Skip to main content

Pantheism and Atheism

Great Canyon and RainbowIt is not necessary to think about the Supreme Being as a personal god. Pantheism claims the Universe is God, that God is all that exists.

This does not mean the God of theism is equivalent to the Universe. That would be absurd because Theism clearly distinguish the Creator from Creation.

Pantheistic conceptions are found everywhere in oriental religions.

In occidental tradition, Baruch Spinoza was the philosopher who stood out in defense of Pantheism. Spinoza’s pantheism was a monism of one only substance and many attributes. He believed in some kind of pre-designer Soul who committed suicide in the act of creation of matter.

Some people believe the Universe is some kind of living being.

But the pantheism that interests me, and that can also be interesting to atheists is Naturalistic Pantheism, the one that some call Scientific Pantheism. (I considered this last term an oxymoron).

Naturalistic Pantheism is based in the feeling of awe and amazement that some people feel when contemplating nature:

When scientific pantheists say WE REVERE THE UNIVERSE we are not talking about a supernatural being. We are talking about the way our senses and our emotions force us to respond to the overwhelming mystery and power that surrounds us. [1]


There are even authors famous for their atheism or agnosticism that share this feeling of awe for Nature.

Carl Sagan said:

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. [2]


Also noteworthy are the comments of the radical anti-theist Richard Dawkins:

"I don't think they come much more anti-religious than I do," claims Richard Dawkins. "And yet there are objects and occasions which invoke in me a profound sense of the sacred." He goes on to describe being moved to tears in the presence of the great fossils of palaeo-anthropology in Kenya or of "the strata of geological time laid out before you" at the Grand Canyon.

"The human mind is big enough, and imaginative enough, to be poetically moved by the whole sweep of geological ages represented by the rocks that you are standing among. That's why you feel awe. That's why you feel as though you are undergoing a religious experience."

Dawkins' feeling of 'awe' is echoed by Simon Blackburn. "Despite being an atheist, I find a lot of things arouse a sense of the sacred in me. Works of art or music, sublime grand spectacles in nature, the starry heavens above and the moral law within, the oldest human skulls in Kenya or the newest human baby in a maternity ward can all be fitting objects of different kinds of awe and reverence." [3]


Some people don’t understand pantheism, and discard it lightly, like Schopenhauer did, because they believe it’s superfluous to identify Nature with God. Nevertheless, pantheists consider that their affirmation that the Universe is divine is not superfluous, since de attribute of being divine is clear and distinctive.

Others teach that Pantheism and atheism are compatible based on a definition of atheism as the denial of theism. I consider this definition of atheism as the expression of cultural provincialism that sees religion from the traditional view of Western Christianity, and doesn’t take into account other wider conceptions of spirituality.

I am of the opinion that there are atheists that should stop identifying themselves as such, and should start pronouncing in favor of Pantheism.


See also:




Notes

[1] Scientific Pantheism:
Reverence of Nature and Cosmos.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Cited in Shock and Awe.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Abiogenesis and the atheist's faith

Taken from this forum . Everyone has some faith in an ultimate something that cannot be substantiated solely by physical evidence. Atheists have faith in naturalism alone - their faith is nakedly exposed in topics such as the origin of life or, as they term it, abiogeneis. Abiogenesis is the idea that life originated from non-living matter in the sense that it arose naturalistically. The naturalistic (and therefore “scientific”) concept is that life ("bio") must have originated ("genesis") without ("a-") any outside help. Life, ALL BIOLOGICAL LIFE anywhere in the universe, ultimately either arose naturally or supernaturally. So, ultimately, there are really only two alternatives. With abiogenesis, atheists must ulimately rely upon the "unknown process" of the gaps in contrast to the theists' so called "God of the gaps" argument (a criticism of ID). The reason this explanation is not any better than their own sarcastic carature of Go
1 comment
Read more

The Santa Claus Argument

"There's no reason to believe in God" says the atheist, "there's no evidence of his existence". "But what is the evidence that God does not exist" replies the theist. "Sure you have faith that God does not exist". "I don't have to provide evidence that God does not exist more than the evidence I have to provide to show that Santa does not exist. If you are congruent and reject the existence of Santa you should also reject the existence of God. Where's the proof that Santa does not exist?” Such is a line of reasoning popular among atheists. I call it "the Santa Claus argument". It conveys the idea that God is a fiction character. But what is the basis of this idea? It seems to be based in the idea that God does not exist. But if this is the case, this argument (sic) is question begging, because this is precisely the issue at stake. Some atheists seem to imply that God does not exist because the concept of God is a hu
23 comments
Read more

Dawkins and the Jews

These are old news, but still interesting: Dawkins: Jews Control US Policy (IsraelNN.com) Professor Richard Dawkins, a senior British evolutionary scientist and outspoken atheist, drew fire on Monday for saying that Jews “more or less monopolize American foreign policy.” Religious Jews are a small group, Dawkins said, but are “fantastically successful” in lobbying the US government. Dawkins, who is currently in the US in an attempt to promote atheism and fight religious influence, expressed hope that atheists would be similarly successful in determining government policy. A number of Jewish leaders responded immediately, with ADL head Abe Foxman calling Dawkin’s remarks “classic anti-Semitism.” Malcom Hoenlein, a senior official in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Organizations, was quoted by Yediot Acharonot as saying the statements represented “the poisoning of the elite.” Even top scientists can “demonstrate ignorance and fall victim to misinformation,” said Hoenlein,
1 comment
Read more