenomena (taken or conceived of as a whole) or the doctrine that regards the universe as a manifestation of God"

 

To me it sounds more like Naturalism or Deism (like someone else said here).

 

But Atheism doesn't see the universe as a manifestation of God? Unless you define "God" as all matter and energy, but no intelligence or awareness.

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I am going to stop here and call shenanigans on Pug!

 

If you are going to cut and paste someone elses work on this board at least give them fucking credit you lying little loon.

 

Where he got this tid bit.

I second!

 

Shenanigans!!!

 

I hate plagerism!!! :screams::vtffani::pureevil:

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Hey, Pug, you realize that work is copyrighted, and that, by using it without permission and without credit, you can get into a lot of trouble, right?

 

Or did someone flunk out of school too early to realize that plagarism is *gasp* morally and legally wrong?

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Hey, Pug, you realize that work is copyrighted, and that, by using it without permission and without credit, you can get into a lot of trouble, right?

 

Or did someone flunk out of school too early to realize that plagarism is *gasp* morally and legally wrong?

Yeah, but God never said it was wrong, and if God never said it was wrong, then it's not a sin, and if it's not a sin, then there's nothing wrong with it and us Evil Atheists have got is mistaken since we have no moral centre...

 

:Wendywhatever:

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I am going to stop here and call shenanigans on Pug!

 

If you are going to cut and paste someone elses work on this board at least give them fucking credit you lying little loon.

 

Where he got this tid bit.

 

 

Ooooops... here, again...

 

Suggestions, comments, criticisms to: Paul Harrison, e-mail: harrison@dircon.co.uk

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright & copy: Paul Harrison 1997. Last updated March 5, 1997.

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so what is your point, pug?
His point, is that he has no point. And therefore, that is his point.

 

D'ya got that?

 

 

 

btw Asi, you're forgetting your bold font tonight. :Hmm:

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so what is your point, pug?

 

I'm just wondering if the no-doctrine type of atheism has become some sort of cool, new age, in religion?

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His point, is that he has no point. And therefore, that is his point.

 

D'ya got that?

 

You are right I have no point at all (wouldn't dare would I?). I was just curious to know if your type of athesim could be a religion all by itself. No need book, no need doctrines.

 

Simply convince yourself that there's no god. Keep on the right side of the law. Be morally sound. What else.... ahhh just be a generally nice, decent human being i guess.

 

Can athesim be termed a religion in the 21st century?

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I'm just wondering if the no-doctrine type of atheism has become some sort of cool, new age, in religion?

 

 

Well...pug, Atheism is just a belief system that does not contain a God or gods.

 

There are many atheistic belief systems available to choose from, some religious, some philosophical, some neither.

 

I certainly count myself among the Assertive Atheists (Strong Atheism), which combats Theism as a rational belief system.

 

I am part of no group, though.

 

Pantheism is vague and undefined in regards to God. It asserts that everything is a part of God, which is just a fallacy of Equivocation.

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Simply convince yourself that there's no god. Keep on the right side of the law. Be morally sound. What else.... ahhh just be a generally nice, decent human being i guess.

 

...what?

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btw Asi, you're forgetting your bold font tonight.  :Hmm:

 

I roll like that sometimes.

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