Pantheism and Panentheism

[nativeastral]

Path, you seem effortlessly to be able to convey these paradoxes as non contradictory and completely 'natural' or complementary [therefore not safeguarding the exclusivity of theism which has to maintain a somewhat impassible duality in demarcating and thereby negating any real notion of monism or unity in being].. the mark of a mystic or poet who can both dissolve and highlight differentiation, even simultaneously; a quantum effect that can now can be incorporated into all this 'mystery' [read absolute timeless eternal and infinite unknowabilty!] which really is the power of NOW and not some far off distant possibility or probability of a perfection that we have put on a pedestal never to attain [good carrot and stick method for a while though].

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

Well, these are two different propositions.

I would say the basic proposition of panentheism is that it is a modification of pantheism. That's how it came about, it seems to me? Since then, there have been various theories.

Originally Posted by path_of_one

The latter (that change in the universe reflects or is reflected in change in God) seems to me to be a problem of thinking time operates linearly for everyone in the multiverse, including God. I think that is faulty philosophizing, based in limitations of the human perspective.

I agree. The basic issue, it seems to me, is that it presupposes a contiguity between Creator and creation, some order of co-essentiality, which therefore supposes that each conditions the other.

Originally Posted by path_of_one

There is no "real" separation of God from everything (that does not mean there is no God beyond everything, but that nothing exists outside of God, which means that everything's divine connection and essence is intrinsic to it, but by virtue of this being within Being).

I don't agree. If there is a God beyond everything, and the God beyond everything lacks for nothing, then there certainly is a distinction between God and everything (else) because everything (else) possesses none of the qualities that God does.

This brings us back to contiguity: A divine connection with everything, which I read as God's Immanence in creation, does not presuppose a divine essence of everything. If everything is intrinsically divine, then how can it not know its own divinity, if a marker of the divine is that which lacks for nothing, and is subject to not condition nor determination?

That God is immanently present in and to things does not adequately infer the assumption that things are divine by essence and nature — in fact I read it as quite the opposite — by being immanent presupposes a distinction of essence and nature — that the apprehending nature perceives something other than itself.

Separation is a whole other issue, to do with the ontology of freedom.

Originally Posted by path_of_one

So, the idea of intrinsic divine nature becomes a bit odd altogether, as it is grounded in this idea of false separation of God from everything else (and the Western categorical dichotomy of nature vs. supernatural).

I disagree. I think you're reading too much into nature v supernature. One could define nature as that which is accessible to the senses, and the supernatural as that which is accessible to the intellect.

And I think you're inferring too much by inferring 'separation' to a theist doctrine. It's certainly not in the Latin or Greek mode of thinking. Nor does not separation infer contiguity. So I'm afraid I think the idea of separation is false, if you're assuming that's what the Christian West thinks.

Originally Posted by path_of_one

I think God is the prime mover - that God is the evolution and change, not that God evolves or changes.

I'm not sure. Does that render the individual as non-participant? God is the cause of evolution and change, the calling ... but is does not change.

One of the major distinctions between Catholic/Orthodox and Protestant theologies is the idea of individual freedom, responsibility and participation. It's a given in Catholic/Orthodox theology that the 'yes' of the individual is paramount; without that yes there is no love, only obligation; no free act, only predetermination; the individual will is not-participant, and immaterial, and eventually freedom is reduced to nothing. (This is the basis of C/O Marian theology, by the way, which its critics refute without understanding.)

So God is the cause of change, but God is passive in the sense that God works by invitation, not by coercion. Man is free at any point to say 'No' and cease to participate in the divine life.

One thing to realise is theosis, divinisation, is not something that happens as the end result of a good and ascetic life ... it is an ongoing process from the very start, and proceeds by degree, but not, as you point out above, in a strictly linear manner (linearism is itself an artificial concept with few referrants in nature, I rather spirals ... )

So from the very beginning one participate in the Divine Life, or not, by degree; some along the interface, as it were, some heading deeper in, others ever further away ...

Originally Posted by path_of_one

That is, I embrace a paradox in which God simultaneously evolves/changes through the divine essence unfolding in manifest reality (creation, the multiverse, whatever you want to call it) but that everything that ever was, is, and will be also has always existed within God.

Sorry, but I think that paradox derives from contradictory axioms, rather than the Mystery of the Divine Nature.

