This is not a sphere.

This is not a sphere.

This is, instead, a 2D representation of a 3D collection of points, arranged in lines, which themselves would not constitute any single solid surface. On close enough inspection, the lines themselves are neither solid nor consistent in their architecture. And yet we perceive it as a sphere.

This, then, is a reminder that not everything need happen for all experiences to be approximated. A Creator need not set forth a Universe in which every possible thing happens to learn about what sorts of things might happen. What we have, instead, is a Universe which generates trillions of actual experiences (consider all our experiences, every day of our lives, across all the lifetimes ever lived) and trillions of trillions more possible extrapolations of experience. Blessings!!

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.

Thoughts on Aurora

I am certain I speak for Pandeists everywhere in offering our heartbroken condolences for the victims of the Aurora shootings -- those injured by the gunman's bullets, those who escaped physical injury but experienced the trauma of being there during this horrid event, and those who lost loved ones this day.  The perspective of Pandeism may do little to salve such pain, but know that Pandeists believe that we are all simply fragments of our Creator, existing so that our Creator could share in the awesome variety of experiences attending existence as our Universe, though it could not have known before such Creation the depths of pain which life in such a Universe could experience.

But, in the end, Pandeists believe, all things return to one, and all lives share in oneness with our Creator, there for those whose lives brought joy and happiness to others to experience this joy and happiness just as it was received by others; and for those who bring anguish and suffering to other to equally experience this anguish and suffering as it was received by others.


Let us walk from this experience holding in our hearts the possibility that those who have suffered so undeservedly will experience an ultimate reward of sharing in lifetimes of positive experiences; and that, for the anguish and suffering brought into the world on this day, all men work together to create an overwhelming response of joyful and positive experience for all the world to share in.

And some additional observations....



Let us not join in the blame game instantly, if inevitably, sprung up over this sorrowful event. Rick Warren, who pastors one of the nation's leading mega-churches, tweeted on the shooting: "When students are taught they are no different from animals, they act like it." He fairly quickly deleted that tweet, once controversy sprouted. In the same vein, US Congressman Louis Gohmert commented that people have asked where God was on that day, and concluded that God didn't intervene to prevent these killings because secularists have banned God from high school graduation ceremonies and the like.

At the other end of the theological spectrum, Atheists have reacted with equally broad pronouncements, pointing to the Christian upbringing of the shooter (and that faith being shared by most of the victims) and contending that it is the violence of theistic scriptures which leads to such acts. Across the spectrum of politics as well blame has been aimed, against lax gun laws, movie and video game violence, lax policies allowing someone like this gunman to be admitted to a graduate program, and most everything else one can think of.

And the bottom line, the truth of the matter, is this. Some people are off-balance. It's not because of religion or politics or policies. It's simply the occasionally hampered workings of nature. If it were a product of religion or lack thereof, there'd be more of it, or it would correlate with the religiosity of nations. And sometimes, no matter what rigor is put into checking the mental health of people in whatever situation, whatever restrictions are put on access to weaponry, some tiny portion of people are born with an ingrained snapping point, whereupon they will find a way to wreak some degree of havoc. Such people are like a force of nature, like a tornado. And blaming religion or politics for people tipping past the fold is no sounder a thing to do than to point fingers of blame for the happening of the weather.

Work being done in Pandeism

I realize I ought to be blogging more on Pandeism, as there is so, so much to discuss about it!!  I tend to slowly wend my way through big pieces, but I'm going to try to keep up more here on a day-to-day basis.

Today I'd like to shout out to other Pandeists, and others who, whether themselves Pandeist or no, have made interesting strides in the study of Pandeism.  First up, Nick Tafacory has consistently posted interesting ideas on Pandeism on his own (better kept-up) blog, Conflicting Thoughts.  These include, to be specific:

• Beginning Work(s) on Pandeism
• Pandeism Revisited
• Pandeism Once More
• More Notes on Pandeism

The last one of those happens to contain links to scans of seven pages of handwritten notes -- I've been promising to provide my thoughts on those, especially with respect to many questions raised which are deserving of answers, and will have them!!

