Discus Naturalistic Pantheism

Interesting, a new Pantheist. Congratulations and welcome.

Now don't get all upset because you find that Pantheism has many versions. Forget everything you have read or been told so far. See if you can find YOUR Pantheism. What is it about Nature that is supernatural to YOU.

Science is nature without the supernatural. Most people, given enough time and thought, will contemplate the concept of God. They do this within themselves and in spite of what they have been taught as they grew up, and in spite of what they have read or learned from experience. They contemplate God and ask themselves, what do I believe.

You have been there. You found an answer. You are developing that answer within yourself. It will evolve in its natural course.

The question is, does the fact that conscious self-aware life leads to the contemplation of the concept of God imply that we are genetically predispositioned to wrestle with the personal decision. If so, do you find that particular predisposition supernatural? Is it supernatural enough to allow you to go beyond "God is Nature" to "God encompasses Nature and a predisposition that accompanies our genetic code". In other words, do you think such a predisposition was intentional?

If not, your Pantheism is "God is Nature". If so, your Pantheism is God is an intention that, like Nature, has always existed along with Nature.
 
quantum_wave said:
Interesting, a new Pantheist. Congratulations and welcome.

Now don't get all upset because you find that Pantheism has many versions. Forget everything you have read or been told so far. See if you can find YOUR Pantheism. What is it about Nature that is supernatural to YOU.

Science is nature without the supernatural. Most people, given enough time and thought, will contemplate the concept of God. They do this within themselves and in spite of what they have been taught as they grew up, and in spite of what they have read or learned from experience. They contemplate God and ask themselves, what do I believe.

You have been there. You found an answer. You are developing that answer within yourself. It will evolve in its natural course.

The question is, does the fact that conscious self-aware life leads to the contemplation of the concept of God imply that we are genetically predispositioned to wrestle with the personal decision. If so, do you find that particular predisposition supernatural? Is it supernatural enough to allow you to go beyond "God is Nature" to "God encompasses Nature and a predisposition that accompanies our genetic code". In other words, do you think such a predisposition was intentional?

If not, your Pantheism is "God is Nature". If so, your Pantheism is God is an intention that, like Nature, has always existed along with Nature.
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I really think he rejects the supernatural. But he has me a bit confused, so..
 
I dont believe in the idea god is supernatural I simply have no faith in that idea at all. So with that concept out of the way I can now gain knowledge of god. Quite literally for Natural Panthiest god is inside every animal,plant, the stars the planets, the energy, the matter the whole sheebang baby :)

God is what you believe god to be not what your told god is. IMHO if you believe you found god then you have. Why would you believe anything otherwise unless your beliefs are forced on you or indocrinated from birth.
 
quantum_wave said:
Interesting, a new Pantheist. Congratulations and welcome.

See if you can find YOUR Pantheism.

Science is nature without the supernatural. Most people, given enough time and thought, will contemplate the concept of God. They do this within themselves and in spite of what they have been taught as they grew up, and in spite of what they have read or learned from experience. They contemplate God and ask themselves, what do I believe.

You have been there. You found an answer. You are developing that answer within yourself. It will evolve in its natural course.
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Thank you, your welcome its very comforting. Im still grappling with it and very very new.

You really have to dig deep and ask the big question some times, what do I believe. Quite often you don't have the answers and may never arrive at one.

With a Panthiest point of view I might ask the question, why are there preditors in nature, I then relise without preditors I wouldnt exist becasue predation helps drive evolution. Stuff like that is quite an interesting angle.

Prior to Panthiem I would have thought why would god create this evil thing. But then you relize it's not evil at all its just doing what is natural.
 
Harro said:
Thank you, your welcome its very comforting. Im still grappling with it and very very new.

...
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For me to welcome you as a new Pantheist is an acknowledgement to you on my part that I have respect for all that is nature. Would I have set nature up the way it is? I’m not smart enough, no one is. Only nature itself could secure the intricacies. When I give nature such grand praise it is because I am the beneficiary of enough of those imponderable intricacies that I can say without compunction that no evolved life form could have had anything to do with it.