Originally Posted by path_of_one

From the vantage point of me as a human being, as a living being, I can see myself changing and the divine within me unfolding.

But that's you ... in fact in many ways its very Christian, as 'we' are not divine, but the divine indwells in us.

What 'unfolds' does not evolve, nor change, as a flower unfolds, the unfolding is in fact a revealing, and again I would say that this process is ongoing, a stripping away of veils, and the world and its contents, and all its being, is a veil ...

Thomas

[Tao_Equus]

Thomas,

My apology for taking such time to respond to you but as you may have noticed I have not been particularly active here of late. I still have little time and resist being drawn into making an extended post to address all your questions, nor, and I make no apology for this, clarify any of my assertions. If you want to find your self-contradictions go find them for yourself. You have sufficient dissectionary skills to do so.

As for limiting my concept of space time in a physical volume I do not. My mind tries hard to encompass the implications of yet little understood areas such as the quantum reality and string theory. How could I be trying to encompass those and limit myself to the three dimensions of standard geometric space. But my statement remains true. Even whole new systems of laws that we are not even aware of require what is best described as a space. Indeed as I understand it one dimensional space still has its laws. My mind, that of an uneducated malcontent from a poor suburb of Edinburgh, does as good a job as it can of trying to grasp what the current best theory, 11 dimensions, implies on what we perceive as reality. As I see it it is still all theory though Thomas. Perhaps I kid myself a bit that I get it but I have been looking at it relentlessly since I was a kid. Maybe I do 'get it' as best that I can. That best is ever open to improvement however. I believe in progress, tomorrow and its possibilities.

[nativeastral]

found these talks by Thomas J. McFarlane for those too lazy to read relevant to these discussions and interesting in their own right.



"Logos and the New Worldview" (Thomas J. McFarlane, Sunday Talk, Center for Sacred Sciences, Eugene, Oregon, 22 June 2003). [audio mp3, 68 min. 7.7 MB]
"Pointing to Infinity" (Center for Sacred Sciences, Eugene, Oregon, 28 June 2009). [audio mp3, 59 min. 13.4 MB].
"Beyond Theories" (Center for Sacred Sciences, Eugene, Oregon, 11 January 2004). [audio mp3, 46 min. 5.2 MB].

[Netti-Netti]

Originally Posted by dauer

And I'm in complete agreement with you. As I stated, I only believe that this explanation may be the case. It has little to do with my lived reality. It was more or less stated to prevent Thomas from countering that the line of reasoning I was pursuing could be said to apply to panentheism itself. Certainly it could. I have no objection to that.

ok. I was just agreeing with your train of thought and elaborating a bit.

I think that panentheism better preserves all of the othering dynamics between man and God which are in many cases the most accessible way to relate to the Divine. That is to say, I think it preserves the possibility for the most subjective and personal ways of connecting to God.

I think it also helps us make sense of evolution of the physical universe, which may be a symbol for the evolution of the soul.

o be clear, I just stated that belief in the truth of God's existence as more/less than a psychological construct seems like a lot of unnecessary commentary to me.

It can be distracting if it's an attempt to oversimplify. On the other and, some of the language is helpful in updating some of the obtuse Biblical language, which I've always had a hard time with.

[dauer]

Originally Posted by N-N

It can be distracting if it's an attempt to oversimplify. On the other and, some of the language is helpful in updating some of the obtuse Biblical language, which I've always had a hard time with.

That seems like a separate issue to me, unrelated to my issue with assertions that one theological proposition or another is true in some absolute or constant sense.

[shawn]

Those of the christian persuasion tend to accept that there is this gulf of separation between God and man, and so can not accept the idea that God is One with His creation, in any way shape or form.
To do so would undermine every major aspect of their belief structure, so one will get constant disagreement in such debates....it is to be anticipated.

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

Pan-entheism is a variation on traditional theism. I thought Druidity was pantheistic (G-d= nature) or at least not theistic in sense these of having a Creator g-d who transcends nature.

As far as research has illustrated, the ancient Druids were polytheistic with an established priesthood. The gods and goddesses were associated with nature but were not nature itself. It was a theistic system similar to the pantheon of the Romans, Greeks, Maya, and other polytheist systems in which the divine entities govern certain aspects of nature and/or life.

