Pandeism 100 video -- Kickstarter launched!!

The @Kickstarter campaign is on for The Pandeism 100: The 100 Most Significant Figures in the History of Pantheism, Deism, and Pandeism!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/essays/the-pandeism-100

Get an early reservation of your copy (or copies) of this unique look into alternative religious history!! And if you have thoughts on who belongs on the list (or at least deserves an honorable mention), let us know -- your pick just might make it into the book!!

And thank you again, @mariadellaros!!

#Pandeism #Pantheism #Deism #Kickstarter #ThePandeism100

The Pandeism 100 announcement video

Announcement of "The Pandeism 100" with thanks to our friend Maria Dellarosa!!

Note -- the cover is an early mockup, the complete cover will include Pantheism and Deism.

#Pandeism #Blessings #Love #Pandeism100 #Pantheism #Deism #NewBook #Maria

Transcript:

Hello!! My name is Maria, and I’d like to tell you about an exciting new book that needs your support. 

For thousands of years philosophers have debated the nature of the universe, forming their own universe of ideas about it nature, ideas such as Pantheism, Deism, and Pandeism.

Now, for the first time, a new book will examine and highlight the 100 most important people in the history of these world shaping ideas. 

This book is called the Pandeism 100: The 100 most important figures in the history of Pantheism, Deism, and Pandeism.

Please join me in supporting this project as we journey through the history of ideas. I love you all!!

Record traffic on Wikipedia's Pandeism page, redux

Some three years ago I blogged about record traffic on Wikipedia's Pandeism page -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandeism -- observing then that the page had hit an all-time high in daily page views at 1,227 (part of a pattern in which several of the highest-viewed days were scattered over a surrounding period of weeks). That spike was a mystery, the previous record of 901 views having been attributable to Pandeism being mentioned in an article in Scientific American.

Well, all that is now water under the bridge insofar as record page view days go.

For on February 26, 2023, a new page views record of 2,231 nearly doubled the old record, and was followed by a day of 1,483 views (itself exceeding the record set in 2020), followed by a day of 1,162 (with this whole run being preceded by a day of 906 views).

Well it seems that all of this is because of cartoonist Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays on Twitter) making news (in a very negative way, unfortunately).

You see, one of Adams' more archaic claims to fame is having written the book God's Debris (actually a quite incisive work which I still put forth as recommend reading) describing a school of Pandeism as its worldview. Interestingly, a key point of Pandeism -- that we are all equally fragments of our Creator, and how we treat our fellows is how we contribute to creating the experience of our Creator -- ought to strongly motivate seeking to help all humans to overcome whatever barriers separate us, for the  common achievement of greater joy in our lives.

Now then, I wouldn't especially want the hundreds-of-years-old theological theory of Pandeism to be drawing attention solely due to an association with a person who's in the news for all the wrong reasons. But.... if even a handful of Wikipedia visitors are enlightened by it, well, you know the old saw, The Universe Works in Mysterious Ways. Perhaps one of those mysterious ways is to make a current celebrity act in such a way that they unintentionally draw attention to a theory they espoused in the past perhaps much more beautiful than what they espouse in the present.

Pandeism has steadily been gaining renewed interest for the past decade, so anything which informs people that the idea exists is doing them a service, perhaps offering a light to come out of shadowy events.

Pandeism: An Anthology -- five reviews, five stars every time!!

This one has been sitting in my outbox for five years....

"Beyond Physicalism" from Scientific American

On December 9, Scientific American magazine published a most remarkable article, "Beyond Physicalism: Philosopher Hedda Hassel Mørch defends the idea that consciousness pervades the cosmos." Mørch, a philosopher and associate professor at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, was interviewed for this piece by science journalist John Horgan, who asks whether God fits into her philosophical propositions, Mørch answers:

Not really. But there is a religious view I find interesting, which is pandeism: the view that God used to exist, and be the only thing that existed, and then transformed himself into the universe, and so no longer exists. The reason God did this was basically for fun, or to see what happened. And maybe at some point the universe will transform itself back into God—that would be like nirvana or heaven. But then eventually God would get bored again and start the cycle over. As I understand it, this is close to some parts of Hindu cosmology.

Horgan's response? "I like that! I think I’m a pandeist!"

Mørch goes on to explain that the tendency of life to alternate between true pain and the essential pain of pleasure extended to the point of boredom "is also partly why the pandeistic view I just described appeals to me."

