Pandeism and the consideration of animal life

Some Pandeists believe that there is an afterlife wherein all things return to oneness with our Creator, in which all of the thoughts and experiences of existence may be shared.* I was recently asked whether Pandeists believe that animals experience this proposed afterlife experience.

There does not seem to be a principled way to make a distinction. After all, man came from the animals-- at what point did 'ape' become 'man,' even? To a Universe-spanning deity, would there even be that much difference between ape and man? It would seem that every person, every animal, plant, even every stone and speck of dust, would be part of the sum total experience in the end. But most of those things, perhaps even most orders of animals, have no qualitative experience of existence at all. Neither do our own individual bodily cells or organs, even. Our brain cells, taken one or a few at a time, don't have cognizable thoughts or feelings.

It helps to remember why it would make sense for our minds to continue being sustained as independent entities within the mind of our Creator. Because such minds, in sharing the immeasurable aspects contained within the oneness of our Creator, could continue generating new contemplations and new experiences, essentially eternally. Might our Creator be interested in experiencing the contemplations of lower-order minds? To think what a cow thinks, or how a cow feels when it is butchered? Or a crocodile, when it feeds? Or what a cow thinks of experiencing existence as a crocodile? Well, possibly. Why not? But there must be a practical bottom, a level below which no fruitful and useful thought is generated.

Saint Augustine objected to pantheistic notions of our Creator being in all things on experiential grounds. If our Creator is in all things, he plead, then when a man beats a beast, our Creator must feel the blows. But in this more conventional notions of God-- is our Creator not aware of the experience of animal life? Does it not know, as well, their perceptions? Is that not simply a form of knowledge? Indeed, isn't the most profound form of knowledge that of experience? For this reason, Pandeism does speak, in a sense, to the treatment of animals. Would you butcher animals (or have them butchered, even distantly), if the price for it was that you would have to share in the experience of everything felt by every animal you've eaten? And, especially, to do so having the knowledge that, whatever suffering it may have endured and in which you would share, was on your account? (So what about plants?, you might ask. Well, having no nociceptive nervous structure (the kinds of nerves which feel pain), nor a brain to process feelings, I'd have no discomfort with sharing their null experience of existence.)

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*The afterlife proposition is not a Universal pandeistic belief. It is simply a logical extrapolation from a Universe which seems to some to be designed to bring us about in the first place.

Is Pandeism "sexed up" and "watered down"?

Leading atheist Richard Dawkins has written that "Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism."* With these ten words, it seems Dawkins intends to dispose of these two historical theological models and dive into the main event of challenging Theism, in its patchwork array of tens of thousands of faiths, sects, and cults. Naturally, the dismissive handwave Which Dawkins gives to Pantheism and Deism has profound implications for Pandeism, which is both a form of Deism, and an expression of the most poignant elements of Pantheism (those being that all things are part of 'God,' a force expressed through the laws of nature which govern the unfoldment of our Universe).

Indeed, had Dawkins thought to address Pandeism directly, he would likely have labelled it "sexed up Deism," and perhaps rightly so in light of Pandeism's overt case for the seeking of sexual pleasures (along with all of the other pleasures of life). But let us dig a little deeper into what Dawkins means by his characterizations of Deism and Pantheism. Firstly, as to Pantheism, Dawkins proposes that those who call themselves Pantheist are simply callng our Universe 'God,' but in so doing they are denying all of the characteristics traditionally accorded to a deity -- the infinitudes, the role as Creator, the conscious interventions, and such. And it is correct to observe that Pantheism as a theological model finds no use for these characteristics. But this does not itself render Pantheism a form of Atheism, as many different flavors of Pantheism exist, expressing a wide range of levels of spirituality.

Onward to Deism, Dawkins' notion of Deism as 'watered down theism' is that Deists are people who simply want to believe in a God, but are embarrassed by the childishness of scriptural myths and their failure to accord with scientific discovery, and by the egocentrism inherent in the human belief that a Universe-creating deity ought to stoop to giving directives to humans, or bending the laws of nature in answer to human desires expressed as prayers. And so, in Dawkins' estimation, the Deists take the religious beliefs which they've essentially inherited from their theistic ancestors, including whatever circular logic upheld those theistic beliefs, and stripped from them the most rhetorically reprehensible and logically unsustainable elements, leaving behind vague beliefs held for no reason but cultural momentum. And though Dawkins does address those arguments which appeal to both Deists and Theists, the fine tuning argument and the prime mover argument, for example, he tends to focus on theistic iterations of them, and to discredit their ability to actually prove a theological outcome, instead of addressing the degree to which they make it rational to believe ours to be a created Universe. And in fact Deists have long been formulators of new and novel approaches to the question of why we ought to believe in an ultimate power, and indeed why we ought to believe in a deistic theological model as against all others. Indeed, even Dawkins' associate Christopher Hitchens has given Deism credit for its comparative reasonableness, levying the criticism at Theism that one cannot get to Theism from the proofs which support Deism.

