Pan was always Pan, that was the point of him. The Hellenic gods looked down on Pan as a satyr, but in other places he was considered more important than the Hellenic Gods. But nowhere ever worshipped Pan. For reason first stated. — ernestm

Do you actually believe that "pantheism" describes the worship of Pan? Is that why you keep saying "Pan wasn't worshipped"? :gasp: — Pattern-chaser

Where is the evidence to back up all this stuff you keep spouting about Pan, or have you just made it up?

the Greeks did not think a God of everything was particularly important — ernestm

Were you there? Presumably not. So I imagine you have some evidence to back up these beliefs that no-one else seems to have heard of...?

Well if you want total specifics, there was a temple dedicated to Pan in what became Caesarea, and later Philippi. It held a small Greek cult for about a hundred years after Alexander the Great found it. Prior to Greek occupation, there was a lush oasis around some rock springs, which satisfied all the first settler's needs. So the Greeks renamed a small Ba'al temple there Pan, saying that Pan had given Alexander the strength to terrify the enemy, and naming the place Paneas.

But the Greeks turned it into desert, so then Pan became more of an early nomadic deity for desolate places, music, and goat herds who didn't terrify anybody. To the nomads, Pan was still a major deity, but the Hellenic Gods said it wasn't that important.

Then the Romans conquered it, and Pan's temple was abandoned, making Pan more of a curio in 200BC, after which the Romans lost it back to the Persians who replaced Pan with Ba'al again. Then the Romans conquered it again and renamed it Caesarea, by which time Pan didn't have a city named after him either, then it became a holy Christian city.

That's why current mythology of ancient Greece says Pan is the god of everything but doesn't care very much about people, so nobody worships him. It's already more than most people want to know, and it helps children learn what Pan means--its a God with the lower half of a goat and it means everything. That's how Greeks teach children. They were very good at that, and so Greek became a kind of universal language that everyone spoke, because of they way they taught it.

If you'll excuse me, I'm a little tired after explaining all that.

...and where does all this information come from?

Because that's how I was taught at Eton. If you'll excuse me, Im a little tired after explaining all that.

So, no links to anything anyone else has said or thought? It's all down to your youthful impressions from school?

Pan - In the classical age the Greeks associated his name with the word pan meaning "all". However its true origin lay in an old Arcadian word for rustic.

- Link to original article

Pan - The great god of flocks and shepherds among the Greeks; his name is probably connected with the verb πάω (paō), Latin pasco (graze, forage), so that his name and character are perfectly in accordance with each other. Later speculations, according to which Pan is the same as τὸ πᾶν (to pan), or the universe, and the god the symbol of the universe, cannot be taken into consideration here.

Link to original article

Pan is considered to be one of the oldest of Greek gods. He is associated with nature, wooded areas and pasturelands, from which his name is derived. The worship of Pan began in rustic areas far from the populated city centers, and therefore, he did not have large temples built to worship him. Rather, worship of Pan centered in nature, often in caves or grottos. Pan ruled over shepherds, hunters and rustic music. He was the patron god of Arcadia.

Link to original article

Now none of the above quotes can be guaranteed correct, and I do not post them as objective evidence of who/what Pan is. But your impressions seem based in schoolboy misunderstandings that no-one else has heard of.

Finally:

Pantheism is the view that God is equivalent to Nature or the physical universe - that they are essentially the same thing - or that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God. Thus, each individual human, being part of the universe or nature, is part of God. The term "pantheism" was coined by the Irish writer John Toland in 1705.

Link to original article

The term ‘pantheism’ is a modern one, possibly first appearing in the writing of the Irish freethinker John Toland (1705) and constructed from the Greek roots pan (all) and theos (God). But if not the name, the ideas themselves are very ancient, and any survey of the history of philosophy will uncover numerous pantheist or pantheistically inclined thinkers; although it should also be noted that in many cases all that history has preserved for us are second-hand reportings of attributed doctrines, any reconstruction of which is too conjectural to provide much by way of philosophical illumination.

At its most general, pantheism may be understood positively as the view that God is identical with the cosmos, the view that there exists nothing which is outside of God, or else negatively as the rejection of any view that considers God as distinct from the universe.