Interestingly, in the days following the publication of this Scientific American magazine article, the Wikipedia Pandeism page experienced an indisputable upsurge in viewership -- going from an average of about 175 views per day over the preceding weeks to over 1,600 views over the following three days, with a peak of over 900 views in a single day, an all-time viewership record for that page!!

This more than anything demonstrates the power of conveying information about a rising mode of thought to people, even when buried deep within a scholarly piece of journalism.

Pandeism and Pangaea

Early in 2016, an interesting confluence occurred. As I was kicking around Kickstarter, I happened wholly by chance to come across a newly initiated effort for a collection of fictional pieces: Pangaea II. The "II" signifies the status of being a sequel to a previous similarly themed collection. And "Pangaea" because it is set in a fictional alternate reality -- one with a fascinating premise wherein Earth's landmasses are not dispersed, but where instead all human history occurs on a continuing single supercontinent. But the thing which to me was mindblowing about this is that this Pangaea Anthology was coincidentally proceeding on Kickstarter at precisely the same time as the (ultimately equally successful) Kickstarter was plugging away for Pandeism: An Anthology.

The conceptual connection between Pandeism and Pangaea goes beyond this moment of coincidence, and beyond the fact that their names raise similar visions -- "Pan" in both meaning all; "Deism" and "Gaia" both channeling religion-laden words from ancient languages. When mankind first discovered the contours of the multiple continents, the assumption instantly arose that these were indelible features, markers of the state of the Earth from the time of its creation onward. Mountains were fixed and unchangeable. Seas might ebb and flow, but only within unchanging boundaries with reliable shorelines. But then, as the work of geologists uncovered scientific proof that the continents had drifted from different positions over millions of years, had stretched and bent and changed in shape, have been governed by tectonic features and eons of weathering, the first instinct of the religionists was to reject this geomorphic evolution. It was inconceivable to them that these land masses could possibly have come from a single great landmass with an holistic shape different from any of the modern ones, but encompassing all of them. This was Pangaea.

In much the same way, the concept of Pandeism challenges previous orthodoxies by presenting as a possibility a single underlying theological ideation whose ancient contours are not immediately apparent to those who examine the theological map of the world through the lens of later social conditioning. But, like the geomorphic principles hinting at different earthly constructions, these may be found by rational examination to be fully explanatory as to how the later, more familiar peaks and valleys of theistic doctrine arose. Both are relatively recent discoveries, in the scheme of there fields -- after thousands of years of theology and geology, Pandeism was named in 1787, and Pangaea in 1920. One might quibble that the theories of the ancients about the nature of the grand features of the physical world wasn't really 'geology' -- but then, might one not suppose the same thing about ancient theology? The going belief a thousand or twelve hundred years ago was that the Earth had edges off which one might fall. Might one fall off the edges of equally old theological models?

And might one, in discovering the spherical nature of the Earth and the mobility of its once-joined continents, envision a notion of the divine of mathematical elegance equal to a sphere, and historical power equal to continents gliding over the face of the world?

Pandeism: An Anthology -- The London Launch

Pandeism: An Anthology

The London Launch

Thursday, March 30, 2017, at 6:30 PM

Watkins Books near Leicester Square

----

A Pandeist responds to PB

PB writes:

I agree with pandeistic thought when it posits that both an infinite or all-encompassing Being and a plurality of beings cannot exist simultaneously. There cannot be an all-encompassing Being + beings. The existence of beings obliterates the all-encompassing nature of a hypothetical original Being. Thus, there is either an all-encompassing Being or beings, but not both simultaneously, as each negates the possibility of the existence of the other. We know that beings exist but do not whether an original singular all-encompassing being ever existed. If it did, it transformed from a singular being (the One) into the plurality of beings (the Many). This mechanics of this transformation are inherently problematic because an all-encompassing being would be incapable of consciousness, and therefore experience. An all-encompassing being would be categorically unconscious. Therefore, the question remains as to the cause of the transition from singular to multitudinous being. It could not be any intention or conscious motivation, as an all-encompassing being is devoid of consciousness.

An infinite, all-encompassing, or singularly existing conscious being is a self-negating contradiction. If a being is all-that-exists, it will experience absolutely nothing. Experience is predicated upon at least an operative distinction between an experient and some content of experience, i.e, knower and known. Without perception there is no experience. Perception cannot arise without some form of distinction: a point-of-perspective, for lack of a better phrase. If consciousness is continuous and distributed evenly throughout all being, the net result is, paradoxically, the loss of consciousness. The distinction required for the arising of consciousness, and any distinction at all, would be absent in an all-encompassing being. Consciousness must somehow be separate in order for experience to exist. 

