Panentheism

[fooloso4]

Reflex:

I think F4's radical skepticism in a kind of mental illness.

My skepticism of Nick’s vision of the unification of science and religion is not radical. Since I can back up what I say about Plotinus with direct quotes from Plotinus and since what I have said about science is basic and known by anyone who reads the work of scientists rather than the misinformation provided by websites devoted to mysticism and the occult, your attempt to dismiss what I have said as a kind of mental illness may satisfy your desire to keep your head buried in the sand but is otherwise of no merit.

Have you actually read Plotinus or do you just rely on Brian Hines? Have you read any scholarly reviews of HInes?

Return to the One: Plotinus' Guide to God-Realization is a text intended to introduce the non-specialist to the mystical philosophy of Plotinus. The text is written in a fresh and accessible style; however, one might question its stated aim of relieving non-scholars of having to read the Enneads directly (pg. 32). It hardly seems worth saying that there is no substitute for the original. Hines comes close to saying that his text is meant to be a substitute for it. One might recall the words of Spinoza, who said that "All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare." (Ethics V,42, scol.)
Return to the One is admittedly the author's expression of his own understanding of Plotinus' philosophy and is for the most part expository and general without broaching any of the myriad difficulties in Plotinus scholarship. Hines makes no pretense of presenting a treatment of Plotinus similar to work by Plotinus scholars …
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2005/2005-04-46.htm

It is Plotinus lite, Plotinus without the calories. The illusion of understanding without putting in the effort needed to understand.

It's the ONLY place to start.

Mystical visions and groundless speculation cannot be the starting point of scientific inquiry. Saying that science should verify Plotinus’ visions is arbitrary and absurd. Once we start to go down this road there will be an endless queue waiting for science to verify the endless variety of things people have seen in visions or imagine to have been revealed to or discovered by them.

[Nick_A]

F4

You are missing the point. Panentheism doesn't attempt to verify Plotinus beliefs. It suggests a god concept of the Source being both outside of and inside creation. Plotinus idea of the ONE suggests the same. From the opening post

Modern science and secular education is fixated on evolution for explaining existence. For Panentheism the process of existence begins with NOUS described in the article and NOUS is the beginning of the universe or the body of God. So God outside of time and space is inner unity. It is ONE. NOUS begins with the conscious division of ONE into Three. From this perspective God is both ONE and Three simultaneously. God IS and existence is a process taking place within IS.

Creation for Panentheism isn’t evolution from nothing but rather the involution from pure consciousness which creates the beginning for evolution. In this way involution and evolution taken together is a complimentary cyclical process which sustain the body of God much like the flow of blood through arteries and veins sustains the life of the human body.

There is a lot more to Panentheism. I believe in the future it will provide a quality of reason that will unite science and the essence of religion. This is just a beginning.

I believe as do others such as Simone Weil that as science advances it will prove that accidental evolution is impossible. Then inviolution beginning with the ONE involuting into three will be the more plausible explanation.

It isn't necessary to get into the details such as the laws of vibration and the passage of one into three. For example:

Plotinus (d. 270 CE), the so-called founder of Neoplatonism, had not only envisioned a triad of the One, the Intellect (Nous), and the Soul, but even posited that “the latter two mysteriously emanate from the One.”[1] Plotinus described this triad as three “hypostases” (to him, the underlying substances of existence).

Science will eventually prove that blind evolution is impossible. The laws of being will begin to be far more plausible and will offer the intellectual explanation for objective human meaning and purpose which cannot exist in blind purposeless evolution. Welcome to the complimentary relationship of science and the essence of religion - facts within a human perspective initiating with the ONE.

[Arising_uk]

So let me get this straight.

Are you suggesting that if all human misery and poverty were eliminated, then all humans would just naturally migrate to a belief that the resolution to the mystery of our existence lies solely in the tenets of materialism? - that they would all become atheists? ...

No, I'm suggesting that they wouldn't care to much about organised religion nor what it says about an afterlife.

Do you actually believe that?

Yes.

Furthermore, I'm aware of lots of people (including myself) who all have good healthcare, education, and economic opportunity, yet they still have a deep and sincere spiritual outlook on life (including hope in an afterlife).

That, in itself, is in stark contrast to your point.

Enough so that you'd follow what your priests says?

[Nick_A]

It is a fact of human psychology that some are open to the idea of God and others are not. The ONE and its creation of the conscious universe is common sense to some and sheer lunacy to others. Those like Seeds, Reflex and me are open to top down contemplation. Those like F4, David, and Arising are closed to it. Can this ever change?