My answer to this charge is that Deism generally and Pandeism especially are not 'watered down' forms of Theism in any sense except that they wash away the human inventions which the ignorant and egotistical authors of the documents of theistic faith have over the centuries piled upon logically or intuitively perceived theological notions. Michelangelo is reported to have told a visiting Prince once that he did not create his statues; he simply removed the excess bits of marble which surrounded the forms already held within the stone. I will put aside for the moment the question of whether Pandeism itself might be called a work of art, and instead analogize it to a steel framework which has over time become covered with mud; watering down the structure washes away the mud, but reveals the framework as having a much stronger appearance than the structure would have been accorded before this cleansing. And so I would answer Dawkins' proposition with the counter that Deism is a much stronger position than any Theism, and can not be so cavalierly dismissed as to call it a 'watered down' anything.

But I'll concede that Pandeism is nicely sexed up, as formulations of Deism go.



* Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion, "A deeply religious non-believer", page 40, 2006.

Pandeism -- on the tip of the tongue

Pandeism -- it's just on the tip of everybody's tongue!!

A Pandeist response to Sacerdotus

Recently I came upon a rather old blog post from one Sacerdotus, titled From Atheist to Catholic, huh? How that happen?!? The post delineates the author's claim of dabbling in various beliefs (and nonbeliefs) until converting to Catholicism-- seemingly largely on the strength of an incidence where a woman mysteriously referred to him as "father" whilst they happened to be in the vicinity of a Catholic Church, and thereafter the author's feeling of peace upon worshiping therein.

To Sacerdotus I reply: It is unclear from your description whether you even considered Pandeism (if not, fair enough, it is esoteric enough a theological model that it takes some searching to even come to it), or, if you have considered it, that you have given it a fair shake. Let me point to two aspects of Catholicism -- the cover-ups of child-molesting pedophile priests, and the quixotic condemnation of the homosexuality of consenting adults. It is clear that the hiding and shuffling about and protecting of child molesters was orchestrated from the heights of the institution, and from the very same heights from which unscientific and untenable homophobia has spewed. This bespeaks corruption from crust to core, hardly characteristic of an institution bearing an underlying truth. Indeed, quite the opposite of it.


But let us compare the philosophy of Pandeism. All things are part of and within our Creator, which has wholly becomes our Universe, a Universe designed to give rise to intelligent life, most probably so that our Creator can experience from the vantage point of such life, and learn what it is like to live so. Now, this fully accounts for the lives of all the towering figures of theological history, of Arjuna and Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, Gandhi. For all are themselves part of our Creator, and some surely may have had some special talent for touching upon a fragment of its incomprehensible underlying presence, and take from that some modicum of truth, some snippet which was but a molecule of it, and yet was overwhelming to any human mind.

And so Pandeism fully accounts for all theologically significant experiences, for miracles, and things experienced by their limited human recipients as revelations and visions and prophecies, egrigores and spiritual encounters or emotions or notions. This fully accounts for your own "father" experience and your feelings in going to this especial church, a bow to the ego, a flash of energy from an underlying and nonintervening being not directed towards you, but created by you-- in your unknowing capacity as a fragment of our Universe's Creator.

And returning to the problems of Catholicism (even ignoring its enslavement of tens of thousands of Irish women in the Magdalene Laundries until only a few years ago, its science-defying discouragement of condom usage in nations with AIDS epidemics, and its politically shrewd but morally weak passivity during the Holocaust), it is simply not a universal truth. It is not something which a person born in a remote time or place could come to realize, absent some external intervention, and so most people who have lived and died on this Earth have done so without ever knowing enough of the religion to consider it.

Not so with Pandeism, which can be reached by logical contemplation no matter when or where the starting point, and which is hampered only by attachment to unreason (both on the part of the religious and the atheistic, who stake an absolute position where no absolutes can rightly be known).

