Pantheism in daily life:
debates on ethics

Do what you do, with a Pantheistic slant. JO ANN HICKMAN.

Happy Earth Day. After a long night of watching the skies for weather. And enjoying the last faded days of Hale-Bopp I'm off for a few hours. I'm going to plant a tree for each of my four daughters today. LEE ANDERSON

When people suffer, yes, the Universe/God suffers, too; but it is not as a conscious being; rather, it is simply through the people who experience the pain themselves; the Universe feels nothing, thinks nothing; it simply IS. This is the best way of looking at why one has an interest in ending suffering; not to end the suffering of the Universe, but of the people who are enduring it. my getting cancer is not analogous to a supernova because the Universe will not feel pain and will never die; my body will. SAIF PATEL

We should love our selves as well as love our neighbours. RICHARD TRAFFORD.

One member quoted from "The Equinox: A Journal of Scientific Illuminism", 1922 (Edited by Aleister Crowley) There is no god but man. Man has the right to live by his own law-to live in the way that he wills to do: to work as he will: to play as he will: to rest as he will: to die when and how he will. Man has the right to eat what he will: to drink what he will: to dwell where he will: to mover as he will on the face of the earth.
Man has the right to think what he will: to speak what he will: to write what he will: to draw, paint, carve, etch, mold, build as he will: to dress as he will. Man has the right to love as he will.
Man has the right to kill those who thwart these rights. ELJAY LOVE-JENSEN.

I prefer the Wicca formula: An it harm no-one, do as you will.
Crowley tended to leave out the all-important first bit, which involves considerable self-restriction.
Strictly applied the Crowley quote would allow you to kill your parents! Also to kill anti-abortion protesters. Surely this goes a little too far? PAUL HARRISON

I wouldn't go so far as to destroy those who attempt to squash my "human rights." Surely there are other avenues the scipannie can take first, being that we value life - that of ours and that of others - so highly. JOOLIKINS

Question: Why do you help people?
Selfish: I don't.
Selfish but weak: Because I'm afraid that I'll be punished it I don't.
Moral: Because, according to my philosophy, it is the "right" thing to do.
Empath: Because it pains me to see others suffer.
Ideal: I don't know, I just do.
JEFF PITCHER

A rational and benevolent selfishness is essential to harmonious existence. Selfishness was the driving force behind evolution and all forms of integrated conscious thought. It is not selfishness that is evil, but infringing the individual rights of others. SAIF PATEL.

Ron, your definition of a selfless act makes it impossible for there to be such a thing, and therefore you don't even need to ask us if we can think of any: you have determined the answer before we start. A person who risks and meets death to save a stranger's dog may be acting selfishly from your definition, but it is not very helpful to point that out, and most ordinary people would be up in arms if you suggested it.
If all acts are by that definition selfish to some degree, then it becomes more interesting to ask: what acts benefit others more than they benefit oneself? Indeed the true working definition of a selfless act that people apply in everyday life is: an act that benefits another or others more than it benefits oneself.
Saif raises the interesting and related point? What's wrong with selfishness anyway?
I think we need to be more subtle about what we mean by selfishness. If we mean pursuing our own desires without harm or unfairness to any person or animal or natural habitat, and giving others around us a fair share and a fair say, then there's nothing at all wrong with it - though I recognize that this is a tall order! Pantheism means acceptance of your self as well as acceptance of nature, the universe, the material world.
What's wrong with Christianity is precisely that it makes everyone feel guilty all the time even if they just have a sexy dream or feel like a stiff drink or just can't live up to the utterly impossible ideal of having yourself crucified for the supposed benefit of mankind. PAUL HARRISON

To me it appears that SELFISHNESS is the very essence of LIFE. Life is "survival of the fittest"; you've got to be selfish if you want to survive. We kill a bacteria as it is no good for us. Do you have any other name for such an action? As a living being, both the bacteria and us have equal right to live and do things on Earth, but we've to be selfish as we've to be the fittest! SIMILARLY, we kill an animal or plant so that we can eat - selfishness again! RATAN MOHAPATRA.

