Pantheism means that God is all. Obviously, there are familiar meanings of "God" in which God is not all. But there are also different meanings of the word, "God." (The "God" of the Yoga Sutras is not "all" but is not an extra-cosmic creator, either. He is merely a soul that has never been incarnated, thus enabling Patanjali to incorporate devotional theism as one kind of yoga within an essentially atheist philosophical system.)
If "God is all" means that the object of religious experience is identical with the universe, then this becomes a meaningful and even plausible proposition that can be restated without resorting to any ambiguous theistic terminology. My latest attempt at such a statement, in the form of "sutras," short, telegrammic propositions, is here.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Of course Poul Anderson was free to say the dominant religion of Altai was a "synthesis" of Buddhism with Islam without needing to go into details. Albeit I'm still rather sorry he did not.
I favor the definition of pantheism as given in part of paragraph 285 of the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: "Some philosophers have said that everything is God, that the world is God, or that the development of the world is the development of God (Pantheism)." And I don't in the least believe that! I don't believe that the chair I'mm sitting on is a tiny bit of God, and so on. Rather, God as God, is the infinitely transcendent Other.
Ad astra! Sean
In terms of personal sin and redemption (not concepts I personally believe in), the Buddhist concept of reincarnation (itself derived from Hinduism, of course) makes more sense than salvation/damnation narrative of the Religions of the Book, IMHO.
Getting an infinite number of chances until you get it right is just more logical, if you accept the basic premises.
Jains and Hindus believe in reincarnating souls. The Buddha, analyzing experience, concluded that every physical and mental phenomenon is composite and transient and therefore taught anatta, "no soul." I think that anatta entails no reincarnation. The Buddha also concluded no reincarnation but then, inconsistently IMO, reconceptualized reincarnation as "rebirth" of motivations. One being's unresolved greed, hate and delusion are reborn in a later being. I think that such motivations exist without being inherited from specific past organisms.
Reincarnation/rebirth would make sense if the universe had been designed for our moral development but it wasn't.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: And I don't agree with or believe in those Hindu/Buddhist premises. But rather in the revelation or premises given thru the Old and New Testaments.
Paul: Then Buddha, and the Buddhists after him, were being inconsistent in how they accepted ideas which contradicted each other. I mean, acceptance of reincarnation despite what Buddha said about "anatta."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
They accepted "rebirth" of individual motivations and dispositions, sometimes accompanied by memories, but not reincarnation of souls.
Paul.
And still accept. I don't but I think that meditation is beneficial here and now.
Kaor, Paul!
But, to me, it still looks more like the Hindu belief in reincarnation, for all practical purposes. But, in a sense, Buddhism was a heresy which split off from Hinduism.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You can call it reincarnation. The reason they insist on "rebirth" is because they do deny an immortal soul with an endless future ahead of it. In any case, I accept neither reincarnation nor rebirth.
I regard Buddhism not as a Hindu heresy but as a reformed Jainism. Jainism, materialism and Buddhism are the three unorthodox philosophical systems, orthodoxy being acceptance of the Veda. Vedism and Hinduism are like Judaism and Christianity with the Upanishads as the New Testament. Vedism and Hinduism even have different pantheons.
Paul.
Post a Comment