And as to the problems mentioned before, Pandeism properly avoids any hierarchical structure, any of the sort of 'organized religion' which would even enable a body to become corrupted, to become a haven for pedophiles and an enabler of their crimes. And, understanding that all things are part of our Creator, and that each person has a duty to prevent those instances which are rationally discernible as causing suffering, Pandeism could have no irrational doctrine of homophobia. It is the very impossibility of such things within an understanding of pandeistic truth which sets it morally above any "organized" structure susceptible to corruption and to hijacking in favor of bigotry and biases.

The destiny of the unevangelized, and the incompetently evangelized

One of the strongest objections to any faith system claiming Universality is the destiny of the unevangelized -- simply put, it is troubling to claim that only those who hold a certain belief will reap an afterlife reward -- and those who do not hold such belief will instead be punished with an afterlife of suffering -- where it is demonstrable that some number of people will have lived and died without ever even hearing of the belief. This, indeed, presents one of the major divides within individual religions, with believers fervently arguing for one position on the issue or the other, to the point of schism and bloody internecine religious war.

Perhaps more troubling still, there is the gray area of those who heard some snippet or other of this claimed 'one true' belief, but were presented it incompletely or incompetently, so that they were in no position to form a reasoned judgment about the relative logic of it while they lived. Indeed, where decisions are made based on imperfect information, it must become a very delicate art indeed to assert that one person over another has information perfect enough to make a decision upon.

The idea of admission to the positive afterlife based on "works" at least disposes of the problem of the unevangelised (and the less-discussed corollary of the incompetently evangelised), as one of the major failings of theistic faiths. But, such an idea disposes as well of the notion that one must have the correct belief, and so undermines the notion of one religion especially being the truth. Perhaps more devastatingly, as religious edifices go, it undermines the argument for funding and empowering a lavishly appointed priest-class.

And as to those who hear some piece of evangelism, it is quite possible that more people come to altogether reject the idea of a given "God," or of any especial iteration thereof, due to the offensive showing made by various theistic adherents, than due to any inherent objection which might be made against the idea itself. And just as clearly, there are at least some theists much prefer to experience the smug self-satisfaction of thinking they've won an argument via some fine point of theological wordplay than to experience something like actually helping the needy. So, if there was a God who punished anyone, it ought to first be thought to punish its own errant followers for setting such a shameful and repulsive example that their brutish conceit drives the multitude away from their professed deity.

The problem of the offensive missionary:

Picture this: a young missionary of one of the claimedly universal faiths (and I cite no especial example of a faith -- though I certainly could cite many out of personal experience) steps off the boat and onto a remote South Pacific island, one never before subject to any sort of evangelism. Previous visitors to the isle had only stopped to trade and survey, never to spread any faith, and so the natives are completely unaware that any religion exists other than their own local traditions, most likely some mix of reverence for nature and veneration of ancestors, passed down to them for thousands of generations. The people of this island speak no English; the missionary counts on miraculous intervention to supplement his communications, and so has learned but a few sentences in a language spoken by the next nearest islanders, presumed to have a common root. This missionary immediately takes to berating the natives for their failure to conform to his own moral preferences. Perhaps, based on his own errant religious instruction, he insists that the the natives will be condemned to eternal punishment because they wear nothing above the waist, or because they engage in work on a certain day of the week, or fail to engage in prayer on another. Perhaps this missionary declares that all of the marriages on the island are illegitimate because none, before his arrival, have conformed with his understanding of the appropriate ceremony. But shortly, he has given an absurd impression to the natives, who politely shoo him off their island at the next opportunity, resolved that the belief system peddled by this unprepared interloper is nonsensical, and thusly declining further missionary visitations.

Are these natives now to be deemed well-enough versed in the religion so poorly evangelized to them to be liable for eternal damnation, should they reject it? Are their children so liable, if the previous generation opts not to bother sharing the story? And, would it be at all fair for a deity to punish the nonbelieving native, and yet not punish the missionary whose conduct caused this affirmative state of nonbelief? And this problem is not limited to the isolated islands, for even in the hearts of the populations of crowded continents, there are countless preachers of countless faiths and sects and interpretations establishing a cacophony of assurances and accusations, threats and finger-pointing, enough to propel any sane man to tune out the claims of religion altogether (even those claims which might, on quiet reflection, be reasonable and defensible).

