Here is some of the text of the Council on Pandeism meeting which happened on May the 4th.... this was a Skype meeting, so most of the action was audio, but there were many comments typed out as well -- note that many of these comments were in response to spoken words so their context might be unapparent, but I still feel it worthwhile to post them as is -- and these are they:
[11:52:15 AM] Ivan Sanders: Can you see me
[11:53:22 AM] K Mapson: I can see and hear.
[11:55:42 AM] K Mapson: I am going to live-tweet the discussion, if that's okay with everybody.
[11:56:35 AM] K Mapson: or it's 9AM on a Sunday ;)
[11:59:35 AM] K Mapson: there are two really big camps out there -- indoctrinated theists, and reactionary atheists, and each wants to shoehorn everything which doesn't fit into their camp into the other, which hurts other theological models
[12:00:09 PM] K Mapson: can't tell you how many theists have come at me with purely anti-atheist arguments, and atheists with anti-bible arguments
[12:02:11 PM] K Mapson: Deists tend to be sympathetic, since Pandeism is a logic-derived viewpoint
[12:03:07 PM] K Mapson: well I mean that it is itself logical
[12:04:29 PM] K Mapson: Deism has always been targetted by the criticism that it can't explain why a Creator would create and then step away, not intervene. That is what Pandeism resolves within the deistic frame.
[12:08:12 PM] K Mapson: I think that's an absolutely good sense of motivation.
[12:08:35 PM] K Mapson: Over the 90s.
[12:09:31 PM] K Mapson: I remember first hearing about it from a lunchtime lecture from a philosophy prof.
[12:10:38 PM] K Mapson: He was a Hartshorne follower, and Hartshorne had written a snippet on it which intrigued the prof, I remember he got quite animated about the subject. So, it got me animated about it.
[12:10:53 PM] K Mapson: But really it took the Internet to find out anything about it.
[12:11:30 PM] K Mapson: Nope, he wrote a few paragraphs about it, in the 40s.
[12:11:47 PM] K Mapson: (pronounced Harts-Horne)
[12:12:23 PM] K Mapson: I know a lot more about Harshorne now than I did then (he went for Panentheism)
[12:13:06 PM] K Mapson: That's actually very controversial for theists, as process theology proposes a Creator which is constanly becoming (and so not "perfect" from the outset)
[12:13:34 PM] K Mapson: the theists want their Creator to be "perfect" -- and so incapable of learning/improving
[12:14:38 PM] K Mapson: the "-en" part is an appendix, an unnecessary addition for those who wish to have some part of deity watching over them (but apparently doing nothing whle people starve and suffer)
[12:15:31 PM] K Mapson: the Problem of Evil is, I think, the strongest argument for a Creator which has made itself wholly *unable* to intervene -- otherwise, if it had any sense of compassion, it would do so
[12:16:49 PM] K Mapson: Christians go berserk when you suggest God is the "author" of evil (but any Creator is necessarily the author of all things)
[12:19:43 PM] K Mapson: Taoism and Pandeism are *very* complementary
[12:21:03 PM] K Mapson: I'm getting every other word.... type it out?
[12:22:23 PM] Jaidyn Saunders: OK. Ever since reading all I could about Pandeism, I have been hooked.
[12:23:19 PM] K Mapson: My experience has sort of been that All Roads Lead Back To Rome
[12:25:29 PM] K Mapson: Buddhism is awesome, but it has some problems as a theological model -- it provides excellent moral guidance, but it is in no way explanatory of *why* our Universe exists at all or what purpose it serves, or we serve within it....
[12:26:33 PM] K Mapson: ....and (in Tibetan Buddhism at least) there is a notion of wholesale reincarnation of the mind, which is simply not supported by science as yet. I don't need that presumption.
[12:28:18 PM] K Mapson: I think that's exactly right.
[12:29:12 PM] K Mapson: barely understanding anything now
[12:30:02 PM] K Mapson: better not to have it coming through all the time tho
[12:30:28 PM] Ivan Sanders: The question is: What is our most effective route of educating people of the existence of Pandeism?
[12:30:44 PM] K Mapson: hey, you guys been watching Cosmos? great stuff, I think (sorry for the tangent, just came to mind)
[12:32:25 PM] Ivan Sanders: I would agree that people aren't educaed about it
[12:32:38 PM] Ivan Sanders: educated*
[12:33:34 PM] K Mapson: (but they did that bit on Giordano Bruno, which led some bloggers to talk about how Bruno was a Pandeist)
[12:33:43 PM] K Mapson: I'd like to add something which I think calls back a point raised much earlier....
[12:34:25 PM] K Mapson: ....which is that Pandeism is a good thing for the world -- it is a thing which, if people understood it and behaved accordingly, would be good for the world.
[12:34:57 PM] K Mapson: Which is something which I think has proved to be untrue under the theistic faiths, and which is not something atheism effects one way or the other.