You have been reading about my personal cosmology and so you see that my view is that there is an explanation for how the mechanics of the universe operate at the quantum level and on the level of the landscape of the greater universe. Nothing supernatural is necessary for it to continue in my opinion. I see it as a perpetual process of entropy and reverse entropy going on at the same time in arenas whose numbers are potentially infinite.

So it is conceivable to me that the cosmology of the universe is, was and will continue to be essentially the same as described in QWC. Some argue that I am making it up, and it is true to a degree. I know the universe works, I know science cannot yet explain it in the detail that I include in QWC, and I could just as easily have gone with the crowd and said “we just don’t know” how it works.

Like many in science I could have said it will all end; not just that life on Earth will end which of course it will, not just potential life on the hospitable planets that must be scattered throughout our Milky Way Galaxy, not just possible life in the other galaxies in our expanding arena of the observable universe, but all life throughout the greater universe. But I didn’t say that because of my respect and awe for what is, and my faith that “what is” is not temporary but is perpetual.

That faith is the beginning of my Pantheism. A respectful acknowledgement and awe that nature has always been there and will always be there in such intricacy that the greater universe will always be home to conscious, self-aware life forms. The result of my Pantheism is the point that I call enlightenment and others call the grand delusion. It is where I attribute characteristics to nature that are supernatural, which I do.

What is the supernatural part to me? It is not the perpetual part and not even the consciousness; it is the predisposition of conscious self-aware life as displayed by Humans on Earth to contemplate the existence of God and to come to a point of deciding for themselves on matters of God and faith. It is that predisposition that I see as a part of our genetic code that is supernatural to me though it can be explained as natural by those who decide to do so. To me it is an intention that has always existed and is imbedded in the very Nature of things.
 
Ah, I see where we diverge.

You covet faith and belief and of course the ultimate repository of such is "goD."

I don't covet faith. I find nature abhors belief and "goD" is of no utility.

Nature is not goD. Nature is itself. goD is not anything.
 
Hi Quantum Wave, do you equate supernatural to the unknown, or what you imagin to be unknowable.

I am yet to expeience a supernatural event in my lifetime, everything is explainable to some degree. I do enjoy learning about biology and I dont see the unexplained as unknowable, I just feel what is unknownc can be known and science is a good way of finding out how it all works. I can understand how consciousness evolved from the organisms that had the ability to respond to light and respond to chemicals in the environment. Never the less Life on earth is amazing and bizzare an amazing machine of nature.

Swarm, you can believe what ever you want. I hope no one forces there beliefs onto you.

Any one read this book?
The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature
by Dr David Suzuki
This scientist is awsome, I love watching nature documentaries.
 
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Harro said:
Hi Quantum Wave, do you equate supernatural to the unknown, or what you imagin to be unknowable.
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No, the unknown is not the same as the supernatural. What I call the supernatural is not that there is life or consciousness. There are a lot of unknowns but there are some pretty good ideas about their nature. I just think that there is intention in the intricacies of nature. That "intention" has always existed just like the universe has always existed. It is supernatural to me that an intention be embedded in nature. Of course everything about this "intention" is non-science, and non-science is a way to describe the supernatural.
I am yet to expeience a supernatural event in my lifetime, everything is explainable to some degree. I do enjoy learning about biology and I dont see the unexplained as unknowable, I just feel what is unknownc can be known and science is a good way of finding out how it all works. I can understand how consciousness evolved from the organisms that had the ability to respond to light and respond to chemicals in the environment. Never the less Life on earth is amazing and bizzare an amazing machine of nature.
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When I consciously decided to recognize the "intention" embedded in nature I began to see the nature of things differently. There is no irrefutable proof of the "intention" but when you decide it is there you have to have personally decided to believe it is there.

I just think that eventually, given enough time and introspection, people contemplate the concept of God. That act of contemplation leaves a quantum impression in our brains. That impression always stays there and so if contemplation leaves a net postive impression it might be called belief. The supernatural part is that conscious self-aware individuals have a predisposition built in their genetic code to contemplate the supernatural and how they respond to that contemplation determines whether or not they believe in the supernatural.

Like Swarm says, "belief" has a repository in God.
 
