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It was simple logic. I could diagram it for you if we ever happen to meet.
It was blatant misrepresentation, not logic. I never said anything about reverence, you pulled that out of nowhere. And I never said anything about a "difference" in that my whole post was about how I do not see one at all. So you pulled that out of nowhere too. My words were simple and clear and you simply invented an entirely different meaning for them. I could diagram it for you if we ever happen to meet.
You could do that. Or you could acknowledge the misrepresentation of what I said and acknowledge with integrity that I NEITHER said anything about reverence.... NOR did I indicate there was a difference. Despite you claiming not only did I identify a difference, but that the difference was reverence.
In other words you summed up my post in a way that was ENTIRELY different to anything I actually wrote. Again. A common MO for you. But I am happy to keep correcting your misrepresentations of my posts until you take accountability and respond to them with integrity.
It was there. The definition required providing background. It was in no way a thinly-veiled anything. It was a comprehensive answer to your question, constructed based on presumed respect for your ability to understand more than a sound bite. Please go back and read the whole thing for understanding.
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Quite a lot, but the fact that you're asking that question even after reading my earlier messages in this thread (which I linked to in another thread as an answer to the very question you're asking here) indicates that you aren't willing to even acknowledge that your question has been answered, much less accept the answer. So how do we get you the answer that you are seeking, given that? What approach could be used? What means by which will you be willing to accept that there is an answer to that question?
Both of these are essentially the same response....
I had not been posting to you or anybody else ITT up until that point, so if you made it on an earlier page, you could have said as much rather than expecting that anybody is scouring this or "other" threads to try & find your purported diatribes.
But that wouldn't be nearly as comforting for you as insinuating lesser intelligence on my part to be the best explanation, in order to distract away from your insecurity in explaining your beliefs. I'm sorry to report that I do not feel intellectually inferior as a result, however.
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The words typically used are "ultimate value". "Supreme value" came from a definition someone else posted. It serves well enough.
And when you seriously ask those question, with an intention to actually come to that understanding, it's available to you from many resources, not the least of which is my religion. Is it easy, like being a Catholic? No. As you've noted, without the artificial boundaries on concern that people two thousand years ago crafted to ensure the religion they created would be acceptable to the general order of peasantry to whom they were trying to sell their religion, it becomes much more of a challenge. Abrahamic religion, with its supernatural deus ex machina crutches, are like doing algebra, while a pantheistic religion that worships, effectively, reality - that's like doing calculus and topology. It is not about memorizing by rote the rituals and patterns of behaviors set forth millennia ago, but rather learning how to derive such things from first principles.
I'm not intending to come to any particular (regarding your use of "that") understanding by asking questions, nor am I asking to come and try out your religion. I'm trying to understand how you see it, or rationalize it, when it is not something which seems rational to me. That's how I come to my own understanding...whatever that ends up.
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After that first question, you asked a lot of vital questions, by the way. One of the cute pseudo-maxims that has developed in our religion over the last couple of hundred years is this one: "All answers questioned here." Unlike the Abrahamic religions, which are artificially crafted and therefore artificially bounded (yet are still rife with inconsistency), a true pantheistic religion embraces the unknown and the unknowable. So for many of the questions you have, the answer will be, "Gosh that's an interesting question. What are you thoughts about it?" No ministers or bishops or rabbis or popes that supposedly have all the answers, but rather a healthy respect for the never-ending search for truth and meaning, that some of the other questions you asked evoke.
I can appreciate the honesty in the practice of the belief system. But it leads me to a question....why bother with a belief system that doesn't seem to have explanatory abilities? Doesn't it just end up being a social club of sorts?
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More self-ratifying abject disrespect for the beliefs and values you personally don't agree with. Congratulations, you're a fundamentalist.
You realize you stated that using the word "god", instead of the word "everything", was better because it is a shorter word? That was your statement. And now you are suggesting that I must be in disagreement with that in order to call that semantic...and thus I'm a fundamentalist as a result. Did I get all that right?