The problem of the isolated planet:

And beyond this, it stands to reason that if it's expectable for a deity to create some people (isolated tribes, etc) who never hear the true word, then it could create an entire planet of people who never hear the true word. And yet, it has been our experience in finally encountering those long-isolated tribes that they tended to have independently developed a theological model all their own, perhaps an animistic or polytheistic one, perhaps one with pantheistic or pandeistic or purely deistic overtones. And, naturally, just maybe, though extremely rarely in practice, it may be one with all the trimmings of monotheism. And so there might be another planet out there where some intelligent life has come to the fore and set forth a civilization with a level of knowledge and technology and sophistication of social institutions to rival our own. And, indeed, such a civilization, though not privy to any of the thousands of 'true' faiths professed on Earth could easily have as many 'true' faiths, as many doctrines and debates and deicides. And adherents to any faith on this alien world might be every bit as assured, every bit as fervent in their beliefs, as any Earthbound believer.

But here's the catch.

If it is possible that a 'true' deity may have revealed itself once, to one group, without bothering to provide for isolated groups to learn the truth encapsulated in its revelation, then perhaps we are as a planet such an isolated group. For one cannot reasonably postulate a deity capable of allowing an entire planet to wallow in ignorance and false faith without confessing that ours might be that planet. And in the same stroke, one ought to admit that, if there is a "one true faith" that all people are intended to discover, then all theistic faiths claiming universality are proved false by those who have lived and died without hearing of such faiths. Instead, what can be called true must be what can be discerned from a logical examination of our world, even by those who have never heard a word of any scripture.

Pandeism and Taoism

Having ventured forth a series of examinations of the possibilities of Pandeism with respect to various fictional Universes, I turn now to a new endeavor, the comparison of the elements of Pandeism to the religions of the world. My first effort in this new series is directed towards Taoism, in part because of its intriguing areas of correlation with Pandeism. But, mostly, because of a girl. Bless you, Alice, for this inspiration.

Taoism (or, to some, Daoism) is a beautiful and ancient philosophy originating in China around the 4th Century BC, and thereafter contributing ideas carried into virtually all later-developing religious paradigms. The essence of Taoism is the recognition that our world is naturally composed of opposing forces -- symbolized by the Yin and Yang -- which must be peacefully balanced against one another for a fruitful life to be realized. And, further, that a single truth, an ultimate creative principle, underlies all of these forces, and knowledge of this truth illuminates the path of proper conduct to achieve this desirable balance. The Tao is this truth, this path.

As we shall see, Pandeism and Taoism are not at all in conflict -- indeed, they may be taken as complementary, with Pandeism as a sort of "why are we here" which provides possible frameworks for morality, but doesn't necessarily tell us how we ought to act, while Taoism focuses more directly on the conduct of life without setting forth a "why," a basis for our having been created (or otherwise existing). One may be a Pandeist Taoist, just as readily as one may be a Pantheist Taoist or even an Atheist Taoist who denies deity but accepts the essential ideas of Taoism with respect to the balance of opposing forces.

Pandeistic and Taoist precepts and practices:

The formative texts of Taoism, traditionally credited to Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi, are by turns poetic and anecdotal, given to parable, poetry, and whimsy. But despite the wisdom acknowledged to be encompassed in these works, they are not claimed to have been written by a deity or upon a deity's command. Their writers are not lofted as prophets or demigods. Indeed, Taoism presents no orthodoxy, no dictator of metaphysical absolutes telling practitioners that their individual view of it is right or wrong based on his own interpretation of this or that selection of the ancient writings. Historical circumstances -- ebbs and tides of governmental purging and restoration, and attempts to meld in similar traditions, have resulted in there being many different views encompassed within the greater tradition, and it is understood that it dis-serves all of these to declare any one to be the one, correct path.

Pandeism and Taoism coincide in this lack of dogmatism, and the absence of an involved 'Creation myth' or an attempt to explain physical realities such as he strips of the zebra or the leglessness of the snake through just-so-stories. But Taoism and Pandeism are both indubitably easily confused with conventional religions, though each is essentially simply a path. Taoism begins with the Tao Te Ching, and the Tao Te Ching begins with the admonition:

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name....