I have, as well, been privileged to meet Personified Music, a new YouTube friend (naturally through the Official YouTube PanDeism Channel.   Personified Music wrote to me (and has kindly permitted me to reproduce) the following:

Hi fellow pandeist!
Hello!
I've been seeking someone who had the same beliefs as me! At last someone who understands the true nature! Since you seem to have a great grasp of logic, I'd like for you to examine my argument in favor of this belief.
1) The universe has a creator
- Premise 1: The universe is finite
Considering that the Big Bang is considered to be the beginning of time, this universe is finite
- Premise 2: All finite things have a beginning and an end
Basic definitions:
Infinite means without beginning or end. Finite is the opposite of that.
- Premise 3: Finite things must be created
To begin, one must have a cause, and that cause must be initiated by something.
- CONCLUSION 1: The universe was created
2) To create the universe, one must be omnipotent.
- Premise 1: All things that exist must be perceivable in space
If not perceived, one cannot be comprised of matter. If not comprised of matter, one cannot exist.
- Premise 2: Through premise 1, we discover that the universe and all its contents is everything, as it is the only thing perceivable in space and time,
- Premise 3: To create everything, one most be able to do everything.
Explains itself
- CONCLUSION 2: That creator is omnipotent
3) To be omnipotent, one must be omnipresent.
- Premise A1: To be omnipotent, one must be able to execute every action
- Premise A2: Instantaneosity (to do something instantly) is an action
- Premise A3: To execute something instantaneously, one must be the action in itself, as being next to something, or even its immediate vicinity would require a given amount of time
- Premise B1: Matter occupies space
- Premise B2: To be omnipresent, one must occupy all space.
- CONCLUSION 3: To be omnipresent, one must be the matter
Summary:
- CONCLUSION 1: The universe was created
- CONCLUSION 2: That creator must be omnipotent
- CONCLUSION 3A: To be omnipotent, one must be omnipresent
- CONCLUSION 3B: To be omnipresent, one must be matter.
FINAL CONCLUSION: God is the universe

This is an interesting and fruitful series of propositions.  I would be cautious to discern relative omnipotence (the ability to do anything which can be done) from the absolute omnipotence proposed by some theists (the ability to do anything, including logically impossible things). But, indeed, the comment relating omnipotence and omnipresence brings to my mind the proposition of Duke University PhD Physicist Robert G. Brown in A Theorem Concerning God, and especially in the core of that work, The Pandeist Theorem -- recommended reading for all!!

Blessings!!

Man's place in a pandeistic Universe

One of the complaints leveled against Pandeism by theists is that it does not provide for a sufficiently 'special place' for man. There is, after all, an idea in many faiths which intensely appeals to man's sense of self-importance that our Universe owes us a religious truth which makes us feel good about ourselves, even if it must in so doing counter science and render false the proof provided by our senses. Indeed, in many faith systems the presence of such a central place for man is a selling point, so much so that these religions can only bitterly and grudgingly release notions such as the Earth sitting at the center of our Universe, much less sitting at the center of our Solar System with the Sun and planets making perfect circles around it.

For those keen to make the error of confusing Pandeism with mere Pantheism, it is supposed as well that since our Creator has become our Universe, and exists within all things in our Universe, from the hearts of stars and interstellar clouds of gas to bacteria and fungi, that man is no more important in the pandeistic scheme than a tree or a rock of comparable size. This perceived circumstance is only magnified by the absence in Pandeism of a theological need to deny man's descent from more primitive life forms through evolution by natural selection, taken by many religions as another insult to the central importance of man in our Universe. But in fact, the very nature of our Universe reveals these concerns to be simply a misapprehension.

As has been noted before, our Universe has been set forth with a number of characteristics which would only make sense in the context of intelligent life coming to exist and being able to observe them, and to advance itself through them. The existence of temporal fortuity of our observable Universe, for example, is something which only makes sense in the context of observers capable of comprehending the age of our Universe and its implications for their existence within it. The habitability of planets conceptually within our technological reach similarly indicates not simply that life ought to arise within our Universe, but that such life will develop the capacity for interstellar travel resulting in interaction between inhabitants originating in different worlds (and, indeed, that such travel must be physically possible within the constraints of our governing dynamics).