Selfishness is the need to kill without regard or respect for the prey, as far human kind is concerned. The ancient ones, the native, he who stands silent for that second, to pay respect for the spirit of the fawn just killed, to thank that spirit for its sacrifice given, kills not in selfishness but in survival. Small is the mind of man who can not understand the difference.
He who cuts the tree or harvest the fruit with understanding the sharing of life has much to learn. Respect and sacredness is the pantheist way; what we kill without respect we herein kill ourselves.

Who are you ask I and I stared into the Eagles eye.
I am you said he, as he glared back at me. Do you
not fly free like me? Do you not wish to be free?
How survive you ask he; you, so much smarter
than me. Kill you all that you see? Not I said he,
only what I need for me, and sometimes not at all, using
only what you leave for me.
Copyright Reginald D. Atkins 1993

The beliefs in a loving God and justice after death are very comforting in circumstances like these, and that's the main reason people started believing that way. The only trouble is that they only work if you don't ask the question: why has God allowed this to happen? Would a truly loving God create humans so they'd be capable of this kind of thing? Would he allow an innocent child to suffer - even for a few hours - this kind of thing, even if he was going to reward him with heaven afterwards? You're right. This kind of thing could not possibly be part of any larger plan - except of a "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Pantheism has no secret way of coping with this. The universe does not exist for human benefit. It's full of forces that could destroy any or all of us at any moment. That we can accept. Human destructiveness and malice is harder to cope with. If it happened to me, I would hope to fight back like a demon and at least die with dignity. If that was not possible, to detach part of myself from what was happening, as torture victims with strong ideologies manage to do. If it happened to my child, there is no way on earth I could cope and I would be at risk of suicide. But I guess I would approach that feeling in a pantheist way, that the endless sadness was a part of my nature as a human being and a parent, and natural to feel, and let myself go to it and not try to smother it or escape it. The truth is that conventional religion offers nothing real here either, unless you are willing to twist your mind into believing that a "loving" God could inflict torture on an innocent child for the better good of someone, or of humanity - but as you say, there's no better good comes out of it at all. It only makes all mothers and fathers anxious. All believers have doubts at these moments, when they wonder what God is up to. PAUL HARRISON.

What is the Sci Pan way of dealing with such tragedies? I Know how I deal with it. If it happens to someone else I say whatever it takes to make them feel better. If it helps them for me to go to church with them, I do. If they want me to tell them why did God do this to them? I lie. And tell them whatever I think will ease the pain. I don't quote some philosophical blowhard who says, "Get over it. God had nothing to do with your baby dying." LEE ANDERSON

The thing to do would be simply to offer as much help as possible in whatever way was acceptable. I'd probably tell them to cry until they couldn't cry anymore, interspersed with as many hugs and reassurances as possible, even if that meant lying about god and an afterlife. (In such instances dogmatism is irrelevant...I'd be as pragmatic as was needed to help.) STEVE HUMME.

Perhaps this topic touches on one of the last vestiges of christian brain-washing we all share: "wouldn't it be nice if there were a loving father in heaven to turn to when the walls come down around your ears?" But we must realize where this idea comes from. When we are children, we see our parents as gods that can do no wrong. After all, it is their definition of right and wrong we are brought up in. We go to them for solace, love, and second chances. But where does the adult go for solace and a second chance? The answer is, of course, a god.
Yet we have come to know that there is no Santa Claus. God is a myth. As a few people have pointed out, How can you rationally love a creator that creates evil, consciously? Yet if seen as a process within evolution of totality, we can understand that sometimes it must be so. All potential possibilities will surface, like a cosmic Murphy's law. RON HOOFT.

Suffer no one to cry for me when my time ends. I have lived through joy and despair. I have seen life at its best and at its worst; I have witnessed the diversity of the universe from the diatoms in my earthly oceans to the explosion of stars. I have witnessed and partaken in the manipulation of the sciences. I have contributed three marvelous, beautiful children. I have successfully raised those hypersensitive Venus flytraps, yet have proven inept in the care of seahorses. Aye, I have been a part of the Problem, and I have been a part of the Solution. I Have Been. And the pleasure to be has been all mine. Look for me, then, in the dandelions in the lawn, in the wind that blows, in the features of my children. My time will have ended, and I will be gone, but I have left my mark in all these things and more, and that is where I will be. JOOLIKINS