Tao Te Ching, I

This is key, because it reminds us that we can only abstractly contemplate the Tao -- a notion reflected in the observation of Pandeism that logically extrapolating necessary qualities of our Universe's Creator is not the same as understanding it. Actually understanding such a thing is inherently beyond the constrained capacity of the human mind, and any claim to an understanding of it properly immediately raises a skeptical eyebrow. On Occasion, evangelists of other faiths have sought to reconcile their beliefs with Taoism by identifying the individual central figure of their faith -- perhaps Buddha or Jesus -- as a personification of the Tao. Such efforts misunderstand the Tao and the meaning of Lao Zi's explanation of it; one might reply that the Tao that can be reduced to a person is not the Tao. Pandeism notes as well the oddity of supposing that any individual person can be thought more divine or less divine in a Universe which is itself rationally thought to be holistically divine.

Meditation is a practice widely regarded as well-received within Taoism. Although Pandeism does not offer doctrinal guidance advocating meditation, it ought to be no surprise that many Pandeists engage in meditation, or simply a comparable deep contemplation of our Universe, for Pandeism is a discipline which demands thoughtful examination of all the things we know to attain logical and rational conclusions about the nature of our Universe. Indeed, it ought to be no surprise at all that many who explicitly or implicitly hew to Pandeism delve as well into Taoism, and other similarly contemplative traditions such as Zen Buddhism.

Pandeism and Taoism similarly provide a basis to practive reverence for nature and kindness to all living things, including a leaning towards vegetarianism (distinctly a practice of Taoism, and one followed by many Pandeists). For the Taoist, such practices are inherent to the desire to lead a balanced life, and avoid the imbalance inherent in violence. In Pandeism, this reverence and these practices come from the belief that all things are part of our Creator, and that by inflicting suffering upon other living things, we inflict the same upon our Creator -- and quite possibly, ultimately, upon ourselves.

Pantheistic elements of Taoism:

Taoism has additionally often been observed to incorporate a sense of the pantheistic -- the closest thing Taoism has to a Creation account is Lao Tzu's contention that "The world has a beginning," Tao Te Ching, LII, and his decidedly emanationist account:

Tao produces one
One produces two
Two produce three
Three produce myriad things
Myriad things, backed by yin and embracing yang
Achieve harmony by integrating their energy

Tao Te Ching, XLII

The Tao has given rise to things, but:

Virtue raises them
Grows them, educates them
Perfects them, matures them
Nurtures them, protects them

Tao Te Ching, LI.

Zhuang Zi similarly relayed that "Heaven and I were created together, and all things and I are one," and, when asked where the Tao could be found, replied that "There is nowhere where it is not.... There is not a single thing without Tao."

Parallels between Pandeism and Taoism in these account include the idea of there being a 'source' and of such source being a constant sustainer of every thing in our Universe as we experience it. Pandeism differs from Taoism in Pandeism's supposition of an intelligent entity motivated by some need to set forth a Universe in the original instance. But this difference is not a contradiction; it is simply an element by which Pandeism seeks to explain the characteristics of our Universe as they are uncovered by modern science. As Taoism does not claim to provide an explanation for the science underlying our existence, it can raise no great rift between the theological perspectives if Pandeism does attempt such a thing.

Deistic elements of Taoism:

Taoism, like Pandeism, does not propose that there is an intervening deity which desires worship, and will punish those who fail to so behave. And like Pandeism, Taoism does not require adherents to believe in miracles from on high. It does not require that we surrender our skepticism with respect to supernatural claims. The Tao instead raises up reason as a value, as does Pandeism, in deducing that any Creator who would set forth a Universe wherein reason would serve as so powerful a tool must intend it to be used. Taoism does not espouse teachings demanding one sort of conduct while providing stories of a deity or a deity's servants acting the opposite.

As with Deism generally, and Pandeism as a branch thereof, Taoism offers no justification whatsoever for human or animal sacrifice, nor for infanticide, bigotry, or genocide. It provides no excuse upon which to work injustice, or to inflict pain and suffering upon others. Taoism, instead, prizes patience. It stresses reason, tolerance, respect, and self-control, and so any Pandeist studying the Tao would be struck by how similarly the paths of contemplation run between the traditions. 

For many Pandeists, the need for each person to discern their own meaning -- in the absence of supernatural guidance -- is a logical outgrowth of the philosophy as well. And just as Pandeism reconciles broadly the principles of Deism and Pantheism, so are the elements of Deism and Pantehism reflected in Taoism reconciled therein as well.

On governance:

Taoism and Pandeism are notable as well for their political and sexual perspectives.