Modern Druidry has no single doctrine on the nature of the divine. There are pantheist, panentheist, atheist, monotheist, monist, polytheist, etc. Druids. I don't meet two many duotheist (this seems to be more Wiccan) but there are DruidCraft people who are both Wiccan and Druid, so I guess it's possible. Since most of the modern Druid orders are initiatory orders for spiritual development but few are churches (ADF is the one exception I can think of off the top of my head), the emphasis in most modern Druidic groups is on discussion, openness, and individual exploration in a supportive environment. Practice is something that is generally created from diverse sources within small groups or as a solitary practitioner. Most Druids are also rather into the intellectual or philosophical side of religion and read rather extensively about shamanic, mystical, Western Mystery, witchcraft, magic, and other associated stuff... most Druids I know studied another religion or two in depth before ending up in Druidry.

The order I belong to, the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD) explains the basics of what holds folks together in that flavor of modern Druidry at www.druidry.org. It has a wide variety of good introductory materials and a Druidic forum if anyone is curious about the details. Most areas of the forum are open to non-members.

Hope that helps!

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

Path. You, are soooo good at coherent writing. I'm jealous. (^_^)
But I agree with what you say, and find it along the same lines as my thoughts. Just much less jumbled, and infinitely more eloquent, lol.

Aw, thanks. I try to be coherent- sometimes I miss that train, though. LOL No one sees the posts I just delete before I post them.

It does seem that your thoughts differ from my (meager) research into panentheism.
Differ in a good way, as far as I'm concerned...

What more can I say? Brava! Lol.

I think because panentheism is not a very concisely defined "belief system," but rather a vague catch-all, it's just as likely your research is correct. I just have no other word by which to describe my beliefs, and since people from a variety of traditions as well as various scholars I know have told me "you are panentheist," I figured I'd use the term to describe my beliefs.

As we can see in this thread, it means a lot of different things to different people. I guess we should coin a bunch of new "isms" and make a name for our collective self!

More later... out of time at the present.

[immortalitylost]

Originally Posted by Thomas

If there is a God beyond everything, and the God beyond everything lacks for nothing, then there certainly is a distinction between God and everything (else) because everything (else) possesses none of the qualities that God does.

Aww... And I don't agree with you again. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I enjoy being agreeable, lol.

You see, my dissension lies in the distinction bit. Kind of...

It's complicated.

If God is perfect, and complete, then he holds all possibilities within himself. This created world is part of those possibilities. If everything in this world were not a part of God, he would not be complete. He would not hold all possibility. But simply being a part of God doesn't mean that this physical reality would change him by changing. After all, why would it? It is, always was, and always will be, part of God, every change would be just another possibility within God, and because God is beyond time, all changes in time would be present in God at all times. Even before time existed.

That poses an interesting question. If God is beyond time, how could he have a beginning? How can one have a beginning without time? How could there be a before time, come to think of it... It's mind boggling to think of existence without time... hurts my brain to try, lol, but that's something else all together.

Now, even if we are distinct and separate entities from God, we're still swimming around in his fish bowl, as it were, which must, by God's very nature be a part of him, as must we, because of the very idea that he is complete, holding all possibility. We are all, and this universe is all, just a number of possibilities within God.

Everything in the created world does posses qualities of God, as God himself encompasses all qualities to be had. It's just that everything else (physical world) doesn't posses all of the qualities of God. It also doesn't collectively, represent the consciousness of God.

Everything isa possibility within God, and God is connected to everything because he encompasses all, but everything is not God, as in holding all or part of the consciousness of God in every bit.

Just some things I've been rolling around in my head, and want to throw out to the sounding board... I wonder what everyone will make of it.

Originally Posted by Thomas

This brings us back to contiguity: A divine connection with everything, which I read as God's Immanence in creation, does not presuppose a divine essence of everything. If everything is intrinsically divine, then how can it not know its own divinity, if a marker of the divine is that which lacks for nothing, and is subject to not condition nor determination?

That God is immanently present in and to things does not adequately infer the assumption that things are divine by essence and nature — in fact I read it as quite the opposite — by being immanent presupposes a distinction of essence and nature — that the apprehending nature perceives something other than itself.

And I agree with you again. All but the distinction bit. Everything is a part of God, as God holds within himself all possibility, therefore there is and is not a distinction between God and nature. Nature is a possibility within God, therefore actually a part of God, and yet, within nature there are a vastly inadequate number of the aspects of God for God and Nature to be one and the same, or even close.

