PanenDeism anyone?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by turk, Jul 12, 2013.

  1. turk Registered Member

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    66
    Just wanted to see if anyone else believes in a panendeistic god. If you haven't heard of it before, here is a link:

    Well, I'm not allowed to link so just google it. panendeismdotwebsdotcom is a good one.



    Basically, I believe Existence is God. God is more than the universe because I believe a system is more than just the sum of its parts(emergence). As far as personal gods go, I remain agnostic to a certain extent. There could be all kinds of different beings out there that are godly compared to us. We could all wake up in the Matrix for all I know. But, when I think of god, I tend to lean more towards the tao of taoism or the nirguna brahman of Hinduism.

    For you Atheists, you might ask why I make that connection at all. Why even bother to call Existence god, if its just existence. Language is a tricky thing when it comes to the metaphysical. However, what is language but a tool used to convey messages. I'm simply attempting to describe what I truly believe God to be. If we were having a scientific discussion, I would use the word Existence instead of god. However, in the context of religion or philosophy, I use the equation because the way I feel about Existence, is the way a religious person feels about god. I have a relationship with the world I live in that feels pretty spiritual. This relationship shapes my perspective about the world in a similar way that a christian's relationship with Jesus would shape his or her perspective. So, I would say I'm a believer as opposed to a nonbeliever. Some would argue I'm not. Depends on the semantics I suppose.
     
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  3. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

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    I'm a hard polytheist with some panentheism. I agree with panentheistic idea that existence and deity are coterminous. I just don't see the unifying monad as a conscious, singular entity; I see there being many gods, each with their own personalities, intertwined in essence and part of the fabric of reality. But because of their nature as a part of the vast universe, they are largely indifferent to us. The same way nature and the universe are indifferent to us. But sometimes, once in a while, a god or goddess takes an interest in some people; sometimes we make contact with them, sometimes they make contact with us.
    From what I've seen so far, this isn't too far out of the ordinary for my religion. Wicca tends towards panentheism due to its roots in the Western Occult tradition. But many individual experiences lend credence to hard polytheism being true as well. So, most of us try to reconcile the two.
     
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  5. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    When I seek guidance from an external source, it is the essence of the universe that I ponder. I an an individual entity embedded in a system of pure potential if one can but learn to be a conduit for that energy within the frail constraints of our human biology. I do not think of it as 'God' or 'Intelligent Design' but merely as a source of energy. The spiritual aspect is simply that I know and accept that I am a part of the universe and that I intuit that we have far more potential than we have yet attained.
     
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  7. turk Registered Member

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    thanks for your response. Reminds me of Hinduism. They have all kinds of gods or demigods. However, all of them are just different incarnations of the 3 major gods Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. All of which represent different aspects of all encompassing god Brahman. Very complex, but I think its a pretty cool religion. when I was a teenager thought the Wiccan thing was pretty neat. What was that movie with a hot girls as witches, the craft. Yeah, that's what sparked my interest in it. I remember this one wiccan chick pulled my hair, and I was like what the hell you do that for. Later, I learned she used it to cast s spell on me so I'd like her. It didn't work, though! Wait a minute, I never did like her, but I did get drunk one night and passed out/blacked out, and supposedly I slept with her that night. Wow, I never really thought about it like that before, maybe it did work.
     
  8. turk Registered Member

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    Very well said sir!
     
  9. absols Registered Member

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    to me, u r showing here the evil living being u r

    existence is the opposite to god this is how existence cant b but true, so about principally truth existence

    what is objective is always of different individuals perspectives, so existence is made of present perspectives relations objective realisations, which is the reason of living realities and so different identities of free present wills

    god is the opposite to existence, since god means to b existence source which is proven done by messing with existence knowledge

    so god means his own existence but through never existing, so hypocrite ways of powers possibilities and crimes forces

    anyway u cant get what i said bc u would need the freedom ways which are through self realisations u cant mean to do

    but what is absolutely clear, is existence fact that u cant lie about

    existence is not objective creations, otherwise it would b called universe or watever the creation name

    existence is non personnal word, meaning absolutely reality so what is always objective and obviously present

    i cant get how people like u could seem so proud of themselves while meaning to never give anything since for u all is god
    while it is obvious with such world how far reality need present useful heads and energies for clarifications n positive rights

    this prove too how evil is all so hidden powers of gods
     
  10. turk Registered Member

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    i stopped after this sentence. With an introduction like this, I'm sure the rest is useless garbage.
     