Here is a segment from Chapter 1 of Jacob Needleman's book: "A Sense of the Cosmos."

http://www.tree-of-souls.com/spirituali ... leman.html

It concludes with:

We must explore this thought further, for it can help us to see why the idea of a conscious universe appears to modern man as naive, as either a daydream or a nightmare. Science, as we know it, searches the universe for order and pattern. To pursue this search carefully, objectively, the scientist struggles to be free of his feelings, his inclinations to believe. He may follow hunches--what he calls "intuitions"--but in the final analysis he wishes for proofs that will compel the intellect, and only the intellect. The entire organization of modern science, the community of experimenters and researchers, the teaching of science in the schools, the training of specialists, is based on this ideal of proof that compels the mind.

Looked at in this way, we may conclude that the practice of modern science is based on a demand for human fragmentation, the division between thought and feeling. Searching for an outer unity, the scientist demands of himself an inner disunity. Perhaps "demands" is not the right word. We should simply say that in his practice the scientist endorses the division and inner fragmentation from which all of us suffer in our daily lives.

We now see why a conscious universe makes no sense to modern science. In the ancient teachings, higher mind or consciousness is never identified with thought associations, no matter how ingenious they may be. If these teachings speak of levels of reality higher than human thought, they are referring, among other things, to an order of intelligence that is inclusive of thought. Consciousness is another word for this power of active relationship or inclusion. Can the power to include ever be understood through a process of internal division and exclusion? Fascinated by the activity of thinking, and drawn to it to the extent of psychological lopsidedness, is it any wonder that we modern scientific men almost never directly experience in ourselves that quality of force which used to be called the Active Intellect, and which in the medieval cosmic scheme was symbolized by a great circle that included the entire created universe?

Can the power to include ever be understood through a process of internal division and exclusion?


Those like F4 seem to believe that it will have to. If it doesn't, it doesn't exist. It is possible that atheists with an open mind will begin to feel the existence of levels of reality greater than themselves? If so the idea of the ineffable ONE may invite sincere conscious contemplation and provide the basis for a human experience..

[Arising_uk]

...
Those like F4 seem to believe that it will have to. If it doesn't, it doesn't exist. It is possible that atheists with an open mind will begin to feel the existence of levels of reality greater than themselves? If so the idea of the ineffable ONE may invite sincere conscious contemplation and provide the basis for a human experience..

If you are an example of this contemplation then I think I'll pass thanks.

[seeds]

So let me get this straight.

Are you suggesting that if all human misery and poverty were eliminated, then all humans would just naturally migrate to a belief that the resolution to the mystery of our existence lies solely in the tenets of materialism? - that they would all become atheists? ...

No, I'm suggesting that they wouldn't care to much about organised religion nor what it says about an afterlife.

Not caring too much about organized religion has nothing whatsoever to do with possessing a “hope” that life does not end for us when our bodies expire. Nor would a healthier and happier life here on earth erase the questions upon which religions are founded to answer, which is what you seemed to imply.

Furthermore, I'm aware of lots of people (including myself) who all have good healthcare, education, and economic opportunity, yet they still have a deep and sincere spiritual outlook on life (including hope in an afterlife).

That, in itself, is in stark contrast to your point.

Enough so that you'd follow what your priests says?

I don’t understand your question.

However, if you are under the impression that I am following anything a priest says, then you clearly haven’t the remotest clue of what I am suggesting when I insist that it is time to replace the “old spiritual paradigm” with a new one.

Old paradigm priests (be they Christian, Islamic, Judaic, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., etc.) would be appalled at what I am attempting to accomplish, which is basically my own little feeble effort to put them out of business.

Clearly, you atheists are far too ham-handed and tactless about it, what with your ultimate selling point being eternal darkness and oblivion – something of which you haven’t the slightest knowledge of whether it is true or not.
_______

[fooloso4]

Nick:

You are missing the point. Panentheism doesn't attempt to verify Plotinus beliefs.

You lost track of the argument. I said nothing about panentheism attempting to verify Plotinus’ beliefs. What I said was:

Mystical visions and groundless speculation cannot be the starting point of scientific inquiry. Saying that science should verify Plotinus’ visions is arbitrary and absurd.

The same could be said about panentheism. You may think Plotinus is a good place to start if science and religion are to be united but there is no reason why science should attempt such a unification from this starting point. Science has no interest in verifying speculative claims about a transcendent God. Science is not going to accept the notion of a Source without irrefutable evidence or even pursue the possibility without compelling evidence that it should. To say that one day it will means nothing other than you and Weil or whoever hopes it will.

I believe as do others such as Simone Weil that as science advances it will prove that accidental evolution is impossible.

What evidence do you have to support this belief? I suspect that you really have an inadequate understanding of evolution and what role accident plays in it.