[12:35:59 PM] K Mapson: if Pandeism is correct, then we are all part of a greater one, and ought to treat each other so
[12:37:05 PM] K Mapson: And science itself reveals that interconnectedness. We are biologically related to every living thing on our planet. And atomically related to every thing in our Universe.
[12:38:22 PM] K Mapson: It is somewhat amazing to me that people who understand that we all come from stardust can at the same time be opposed to drawing a spiritual or metaphysical understanding from that very knowledge.
[12:39:28 PM] Ivan Sanders: I think spreading Pandeism and Pandeist thought through scholarly writings will help because it will educate those who already think (the scholars). The more people who think and write about Pandeism the better.
[12:39:42 PM] K Mapson: I think for one thing we need to get out there in the world with a published book which focuses on this model, instead of glancing upon it.
[12:41:32 PM] K Mapson: Raphael Lataster is working on a book which will cover Pandeism at some length (or so he tells me).
[12:42:17 PM] K Mapson: Haisch would be "The God Theory" ("Mind of God" is Paul Davies)
[12:42:27 PM] K Mapson: sorry, not to be a smartass....
[12:42:42 PM] K Mapson: there's a lot of books out there to keep straight!!
[12:42:55 PM] Ivan Sanders: There sure are
[12:43:46 PM] K Mapson: I see these authors, Haisch, Davies, Dawe, even Scott Adams, writing about the same essential idea, but every time inventing a new name for it.
[12:43:56 PM] Ivan Sanders: The religious scholarly world is full already, it seems. Is there room for Pandeism?
[12:44:11 PM] Ivan Sanders: Are scholars interested in reading works on Pandeism?
[12:44:35 PM] Ivan Sanders: I read reddit pretty much every day... :(
[12:45:50 PM] Ivan Sanders: We could even write about religious market saturation.
[12:46:31 PM] K Mapson: this'll take a few minutes....
[12:48:43 PM] K Mapson: I think Adams is simply being flippant (or guarding against theological critics)
[12:49:22 PM] K Mapson: it doesn't matter that Adams disclaims unnamed portions of it, the book captures one formulation of the idea
[12:49:50 PM] K Mapson: though I don't subscribe to the 'God blew himself up and is dead as a doornail' version, either
[12:50:54 PM] K Mapson: Id o get pushback from theists who assume that Pandeism means 'God is Dead'
[12:51:44 PM] K Mapson: Definitely!!
[12:52:05 PM] Ivan Sanders: The big crunch has not been discounted by science, which I like.
[12:52:15 PM] K Mapson: One might put it that we are a dream our Creator is having in order to understand itself.
[12:52:35 PM] K Mapson: My larger response was that some time ago I got Project Gutenberg to take up Max Bernhard Weinstein's 1910 book which goes on at good length about Pandeism throughout, but it's on the back burner for them now, and is in a years-long queue. A translation of that book into English would provide information in the context of the true age and historic scope of the theory.
[12:53:00 PM] Ivan Sanders: Thank you Mapson, good addition.
[12:53:54 PM] Ivan Sanders: This is a nice literary interpretation of Pandeism, Jaidyn.
[12:54:43 PM] K Mapson: I agree with that, but I believe the Universe is not simply a thing set forth for entertainment, but to fulfill an actual need to learn -- a need so strong that our Creator ought to feel like a person dying of thirst needs water.
[12:55:00 PM] Ivan Sanders: Interesting.
[12:55:57 PM] K Mapson: It is indeed excellently framed. Wonder if Warren Sharp is somebody we could communicate with....
[12:56:12 PM] Ivan Sanders: Maybe, lets follow up on that if we can!
[12:57:12 PM] K Mapson: I've heard of this multiverse thing, but I hain't never seen one. ;)
[12:57:22 PM] Ivan Sanders: Ohhh Mapson
[12:58:04 PM] K Mapson: a logical interpretation -- not 'scientific' so much as consistent with science
[12:58:42 PM] K Mapson: we can't claim to be able to prove such a thing through scientific-type means, but we can show that science does not contradict it
[12:59:13 PM] K Mapson: "I am every kind of scientist."
[1:00:09 PM] K Mapson: it would be the source of all of them, I think
[1:01:00 PM] K Mapson: no matter how many there are (if there are many) the question remains at the very bottom of inquiry, why do conditions exist which allow Universes to arise at all, one or many
[1:03:49 PM] K Mapson: the notion of a multiverse is not a point of agreement amongst scientists tho -- it is a theory with interesting potential, but a dearth of practical evidence
[1:06:52 PM] K Mapson: yes -- and learns thereby what it is like to exist as we do
[1:07:41 PM] Ivan Sanders: What becomes of our consciousnesses after we perish?
