Talk:Neo-Pantheism/Temp

The term neo-Pantheism [new-Pantheism (Greek: pan = all, Theos = God)] can be used to title a number of present day renditions of Pantheism. Many of these have their own descriptive adjective such as Scientific Pantheism, Naturalistic Pantheism, Classical Pantheism, Logical Pantheism, New Age Pantheism or Zen Pantheism. Each of these have slightly different perspectives and range from the theistic to atheistic on the spectrum of religious belief. Pantheisms can be categorized as traditional (native), classical (theistic), naturalistic (Spinozian) and contempory (neo-Pantheism). Both Naturalistic Pantheism and neo-Pantheism today include a varieties of beliefs that include theistic (some process theologies), non-theistic (agnostic), atheistic (non-militant) and a hodgepodge of individual outlooks. Pantheism is one of the oldest religious beliefs of mankind preceding Christianity. It has been prevelent in indigeous native people. Taoism and Hinduism have always been somewhat pantheistic. Some of the Greek philosophers were also pantheistic. Zeno (333-BC 264), founder of Stoicism, said “God is not separate from the world; He is the soul of the world, and each of us contains a part of the Divine Fire. All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature…… Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature.” - Russell, 1946 Early Christianity had some pantheistic elements to it (Gnosticism and Gospel of Thomas). These were purged out and many current Christian faiths with the exception of some liberal neo-Christians and process theologians now contest it. Rev. Dix in 1901 wrote - “The denial of the supernatural would appear to involve that conception of the universe commonly known as pantheistic…. it gives the only rational explanation of the universe if Christian dogma be not true. At the same time we insist that it is impossible to reconcile the positions of pantheistic philosophy with the Articles of the Christian Faith….The relation between the neo-pantheist and the readjuster of Christianity is close”. The Catholic Encyclopedia today says – “In forming its conception of God, pantheism eliminates every characteristic that religion presupposes…..and…. The Church has repeatedly condemned the errors of Pantheism……and the Vatican Council anathematizes those who assert that the substance or essence of God and all things is one and the same, or all things evolve from God’s essence.” The modern philosophy of Pantheism begins with Baruch Spinoza in the late seventeeth century and variations since then may be considered new as opposed to ancient Taoism and Gnosticism. However the title neo-Pantheism is currently more applicable to the version being proposed to congeal both ancient and modern, theistic and atheistic, objective and spiritual, viewpoints in to one comprehensive new paradigm. Consequently it is a much broader term than Pantheism in that it is a composite of many prevailing philosophies both pantheistic and otherwise. It also includes Religious Naturalism, Religious Humanism and Spiritual Naturalism. The concepts Spinoza put forth in his ‘Ethics’ still remains the principle narrative for Pantheism today. His work has been said to be “one of the most profound and basic works in all philosophical literature” and “one of the most beautiful philosophical systems ever created”. Spinoza called his treatise “the road to inner freedom”. In it he wrote "God, or substance, consists of infinite attributes, of which each express eternal and infinite essentiality, necessarily exist....Besides God no substance can be granted or conceived....Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived. God is the indwelling, and not the transient cause of all things." – Runes 1957 Historian Will Durant credits Spinoza with significant influence on many philosophers by stating that “It was by combining Spinoza with Kant’s epistemology that Fichte, Schelling and Hegel reached their varied pantheisms; it was from conatus sese perservandi, the effort to preserve one’s self, that Fichte’s’ ‘ Ich’ was born, and Schopenhauser’ ‘will to live’, and Nietzsche’s ‘will to power’ and Bergson’s ‘élan vital’.” Numerous 19th and 20th century philosophers such as John Dewey, George Santayana, Bertrand Russell, and Ayn Rand were probably influenced by Spinoza. Bertrand Russell wrote “ Spinoza (1634-77) is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers, Intellectually, some others have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme… the Jews excommunicated him. Christians abhorred him equally; although his whole philosophy is dominated by the idea of God, the orthodox accused him of atheism”