And so it becomes apparent that our Universe may well be designed to suit the origination of intelligent life. Not 'man' necessarily, but certainly 'man' as an example, and so something more than incidentally. And in Pandeism this makes sense because our Creator has become our Universe for precisely the purpose of experiencing existence through it. It is doubly important to make this distinction clear, for it is the subject of frequent confusion and occasional obfuscation -- Pandeism does not propose, as some misunderstand, that our Creator set forth our Universe with the expectation that some other intelligent life would arise especially, with man being an unintended side effect of the Creation of that other form. Instead, Pandeism proposes that our Creator set forth a Universe with governing dynamics of matter and energy which were attuned to intelligent life arising somewhere, and possibly in many places. We simply happen to be one example of such life, and so while the nature of a pandeistic Universe is one where our Creator can not have known exactly what would come about where, man is precisely the sort of thing which is intended to come about through the correct operation of those governing dynamics.

And why is man more important than trees and rocks? Because the entire existence of our Universe would serve no better purpose than to inform our Creator of what it is to exist as something other than itself, and in that capacity, thinking, self-reflective beings such as ourselves are indeed generators of a far greater range of perspective than anything, living or dead, which does less in the realm of contemplation. But it not be imagined that we are, as the older religions would like to imagine, a finished product. We are not at the end of our evolutionary journey, but at the beginning, and what an ending such a beginning promises to bring to those able to grasp hold of it!!

Answers in Pandeism: Part II: Prayer

I noted in my previous post having received this email:

Hello,
I am a 17 year-old that has been thinking about becoming a Pandeist for the past few days. Currently, I am a Christian and come from a background of Christians. I have read a lot on Pandeism recently and have a basic understanding of it. I share a lot of similar beliefs, but I just have a few questions:

Do you acknowledge the existence of Jesus?

Do you pray?

What do you do as a Pandeist? Do you congregate (as in a church or synagogue)?

If I change to Pandeism, how should I approach my parents about not being a Christian anymore?

If I convert, what is some advice for beginning the conversion from Christianity to Pandeism?

Here I will answer as to prayer -- and indeed, I have been asked by several people in recent memory: "Do Pandeists pray?"


Well, prayer means different things to different people. Satirist Ambrose Bierce defined the word to mean: "To ask that the laws of the Universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy." And indeed, to most prayer probably connotes speaking to some external entity, separate from themselves and from our Universe (but having immense power and likely conceived as our Universe's Creator), and asking of that entity that the course of existence be altered in some way to suit the desire of the asker. There is, one must admit, an oddity to this concept. For, if ours is a deterministic Universe, with an omniscient Creator which already knew all the outcomes before the Universe was created even -- indeed if ours was a Creator which had an infinite number of Universe-unfolding options before it and the power to choose whichever one fit its plan -- then all prayer (answered or not) would simply be part of this predetermined effort.

But suppose our Universe is not predeterministic? Well then we must consider the Butterfly Effect. Meteorologists using computer models were once stunned to discover that, if a butterfly in the Amazon flaps its wings one time, instead of sitting still for that one time, this extremely minor disruption of the atmosphere is enough to begin a snowball effect. That tiny flap nudges a tiny bit of air which would not have been nudged; that tiny bit of air impacts the flow of larger whisps of air. The perturbations continue expanding upward and outwards until they effect the entire ecosystem, until for example atmospheric currents are affected such that a hurricane which otherwise was going to hit Houston instead hits New Orleans. A different set of people are maimed or killed, a different set of properties are destroyed. The course of the entire world, ultimately, is affected.

The popular science fiction depiction is of time itself simply healing over these wounds to continuity; that if a future spaceship crew were to travel back to our time and change a few things here and there, things would still end up pretty much as they were. Worse yet, there is often the depiction that events and circumstances have changed but the people have stayed the same.  A cardinal example of this is in the Back To The Future movies. Marty McFly goes back in time and briefly interrupts his parents from getting together, jeapardizing his existence; but in the end not only does he reunite them, they end up living a much more fulfilling life than before. But, despite their lives being now utterly different lives, Marty McFly is still born!! His parents still have the exact same children (all three of them), meaning that whatever other upheaval has been caused to their lives, they still ended up getting the exact same sperm (itself unaltered by intervening changes in diet and other habits) fertilizing the exact same egg at what was thusly necessarily the exact same time. Simply put, this is an impossible outcome (especially given how Marty's interference with the past affected so many other people whose lives intersected with those of his parents, with for example everybody at that high school dance experiencing a set of musical timing different from what they would have experienced but for his being there. In fact, due to any moment of his interference at all, he still would never have been born; his parents would have produced a different genetic combination in their offspring, different looks and characteristcs and interests.