It isn't necessary to get into the details such as the laws of vibration …

Are these scientific laws of vibration? Can you cite actual credible scientific work on this or just the regular magic thinking nonsense?

… and the passage of one into three.

I won’t even bother to ask. I know the answer. Once again if you are going to argue for a unification you cannot ignore real science.

The laws of being will begin to be far more plausible and will offer the intellectual explanation for objective human meaning and purpose which cannot exist in blind purposeless evolution.

No matter how often you say it or how much you wish it to be true or how much you refer to laws that does not make it true.

Welcome to the complimentary relationship of science and the essence of religion - facts within a human perspective initiating with the ONE.

It is really premature to put out the welcome mat. You believe in Plotinus’ One or panentheism (not everyone agrees that Plotinus is a panentheist, consider the problem of the eternal existence of matter); that there is an objective meaning and purpose, and so, since this is the truth, if science deals with truth it will eventually confirm this. The only problem is that no matter how strongly you believe something, no matter how confident you are in your belief, you could be wrong. So far, you have given us nothing to suggest that science will confirm your beliefs, only that it has not, which you take to be a weakness of science rather than a weakness of your claim.

[attofishpi]

Since 1997 i have had dubious experience of God. In the latter years where I came to comprehend or even under_stand it, Panentheism is the closest glove that fits. And I am a Christian - ergo - I am a Christian Panentheist.

God has the ability to manipulate all dimensions of matter - including ones body and mind. Why we experience so much suffering which can only lead to doubt is something that intrigues me. I would not be surprised if more that 70% of REAL_IT_Y is bollocks - bullshit - from the buy bull. God IS ALL POWERFUL, and a total C^UNT at the same time...why this entity wants faith to such a degree is beyond my comprehension.

In fact - here is my website dedicated to PANENTHEISM:- www.androcies.com

[attofishpi]

So let me get this straight.

Are you suggesting that if all human misery and poverty were eliminated, then all humans would just naturally migrate to a belief that the resolution to the mystery of our existence lies solely in the tenets of materialism? - that they would all become atheists? ...

No, I'm suggesting that they wouldn't care to much about organised religion nor what it says about an afterlife.

The irony of what the sage taught me, is that we do descend as children to again live within this planet - that we are all too complacent about it all - since most are atheist and too short sighted to see that our inheritance is what we get..in our future existence.

[Belinda]

Nick wrote:

(Fooloso4 wrote)And the answer is yes. Science rejects the notion of forms shaping and determining matter conceived as a passive substratum of all things physical. There are, for Plotinus' One, no sensible objects without forms informing passive matter.


(Nick wrote)Science cannot reject the notion. All it can say is that it doesn’t know. The aether does not exist alone. It is inhabited by spirit. That is what vibrates and creates forms. I’ll copy a small passage from the Kybalion. Are you suggesting that science denies matter vibrates?


(Nick quoted)3. The Principle of Vibration
"Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates."--The
Kybalion.
This Principle embodies the truth that "everything is in motion"; "everything vibrates"; "nothing is at rest"; facts which Modern Science endorses, and which each new scientific discovery tends to verify. And yet this Hermetic Principle was enunciated thousands of years ago, by the Masters of Ancient Egypt. This Principle explains that the differences between different manifestations of Matter, Energy, Mind, and even Spirit, result largely from varying rates of Vibration. From THE ALL, which is Pure Spirit, down to the grossest form of Matter, all is in vibration--the higher the vibration, the higher the position in the scale. The vibration of Spirit is at such an infinite rate of intensity and rapidity that it is practically at rest--just as a rapidly moving wheel seems to be motionless. And at the other end of the scale, there are gross forms of matter whose vibrations are so low as to seem at rest. Between these poles, there are millions upon millions of varying degrees of vibration. From corpuscle and electron, atom and molecule, to worlds and universes, everything is in vibratory motion. This is also true on the planes of energy and force (which are but varying degrees of vibration); and also on the mental planes (whose states depend upon vibrations); and even on to the spiritual planes……………..


(Fooloso4 wrote)Contemporary science is not discursive reasoning. Scientists are well aware of the limits of scientific knowledge. An awareness of those limits, however, does not mean that science should accept Plotinus' contemplative claims or the contemplative claims of anyone else without sufficient physical evidence for why it should be taken seriously.


(Nick wrote)If science establishes a lawful relationship between vibrating matter as a necessary expression of the ONE for sustaining creation it will open new doors to understanding.


(Fooloso4 wrote)Matter according to Plotinus does not vibrate. It is pure passivity. If contemplation is the touchstone then you cannot pick and choose. Not all who practice contemplation consider it a productive activity and not all are in agreement as to what is seen in contemplation. Disputes in science are resolved by the evidence not by what one sees in contemplation.