So nature is a part of God. A small part. But all of nature is not all of God. And nature, being a part of God since before it's creation, cannot in any way change God. God may consciously present himself in nature, but this doesn't mean that nature is made up of the full consciousness of God. Or that it intrinsically holds a piece of that consciousness.

Originally Posted by Thomas

I'm not sure. Does that render the individual as non-participant? God is the cause of evolution and change, the calling ... but is does not change.

One of the major distinctions between Catholic/Orthodox and Protestant theologies is the idea of individual freedom, responsibility and participation. It's a given in Catholic/Orthodox theology that the 'yes' of the individual is paramount; without that yes there is no love, only obligation; no free act, only predetermination; the individual will is not-participant, and immaterial, and eventually freedom is reduced to nothing. (This is the basis of C/O Marian theology, by the way, which its critics refute without understanding.)

So God is the cause of change, but God is passive in the sense that God works by invitation, not by coercion. Man is free at any point to say 'No' and cease to participate in the divine life.

One thing to realise is theosis, divinisation, is not something that happens as the end result of a good and ascetic life ... it is an ongoing process from the very start, and proceeds by degree, but not, as you point out above, in a strictly linear manner (linearism is itself an artificial concept with few referrants in nature, I rather spirals ... )

So from the very beginning one participate in the Divine Life, or not, by degree; some along the interface, as it were, some heading deeper in, others ever further away ...

If all of creation, including man, is a part of the infinite possibilities that God holds within himself, all a part of God, but none all of God, and God, out of time, knows all in his omniscience, and because man is part of him, then we have both full free will and none at all. God created Man knowing all of mankind completely, from beginning to end simultaneously, from his position out of time. God knows all of our fates, and since we were a part of the infinite possibilities of God, even before we were created, he knew our fates before we were created. And he, knowing this, still created us regardless of what he knew we would do.

But since we do not know our fates, and we do not know ourselves as completely as God, we must use our free will to guide our own paths. We make the decisions, and they have real consequences. We are in time. God is beyond it. It does not matter from our position in time that our fate is already sealed, because we cannot know what it is. We make decisions based on our will. God knows what those decisions will lead to. God created us knowing what their ultimate end would be. He doesn't manipulates us into following a certain path, and doesn't necessarily even guide us, but by events that were set before time began. We choose which actions to take with full use of our free will. But our actions will invariably lead us to our fate, and all through our own choosing. And we have no idea what that fate may be. But God does, because we were a possibility that he held and still holds, before our creation.

And he also holds the possibilities of every alternate reality and every decision and consequence in all to them. After all, if there are multiple realities where we are going through every possible outcome of every possible action and consequence and event that could ever possibly happen, well, we're everything then, from saints to sinners, to aborted babies, to beggars, to rock stars. That's right. Somewhere, in some part of the multiverse, you are a rockstar! And so am I!

Ok... there are my thoughts on free will vs. predestination and other more... random subjects. And if that's not paradoxical thinking, then I am and am not simultaneously, a duck!

Originally Posted by Thomas

What 'unfolds' does not evolve, nor change, as a flower unfolds, the unfolding is in fact a revealing, and again I would say that this process is ongoing, a stripping away of veils, and the world and its contents, and all its being, is a veil ...

Yup, we're all pulling away veils to reveal our fate, with every thought and action, we walk the only path that we can. We are all possibilities in God, and our actions cannot change him or our fate. It is sealed by our very choices.

Originally Posted by path_of_one

I guess we should coin a bunch of new "isms" and make a name for our collective self!

I'm lazy. I'll just call mine The Ism.

Lol, TheIsm, classic!

Wow... long post... I apologize for any eye strain that may occur during the reading of this post. Sorry!

[Avi]

A few additional thoughts on Spinoza:

Quote SEP:
Is Spinoza, then, a pantheist? Any adequate analysis of Spinoza's identification of God and Nature will show clearly that Spinoza cannot be a pantheist in the second, immanentist sense. For Spinoza, there is nothing but Nature and its attributes and modes. And within Nature there can certainly be nothing that is supernatural. If Spinoza is seeking to eliminate anything, it is that which is above or beyond nature, which escapes the laws and processes of nature. But is he a pantheist in the first, reductive sense?

