Talk:Pantheism

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February 18, 2008Peer reviewReviewed
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Taoism[edit]

http://www.pantheism.net is not WP:RS. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:33, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Page image[edit]

Right now the quote-unquote page image for Pantheism is a pic of a Spinoza. Not terrible by any means but surely we can perch something even more germane atop this range? Pandeist (talk) 20:55, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Eurocentrism

This entry is depressingly eurocentric in focus and perspective. There is at least one non-western tradition that I am aware of, which can be found in Sufi texts in Persian and Arabic, referred to as Wahdat al Wujud (or unity/unicity of existence) that identifies God with the universe. It would be so nice if someone could give a more comprehensive account of broadly pantheistic ideas and the connections between different tradition rather than assume that "it all started in Europe". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.35.104 (talk) 13:19, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this article is on the English WP, and English is a Western European language and culture, extending from there to the "new" world. English language thought and philosophy begin in Europe. Yes, it may be nice to connect this tradition to others, if there are reliable sources in English that do that. warshy (¥¥) 15:43, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Pantheism is a form of nontheism[edit]

Magtei in this edit has introduced (perhaps re-introduced) the language It is a form of nontheism,.... I'm not sure we can safely say this in Wikipedia's voice. Levine's book is making an argument in this direction but is not an unbiased source. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 19:29, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, this message is clearer. Yes, I see there's not much else to support the argument. It might be better to extend what I added about variety and say that it has been described as various *theisms (each sourced). Mention seems appropriate. Also - given this controversy, why is pantheism in the Nontheism section of the Irreligion linkbox? Might we move it to the overall Irreligion section to avoid confusion?--MagteiContrib 04:38, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I went back over your edit more carefully. There was a dropped sentence that seemed neither here nor there, but I could see that just about everything else was simply rearranged with the exception of this one added sentence. Yes, the "has been described..." language with sources would be an approach acceptable to me.
As for the navbox, I saw that, too. It's a problem of trying to fit squishy religious and philosophical abstractions into a rigid categorization. There are many different speakers who want to say "Pantheism is ..." or "Nearly all pantheists would agree that ..." when, absent an organized body to systematize the body of thought, or to decide who is or is not a pantheist, these generalizations can't easily be supported. Anyone can declare themselves a pantheist, decide which tenets they want to support, and about all one can say about them is that they are not part of an organized religion. In some cases, it is a form of religion, in others they will claim what they believe is not a religion, so yet others will see it as a form of irreligion. Categorizing as pantheists historical persons who did not use the word "pantheist" to describe themselves or their beliefs is also hard to support. Advocates for pantheism would like to add Spinoza and Einstein, for example, to their, as it were, "pantheon", but it's subject to argument, not a matter of fact.
What we are left with, as objective reporters, is describing the range of beliefs without being able to place it in a hierarchy of categories that was designed without taking pantheism into account. If it were up to me, I'd take pantheism out of the irreligion navbox and remove the navbox from this article. But we'd have to get consensus for a change like that, it's not an action to be taken unilaterally. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 05:49, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that many can categorize and call themselves or others pantheists. But that's why we limit to scholarly interpretation, which are a bit more well defined. A 'theistic pantheism,' for example, would be a fringe view that few if any academics would support (the word for that is usually panentheism). The word pantheism was invented to describe Spinoza's philosophy. Einstein called his own views "pantheistic". There is more than enough evidence to support their inclusion as pantheists, including academics who have made those claims. NaturaNaturans (talk)

Pantheism's association with atheism is controversial among scholars and has a long history. No scholars I know of associate pantheism with theism (that citation referenced also did not; author was questioning how to categorize S. Alexander in an article about atheism and agnosticism). Most or all scholars associate pantheism as not-a-theism or nontheism. I do not know of any scholars that reject it as a form of nontheism. NaturaNaturans (talk)

Hi Natura! It seems that you and jmcgnh disagree? I have no clear position - it seems to fit the nontheism umbrella, but is so diverse that a form can be conceived that will verge on just about any category. Unless someone has a source that resolves this, I might replace the phrase with more detail on what is believed and how it compares/contrasts, like we see in other *theism openings. Did not mean to raise an old controversy.MagteiContrib 19:12, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Magtei, I'm not sure what source information you're referring to. Do you mean sources that agree that pantheism is not theism? There are countless sources for that. NaturaNaturans (talk)
Sources supporting that it can indeed be called "nontheism", since you consider that appropriate and jmcgnh does not. Irrelevant, since it has become a matter of semantics and I won't play messenger.MagteiContrib 22:43, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Balance[edit]