When the brain dies, the illusion of individuality is gone. The illusion of self is gone. Memory gone. We are reduced slowly to our constituent parts and recycled. That is the cold truth.
But is it cold? If our parts have been recycled, isn't that reincarnation? Does every cell in our body not have a birth, a life, a reproduction cycle and a death? Are those memories gone? Have they left no impression on all the energy they have transformed in the past? For we know that every interaction transforms energy and matter, that is a given it would seem. we do not die; the energy and matter that we were is still interacting within the totality, according to our past experience. Ever lasting life is assured, though not perhaps conscious of the events that have led it to where it is. Yet, what it is is a direct result of its having interacted within the totality as part of what we call a human being. RON HOOFT

The things that make the "I" special; Ideas, Beliefs, Attitudes, Ideals, do not reside within our tiny heads. These elements exist wherever there is communication. Groups give rise to a greater consciousness, a mind that the individual helps create. So, when death comes, only the illusion of the "I" is lost. The stream of consciousness looses its form, becomes nebulous. But it continues flow just as it did before the "I" is lost. If our existence is only an a flashing illusion, we need not worry about death. Whatever we are carries on.
As a pantheist, I embrace this idea and try to give it meaning. When someone dies, rather than remembering them, become part of them. Find something that you did together in life, and keep doing it not in remembrance of a friend, but as your friend. Or, if when you being to loose a loved one, devote part of yourself to who they are. Not a static memory, but as a flowing consciousness. Help them with a hobby, let them teach you something essential to their being, and then, allow their distributary to become your tributary. Become part of who they were, allow their creativity to flow from you, and pass that on. In life, to preserve yourself, add to the stream of consciousness by teaching and art. JEFF PITCHER.

I have seen one too many home euthanasia stories gone bad. Instead of helping the ill person, they made them worse and then had that to contend with on their conscious. Then there's Mr. Kavorkian. This guy is a menace. To many times, Dr. Death has botched it with his screening process. Two of his last three victims, were not terminally ill at all. They just didn't want to suffer with the pain. This is not a good reason for euthanasia. LEE ANDERSON

I would like to see the medical community come to recognize the needs of the dying as a valid subject, and to involve itself in ways to help the terminally ill patient when it is determined that no alternatives will suffice. While I fully agree that matters such as suicide/life are to be held somehow in check (who would look forward to the popularization of suicide over less than life/death matters?), I believe that check should be provided in a positive, accepting way, while leaving the power of decision in the hands of the patient. "Yes, I understand your despair [(Ah Fe-ahl Yor Pain!)] and your desire to die. Can I help you look at your options from some other angles too?" No preaching. No endorsement of any particular treatment program; no silence on other options because of federal funding restrictions. If our friend decides to enter counseling and hospice care, accept that. If he still desires to die, accept that. It is, after all, his life, and his decision. All this of course requires something the press screams is severely lacking in our society: Community. Friendship. Networking. Acceptance. It could be a tall order in those parts of town where your neighbor complains about your sprinkler watering the easternmost six inches of his lawn. JOOLIKINS

I disagree with the comment that "life is suffering." Life is to be. It is to know love as well as despair, joy as well as pain. To be fair, there is no judgement of "good" times vs. "bad" times; sunshine and hurricanes are a package deal. After all, if life were just sunshine, would it not then become commonplace and unnoticed? Hurricanes are needed to provide change and restore balance (physically as well as mentally). All experiences of life, then, sez I, are to be embraced and felt at the very core of one's being, from carnations to send-us-your-money-now-or-we're-kicking-you-out-of-your-house-come-Saturday notices (and I have experienced them both!); taken on the whole, this is to experience the richness of life itself in all its shades. Life is not suffering; to think so is to miss so much. Life is revelry! JOOLIKINS

I am drawn to [pantheism] not because of any connotation with masculinity or femininity (another anthropocentric tendency of ours), but because of its all-encompassing nature: All is in balance. All is as it is. There is no "male/female" "us/them" theme. While paganism provides a lot of support to women's value and an arena for women's camaraderie, it also perpetuates that division. Women like me are trying to find a balance. I'm breaking away from the paternalistic, misogynistic God of my childhood, but not to turn to a Goddess or female dominance to recapitulate the imbalance. I do not believe the universe is divided into male and female, or is a union of the two. The universe is as it is. Again, I seek the balance. JOOLIKINS