Somehow I have a feeling not.

The issue of whether God is to be identified with the whole of Nature (i.e., Natura naturans and Natura naturata) or only a part of Nature (i.e., Natura naturans alone), which has occupied a good deal of the recent literature, might be seen as crucial to the question of Spinoza's alleged pantheism. After all, if pantheism is the view that God is everything, then Spinoza is a pantheist only if he identifies God with all of Nature. Indeed, this is exactly how the issue is often framed. Both those who believe that Spinoza is a pantheist and those who believe that he is not a pantheist focus on the question of whether God is to be identified with the whole of Nature, including the infinite and finite modes of Natura naturata, or only with substance and attributes (Natura naturans) but not the modes.

Thus, it has been argued that Spinoza is not a pantheist, because God is to be identified only with substance and its attributes, the most universal, active causal principles of Nature, and not with any modes of substance.

Now we're talking.

Other scholars have argued that Spinoza is a pantheist, just because he does identify God with the whole of nature.

Err, can't we make up our minds here folks !!

However, this debate about the extent of Spinoza's identification of God with Nature is not really to the point when the question is about Spinoza's alleged pantheism.

I love when they tell us what the discussion is not about.

To be sure, if by ‘pantheism’ is meant the idea that God is everything, and if one reads Spinoza as saying that God is only Natura naturans, then Spinoza's God is not everything and consequently he is not a pantheist, at least in the ordinary sense.

That is what I thought.

Finite things, on this reading, while caused by the eternal, necessary and active aspects of Nature, are not identical with God or substance, but rather are its effects.

But this is not the interesting sense in which Spinoza is not a pantheist.

Okay.....

For even if Spinoza does indeed identify God with the whole of Nature, it does not follow that Spinoza is a pantheist.

Ha ???

The real issue is not what is the proper reading of the metaphysics of Spinoza's conception of God and its relationship to finite modes.

Again, telling us what the article is not about !!

On either interpretation, Spinoza's move is a naturalistic and reductive one. God is identical either with all of Nature or with only a part of Nature; for this reason, Spinoza shares something with the reductive pantheist. But and this is the important point—even the atheist can, without too much difficulty, admit that God is nothing but Nature. Reductive pantheism and atheism maintain extensionally equivalent ontologies.

So was Spinoza an atheist .......


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/

[Eudaimonist]

Originally Posted by Avi

So was Spinoza an atheist .......

If having an ontology indistinguishable from that of an atheist makes one an atheist, then yes.

If insisting that the universe is God makes one a theist, then no.

Tough call.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

If God is perfect, and complete, then he holds all possibilities within himself.

Yes ... the possibility of every other mode of being — not the possibilities of His own way of being — there is only one way of Being for God, for God is One, Absolute and Infinite, so there is no way of being God other than as God is.

So every possibility that exists in God is the possibility of being other than God.

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

This created world is part of those possibilities.

Precisely ... so it is not God.

But be careful of 'part' ... as the All-Possible is not a composite of everything than can be ... rather the principle by which all things are brought into being.

The created world is the realisation of a given possibility, just one possibility amongst all other possibilities ... the non-existence of this world is another and equal possibility — so there's a contradiction: if God needs the world to exist to be perfect, God also needs the world not to exist to be perfect ... ?

So the premise must be wrong. God does not need the world, nor not need the world ...

If the actualisation of a possibility were necessary for God's perfection, then God would have to actualise everything, everywhere, all at once, in which everything would be negated by its opposite/contrary ...

It would also assume God is a composite, something made up of the total number of things, which God is not.

+++

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

If everything in this world were not a part of God, he would not be complete.

I would say you're determining God by the nature of things, rather than determining the nature of things according to God. You're making God's perfection dependent upon things, rather than the perfection of things dependent upon God.

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

But simply being a part of God doesn't mean that this physical reality would change him by changing.

Then how is the world part of God, and yet God not part of the world?

More importantly, God is not composed of 'parts', God is not a composite.

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

That poses an interesting question. If God is beyond time, how could he have a beginning? How can one have a beginning without time? How could there be a before time, come to think of it... It's mind boggling to think of existence without time... hurts my brain to try, lol, but that's something else all together.