Magtei, this thing about who 'popularized' pantheism and the weight of the article between Baruch Spinoza and John Toland was debated at length in the past which included a mediation. Consensus was that pantheism was clearly popularized based on the work of Spinoza. The sources are numerous. Toland is often only mentioned incidentally as the person who coined the word, but facts in the last decade have even made it clear that that was not the case - Raphson coined the word (many sources are outdated on this fact). Toland is important in the history of pantheism and surely contributed to the popularity of the word, but so did Mendelsshon and Jacobi, and we're not trying to push them into the intro of the article. I know you've mentioned and edited the article many times to give a lot more weight to Toland, but I don't believe that is supported WP:FRNG. You can always do a WP:RFC for more input. NaturaNaturans (talk)

Fair enough - I have no particular attachment to Toland. My real goal has always been to keep this article from becoming an extended paean to Spinoza, whom you insist on putting everywhere. When I got here, there was a paragraph of Spinoza in the intro, a three-paragraph section mostly devoted to the sheer magnitude of his influence, and seven links to the article in the content (we should not need more than two for anything). Even now, Spinoza dominates the history section and is mentioned in nearly all others, and the article is categorized under "Spinoza studies", itself a jumble where the article bearing your own username is double-categorized. I see you have already added "Spinoza and others" to the etymology section following my expansion there. So while I promise to stop adding Toland, I submit that there are bigger issues here.--MagteiContrib 02:17, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Have you read the sources? Spinoza is actually underrepresented in the Wikipedia article compared to the sources. Spinoza dominates the discussion of pantheism in Encyclopedia entries and academic papers. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/), for example, mentions Spinoza 25 times, in 10 out of 17 chapters. Also, I did not compose the paragraph of Spinoza in the intro. That was done by a Wikipedia administrator who felt that a prior version of the article had underrepresented the importance of Spinoza in the article. NaturaNaturans (talk)
Some, yes, certainly not the less-accessible ones in your Spinoza-focused collection. This article is shorter than the SEP's, yet has substantially more mentions, so I do not see this under-representation. However, the remaining mentions are appropriate. Unless you take issue with prior changes, I have one remaining Spinoza-related question. Does it make sense to categorize both Pantheism and Category:Pantheism under Spinoza studies, when we do not put both under, say, Theism?MagteiContrib 17:23, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I assure you I don't have a Spinoza-focused collection. I just went to the first encyclopedia article I searched for and noted those numbers. I'm completely indifferent about what you want to do with Spinoza studies, but I would note that the word was developed with his philosophy in mind whereas theism is much broader and has no such attachment I know of. Anyway, I've been happy with most of your changes and your edits have been good for the article. I Didn't mean to rub you the wrong way, glad you're here. NaturaNaturans (talk)
Alright, everyone's acting in good faith, just different approaches. Sorry I misunderstood you - I assumed an agenda based on your long history with this article. Thanks for your contributions. I'll be focusing on development and organization of the later sections, and as I do err - talk to you soon! MagteiContrib 20:24, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Pantheism euphemism for atheism?[edit]

“Pantheism is a self-defeating concept, because the concept of a God presupposes a world different from him as an essential correlate. If, on the other hand, the world is supposed to take over his role, then an absolute world without God remains; hence pantheism is only an euphemism for atheism.”

― Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.253.73.146 (talk) 14:14, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you have all the correct info for this as a reference, in my view, you can go ahead and add Schoppenauer's quibble with the concept above to the article itself. My own question to him would be, based on what can he claim that "the world is supposed to take over his role?" I do not think, at least on the face of it, that if god and the universe are one and the same substance, the absolute universe is therefore without god. Not on the face of it, at least. warshy (¥¥) 20:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Article Summary Introduction[edit]

Can someone who has some familiarity with the English language rewrite the opening introduction? Stevenmitchell (talk) 06:32, 12 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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