In short, perspectival limitation is required for the existence of consciousness and experience (incidentally, consciousness and experience are always coexisting, if not synonymous). Perspectival limitation also explains the existence of suffering and what we have historically termed "evil". These, contrary to the speculations of pandeism, are not purposed as part of God's experience of not-God. Rather, "evil"/suffering are the inevitable and ineliminable consequence of the limitation required for the existence of consciousness. Suffering is, quite simply, a byproduct of being conscious. There is no conscious experience without suffering or its immediate possibility. As such, there is no state or form of existence free of pain and suffering. Existence is not progressing towards any manner of "heaven". The real distinction is not between a painful existence and a heavenly one, but between being (with its concomitant misery) or nothingness. There is no other alternative. 

Explained as a sequence: 

• The phenomena of experience is dependent upon the phenomena of consciousness.

• Consciousness arises through localization, or perspective.

• Perspective necessitates differentiation (i.e., individuation). 

• Individuation equates to limitation. 

• Limitation necessarily entails vulnerability.

• Vulnerability invariably leads to suffering and what humanity has identified as "evil"(i.e., outcomes that are neither advantageous nor experientially pleasant to a subjective sentient being).

These observations have led to some interesting realizations: (1) the ultimate and original nature of Being does not include consciousness but the nothingness of unconsciousness, (2) the arising of consciousness is necessitated by perspectival distinction (limitation), and (3) that what we designate with the term "evil" and the resultant experiential suffering is, in fact, eternal. Suffering is an ineliminable by-product of experiential being.  To experientially exist is to suffer, in some form and degree or another.

----

I am delighted to receive such a thorough comment to address.

Firstly, let us discuss the experiential nature of existing as an all-encompassing being in a pre-Universal state. Naturally, such a being does not experience actual distinctions, as none have yet come into being for it to distinguish. But this does not mean that it would be impossible for such a being to hypothesize potential distinctions. At the least, if it is aware that it exists at all, it might surmise that an alternative position -- non-existence -- is possible as well. If it is aware of its all-encompassing nature, it might similarly be aware that a less-than all-encompassing nature is likewise an alternate possibility. Both of these positions presuppose awareness, which is itself a precondition to any action which is not purely instinctual (and it is hard to conceive of purely instinctual action leading to so productive thing as our life-bearing Universe.

But, of especial interest, in this context, Pandeism has never been a philosophy which requires absolutes and infinitudes. In the sense raised by noted process philosopher Charles Hartshorne, one may envision the Creator being relatively all-encompassing -- being all-encompassing as to all that actually is, even if not all that can conceptually be, and even if all that is is itself imperfect. Such a being would be inconceivably great, but not infinitely or absolutely so. It would be, perhaps, closer to perfection than anything else we may be able to model or conceive, but would not be an example of perfection itself. (And, indeed, there may be no such thing as "perfection" to be achieved.)

And indeed, the existence of our Universe, if created, is an indisputable indication that our Creator was motivated to effect a change in its situation -- and not just motivated to contemplate a change or plan a change and consider whether to implement it, but as a putatively all-encompassing being absolutely and irresistibly motivated to change. I have written in the past that the compulsion for the Creator to become the Creation and so to obtain existential experience and experiential existence must be a powerful one, perhaps irresistible, like a hunger so intense that it compels the body to digest itself to feed that hunger. And that would indeed be characterizable as a state of suffering.

Now whether we class this suffering as an "evil" seems to be a matter of interpretation.

The problem of the least deserving person in Hell and the least deserving person in Heaven

Theists have a wide array of topics on which to disagree. Which god to worship, how to worship it, or -- even within a specific sect of a specific religion -- which acts are "sin" and what steps need to be taken to avoid a bad afterlife outcome. Ah, but that is one broadly shared idea -- that there is indeed such a thing as a "bad afterlife" outcome and a "good afterlife" outcome, a strict dichotomy with a dividing line (somewhere) between those who arrive here and those who arrive there.

The bad afterlife.

