I think most atheists would "in the root sense" consider themselves technically agnostic, since we cannot disprove God. However, most atheists think that, given current scientific knowledge, the probability of God existing is so grotesquely small that they might as well just say they're atheists and have done with it.

Yep, most atheists are "weak atheists", they wont state they know gods dont exist as in "strong atheism", just that the chances of there actually being a god are bloody small.

my mistake then ... the great length you went to reconcile the two must have confused me.

do you mean there is no fundamental clash between theism & pantheism ??
based on the definitions i've read, they have absolutely nothing in common except for one little word : god.

what do you think of dawkins' view that pantheism is just sexed-up atheism ?

I would say that, and I would even say that there is no fundamental clash between moderate theism and atheism. Obviously, the fundamentalists believe in an entirely different kind of God, but your average intelligent theist's view of God is so abstract that it can very well be described by the Pantheistic model.

If you can't see the similarities, I guess there are two options. Either you simply don't understand what God is to theists, or I haven't described Pantheism well enough. For me, it's pretty clear that it's not the word God that we have in common, but the idea, and that is a very fundamental similarity.

It's arrogant, like most of the stuff that comes from him. He could just as well have said that Buddhism and Hinduism are sexed-up atheism, and even Judaism that certainly does not talk about God in the sense that he understands it (though I doubt he has actually done much research on the subject). Actually, even the original Christians were called Atheists at the time, because they didn't believe in any tangible 'gods' (remember, the gods people believed in at the time had human forms and personalities) but rather in a single force guiding the universe. Aristotle was called an Atheist, but he firmly believed in an 'unmoved mover'.

It all comes up to definitions at this point. Atheism is defined as

"The belief that God does not exist."

That is a very vague definition, since the word God is too abstract to be easily defined. It's nearly impossible to even discuss the existence of something like God (on a similar note, does the Mandelbrot set exist? Does consciousness exist? ). From his speeches and books, it seems to me like Dawkins pretty much goes with the fundamentalist view of God, that He is some sort of an invisible friend in the sky. Defined thus, he is right in saying that the Pantheists have the same view.

So, you could twist words around and call Pantheism 'sexed-up atheism', but I could just as well call Atheism 'dumbed-down pantheism', but I am not going to, because then I would be playing the same game as Dawkins.

i can't put myself in a theist's mind so i have to rely on commonly accepted definitions (1, 2) and those definitions usually associate theism with a personal god with a concrete influence on the world by opposition to the non-personal god of the deists and the abstract, metaphorical god of the pantheists.

Either "your average intelligent theist" isn't really a theist after all or the commonly accepted definition of theism is wrong and should be redefined.

The definition seems to be somewhat vague. I don't understand what 'personal God' even means. The wikipedia article on the subject begins with "The phrase personal God is religious term used far more often by laypeople than by theologians due to its numerous connotations."

If by personal you mean 'having a personality that is to some extent human-like', then this belief is said in the bible to be sinful.

If you mean 'having a personal meaning to people, being the subject of love, prayer and worship' then I would say that the God of Pantheism, as opposed to the God of Deism, is personal. I don't think that there exists a greater love than the love of existence itself, so it makes perfect sense to love and worship God. Prayer, of course, is not strictly speaking heard, but is more like targeted meditation, which can lead to better understanding of yourself and the world, and has therapeutic value.

Do i have to justify disbelieving in some something that is ill defined? You believe in Smrakles? (not at all defined)

I would not call pantheism is just a sexed up atheism, but it might be for some. It currently looks like atheism with the word 'god' slapped on universe to me.
What i said about point 5 is perhaps not really criticism.
IMO As i talked in that limits of consciousness thread, you cannot prove that someone is conscious. I think I am conscious because i perceive myself, and i think others conscious because of the similarities. I do not see these similarities in the universe as a whole considering what i know. The motions of stars/the planets, the gas in my room just does not show any kind of activity i relate to consciousness.
There is an argument for the universe containing having consciousness in some way, but it is based on uniformity of physics(thus no divine intervention). It is the idea that self-perception must have some source, and uniformity of physics forbids any kind of locality, like a connection to a specific brain. Perhaps there is a form of consciousness in the universe based on subjectivity of probability and/or quantum mechanics. (although i am grasping for straws, as i have no real reason to argue it would be either of those)
I would still be very held back about calling the universe with consciousness attributed 'god'. Maybe the idea of god as a deity is too deeply ingrained.

How can nr6 not be a core of pantheism? It is the only one separating something that could be called 'god' from something that can only really be called universe.

the following formulas explain the world of science and humans perfectly:
A=a
B=b
C=c

A=B
B=C
C != a

I... Don't quite understand what you mean here. Mathematical equality (as well as logical equivalence, if that's what you mean) is transitive and symmetric. Unless you meant implication (=>), which isn't symmetric, I have no idea what you're talking about.

what i ment is, people say x=y, and then some one else says y=q and them the news says q=t, but anyone can tell that t isnot equal to x. which I take to mean that things cannot be totally converted into something else, something is always lost.

We find x, and then find y using x, then find q using x, then find t using q, and you would think you could find x with t, but you can't. We need to rethink out math system(for high energy problems), the uncertainty principle could be interpreted to mean that x != x, that would make high energy physics more palatable, but more confusing.