[1:07:57 PM] K Mapson: but I think, as well, that we are still on a path not yet complete
[1:08:29 PM] K Mapson: I think we have much evolution before us before we reach the potential programmed into our Universe.
[1:08:59 PM] K Mapson: imagine what our descendants 100,000 years from now might be capable of thinking and experiencing
[1:12:13 PM] K Mapson: I think there is some means by which everything which happens in our Universe -- including thoughts and experiences of consciousness -- is recorded indelibly.
[1:13:13 PM] K Mapson: what some would call an Akashic record, but of all things, not simply of 'spiritual things'
[1:14:35 PM] K Mapson: I believe that any Creator which would go to the trouble of setting forth our Universe would do so in a way wherein all knowledge generated by such Universe would be retained within itself.
[1:15:09 PM] Ivan Sanders: I agree, Mapson, and I think this is important.
[1:16:00 PM] K Mapson: (Christians will tell you that this entire record exists in their god's mind before the Universe is even created, which begs the question, why bother creating it)
[1:17:02 PM] K Mapson: that the laws of physics provide for the retention of this information
[1:20:49 PM] K Mapson: The community of scholars has its own channels through which it must be reached.
[1:21:16 PM] K Mapson: (by 'scholars' here I mean the people who write articles that get published in the journals)
[1:22:23 PM] K Mapson: But it would be good to reach that community, because if publication-hungry scholars begin to investigate Pandeism, they will quickly generate insights into it)
[1:22:40 PM] Ivan Sanders: Exactly!
[1:23:47 PM] K Mapson: I am not especially astounded by that -- academic publishing is greatly driven by what is accepted within a certain orthodoxy.
[1:25:09 PM] K Mapson: that's one reason I want to get the Weinstein book translated and out there -- it shows that this theory was discussed a length a hundred years ago
[1:26:18 PM] K Mapson: yeah, no door to door
[1:29:54 PM] K Mapson: Christians and Muslims have a strong doctrinal compulsion to evangelize (to the extent that they believe they'll face eternal hellfire if they don't); atheists, I think, feel that they have a strong motivation to counter the damage that theistic faiths cause.
[1:30:04 PM] K Mapson: Yes, God's Debris, read it.
[1:32:04 PM] K Mapson: I agree with that.
[1:33:03 PM] K Mapson: I do wish we had a Pandeist equivalent of Neil de Grasse Tyson -- somebody who was really good at just talking and explaining this in conversation.... that's the top of my wish list.
[1:33:13 PM] Ivan Sanders: Mine too!
[1:34:17 PM] K Mapson: I very much appreciate what you've done with the website -- looks much better than anything I've come up with....
[1:34:42 PM] K Mapson: sound pretty clear to me
[1:35:15 PM] K Mapson: yes, exactly
[1:38:10 PM] K Mapson: I'm all here.
[1:38:42 PM] K Mapson: I'm glad to provide any of my writings for Koilas.
[1:41:32 PM] K Mapson: people have this idea (driven by theistic faiths) that 'science' is like another religion itself, when it is simply a methodology of determining and verifying physical realities
[1:42:09 PM] K Mapson: that's why you always hear creationists referring to 'evolution' as a "belief" when it is simply an understanding
[1:43:58 PM] K Mapson: yes, 100%
[1:46:01 PM] K Mapson: prayer to me is nonsensical, as it is an appeal to what one conceives of as an outside intervening force to bend the laws of nature to provide the praying person with some nonnatural benefit -- I prefer to focus on meditation, an inward-pointed seeking of truth
[1:50:14 PM] K Mapson: to what degree has the power of meditation been scientifically tested?
[1:50:52 PM] K Mapson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation
[1:52:05 PM] K Mapson: So it seems a scattering of studies have been done, and have tended to show that meditation has tangible effects, though the reason these effects occur has not been delved more deeply into.
[1:53:57 PM] K Mapson: I put it with the whole body of theological phenomena (revelations, prophecies, miracles, etc) -- a claim of such a thing is subject to scientific examination, but if it does exist, it is a side-effect of a pandeistic Universe, of our being part of an underlying unconscious mind far exceeding our comprehension
[1:54:43 PM] K Mapson: you know, the large-scale structure of our Universe (in terms of distribution of galaxies) is like a brain with 500 billion times as many neurons as a human brain
[1:59:38 PM] K Mapson: I'm relaxing.
[1:59:49 PM] Ivan Sanders: I think we all agree that meditation (and inward prayer) can be beneficial. By no means is it required by Pandeism or Koilas and should not be considered such. With that, we should be careful in how we word ideas about praryer and meditation, especially in anything we put onto the internet or print. Would you agree?
[2:00:03 PM] Ivan Sanders: prayer*
[2:00:31 PM] K Mapson: Prayer* *results not guaranteed
[2:00:41 PM] Ivan Sanders: Yes!