(Nick wrote)The Spirit in matter vibrates. It creates its being. The aether doesn’t vibrate. Appreciating what matter is didn’t come from people practicing inductive science but from those remembering what had been forgotten and translating it into expressions of universal laws.

The Kybalion quotation from Nick (thanks Nick!)fits with the idea that existence depends from change. I take it that "vibration" is a metaphor for change. Within the metaphor "the vibration of spirit" looks infinite at the level of creation i.e. existence itself. I am glad I read the quotation as copied. I can see how Nick derives levels of being through angels, humans, vegetables, rocks and so on from levels of "vibration"; some entities change faster than other entities, and some of us, perhaps most of us dearly want there to be an Entity, at the infinity-vibration level, which never changes. But perhaps the infinity-level of vibration is at at the other end of the vibration spectrum near to the rocks, where lack of vibration becomes infinitely no-vibration.


The idea of a gradation from fast vibrations to slow is not Berkeleyan. Berkeley's reasoning fits with "The vibration of Spirit is at such an infinite rate of intensity and rapidity that it is practically at rest--just as a rapidly moving wheel seems to be motionless." except that for Berkeley spirit (i.e. mind) is not a level of one substance but a separate substance from extended matter.

I can now see how panentheism might differ from theism, which needs the underpinning of substance dualism, whereas panentheism needs the narrative about levels of "vibration" plus a hierarchy with spirit at the top.

The great advantage that pantheism has over panentheism according to that quotation is that extended matter and mind('spirit') are each good as the other , and that the mind is the idea of the body (Spinoza). Thus it's only with neutral monism and most markedly with Spinoza that science and 'spirituality' are reconciled.

[attofishpi]

The great advantage that pantheism has over panentheism according to that quotation is that extended matter and mind('spirit') are each good as the other , and that the mind is the idea of the body (Spinoza). Thus it's only with neutral monism and most markedly with Spinoza that science and 'spirituality' are reconciled.

When it comes to 'God' Spinoza was simple, he thought that God was ALL good.

[fooloso4]

I just came across the following statement by the theoretical physicist and philosopher of science Carlo Rovelli:

… the universe is full of mystery, and a source of awe and emotions … the source of the conflict [between science and religion] is the acceptance of our ignorance at the foundation of science, which clashes with religions' pretense to be depositories of certain knowledge. (Anaximander)

[Belinda]

I just came across the following statement by the theoretical physicist and philosopher of science Carlo Rovelli:

… the universe is full of mystery, and a source of awe and emotions … the source of the conflict [between science and religion] is the acceptance of our ignorance at the foundation of science, which clashes with religions' pretense to be depositories of certain knowledge. (Anaximander)

That is why I did not write that Spinoza reconciles religion and science, but instead I wrote 'spirituality' and science.

[Nick_A]

F4 wrote

The same could be said about panentheism. You may think Plotinus is a good place to start if science and religion are to be united but there is no reason why science should attempt such a unification from this starting point. Science has no interest in verifying speculative claims about a transcendent God. Science is not going to accept the notion of a Source without irrefutable evidence or even pursue the possibility without compelling evidence that it should. To say that one day it will means nothing other than you and Weil or whoever hopes it will………………….

It is really premature to put out the welcome mat. You believe in Plotinus’ One or panentheism (not everyone agrees that Plotinus is a panentheist, consider the problem of the eternal existence of matter); that there is an objective meaning and purpose, and so, since this is the truth, if science deals with truth it will eventually confirm this. The only problem is that no matter how strongly you believe something, no matter how confident you are in your belief, you could be wrong. So far, you have given us nothing to suggest that science will confirm your beliefs, only that it has not, which you take to be a weakness of science rather than a weakness of your claim.

Again, you don’t get the big picture and I don’t know how to better explain it so I’ll let Einstein try. He doesn't deny the big picture but knows that science will eventually reveal the need for a source the depth of human being is called to.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm

……………………………..The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically, one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events - provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death.
It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.

[Belinda]

Thanks again Nick for a worthy quotation.

Apart from a quibble about what to call the inspiration of great thinkers--- religion or spirituality--- -- we need to recognise that scientists as scientists doing their work as scientists and not as philosophers, presume that truth corresponds to reality.

Spinoza, without pure deductive reason as his guiding star would not have a thesis. Therefore I suppose one can claim that religion/spirituality in the guise of truth guided Spinoza and , by the same token, other great thinkers including scientists. However the problem remains about truth, does our truth correspond to reality , or alternatively does all that we take to be truth cohere in some grand narrative?