Talk:Monism

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A section in Islam[edit]

I've added a refuting statement about Monism in Islam. Surah Al-Kafirun is strongly denying any kind of compromise of Tawhid of the One God. Therefore, I would strongly suggest all other statement of Islam supporting Monism is to be removed within that context.

I've moved the view on Sufism to a new section because it is not compatible with general Islamic world. Sufism itself if different from Islam.

I've also removed this statement;

"According to Vincent J. Cornell, the Qur'an also provides a monist image of God by describing the reality as a unified whole, with God being a single concept that would describe or ascribe all existing things: "He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward; He is the Knower of everything (Sura 57:3)".[1]"

Please read the cited sura. It doesn't tell you anything about Islam supporting Monism.

I've also removed this statement;

"Another verse in the Quran is "To God belongs the East and the West, Wheresoever you look is the face of God.(Sura 2:115)"."

The same thing, this is a very blurry attempt to connect Islam and Monism.

  1. ^ Vincent J. Cornell, Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol 5, pp.3561-3562

Vogel Vandalism????[edit]

What Mirv just removed was NOT vandalism. Actually, I think it was a quality edit. If you are going to persecute Mr. Vogel, I am going to have to ask you to do it carefully. It is unacceptable to revert a quality edit, and even worse to put an innaccurate, slanderous flame into the edit summary. Sam Spade 19:51, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

He deleted valid information without explaining why he did so. That is vandalism. If you consider undoing his damage to be "persecution", well, I'm sorry. --No-One Jones 19:55, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I don't consider what he did to be "damage" I view it as a quality edit. What he removed was clearly (in my eyes) POV. What he did was make a quality, NPOV edit, IMO. You may disagree, but calling what he did vandalism was frankly not only innaccurate, but not a good sign for your case against him. I am looking into his case officially now, as a members advocate. If I continue to find examples such as this, rather than actual vandalism, I will become increasingly displeased. You may have a valid case against him, don't let this become a witch hunt. Nazi or no, he must be treated fairly. We cannot allow our pursuit of truth and justice to become mired in mere ideological conflict. Sam Spade 20:03, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Strange, because you also reverted the particular change Vogel made that you are now talking about. (i.e. him deleting "thereby assuring the ultimate demise of his Monistic Alliance.") And what does this have to do with Wikipedia:Office of Members' Advocates? - snoyes 20:32, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I made a revert, apparently an erroneous one. I did so based on numorous other edits thruout the article which were innaccurate (look to my edit summery). As to what this has to do w my being a members advocate, I assume you are contesting my role due to Paul not being a member. Unless you clarify, I am going to disregard the second question as spurious. Sam Spade 20:49, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
"Membership is open to anyone who wishes to help members who are faced with the quickly developing mediation and arbitration processes that are being implemented on Wikipedia in the last few months (since the fall of 2003)." There is no mediation or arbitration going on here, so why do you feel the need to point out the fact that you are "officially" looking into this in your role as a member of Wikipedia:Office of Members' Advocates? - snoyes 20:56, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Because I reccomended to Mirv elsewhere that he take his complainst to wikipedia:conflict resolution. Also, I don't see what you are quoting above as in any way limiting my abilities to be officially helpful in regards to Paul. To be frank, I feel there is a valid case against Paul, but I also feel he is being treated unfairly, and is redeemable. Sam Spade 21:00, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

from article[edit]

The West is inundated with physicalistic monism, which is not surprising since physicalist claims are in general more easily confirmed or denied using empirical methods than are the claims of mentalist monists. There is therefore a widespread belief, supported by a preponderance of the available evidence, that everything will eventually be explained in terms of matter/energy by science. The familiarity of this worldview can make the ideas of mentalistic monism hard to grasp, and even paradoxical. One way to begin to grasp the idea is through analogy. One analogy is the movie screen, which can be thought of as a modern equivalent to Plato's "cave of shadows". If we next consider "Star Trek's holodeck", keeping in mind that it only exists in our experience as an aspect of a fictional world's fictional technology, it takes us a step further toward the mental monist's worldview, as what appear to be physical objects on the holodeck are only illusions. Next consider the movie "The Matrix". In "The Matrix", which is also a fictional technology postulated within a fictional story, even people's bodies and identities are projected. Then--in your imagination--replace the machine with a vast and powerful mind whose ideas create the illusions we perceive to be real. A last analogy is our dreams at night. We seem to be in a world filled with other objects and other people, and yet nothing of it is real. These analogies allow us to begin to think along these lines, and wonder just how we might verify the objective existence of the objects we perceive through our senses. [verification needed] However, while absolute knowledge of objective reality may well be out of our reach, it has generally been quite difficult to collect hard evidence from repeatable experience that will support the validity of the theories proposed by supporters of mental monism.

  • the above seems opinionated and unhelpful.


Some Christians inveigh against the 'dangers of monism', asserting that in order to resolve all things to a single substrate, one dissolves God in the process[citation needed]. Much Christian thought has insisted that while the universe is dependent on God for its existence, it is also of a separate substance from God[citation needed]. Some contend that this means that monism is false, while others argue that there is a distinction between Ultimate Essence, and the differentiated essences (substances), so that the "single substrate" essentially is God. Theological arguments can be made for this within Christianity, for example employing the Christian doctrine of "divine simplicity" (though a monistic interpretation of that doctrine would not be considered orthodox by the Roman Catholic Church)[citation needed].

  • This section also seems distressed and in need of review.

Materialistic monism section!?![edit]

I couldn't help myself, I have to say that the materialistic monism section is priceless. 1st it speaks of "one" then goes on to describe the "parts". Did the person who wrote that not understand the meaning of "one" or the concept of unity. Blatant contradictions like that, all within a few short sentences, must definitely take away a bit of faith in the cogency of Wikipedia.

Advaita Vedanta?[edit]

It's a little weird to find Advaita Vedanta listed as the first example of Hindu monism. There's some debate as to whether it's monistic. Maybe more context is needed, or give a refnote. 118.99.107.97 (talk) 13:59, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you are correct. It is more generally considered a form of nondualism and is covered in that article at Nondualism#Advaita Vedanta. I will remove it from this article. Someone might want to check if any of the removed material is not covered there and merge it. Skyerise (talk) 12:57, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Split[edit]

Pretty sure this article should be split into Monism (philosophy) and Monism (religion). Skyerise (talk) 21:40, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]