Politically, Taoism originated with the expression of some anti-government precepts, both by Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi, which were unusual for religious insitutions of their day. It the Tao Te Ching, Lao Zi writes:

When there are many restrictions in the world
The people become more impoverished
....
The more laws are posted
The more robbers and thieves there are.

Tao Te Ching, LVII

And further on it is written:

When governing is lackluster
The people are simple and honest
When governing is scrutinizing
The people are shrewd and crafty.

Tao Te Ching, LVIII

As has been similarly pointed out, Pandeism provided theological support for limiting the potentially deleterious interference of government -- which, due to the evolutionarily competitive nature of its human participants, often ends up picking 'winners and losers' and being corrupted to pick the already-winners to continue winning. Contrary to this interference in the lives of individuals, Pandeism notes that we are each best suited to determine our own choices, and our quest for the diverse experiences we share with our Creator requires that we must be permitted to choose them deal with the consequences of them.

On sexuality:

Sexually, Lao Zi wrote:

Those who hold an abundance of virtue....
do not know of sexual union but can manifest arousal
Due to the optimum of essence.

Tao Te Ching, LV

But later writings originating in alchemy and incorporated into Taoism offered a great deal of positivity, advocating frequent sexual intercourse with multiple partners as a means of extendinglongevity, and possibly even immortality. Pandeism, naturally, is equally promotional towards sexual pleasures, as these are some of the most profound and pleasurable experiences through which our Creator shares in our existence. But the ideas circulated in Taoism, derived from notions of yin and yang, had some oddities, including the proposition that if one partner produced sexual fluids while the other did not, the partner who restrained themself from that culmination would be able to absorb the vital energy of the one who was unable to work such restraint.

And so, it was advocated that a man could extend his life by bedding young women, especially virgins, and most especially several virgins in the same night, and bringing them to orgasm while not himself ejaculating (although methods were developed for men to experience orgasm without ejaculating). Similarly, it was advocated that a woman could extend her life by bedding many young men and receiving their life-giving sperm into her body's sexually penetrable orifices. With these ends in mind, many books were written espousing sexual positions and activities and techniques by which one partner could bring about the most profound orgasms in the other -- a seemingly selfless desire, but one steeped in a more selfish goal of partaking of the life-essence of the other partner.

But these notions, derived as they were from alchemist theorists, run counter to the more enlightened Taoist quest for balance, for respect for nature (of which sexuality is an expression), for moderation of competing desires. Modernly, sexuality has largely fallen away as a focus of Taoism; its sexual dimensions were wiped away due to historical purges of sexuality by regimes more given to sexual shame and suppression. But some of the ancient Taoist practices were preserved in the more sexually open cultures to which they were passed, and have been adapted to aid in the treatment of sexual dysfunctions such as premature ejaculation. So far as it does exist, the emphasis in modern Taoist practices no longer espouses prolonging life by avoiding ejaculation, but has instead shifted to simply realizing the health benefits generally associated with an active and balanced sexuality. This coincides with the view of Pandeism, that consensual sexual enjoyment ought to be experienced with great liberality and in great variety, to maximize the introduction of happiness into the world; and that each person ought to give great attention to the pleasuring of their partner, whose pleasurable experiences will be experienced by the giver when all things return to one. 

Summation:

It befits the contemplative rationality of Taoism that it would comport with these same principles in Pandeism. That two theological traditions, with such different origins in time and place, share so many reasoned determinations about the nature of the human condition, simply underscores the delightful notion that no matter how far apart we may be in time and space, reason may bring us together. 


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Some additional reading:
The Tao Te Ching, translated
Naturalistic Pantheism and Philosophical Taoism -- an essay with some excellent related overtures.

Pandeism and Atheism

The relationship between Pandeism and Atheism as deeply-held philosophies is, by turns, complementary and contentious, curious and quizzical. There are different models of Atheism, but the ideology generally either actively proposes the absence of a 'God' or at least passively denies that there is any reason to believe such a thing exists. Much of Atheist discourse is directed towards theistic arguments and the fairly universal inconsistencies and absurdities of scriptural documents. This attention is symptomatic of how many indefensible theological models do exist -- as Bernard Haisch wrote in The God Theory, "I freely grant that even reductionism is preferable to a belief that slaughter and destruction in the name of a vengeful God will result in immediate passage to heaven."1