Link to original article

Pantheism, it seems, has no direct links at all to the ancient God Pan. :chin:

There is only one known temple to Pan, as I said, it was called Paneas, and you can find out all the different things people have written on Paneas too, but I will stick to the version taught to Winston Churchill. Thank you.

By ‘that God’, I was referring to our culpability, not to our importance or value. But as a statement taken out of context, I agree with your edits.

There is only one known temple to Pan, as I said, it was called Paneas, and you can find out all the different things people have written on Paneas too, but I will stick to the version taught to Winston Churchill. Thank you. — ernestm

Again and again you return to your schoolboy misunderstanding. Pantheism is a modern word that describes a modern movement. It has nothing to do with the ancient God Pan, or the worship of Pan. The occurrence of the three letters "p - a - n" in "pantheism" and "Pan" is coincidental. Your misunderstanding is understandable, but mistaken nonetheless.

:up:

Of course you think that, because the trendy 'modern' version of pantheism, to which you ascribe, was a confusion with a similar concept called 'animism' by a couple of aging hippies in the 1970s, lol.

the trendy 'modern' version of pantheism, to which you ascribe, was a confusion with a similar concept called 'animism' by a couple of aging hippies in the 1970s — ernestm

'Irish freethinker' John Toland (1705) was "a couple of aging hippies in the 1970s"? :rofl:

"The term "pantheism" was coined by the Irish writer John Toland in 1705."

[...]

"The term ‘pantheism’ is a modern one, possibly first appearing in the writing of the Irish freethinker John Toland (1705) and constructed from the Greek roots pan (all) and theos (God). But if not the name, the ideas themselves are very ancient, and any survey of the history of philosophy will uncover numerous pantheist or pantheistically inclined thinkers" — Pattern-chaser

[Those words are not mine, I just quoted them; see my previous post for the proper attribution.]

Pan is not a deity, let alone one of everything. Pan is like Enkidu; a wild-man, a half-breed.

here was a temple dedicated to Pan in what became Caesarea, and later Philippi. It held a small Greek cult for about a hundred years after Alexander the Great found it. Prior to Greek occupation, there was a lush oasis around some rock springs, which satisfied all the first settler's needs. So the Greeks renamed a small Ba'al temple there Pan, saying that Pan had given Alexander the strength to terrify the enemy, and naming the place Paneas.

But the Greeks turned it into desert, so then Pan became more of an early nomadic deity for desolate places, music, and goat herds who didn't terrify anybody. To the nomads, Pan was still a major deity, but the Hellenic Gods said it wasn't that important.

Then the Romans conquered it, and Pan's temple was abandoned, making Pan more of a curio in 200BC, after which the Romans lost it back to the Persians who replaced Pan with Ba'al again. Then the Romans conquered it again and renamed it Caesarea, by which time Pan didn't have a city named after him either, then it became a holy Christian city.

Don't reply if you're going to repeat the same shameless lie.

You will have problems with that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarea_Philippi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banias

here was a temple dedicated to Pan in what became Caesarea.....,

I'm not sure why we are bringing up Pan, that's not what the pan in patheism is about.

I agree. I’ve chosen to ignore the side argument - feel free to continue with the main discussion, if you can find it back there...

I'm not sure why we are bringing up Pan, that's not what the pan in patheism is about. — Coben

Yes, everyone except @ernestm knows that. :up: He thinks Pantheism is like the so-called NeoPagan 'revival', a bunch of hippies worshipping Pan. Having committed himself in print, he is too embarrassed to admit his mistake, and has become entrenched in his own misunderstanding.

I agree. I’ve chosen to ignore the side argument - feel free to continue with the main discussion, if you can find it back there... — Possibility

:up:

I think Pantheism and Panentheism can be synergistic and complementary ideas. In a sense, Pantheism is a “subset” of Panentheism. This is because in both cases God interpenetrates the Universe and there would be an impression of connectedness. Panentheists merely believe that there is an additional element of God that is not captured in the Universe. So to a certain extent a belief in Panentheism “implies” Pantheism.