Durant also credits Spinoza’s Pantheism for influencing the poetry of Goethe, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelly, Tennyson. Spinoza may have inspired some of the American naturalist poets. Mark Twain may have been an admirer. “ I chanced upon Mark Twain's ‘What is Man?’ and was startled to see how many Spinozistic Ideas he expressed—so much so, that I was moved to write this commentary. I was surprised to learn later that no Spinoza books were found in Mark Twain's personal library.”- Joephef Yesselman

Many of the Founding Fathers including Ben Franklin and Jefferson were probably more comfortable with Spinoza’s brand of philosophy and God than that of Christianity. Many of them believed in Deism which in some ways is akin to neo-Pantheism. Author Rebecca Goldstein writes “The Declaration of Independence, that extraordinary document first drafted by Thomas Jefferson, softly echoes Spinoza…….. we can also catch the sound of Spinoza addressing us in Jefferson's appeal to the "laws of nature and of nature's God." This is the language of Spinoza's universalist religion, which makes no reference to revelation, but rather to ethical truths that can be discovered through human reason……. for Spinoza, democracy was the most superior form of government — only democracy can preserve and augment the rights of individuals. “ Spinoza saw God as Nature and divine. God as physical reality rules out the theistic transcendentalism prevailing in most major religions. neo-Pantheism differs in that it proposes that the Earth and the Cosmos are indeed awesome and certainly merit wonder and respect, however they are neither sacred nor divine closing the door to any hint of supernaturalism. Actions are the consequences of innate natural laws, not the caprice of a separate entity. Neo-Pantheism has been categorized as a non-theistic monotheism - a term used by Michael Levin in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The non-theistic portion is humanistic and similar to Naturalistic Pantheism. It is like-minded with many environmentalists and scientists who have a reverence for but godless view of Nature. The monotheism part is akin to traditional Pantheism and in some ways similar in its philosophy to many current liberal religious positions. It postulates a goddess-like essence for the Universe This essence may be seen as either a coherent interpretation of existence or as an unconventional deity embedded in Nature. This deity is neither supernatural nor divine but a product of human spirituality. The choice of viewpoint is up to the individual neo-Pantheist. A non-theistic monotheism is unconventional but not as much a paradox as one might assume. It contains aspects of the various sects of Pantheism, Religious Naturalism, Taoism, Western Hinduism, Bahai, along with the philosophy of Spinoza. neo-Pantheism incorporates some of the thinking of such modern philosophers as Mill, James, Sartre, and Paul Kurtz. Religious Naturalism is a form of neo-Pantheism (or vice versa) which can be defined as - “a pluralistic paradigm that proposes a spiritual/intellectual approach to life devoid of supernatural assumptions. It is religious in that it advocates a sincere subjective interpretation of, feeling for and behavior towards life and the world. Those things considered most important are deemed sacred and respected. It is naturalistic in that it uses objective science, evidential truth and reason to understand what is rather than supernatural explanations, although some proponents maintain a god concept. Some sectors of it may use cultural sources to form like-minded communities. Religious Naturalists find commonality in their ethical values, spiritual development and tolerance for diversity of thought.”.

Both paradigms are pluralistic having very similar tenets and goals. Both can be termed religious or spiritual naturalisms. Neither accepts supernatural explanations for what is. Religious Naturalism like neo-Pantheism is a post-modern concept evolving out of the discussions at the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science that began in the late 1950’s. Ursula Goodenough’s The Sacred Depths of Nature laid out the basics for the philosophy in 2000. A history of Pantheism can be found in Paul Harrison’s Elements of Pantheism. Michael Levin’s Pantheism, a Non-theistic Concept of Deity discusses aspects of the paradigm. Information on neo-Pantheism can be found on several Web sites. A book on neo-Pantheism is planned for release in late 2009. Pantheism is one of the world’s oldest beliefs. It dates back as far as seventh century B.C. A form of it was active in the ancient regions of both the East and West. It had a resurrection in the nineteenth with American philosophers and naturalistic poets. It has been a part of many native tribes. It is undergoing modernization today in a number of internet sites. Neo-Pantheism today is a congealing consilience of this long history of Pantheism.