Enmos said:
I really think he rejects the supernatural. But he has me a bit confused, so..
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I'm not sure if confused is the right word. The quantum impressions that are embedded in his neurons from contemplating the concept of God are not fully formed and sorted out :).
 
quantum_wave said:
I'm not sure if confused is the right word. The quantum impressions that are embedded in his neurons from contemplating the concept of God are not fully formed and sorted out :).
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Well.. I said I was confused though. One minute he says that God is nature, the next he says that God really does exist.
 
Enmos said:
Well.. I said I was confused though. One minute he says that God is nature, the next he says that God really does exist.
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Implying he is confused :). It thought you were just being nice by not saying he seems confused.
 
Read the very first line of the opening thread, im saying god is everything in the cosmos and its all interconnected some how. Im not confused. Most Panthiests get meaning out of life from this and find they are spiritually connected, a possition that thanks nature for giving you life and suporting all the the stuctures and intracacies for letting it happen. From the Cosmos, the universe, the galaxies, the stars, the planet, the plants and animals. It's a position that is suported by science. New knowledge can give new meaning to the "workings of Nature" from a humanitarian and environmentalist point of view.

Its a religion where you get inspired by nature, our environment, mindful of your habitat, connection with others of the human race and many other things that have a relationship with you., if you look deep enough its all interconnected, a chain of events, action and reaction. A possition where your beliefs can change as science and knowledge continue to form new understanding.
 
Harro said:
Read the very first line of the opening thread, im saying god is everything in the cosmos and its all interconnected some how. Im not confused. Most Panthiests get meaning out of life from this and find they are spiritually connected, a possition that thanks nature for giving you life and suporting all the the stuctures and intracacies for letting it happen. From the Cosmos, the universe, the galaxies, the stars, the planet, the plants and animals. It's a position that is suported by science. New knowledge can give new meaning to the "workings of Nature" from a humanitarian and environmentalist point of view.

Its a religion where you get inspired by nature, our environment, mindful of your habitat, connection with others of the human race and many other things that have a relationship with you., if you look deep enough its all interconnected, a chain of events, action and reaction. A possition where your beliefs can change as science and knowledge continue to form new understanding.
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Well, there you go again..
Remove the first sentence from your post I quoted above and tell me how that makes a difference.
 
Naturalism posits that the universe is indifferent to human needs and desires.
That’s why. You do it for your self and you do it for a better earth.
I agree, Idolized supernatural gods are a man made construct of the mind, including other wordly heaven and hell. I’m at no illusions about this.
However the term god predated this belief system. When the stars indicated when to go hunt, what direction must I be going to find my prey, when should I plant my crop? When the term god was a reverence to our connection with nature. When we asked how do we fit into the sceme of things.
SO if god is the creator, and we are created by nature, that would be god, id say.
Any way if the word is abhorent to use leave out the word all together, no skin of my back.
 
From Panthiest Age
Pantheism is the synthesis which transcends both theism and atheism; its major tenet is that the Universe is the ultimate reality and the most worthy object of reverence, while Nature is a sacred manifestation of the Totality, or All-One, in which all things are inseparable components.
http://www.paxdoraunlimited.com/PantheistAge.html
 
Harro, your link and the article about Once and Future World Religion was timely relative to another thread I just read, this thread. It reminded me of our discussion on your thread :). And my post there pertains to my idea about an "intention" that has always existed just like the universe itself has always existed. Predispostion to contemplate the concept of God is not the same thing as predetermination in the philosophical sense or in the mechanical sense. My point is that the idea of "intention" doesn't conflict with either Pantheism or physics. The fact that the location of a quantum particle doesn't exist until it is observed insolates intentional predisposition to contemplate God from the deterministic view that realism would mean predetermination. That is what was tested and reported in the following article.

In this thread there is a link to an article provided by IsThatSo. It is very interesting and the conclusion is that the subject of reality and quantum mechanics currently points to Einstein being wrong about reality at the quantum level, even though no one would say that the moon is not there unless we observe it.

There is strong evidence against local realism where a particle always has location, and in favor of the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. This statement means that there is no reality of location of a quantum particle unless we observe it. Don't be confused and misinterpret that statement. The moon is still there even if we don't observe it, but the quantum particulars are not real, they are probabilities and undetermined until observed.

I hope you can get an idea of what I am talking about. It does get into some areas of uncertainty :).
 
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