Subset: all elements of A are also elements of B.
Imply: if A is true, then B is also true.

1. What is God?
"God is the Supreme Intelligence - First Cause of all things."

The Pantheistic theory makes of God a material being, who, though endowed with a supreme intelligence, would only be on a larger scale what we are on a smaller one. But, as matter is incessantly undergoing transformation, God, if this theory were true, would have no stability. He would be subject to all the vicissitudes, and even to all the needs, of humanity. He would lack one of the essential attributes of the Divinity -viz., unchangeableness. The properties of matter cannot be attributed to God without degrading our idea of the Divinity and all the subtleties of sophistry fail to solve the problem of His essential nature.
We do not know what God is but we know that it is impossible that He should not be and the theory just stated is in contradiction with His most essential attributes. It confounds the Creator with the creation, precisely as though we should consider an ingenious 'machine' to be an integral portion of the mechanican who invented it.

The intelligence of God is revealed in His works, as is that of a painter in his picture but the works of God are no more God Himself than the picture is the artist who conceived and painted it. — ALLAN KARDEC (THE SPIRITS' BOOK - 1857)

Just a little perspective. Sometimes there's more to the word God than meets our minds.

I agree that there can be more to the concept of God than meets our minds; there's a lot of mystery about reality. Certain ideals that we must strive for like mercy and goodness are indeed constant and unchanging. Perhaps there's even a timeless aspect to them.

But consciousness, at least in our first person point of view, is never static. So how does an unchangeable God perceive the world? I don't think reality unfolds to God vicariously like an ensemble cast movie.

Also, how does the theistic God find meaning in life Himself if everyone is just relying on Him to provide meaning for them? Is it a bit circular?

Crash 2005 trailer

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hBH4c3MAACA

Pantheism is indeed a harmonious, pluralistic and tolerant belief. I think Pantheism can really square the circle; the statement of pantheism is simultaneously very humble and highly assertive.

Panentheism: “the belief that God is a part of the universe as well as transcending it.”

I think pantheism and panentheism can be two sides of the same coin in the way that the destruction of death transcends your own consciousness. Death is incomprehensible and outside of our control. Our state of consciousness at death appears to be outside of causality and time. Yet we’re obviously all conscious now at the same time in parallel and simultaneously rather than in a delayed system of one death after another. So there’s a lot that separates everyone in a literal sense. We clearly don’t ever want to feel very connected to or responsible for people who perform evil actions. But I suppose we can try to feel connected to a spirit of goodwill.

Another motive for believing in heaven is not just eternal happiness but also the hope that we can see our deceased friends again. I interpret reincarnation to mean that we can see the souls of the people we know though of course in a different bodily form. It’s hard to think about death and the next life so it’d be doubly hard to consider ourselves dying once again in that next life followed by an endless series of deaths! So maybe in a probabilistic sense you’d be able to bump into an erstwhile friend in one of those future lives without ever realising it. We might not see them all in our next life but maybe during our 4th or 50th round at reincarnation! Maybe if there is a God He could bias the probability such that friends might see each other in reincarnated lives more frequently. This could theoretically happen through group reincarnation. I often think reincarnation will be the final stage of heaven but at death I simply wouldn't be prepared for such a radical alteration. Sometimes I'm amazed at how easily cultures like China or religions like Hindus can brace people so easily for reincarnation. Perhaps the way they live in such large population centres reminds them of their kindred spirits for reincarnation.

Needless to say that there can be an absurd element to the world sometimes. An infinitude of time is incomprehensible. Who knows what belief system humans will have tens of thousands of years in the future. I don’t think having faith in a particular belief system must contradict a recognition of the absurd: we can always be understanding of others who have espoused different faith beliefs based on their own unique experiences of the absurd or nihilistic features of existence. So an appreciation of the absurd can increase our tolerance of other religions. It’d be like our spiritual beliefs of what we view God to be like were a subset of the total universe where a particular God might exist within an infinite amount of absurdness!

“Camus states that because the leap of faith escapes rationality and defers to abstraction over personal experience, the leap of faith is not absurd. Camus considers the leap of faith as "philosophical suicide," rejecting both this and physical suicide.”