So what has this to do with prayer? Well, most any 'answered' prayer would be a pretty big perturbation in existence itself, it would essentially have an outflowing effect which altered the entire future, who would even be born. If a hundred years ago some prayer for a recovery from an illness for example, or for a team to win a ball game, were granted by the typically imagined external force, no person alive today (including you and I) would exist; a completely different set of people would populate the space, born at different times and with different stories. Oh, we'd likely have the same nations and cultures and so forth, but different people would have been born into them and promulgated them.  So, you see, there is some science fiction to the idea of the answering of a prayer, especially where it is at the same time supposed that, for example, certain sperms are supposed to meet certain eggs, and so certain people are especially destined to have been born.

But aside from the questionable logic applied to the effects of answered prayers in a deterministic or nondeterministic Universe, Immanuel Kant more seriously and pointedly declared:

"The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend — and we cannot comprehend God; we can only believe in Him. The uses of prayer are thus only subjective."

This is a point closer to the concern of Pandeism.  Now, naturally, Pandeism logically deems our entire Universe (and all of our lives) to simply be fragments of our Creator, existing within its continuing unconscious exertion of the sustainment of existence. The pandeistic Creator has thusly temporarily (for a few hundred billion years, which for it pass essentially instantly) ceded its ability to have any sort of prayer-granting power. Nor would it make any sense for it to grant prayers if it retained such power, since our existence more likely serves to answer the very question of how a Universe turns out absent its ability to interfere. But it must be acknowledged as well that Pandeism accounts for things such as miracles, prophecies, and yes, the appearance of eficacious prayers (as experiences across all faiths) as manifestations of the unconscious power of our Creator. It would anecdotally seem that for some few, 'prayer' brings results. But these results are not occurring because our Creator is listening and wish-granting, but instead because we are part of our Creator. Like many an athlete who spends countless hours training in his sport, and then credits God for his good performance, we are simply failing to recognize where we might be responsible for generating our own effects, good and bad.

Before I go any farther down this road though, this is not 'The Secret'; this is not 'The Law of Attraction.' Pandeism does not propose that any person may through the power of positive thought alone 'attract' success or experience the effects of answered prayers. Indeed, Pandeism does not require that efficacious prayer really exist as a phenomenon at all, it simply accounts for if it so happens that it does exist. Pandeism first and foremost demands a logical approach; it demands recognition that the vast majority (possibly all) of efficacious prayers are simply coincidence. If nine out of ten people die from a given disease and ten out of ten pray to recover, then the one out of ten who does recover will be one who prayed for it. If a hundred thousand fans watch a sporting event and are evenly divided in allegience to the teams, about half of the praying portion of that fandom will get what they sought. And if an athlete works diligently at his sport, he will likely see his prayers for victory answered, even as an opponent's prayers go unanswered. What Pandeism explains, then, is that if there is any such thing as an 'answered prayer' (as many faiths and cultures contend) this phenomenon will be best accounted for by the pandeistic model.

So, getting at last to the long-about answer to the question, "do Pandeists pray?" -- no, not 'pray' exactly. I think Pandeists are likely to engage in very deep and meaningful meditation, to seek to feel connected with our Universe both at as broadly and at as many levels as we can. Certainly Pandeists will be inclined to have gratitude towards our Creator for our existence, and will seek to demonstrate that gratitude by engaging in that best sort of 'prayer' of all, the one where you put your hands to work doing things that will help reduce suffering and increase happiness in the world. And, at last, Pandeists will seek self-understanding and self-betterment, for if we are all part of our Creator, what better way to seek its assistance than to seek the aid of the part of our Creator that is ourselves?