Not really, it's absolutely fundamental. God is not subject to temporal conditioning, only created nature is subject to time and space, the necessary complement, and couplement, of its finitude. The problem here is in allowing oneself to be 'boggled', one fails to locate the core of the question. In all this, you're determining the nature of the Infinite according to finite categories.

God does not have a beginning nor an end because there is no succession, no movement, no time nor space, in God.

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

Now, even if we are distinct and separate entities from God, we're still swimming around in his fish bowl, as it were, which must, by God's very nature be a part of him, as must we, because of the very idea that he is complete, holding all possibility. We are all, and this universe is all, just a number of possibilities within God.

You're confusing possibility with essence. What you're saying is that God can only create things out of Himself, God cannot create ex nihilo ... which is a limitation upon God, and treats God as some kind of primordial material, a substance or substrate from which all things are made.

So that is a limitation on God, and if God is limited, then it's not the God of the philosophers, not the metaphysicians, nor the God of the orthodox Christian Traditions (I think the Mormons believe that God exists as a material being somewhere on the edge of the universe?)

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

Everything in the created world does posses qualities of God, as God himself encompasses all qualities to be had.

Actually no ... all virtues, yes, but not all qualities, as some qualities are negative and thus have no essential being.

Then again, virtue exists apart from human nature, else humans could not help but be virtuous. So virtue might be a quality possessed by both you and God, but God is beyond all virtues, and you might not possess that virtue tomorrow, every spritiual discipline warns of the dangerous potential of the loss of virtue ... so the virtue is not 'you' (you cannot lose what you are), it's something you participate in ...

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

Nature is a possibility within God, therefore actually a part of God...

Ah, see ... you're viewing possibilities like a list of things, which is not what is meant by the term. A painting is a possibility within me, but what I paint is not me ... it might bear my signature, and offer a clue to my nature, but it is not substantially co-essential with me.

Originally Posted by immortalitylost

... and yet, within nature there are a vastly inadequate number of the aspects of God for God and Nature to be one and the same, or even close.

Exactly ... so nature provides a myriad clues to what God might be like, but it is not in any way co-existential, co-consubtantial, co-essential, or co-equal.

I think the tendency is to mistake the sign for the thing signified.

Now if we were talking symbol, in the metaphysical and esoteric sense of the term, then yes, 'for those with eyes to see' God is immanently present in the natural form:
"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."
Blake: Auguries of Innocence

Veils ... yes, veils ...

"God is a pure no-thing,
concealed in now and here:
the less you reach for him,
the more he will appear."
Angelus Silesius

And there's more from this master ...

"Become essential, Man! When the world fails at last,
Accident falls away, but Essence, that stands fast.

All Accident must go, all false appearances:
Put off thy specious hues—be pure as Essence is."

GOD MAKETH NOTHING NEW
God maketh no new thing, though new
It seem to us. We think we see
The act of birth, but what is born
Is birthless in eternity.

A RIGHT JUDGEMENT BRINGETH NOT SADNESS
The true and proper worth of things
Who understandeth to assay,
Will never sorrow overmuch
For aught that Time can bear away.

THE ESSENTIAL MAN
The essential Man is like unto Eternity,
Unchanged by any breath of externality.

THE SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY
Then Lead becometh Gold, then Accident is ended,
When I with God, through God, in God, am wholly blended.



Thomas

[shawn]

Thomas:
A painting is a possibility within me, but what I paint is not me ... it might bear my signature, and offer a clue to my nature, but it is not substantially co-essential with me.

Oh....and what are you????
You are a vibration.
You have no substance, none of us does.
It just seems like it to our perceptual mechanism.
You are a frequency, just like the colors in said painting and we all share in that same basis in which we all live, move and have our being.
All this philosophizing is like watching children play with blocks.....move on.

[shawn]

All too often, discussions about faith and reason quickly degenerate into heated arguments over creation versus evolution, religion versus science, and so on.
The good news is it's all avoidable.

Religion and Science By Arnie Gotfryd PhD - The Doctor of Faith and Science

[dauer]

Originally Posted by shawn

Oh....and what are you????
You are a vibration.
You have no substance, none of us does.
It just seems like it to our perceptual mechanism.
You are a frequency, just like the colors in said painting and we all share in that same basis in which we all live, move and have our being.
All this philosophizing is like watching children play with blocks.....move on.

When you talk like that you come across as a dogmatist who has convinced himself that he's uncovered the truth and everyone else is wrong.