What I really suspect is once again, you chose to distract away from statements you really should have thought through a bit better by using yet another projected insult in order to avoid owning your misstep and harming your ego. Your games might work on the kids...but it doesn't get past the adults in the room I'm sorry to inform you.
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Have you really considered the absurdity of asking a question and imposing the answer you want to hear? Have you really considered the absurdity of talking past people while trying to make it seem like you're honestly interested in having a discussion with them? And most of all... Have you really considered the absurdity of expecting people to abide your minority view about religion when you're unwilling to abide their view about religion?
I have an opinion on pantheism and panentheism which I expressed in a rhetorical question. While not a necessity, you certainly could explain why you don't find it absurd...rather than talking past me.
I say my perception of GOD is "ALL THE MATTER/ENERGY THAT EXISTS AND HAS EXISTED".
Then I get, "Even if I agreed with this claim, so what? What effect does it have?"
How can anyone ask, "What effect does it have?", about ALL THE MATTER/ENERGY THAT EXISTS AND HAS EXISTED"?!!!
I you were to accept that...then is it not necessarily responsible for anything & everything that has ever happened, ever?!
From the workings of each atom and smallest particle...to the formation of the billions of galaxies, every thought & feeling, every instinctive action by any creature, etc, etc, etc? Every occurance...no matter what or when.
EVERYTHING is everything!!
ALL the matter & energy, EVER! You get what that would entail, right?! It entails EV-ERY-THING!!
THAT is why it is "GOD" to me! Ya dig?!
Yet I get the questions..."What does it do? What difference does it make?".
Wow...talk about "Not getting it"!
You are either extremely dull witted or deliberately obtuse .
Did you not grasp and believe all that you have stated as an atheist? If not, where did you think you came from? What did you believe was the source of your existence when you were atheist ? Did you believe in some creation story even though you didn't believe in the gods doing the creating? Or did you believe that your existence had its source in the universe ? And if you already understood that your existence had its source in the physical universe rather than from some sort of creation by a god, is this not what you still believe today as a pantheist ?
You are still stuck , one dimensionally , on the prior question I am trying to move past . The point of this thread is what your god matters if accepted. You have yet to explain this, and answering how the universe is God to you because it provides for the existence of everything does nothing to explain why a belief in your God matters, as atheists believe the universe is the source of all existence as well, but they just don't apply a theistic term to it. So fundamentally, per my point , your version of God doesn't matter in any real sense. Atheists sense their existence the same as you do, without needing to call it God .
You are either extremely dull witted or deliberately obtuse .
Did you not grasp and believe all that you have stated as an atheist? If not, where did you think you came from? What did you believe was the source of your existence when you were atheist ? Did you believe in some creation story even though you didn't believe in the gods doing the creating? Or did you believe that your existence had its source in the universe ? And if you already understood that your existence had its source in the physical universe rather than from some sort of creation by a god, is this not what you still believe today as a pantheist ?
You are still stuck , one dimensionally , on the prior question I am trying to move past . The point of this thread is what your god matters if accepted. You have yet to explain this, and answering how the universe is God to you because it provides for the existence of everything does nothing to explain why a belief in your God matters, as atheists believe the universe is the source of all existence as well, but they just don't apply a theistic term to it. So fundamentally, per my point , your version of God doesn't matter in any real sense. Atheists sense their existence the same as you do, without needing to call it God .
First...JACKPOT!!....that I prompted you to wallow in the slop, resorting to "extremely dull witted or deliberately obtuse"...makes this all worthwhile. My Geppetto Pavlov persona thanks you.
It has been explained to you over and over again. With analogies of "friends" and "heros"...and buu noted it as "it's about the reverence". Mystic has also explained it in detail.
If you are unable to "get it"...I don’t know what else to tell ya. I guess you are unable to understand what others do. I was in your position as an Atheist...but I learned, and came to greater understanding and knowledge. I hope the same for you.
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