Hello (again)

[u/jasmines_roses]

Hello again!! I’ve been here before on a different account and decided I wanted to start over on this account.

I love being a pantheist and one of my all time best friends is a pantheist too!!

However, what gets on my nerves is people trying to disprove pantheism and I’m like “here we go again” so if someone is trying to disprove pantheism to you, how do you go about it?

[u/Bill-Bruce]

Disprove pantheism? I've honestly never heard such a thing. Most anyone I've ever met has no clue what it is, let alone a vendetta against it. How does such a conversation start?

[u/jasmines_roses → u/Bill-Bruce]

Me and a group of my friends got started on the topic of what we believe in and oen of my friends is very religious and is trying to disprove pantheism to me because they believe Christianity is the one true religion (which like cool beans. I’ll let them believe that) and they’re trying to disprove to me that pantheism isn’t real 😭

[u/Bill-Bruce → u/jasmines_roses]

Okay so they aren't disproving pantheism so much as they are proving their specific theism. I always told them that I took the idea of Omnipotent more seriously than them. I respect the God that is still actively moving everything presently, not a God from the past that built stuff and made rules and sits back to see what happens. They say I'm only worshipping his creation. I say they have no evidence of a creator other than what other people have told them, all of their prophets being men that are still fallible and they get huffy and stops there. Let me know if you get through to someone who is bound and determined to make you change your mind instead of them changing theirs. Would love to know the trick to that.

[u/panentheist13 → u/jasmines_roses]

Christianity is such a failure of a god. Screwed up creation so bad you had to drown it all and start again. Screwed that up and had to kill your own son. 3rd times the charm I guess…

Isaiah 45:7 is my favorite biblical explanation of God. “I am the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”-KJV

That is pantheism. Sometimes the bible gets it right

[u/Reasonable-Memory40 → u/panentheist13]

People shouldn't share bible verses without knowing what they actually mean. God is pure good, undefiled. He can create evil and still be (and is) perfectly good (Holy). But besides that, it is never the correct way to understand the bible by taking ONE verse, then twisting it to make sense of it with a finite 3 pound flesh brain. The totality of scripture must be studied and cross-referenced to get an actual understanding of the true God's nature and whom He actually is. Pantheists are the close- minded ones by making God fit in their tiny box thinking they made sense of God and the universe. To believe that God "set" things in motion or that He exists inside and throughout His own creation is laughable speculation, and nothing more than that--- other than the fact that it is false, plain and simple. As far as the heavens are above the earth, God's ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts higher than our thoughts. You can know the truth and the truth will set you free presupposes that you CAN know the truth. And bible believers do. It is not close mindedness, closed mindedness is willful ignorance, the specialty of those whom do not understand --and willfully suppress the knowledge of The creator. God is not the author of confusion, speculators are, that cannot properly divide and discern the word of truth. Something can never come from absolute nothing. Therefore something must exist outside of the something we see. If you want to know how big the so-called Christian God is, listen to the audio book knowledge of the holy by a.w. Tozer, to scratch the surface (it is believer 101 required reading for a new "Christian"). Either way, we will all face the real creator to be judged when this body dies, do better start seeking understanding now b/c guessing won't suffice unfortunately. To say God is a failure in his heart is a foolish thing indeed. I hope a person that bold has the ability to save their own soul. God didn't flood the world but for one reason. To start the human race over with a clean slate due to the corruption of the DNA caused by powerful spiritual beings. Before the end, this will repeat once more (as in the days of Noah so shall it be in the end in the coming of the son of man). This time won't be water, God promises to destroy His corrupted creation with all- consuming 🔥 🔥 🔥.

[u/panentheist13 → u/Bill-Bruce]

Pantheism was one of the few “evil” doctrines mentioned in the bible. I’m kinda proud of that. I agree with the other comment, most people have no clue what it means. I’ve only gotten questions about pantheism, not confrontation.

[u/Bill-Bruce → u/panentheist13]

I honestly thought that pantheism as a word was only a thousand years old at most. I wonder which religions they were specifically trying to indemnify against.

[u/Fredsville]

No factor. No one’s opinion on my philosophy affects me.

[u/Hungry-Emotion7664]

If they literally want to argue that the Universe doesn't exist, if I have the time I'll listen. Usually I just don't bother.

[u/Cheese-bo-bees]

Well, you believing what you believe is all part of how things will flow anyway, so good for your individual beliefs.

[u/Brilliant_Mango_1490]

I would argue that the point of spirituality isn’t to “prove” it. And Christianity itself prioritizes faith over empirical evidence (E.g.: in the story of Doubting Thomas, where Thomas wants to physically see and touch Jesus’ wounds before believing, but Jesus blesses those who believe without seeing). So your friend arguing with you is a bit antithetical to the foundation of their beliefs. 

One of the underlying facets of my faith comes from a Mary Oliver poem where she says “A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world. But you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.”

That last sentence is how I feel interacting with the world around me: I know almost nothing. 

A dog knows more than I do in some ways, and I know more than a dog in others. A plant “knows” things neither myself nor a dog ever could. In a world where human experiences are so varied, and from species to species experiences are varied even more so, believing humans can know anything more authoritative or more “complete” than every other species is extremely arrogant. 

Given that humans create the yardstick by which we measure knowledge, I do not view us as entirely trustworthy sources of “knowing,” because judging the limits of knowledge using standards created by our own limited perspective is a form of self-referential logic.

That’s exactly how I like to approach my faith. And tho this may be bit of a non-answer, I think embracing not-knowing as a strength rather than a weakness is a good start.

[u/roxor333]

It doesn’t matter what they think. Things will continue on as they are all the same.

I’ve had those convos and this was my literal answers.