And so it can be no wonder that the Atheist, confronted repeatedly with deeply and visibly flawed theological models, with models of arbitrarily directed hatefulness and irrationality, long cloaked in a deadly aversion to being questioned, becomes convinced no such model can be true. And this inculcation becomes set, most often, before ever learning in any depth of deistic models generally, or of Pandeism especially. And so, by the time the atheist is exposed to the deistic or the pandeistic model, his experiences with less rational models have got him fixed against any proposition that would have ours be an intentionally and intelligently created Universe -- even if these models are even more effective at dismissing notions of a vain, violent, or 'jealous' Universe-creating entity, even if these models rationally demonstrate that the most logical Creator would carry none of the arbitrary and dangerous negative projections of human bias so deeply set in theistic mythologies. The atheistic reactionary revulsion to metaphysical accounts too readily may metastasize into an absolute and unwaivering reductionist dogmatism against any explanation existing at all.

And therein lies the master problem. Atheism is essentially a rejection of a class of explanations, but it is not itself an explanation of anything. Consider: if you were to walk into a friend's office, and you saw a large collection of stamps on his desk, you would intuitively know that the most likely explanation of how that pile got there would be that somebody placed them there; that's the how, that is perhaps not so controversial. But suppose you asked why they were there -- if your friend responded "well, I am not a stamp collector," that would would be a refutation of one possible explanation, but it wouldn't then become an explanation in and of itself. And if the response to every such why-is-it-so type of proposition was to deny the truth of it, or dismiss it as unproveable, then at the end of the day we are left with an apparent prohibition on having a why to account for what is observed.

This problem plays out most pointedly in the examination of that most singular of events, the beginning of our Universe. It is important to remember that this was not a theoretical or hypothetical event, but is instead an historical event, an historical fact. Our Universe gives every appearance of existing; we are in it, as observers, to attest to this fact. Our Universe has several measurable indicators of expansion from an initial point, on this point atheists agree with many theists. And so, at some past point, our Universe began. The how of this is the province of theoretical physicists, who now best guess that our Universe's existence is an expression of quantum mechanics. But this how is not a why. And it is possible, undoubtedly, that there is no why, that it simply is. But the position of atheism, or at least of the most committed variations of that philosophy is that you can not ask why, perhaps that you must not ask why. And the rationale for this prohibition is generally given in the untestability or unprovability of any why-is-it-so proposition relating to so mysteriously distant of an historical event. At its worst, this tendency descends to calling such explanations 'pseudoscience' or 'woo-woo,' seeking to degrade them to the point where the critic is insulated from any need to contemplate the implications of there being any explanation at all.

As might be predicted from the initial problem, an examination of the literature of Atheism reveals a strong tendency towards focused arguments against theistic beliefs. Deism, Pantheism, and their family of philosophies are generally not addressed, or only glancingly so. The inconsistencies in theistic texts are attacked. The murderous histories of theistic adherents are laid out (and often met with accusations of the same coming from atheist-governed regimes). The theistic deity is called out for allowing all manner of evil and suffering to flourish, up to and including the death by starvation of small children, despite ostensibly having the power to prevent it. It is unsurprising, then, that confronted with a theological model which lacks such flesh hooks into which Atheism can sink its teeth, Atheists tend nonetheless to act as if these nontheistic ideas can be attacked with theistic contentions. Indeed, it sometimes takes quite a bit of patient explaining to get an Atheist to stop using antiscriptural and antitheistic arguments against theological theories which have no scripture, which do not posit infinite or active deities, and which are indeed divorced from the elements of theism.

Pandeism, on the other hand, has no outward quarrel with Atheism. Being at core an exercise in probabilistic logic, Pandeism is fundamentally agnostic, acknowledging at the outset that it is entirely possible that the atheistic view is correct, insofar as there may be no why in which case all why explanations are indeed properly rejected. It can never truly be known, Pandeism concedes, whether ours is a created Universe; it can only be determined what are the absolutely necessary characteristics of a Universe-Creator, and what are the implications of an entity having those characteristics. And so, Pandeists tend not to engage Atheists with the proposition that Atheists are wrong to hold that position, but simply to defend the proposition (when set upon by the Atheist critique) that neither is Pandeism an irrational position to hold. And so I would simply tell Atheists: we'll continue standing up for the right of science to ask 'how?' and we hope you'll not stand against the right of Pandeists to ask 'why?'

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1. Haisch, Bernard, PhD, The God Theory (2006), page 25.