It may seem obvious but why does 16 always equal 16? why not 17 or 15? This may not make sense to you, but think on it, and tell me what you think.

@SenixMarcoviAhaa: You are not making the slightest sense. Either you are an idiot, and really do not know shit, or you have studied math/physics, and are genuinely talking about some new approach.
If it is the latter, I have not the slightest idea how you thought introducing this idea this way was a good idea that would actually convey a message.(so i am guessing brainfart? everyone makes mistakes..)
BS, you can explain everything in science with 6 sentences?

The math is still valid under given axioms. You could be saying that this used in physics is an approximation that we will have to eventually give up. (in fact i someone on socialdicussion posted something like letting go of normal logic for QM, i am planning to read more about that at some point)

The operator = is usually used as equivalence relation.
Definition equivalence relation: function from A x A to boolean, which i will denote x=y such that:
(a=b) => (b=a)
((a=b) and (b=c)) => (a=c)
In what you are talking about implies it is not an equivalence relation. But then again, we do not even know what set those elements are in..

I'm not really sure how to explain what I stated earlier any clearer. I've never been any good at describing things, but I'll give it another try.

What I was trying to state is that, at points, one may not always equal one because the units that we measure things in are not constant.

(Is => how you would state that things are not equal in regular mathematics? All that I have ever seen was the equal sign with the slash or the equal sign with the question mark over it to mean questionable. Since I couldn't type either of those with my computer I borrowed '!=' from code, because '!' means not. Sorry if that isn't the way you write it on a computer...)

No. => or -> is an arrow from left to right, meaning implication (conditional, 'if statement' if you will). 'A => B' means 'A implies B' or 'B if A' or 'A only if B'.

Congratulations, you've discovered a tautology.

Well, yes, any action capable of being performed in the universe is capable of being performed in the universe. Another tautology. You've done nothing but relabeled the universe "god".

Yes, of course, the universe is a complete subset of the universe Your philosophy thus far is essentially a bunch of tautological statements that you call god.

Same.

This is the only non-tautological statement you've made after your initial redefinition. As such, it's the only thing really worth discussing in any manner.

Now, you say you've had prophetic dreams and those "prove" to you that there is a conscious god and you're part of it. I shall point you at Star Wars for your mystical all-powerful being connecting all living things (or for something a little more modern, U-DO in Xenosaga, though you likely wouldn't care for the Nietzschean flavor of that series) and a psychology textbooks so you can learn that dreams officially mean squat.

Got any real proof?

JoshJ: I don't think that you understand the purpose of these tautologies. They are not meant to point of any non-obvious facts, merely illustrate why calling the universe God is not a mislabel, since it possesses all the attributes required to be called God. I can't come up with a better definition of God than this set of attributes. What these statements essentially prove is that the universe is God according to the definition of God, and that there cannot be a God other than the universe by that same definition (uniqueness).


First of all, I have explicitly stated that this particular aspect of my belief is a belief alone. I make no attempts at proving it to anyone, because I have no empirical evidence for it. Believe me, I've read plenty of psychology and neuroscience textbooks (I prefer to get my information from there rather than Xenosaga) and I am very familiar with the current psychological understanding of dreams, both Freudian and Jungian. The dreams that I am talking about have made specific predictions about strange events that happened in my life shortly following them.

Aside from the debate here, I just wanted to thank you, Ilya, for starting this thread. More specifically, I wanted to thank you for posting the Swami Vivekananda. It was a great read, and while I didn't believe everything written, it helped me to better question and understand my beliefs.

Thanks again

Thanks for sharing Ilya. I don't have any issues with your original post, and I'm a kjb believer in Jesus. Which makes it interesting because I completely disagree with these Biblical scholars you refer to. Most 'think' they know so much they can't read or comprehend plain english that's meant to be taken literally.

Measurement is no problem of mathematics. If it is a problem in discussion people can bring it up so it does not sound a problem there. High energy physics does not exactly have much to do with the thread. And do you know shit about high-energy physics, anyway? I am a physics student, and i think i know only little, really.. Maybe you should consider wether the idea is not really just hot air, no offence. (I have plenty of hot-air ideas, i would not get anywhere if i stuck to them)

Ok, the universe does have some similarities to how god is defined. But this does not mean i treat it differently. I certainly do not talk about the universe the way theists talk about god.
I think there is still a big difference in how theists think about god, and about how i think about the universe. I think moderate theists do assign more attributes to god then your points minus number 6. (although i would not know any more then adding nr six.)

Of course there is a difference in the way people think about God, and that's ok. The point is that the theists and atheists are thinking the same Being (using the philosophical definition of it, not synonymous to 'creature'). Everyone picks the metaphor for reality that suits them better, and there is nothing wrong with that. For example, there is nothing wrong with Shakespeare thinking about, describing and understanding love differently from, say, Freud or a modern neurobiologist. It's still the same thing they are talking about, but seen from an entirely different perspective. It's even possible for a single person to have two seemingly contradicting views about reality both being present in his brain.

For me the concept of god is so awesome it's beyond comprehension. As humans, we try to break god down into bite-size pieces, giving god this definition or that characteristic. But we are all speaking of the same thing.