Pantheism vs. Pantheism vs. Pantheism

If one of the things that makes a religion a "real" religion is schism, then I guess pantheism is a "real" religion. There are three types of pantheism--at least three, but these are the three major denominations (?) that I'm familiar with.

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The first I'll call ecological pantheism. I don't know if it has an "official" name or not, but this name suits. Most people these days calling themselves pantheists are probably ecological pantheists. (There are also a lot of scientific pantheists; more on that below.) Ecological pantheism is based on feelings of awe and reverence before the beauty and splendor of nature, coupled with the desire to preserve and protect that which inspires those feelings. It's easy to agree with people who revere nature, as these feelings seem to have been an intrinsic part of human spirituality since the era of cave paintings.

Ecological pantheism is a close cousin of animism, in which everything, living and inanimate, is seen as having a soul. When my daughter was (for a time) an animist, she explained an important part of her beliefs: Everything natural has a soul, from sun and moon to rock and tree. A fallen tree retains its soul--but when humans use a tree to make a table, or transform iron ore into steel cookware, the soul of the original object is destroyed. In changing a natural object into a "man-made" one, we destroy something intrinsically sacred about it.

Again, easy to understand the idea, certainly at least on an aesthetic level.

The same sentiment is at work in ecological pantheism. In some sense, humans are intruders upon the landscape and in the natural ecosystem. Perhaps we were once part of nature, but somewhere during our cultural development, something went awry. We fell from grace. Often the biblical passage about man's dominion over nature is cited as evidence of our un-Natural perversion.

This idea is hard at work in the recent James Cameron film Avatar.

[Spoilers!]

In the final scene of the movie, the protagonist Jake Sully has his consciousness permanently transferred into his Na'Vi avatar. On the one hand, it's a triumph over his disability, and it allows him to truly find a new home with the woman he's fallen in love with and the tribe who adopted him. But there's a subtle message here: Sully cannot gain salvation without fully giving up his humanity. His injured legs are a symbol of humanity's ecological original sin, with the only way to natural salvation being to refute that humanity. (Of course, it was that very humanity that led him to fall in love with Neytiri and her tribe.)

[End spoilers.]

Though many ecological pantheists may be refugees from Christianity, the same anti-human idea about our inherent spiritual depravity is a shared concept. And in extreme ecological pantheism (just like extreme Christianity) the only way to overcome our original sin is to turn away from our own humanity, becoming Christlike or returning to some idealized noble savage state.

I believe this sort of extreme ecological pantheism carries a dangerous and nihilistic message about the future of humanity. Religion, if it and we are to survive and improve, must take into account--even rely on--our humanity, including all our flaws. Our salvation lies in our own humanity; paradoxically, of course, so does the possibility of our self-extermination.

Of course, there's a lot to be said for revering the divinity of nature. If care for the natural world around us was as strong as care for our families and our society, a lot of our resource- and pollution-based problems wouldn't be anywhere near so pressing. The popular message of ecological pantheism is an important (maybe even vital) one. And it's one that can make itself at home in most, if not all, major religions. For example, Christianity has slowly but steadily been building up ideas about stewardship of the earth as a religious duty. Ecological pantheism will continue to be an important movement in Western society, provided it doesn't fall into the trap of extremism.

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The second form of pantheism I want to talk about is called (officially) scientific pantheism. You can find it espoused by the World Pantheist Movement and the Universal Pantheist Society. (How do they know the rest of the universe belongs to their society...?)

When people talk about science becoming a new religion, this is often what they're talking about. The scientific method has nothing religious about it, of course: it's nothing more (and nothing less) than the best way we have to improve our understanding of physical reality, relying on research, experimentation and peer review.

Scientific pantheism is sometimes called "atheism with a handlebar mustache." It's a combination of poetic atheism and soft theism. You can find literature expressing the pantheist need to form a "personal relationship" with the Universe--in short, replacing a personal God with the awe-inspiring, beautiful aspects of nature. (Does a scientific pantheist really wish to form a personal relationship with ebola, though?)

Scientific pantheism has the problem of encouraging people to view science as its own religion. Although science and religion often talk about the same subjects--not least the origin and possible destinies of our species--and although they both produce similar feelings of awe and wonder, they should not be confused. Science is a source of information; often this is information that can be used to help us create a better world. But it says nothing about how we should behave towards one another. Even the young science of evolutionary psychology can only tell us why our morals have developed the way they have; it can't tell us whether our morals are good.

It does, however, share the same advantages of ecological pantheism. The universe is a holy place, and we're part of it. Learning about it can be seen as a sacred duty, both to ourselves and to the divinity we participate in. It also avoids the problem area of ecological pantheism, as it sees humanity as part of nature. Being part of nature is, for the scientific pantheist, the very reason we must take care of it.

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Finally, I want to talk about my type of pantheism. I've decided a good name for it (because I don't know if it's already been named) is philosophical pantheism. This is sort of an "original" pantheism, in that it existed well before either modern science or the Transcendentalist movement that helped spawn Western ecological awareness. Like both ecological and scientific pantheism, philosophical pantheism begins with reverence for nature, the idea that nature is in some way divine.

Philosophical pantheism is less overtly theistic than ecological pantheism (which often views "Mother Nature" quite literally), but more theistic than scientific pantheism, with its handlebar mustache.

To understand philosophical pantheism, you have to begin with Lao Tzu and Marcus Aurelius. Of course pantheism was a part of religion before them, but the Tao te Ching and the Meditations are both seminal works. They are startlingly similar in tone and content--almost like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls in Japan!

Philosophical pantheism--while it does rely on emotional nature reverence--is a thinking religion. Spinoza's Ethics (which I still haven't finished, after over two years of reading) requires a lot of brain power (which is why I still haven't finished, after over two years of reading). It lays out its ideas in a geometrical procession--axioms, postulates, propositions, corollaries, and a whole lot of Q.E.D.'s. But being a thinking religion is apt, because Mind is one of its essential concepts.

Where philosophical pantheism differs the most with its ecological and scientific siblings is the idea that the universe is a thinking Being. This is not some quasi-mystical New Age panpsychism, though. The universe is an orderly place because Mind creates its order. Human consciousness is the way it is because the universe is the way it is. God orders itself from Being, to Mind (or Spirit), to the material universe--which is again ordered in our minds to create the experiential world we live in. Nature is fractal, recursive, and holographic: divine Logos creates the human mind.

This version of pantheism (unfortunately?) lacks the urgent ecological message. Determinism (but not fatalism) is a big factor. Although I'm responsible for my own behavior, I can't change anyone--or anything--else. Things happen because they must, because it's turtles all the way down. No matter what we do or do not do ecologically, the state of the planet is ultimately out of our hands. Our responsibility is not to "save the planet"--the Earth will take care of itself--our responsibility is to adapt ourselves to our changing environment, and support our neighbors in doing the same.

There's nothing inherently good or evil in the universe. Nature--God--is amoral, at least as far as human morality is concerned. We can't rely on divine revelations; all we have is the morality that our evolution has provided us with. Fortunately, we're still working out our social morality, and physical and cultural evolution will keep the best systems going, as long as our species lasts. Our humanity is essential to our salvation.