Pandeism: How Powerful Is Your Creator?

Let us propose, to begin with, that our Universe is the product of a conscious act of Creation.

If you believe that ours is a created Universe, then there is only one question to ask.

Is the Creator in which you believe powerful enough to set forth the Universe as we experience it -- in every particular -- while needing do nothing more than set forth the energy of this Universe and the governing dynamics which control the behavior of that energy?
Is it powerful enough to initiate a Universe where everything which we experience comes to pass -- stars, planets, the origin of life, the rise of complex ecosystems, the rise of intelligent life, machinery, technology, and social institutions (including religious institutions, writings, and beliefs) -- by doing no more than simply initially causing this Creation?

Is it powerful enough to bring about our complete experience of our world without needing to interfere again, other than through the moment of Creation?

**** If the Creator in which you believe is not this powerful, then it is definitionally inferior in power to one which is. ****

Now, you may claim that it has such power, but that you nonetheless believe it has continued to intervene....

But if it was powerful enough to bring about our Universe in every particular without intervening... that would include bringing about the appearance of intervention where there is none.

And you may claim to believe your Creator has told you otherwise....

But if it was powerful enough to bring about our Universe in every particular.... that would include bringing about your belief that you have been told things -- even when you have not.

And you may claim to believe your Creator would not mislead you....

But every faith has its own holy books and sacred traditions. And though these contradict and conflict with one another, most of their adherents share the conviction that theirs is the only truth, and that their Creator would not mislead them.

But if our Creator was powerful enough to bring about our Universe in every particular, without intervening in any way after the very moment of Creation.... that would include bringing about both your belief, and the set of everyone else's competing beliefs, that you would not be mislead.

But then, there is another model of the Creator, that which is discerned by the theological theories of Deism, and subsets of this, such as Pandeism....

The deistic/pandeistic Creator is not only powerful enough to bring about our Universe in every particular --including the existence of intelligent life and all of our beliefs and traditions--through nothing more than a singular, perhaps transformative moment of Creation....

Deism generally, and Pandeism especially, are the models in which it has actually done this.

And this accounts for our Universe in every particular, including all beliefs to the contrary.

Naturally, it may yet be denied that this theological model is sufficient to provide an adequate accounting for every aspect of our Universe....

The denier need only confess that their God lacks the power to set forth our Universe in such a manner, and some other model will become necessary.







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An abbreviated version of this proposition -- but with some nifty background images and killer homemade background music -- may be viewed on the YouTube PanDeism Channel....

A fellow noder proposes that the "use of the word 'after' excludes any creator for whom time has no meaning".... He continues:
A worm on a cylinder can only move freely in two dimensions - forward/backward on the cylinder, or around it. Were the worm sentient, the concept of a third dimension through which it could move freely would be a difficult concept to grasp. Likewise it is with us - we live in a universe with nine spatial dimensions and one time dimension, but consciously experience only four and can freely move through only three, thus our understanding of time and power over it is severely limited. A creator bound by the same constraints as us would indeed be 'tinkering' with his universe ex post facto, but a creator for which all events happen in simultaneity (for which time is not a meaningful construct) would not be tinkering ex post facto - there is no ex post facto! To this creator, there would be no past or future, just now.
I would, naturally, hope that any entity capable of Creating our Universe would know the meaning of "time," and would understand (and be capable of operating congruent to) things occurring in time, including all human experience. But more to the point of this discussion, suppose I were to claim our Creator to be powerful enough to set forth a Creation which appears exactly as ours down to every particular, while doing no more than setting forth governing dynamics, irrespective of whether the Creator occupies our "passage of time," and so, irrespective of whether anything appears to occur "after" anything else. Surely the proposition that things need not occur "in time" does not then require that things which do occur "in time" require the intervention of a Universe-Creator, else we would be required to give equal credence to every claim of revelation or divine intervention for a thousand contradictory belief systems!! But, a sufficiently powerful Creator could naetheless set forth a Universe wherein, with no interference by that Creator in the governing dynamics set forth in the moment of Creation, intelligent beings come about who have my fellow noder's thought that their Creator might be one for whom time has no meaning, even if it does!!