I like the idea of Pantheism

[Keith&Co.]

And it does more than a trivial feel-good. It provides a framework of understanding for the totality we all experience.

Sure. But is it a useful framework?

Please empirically demonstrate the existence of "two". What are the properties of two, it's dimensions, mass, location etc. I don't want to waste time with someone's arbitrary fantasy.

Why would that matter?
Part of every logic course is spent on totally arbitrary statements. Every Burble is a Goiff. Every Tenner is a Goiff. Are all Burbles Tenners?
They do that because the rules of logic work to evaluate ideas, even if the ideas are entirely arbitrary fantasies.
We can perceive order and rationally evaluate that order. If, as you say, "We perceive only chaos without the One," then the one is necessary to determine that 2+2=4. Or that Tenners are left-circling Feebles. Or that E=mc2.

So. How is The One necessary to determine that 2+2=4?
How does adding the concept give you a different framework in order to understand 2+2=4, rather than someone who doesn't try to view the universe with The One?

 

[abaddon]

I prefer life with values; it's simply richer.

I think no on here is living without values. They simply think those are too personal/subjective to share, and that they’re able to find a public truth via science and that it’s a pubic, shared truth somehow makes it a truth that trumps all others. To not accept that as sufficient and try to “add” something that is “extra” is “escapism” because all religious people are presumed to be too weak-minded to accept the picture of reality that [they imagine that] science presents (as based on worst-case examples, as Dawkins and other similar anti-religion atheists rely upon to draw their examples of what the great enemy Religion really is at heart).

There’s a hypocrisy there, inasmuch as their own adoption of their truths, regardless of the source, are for “comfort” too as well as other pragmatic uses. This is how humans are, this is what humans do.

I don’t see “we are evolved” as more true than “the earth is sacred”. They can both be true. The one idea is widely taught to us by experts while the other’s not, but that does not make one The Truth and the other just an “extra” tidbit layered on. That’s just an unscientific, indemonstrable opinion (coming, interestingly, from persons with an apparent dismissive attitude toward those).

It’s no wonder it’d look like a dismissal of value and meaning, so if anyone comes here blabbering defensively “but we atheists have meaning!” then they should first consider how dismissive their talk often is regarding values and meaning.

If scientific or naturalistic pantheists find nature is sacred, they want to share what their values are, to invite like-minded individuals who share those values to come join them. They don’t have to prove to everyone that "sacred" is a fact embedded in the fabric of reality unless they say that it is (and they have expressly said otherwise). So arguing against it is just yet more “my values trump yours!” arguments.

Like I said in my first post, the obsession among most atheists is with metaphysics. They want you to say funny-sounding "woo" things so they can tell you how heretical (unscientific) it is. So if the OP intended a discussion of naturalistic pantheism, as I’m betting he probably did, then the derail isn’t that No Robots introduced panpsychism but rather that atheists derailed it by imagining it had to do with “woo” imaginations that defy their so-called “scientific” worldview, rather than a matter of seeking one’s truths and happiness and chance to do some good in the world.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Could it be reconciled with atheism? My biggest hangup is all the suffering in the world.

Yes. Pantheism just equates the naturalistic universe with god. I like it as well. A pantheistic god is just the laws of nature. So it's not actually going to do anything to stop anything. So I'm not sure how the suffering in the world is a problem for a pantheistic type faith?

A pantheistic friend of mine define his faith as getting together with a group of friends and thinking the universe is awesome. Preferably over some beers. It's just worshipping the universe and treating it as holy because it feels good to do so. I do think ritual and sacredness is good for us.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Like I said in my first post, the obsession among most atheists is with metaphysics. They want you to say funny-sounding "woo" things so they can tell you how heretical (unscientific) it is. So if the OP intended a discussion of naturalistic pantheism, as I’m betting he probably did, then the derail isn’t that No Robots introduced panpsychism but rather that atheists derailed it by imagining it had to do with “woo” imaginations that defy their so-called “scientific” worldview, rather than a matter of seeking one’s truths and happiness and chance to do some good in the world.

You really think atheists haven't thought about this? Also you appear to be implying that we can't be "good" or have happiness without whatever vague philosophy you're proposing. Whatever you have said so far has been extremely vague.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Sure. But is it a useful framework?

Please empirically demonstrate the existence of "two". What are the properties of two, it's dimensions, mass, location etc. I don't want to waste time with someone's arbitrary fantasy.

Why would that matter?
Part of every logic course is spent on totally arbitrary statements. Every Burble is a Goiff. Every Tenner is a Goiff. Are all Burbles Tenners?
They do that because the rules of logic work to evaluate ideas, even if the ideas are entirely arbitrary fantasies.
We can perceive order and rationally evaluate that order. If, as you say, "We perceive only chaos without the One," then the one is necessary to determine that 2+2=4. Or that Tenners are left-circling Feebles. Or that E=mc2.

So. How is The One necessary to determine that 2+2=4?
How does adding the concept give you a different framework in order to understand 2+2=4, rather than someone who doesn't try to view the universe with The One?

You're dismissing the question. What difference does it make if 2+2=4 if there is no one? Logic is equally dependent on intelligibilty.

 

[abaddon]

You really think atheists haven't thought about this?

Which atheists? All the atheists of the world? Or a few here?

Two responses in this thread looked like surprise at scientific or naturalistic pantheism when I talked about it. So yeah, I think they didn't think about it. Anti-theists tend to see christianity lurking under every religious topic, so they "project from their heads" all kinds of shit whenever religion is discussed. There are a great many things that atheists haven't thought about.

Also you appear to be implying that we can't be "good" or have happiness without whatever vague philosophy you're proposing.

No, I didn't imply that at all. The bit you quoted isn't so vague it cannot have been understood better than that. I've re-read it several times, and I'm sure now you're just reacting defensively to a perceived attack upon all atheists. I'm atheist, and am opposed to the “one way of thinking” kind of thinking that you think I’m thinking.

And I don't think I'm proposing any philosophy...

Maybe from now on if we just determine what the topic is and discuss it only, then it'd be easier for me to be clear? I think my descriptions of scientific pantheism weren't so vague as my own reaction against what I view as ideological propaganda (the misrepresentations by anti-theists to make the OP's topic seem something not worth being genuinely curious about, and then the "but that ain't science" stuff).