  11. absols Registered Member

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    72
    garbage urself
     
  12. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

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    The connection is a little snarled.
    Wicca generally participates in the revival of worship of the gods of Western antiquity, like most other forms of Neopaganism. The peoples of India and Europe, as well as Persia, are all Indo-European and share some religious, cultural, and linguistic links. So you'll find some common myth-themes, deity roles, and scholarly theological views in both Hindu and ancient European belief systems. So it stands to reason that you might see some vague similarities.
    More directly, in the Hellenistic world many philosophers posed all sorts of explanations of the gods that avoided a literal reading of the myths. Hermeticism was one of these schools of thought, and it formed the basis of the Western Occult tradition. It is from a 19th century revival of Hermeticism that Wicca directly originates; and it grafted onto this an explicitly polytheistic worldview that focused on "native" gods of the British Isles. In that time period, the Western Occult revival had an influx of idea from Hindu and Buddhist thought, thanks to the British rule in India facilitating a cultural exchange.

    That's not really that common. That is one view among several Monist forms of Hinduism (the other two see them as being unified in either Shiva or Vishnu). None of which carry much weight outside of academia and theology scholars. Folk Hinduism, i.e. Hinduism as it is actually practised by the majority of people in India, is very polytheist. These big, quasi-monotheist theologies would be just as alien to them as Christianity. In fact, I think one of the historical theories about the development of those kinds of theologies is that it's a bit of an import or adaptation of Islamic monotheism from during the time when India was ruled by a Muslim emperor.
     
  13. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    16,600
    No gods for me. I guess the word still carries too many connotations of the old wrathful ahole on a throne. Goddess wouldn't be too bad, but then I wouldn't really like to hang out with Kali Ma either.


    For me Being encompasses enough of my experience for me to serve as the ultimate category. Being not in a purely physical sense either. The Being of everything that is a noun--properties, ideas, numbers, laws, places, events, persons, forms, substances, dimensions, fields, symbols, probability waves, superpositions, language, minds, souls, etc. The whole 9 yards. Being as all of these beings manifesting and interrelating and evolving into the elaborate and infinitely-detailed fabric we know as our reality. It is at once the most undeniably present and the most transcendentally sublime. It is both infinite yet immediately accessible. Being is enough for me.


    Not that I don't acknowledge the very real likelihood of higher beings. Extraterrestrials and transdimensionals so advanced we'd be like ants to them. I guess many would call these gods. But I feel like so many mythologies and religions have fabricated fictional versions of gods that its just easier if we call them what they are--higher beings, extraterrestrials, transdimensionals.

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    Last edited: Jul 18, 2013
  14. absols Registered Member

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    i like ur nick, magical realist, infinite logics cant b but magical in a sense or perspective, wat samenss of free superiority reach being one reality

    so i would say just this, higher are not beings, the issue in truth is there too

    superiority lack the positive sense and positive lack superior sense

    bc truth is always elsewhere, truth is freedom infinite freedom so right is only to seek the truth first as else to consider n b relative then

    that is why else recognition is the fundamental reason of all values

    which none do

    positive superiority is the true free superiority

    as superior present or positivity is the true present or positive thing
     
  15. turk Registered Member

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    This part of your post is what reminded me of Hinduism. I wasn't saying that Wicca reminds me of Hinduism. I haven't studied much about Wicca, and I haven't studied Hinduism in India only in college. I did have an Indian roommate, though, so I hung out with many of his indian friends. Our college was 20% international students because of it's top rated business program. I was excited to talk to them about Hinduism because of all the cool things I learned about it. However, you are probably right, because none of them ever knew what I was talking about!
     

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