[2:01:50 PM] K Mapson: good meeting so far
[2:03:58 PM] K Mapson: I like that we save trees by having it online instead of in print.
[2:04:57 PM] K Mapson: But all changes must be changes in accordance with logic.... I've seen some internet communities where 'facts' can change solely based on the number of members of one community of interest being brought into the discussion.
[2:06:07 PM] K Mapson: Case in point, Wikipedia, where for example their is a page on the 'Genesis creation narrative' where every other such theology is called a 'myth' because of the numbers arising against calling *their* myth a myth....
[2:07:48 PM] Ivan Sanders: Collaboration is only as good as the rules set forth. I believe we should create a canon of literature about Koilas. This creation (Bhago) should be changeable and should be a collaboration. The facts should not be based on members thoughts, but in reality, logic, reason.
[2:08:20 PM] Ivan Sanders: I think, with that, we should update it periodically to reflect changes in science.
[2:11:30 PM] K Mapson: We all know how to contact each other.
[2:13:21 PM] K Mapson: Well you know I've tried my hand at writing one -- and I have hundreds and hundreds of pages of rephrasing of the same notion to show for it. There are people who write books and people who do other things, and I'm still discovering which of those I am.
[2:13:44 PM] Ivan Sanders: Sounds like you're on board with the concept of the Bhago?
[2:14:49 PM] Ivan Sanders: A collaboration of our ideas for Koilas that we can update and change somewhat regularly to reflect the scientific understanding of the universe.
[2:15:37 PM] K Mapson: I'm on board. There are others we know are interested, I think.
[2:15:43 PM] Ivan Sanders: Great!
[2:17:58 PM] K Mapson: voted on by whom though? the three of us? anybody who wishes to vote? must be some intermediate
[2:18:12 PM] Ivan Sanders: That is a good question we should ask ourselves.
[2:19:44 PM] K Mapson: I think that is a reasonable approach
[2:21:47 PM] Ivan Sanders: A good way of conducting the creation of the Bhago is creating an outline of what we would like to see in it. From that we can distribute the writing tasks accordingly. You may already have something that fits a portion of our outline, and we can use that! All writings that contribute to the Bhago should use Koilas terminology (Deiwos, It, Bhago, Koilas). Eventually, it should come together as a nice piece of work.
[2:23:08 PM] Ivan Sanders: If nobody is opposed to this approach, I will begin creating an outline using google docs, one that everone can contribute to.
[2:23:45 PM] K Mapson: I look forward to it.
[2:27:24 PM] K Mapson: I would like to add to this my encouragement that we all keep putting the word out on the various venues through which thought is distributed on the Internet. It doesn't really take an extensive amount of writing to post things (even links to things) on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, and other blogs and forums and such.
[2:28:41 PM] Ivan Sanders: Any way we can spread Pandeism is good, in my opinion (outside of knocking on people's doors).
[2:30:01 PM] K Mapson: I'm good, brother. Going to save the text from this conversation -- any objection to posting the whole thing somewhere?
[2:32:04 PM] K Mapson: I kind of think we cross the bridge of having large numbers when we have large numbers.
[2:32:47 PM] K Mapson: We have no "keepers of the flame" and ought to be as open as possible
[2:34:55 PM] K Mapson: Jaidyn, are you on Twitter?
[2:35:14 PM] Ivan Sanders: I'm not opposed to meeting frequently and discussing ideas. I think that could benefit our project as we can come together and talk about what we have written and changes/additions/deletions.
[2:35:39 PM] K Mapson: I see Ivan and other pandeists there frequently, so I don't feel alone in the pursuit.
[2:36:01 PM] K Mapson: I don't suppose you're on Wikipedia?
[2:36:32 PM] K Mapson: I very much enjoyed this, and I am sure that we can get more people in future meetings
[2:38:07 PM] Ivan Sanders: Being the most active Pandeists, what impact can we have?
[2:39:05 PM] Ivan Sanders: I think we ARE Pandeism right now
[2:39:19 PM] K Mapson: It is more than us, though.
[2:39:28 PM] Ivan Sanders: I hope so!
[2:39:44 PM] Ivan Sanders: I would love to get them engaged in our conversations.
[2:40:26 PM] K Mapson: I'd like to get the people out there like Bernard Haisch and Paul Davies and Bernardo Kastrup to at least be more aware that what they're writing of exists under another name
[2:40:46 PM] Ivan Sanders: That would be an excellent impact to have.
[2:41:02 PM] Ivan Sanders: I wish they would engage us in the conversation too. And hopefully they will.
[2:42:41 PM] K Mapson: (shorter meeting next time tho)
[2:42:58 PM] Ivan Sanders: Hopefully!
[2:44:09 PM] K Mapson: This was great, glad we're on this track, brothers.
[2:44:37 PM] K Mapson: no, that's good
[2:45:21 PM] K Mapson: take care