Perhaps god/gods can be viewed as consciousness. So there are different layers: unconscious, subconscious, conscious, superconscious etcetera. Looking at life from this point of view might allow us to experience the divine within ourselves. Whether it is as tiny as an atom or as large as the Earth (which is the size of an atom compared to the cosmos according to scientists). And this is what I learned in church: at the end of the day it teaches us what it means to be human.

I recognize this is an old post, but the whole "all religions are fairy tales made to make people feel they have meaning," thing doesn't work with all cosmologies. You can, and likely are fairly irrelevant in the Sumerian cosmology, and face a pretty brutal cast of deities. Homer's shades in Hades long for their time on Earth and are pale echos of the beings they were. Not exactly comforting.

I can accept your understanding of pantheism. My understanding was something more akin to polytheism, but with a twist: It's cool to have any god still be a god; whereas panentheism would be all gods being the same thing, not unlike your understanding of pantheism. I could be wrong, though.

Pantheism is "a doctrine which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God". But what exactly does this mean when taken literally? — Michael McMahon

My philosophical worldview PanEnDeism, is historically related to PanTheism. However, due to its secular mindset, mine is not a traditional religious perspective, in that it does not require sycophantic worship or arbitrary rituals & practices. Instead, it is intended to be more like an empirical scientific worldview, in that it takes a Pragmatic approach to understanding the real world, and our relationship to it. There is no authoritative or formal definition of PED, but my general concept is similar to Spinoza's notion that the "universal substance" of our world is not physical Matter, but meta-physical Mind *1. Meaning that our reality is essentially an idea in the Mind of G*D. That may not sound scientific, but for me, that general concept of Reality was derived from the counter-intuitive weirdness of Quantum Theory, and the all-encompassing reach of Information Theory. It's not a mystical or magical belief system, but a practical mundane worldview, based on the the scientific conclusion that Information = Energy = Matter *2.

In this post, I won't attempt to explain the conceptually-simple-but-technically-complex reasoning process by which I arrived at that strange worldview *3. So, I'll just get to the bottom line : Taken literally, "PanTheism" means that our apparent Reality is actually an interpretation of ultimate Ideality *4. What this means, when taken literally, is that particular Reality (Pan ; All) exists within (En) holistic Ideality (Deity ; First Cause ; Enformer). In other words, G*D's mental substance (Information, Meta-Physics) is what we know via our senses as material reality (Physics). From that simple equation of Ideal Stuff (substance) with Real Stuff (matter), we can derive all we need to know about the world, and our place in it. Of course the human mind is free to posit conjectures about the logically necessary First Cause. But the current fragmented state of world religions, indicates that such fictions can wreak havoc among competing belief systems. Which may be why the ancient faith-based religious notion of Pantheism, eventually evolved into theoretical philosophical PanDeism, and finally into evidence-based PanEnDeism. :cool:


*1 Spinoza's Substance Monism : Substance monism asserts that a variety of existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance. Substance monism posits that only one kind of stuff exists, although many things may be made up of this stuff, e.g., matter or mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism

*2 The mass-energy-information equivalence principle : Here we formulate a new principle of mass-energy-information equivalence proposing that a bit of information is not just physical, as already demonstrated, but it has a finite and quantifiable mass while it stores information.
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794

*3 I have already provided a variety of explanations for my rationale in several of my blog posts, and in many posts on this forum.

*4 Empirical Idealism :
Scientific Materialism is the assumption that particle Physics is the foundation of reality, and that our ideas are simply products of material processes. Empirical Idealism doesn't deny the existence of a real world, but reasons that all we can ever know about that hypothetical reality is the mental interpretations of sensory percepts. Platonic Idealism (Myth of the Cave) calls those interpretations illusions, and asserts that true Reality is equivalent to an idea in the mind of God. Enformationism is compatible with both views, depending on your perspective.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

PS__I expect challenges to labeling PED as "empirical". So, I'll simply say that it's just as empirical as Inflation Theory, Multiverse Theory, and String Theory, which all postulate entities that are literally out-of-this-world.