As with all other things, the details of this are murky and disputed. Some believe that there is an eternal Heaven or other such situation to which the good folks go, and an eternal Hell or other punishing thing for the rest. Some believe that those who go to Heaven will be literally given better versions of their physical bodies from life on Earth, and will live in a physical Earth-like city with houses and roads (paved in the proverbial gold), and perhaps some other kinds of buildings and amenities, holy tennis courts and sacred golf courses. And it will be an existence of eternal contentment, with no experience of fear or adversity or challenge of any kind (so in those eternal tennis matches, every player wins the match).

And some believe that Hell is equally a place where souls are given physical bodies, only these are for the purpose of receiving endless physical pain inflicted on them, burning fire constantly scorching skin and melting flesh, sharp rocks leaving no spot to lay one's body down, barbed whips wielded by rapacious demonic beings, and other torments imagined by figures ranging from Dante Alighieri to heavy metal music videographers. This condemnation to torture is depicted as endless in time, with punishment continuing long after any wrongdoing on Earth has been equaled.

Others cast Hell as a bodiless place, more a state of being, really, of eternal separation from the god of their religion; and still others contend that there's a Heaven but not actually a Hell, but that bad souls are simply obliterated for all time (immediately, or after some period of punishment), all the information in them lost forever. A few theologies dare to imagine a Purgatory, an in-between place where some souls suffer while awaiting admission to that eternal Heaven, or perhaps while awaiting a determination of where they'll forever go.

The inevitable cutting-off point.

But whatever the design imagined for the afterlife, there is one necessary constant in dichotomous (or even trichotomous) scenarios. Of the billions of people who have lived and died in all of existence, there must be one pair who represent the cutting-off point. There is one person who "gets in" to Heaven despite being the least deserving person of all who do so -- that is, despite being the least deserving person relative to all other people who get into Heaven. And likewise, there must be one person who is condemned to Hell -- whether this means eternal torment, separateness, obliteration, or something yet unimagined -- who is, of all the people slated for that fate the least deserving of it. The person whom, if just one single additional person of all the billions who've ever lived were to be admitted to Heaven, why, he would be the one.

And, given the continuum of behaviours and lives and lifestyles across the estimated 101 billion humans to have been born at some point in recorded history, the last person to "get in" to the good afterlife will be barely, perhaps imperceptibly distinguishable in the balance of good and bad deeds (or thoughts) from the last person locked out of it. Imagining a slightly more (or less) merciful god doesn't do away with this problem. If the next one or ten or thousand people are allowed in, that simply shifts the point of dichotomy down to a different pair of virtually indistinguishable people.

Where this cutting-off point lies is another a mystery. The faithful certainly can't agree on it. Some will assert that all who believe (and only those who believe) in the right faith, and perhaps even in the right sect within the faith, get the good ending -- and that even those who were simply unknowing as to this faith because they were too young or too remote ever to have learned of it, are deprived of the positive afterlife. For these believers, the destiny of the unevangelized, and the incompetently evangelized looms large, because those people are doomed no matter what they did in life. Other believers will insist that faith alone will not suffice, but that even the most faithful must carry out good deeds and avoid bad behavior to qualify. Contrapositively to the first proposition, some even believe that only those who are good people will receive the reward, even if they are of the "wrong" faith. Some sects, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, believe in an absolute numerical cutoff, with only 144,000 getting into Heaven (interestingly, a number representing only a fraction of the number of members of that group now living, meaning even the vast majority of believers will get edged out based on population limits.

Alternatives -- absolute outcomes or infinite options....

There are a few ideas which avoid the jarring absolute of a cutoff point. There are, for example, absolute ideas. Some believe that the good afterlife is a reward which literally nobody merits, making it plausible that literally everybody gets whatever the bad afterlife is. Conversely, some claim that their god's limitless mercy assures that "Hell is empty," and so literally everybody gets the good outcome. Some theologians have even concluded that the only people who actually exist are those who get the good outcome, and all the rest are simply illusions of people.

A number of theological models posit reincarnation, which would allow individuals to simply live life over and over again, until they merit the good afterlife (which is itself an escape from the cycle of reincarnation). At least one commentator has theorized that there is only one soul being reincarnated and we are all incarnations of it, so that we will each of us experience every life which has ever been lived until we ultimately lead the last life leading into the eternal reward. And, naturally, there are other propositions presented in Pantheism and Pandeism, wherein everything was part of our Creator all along anyway, and simply goes back to it (possibly to experience the consequences of their own Earthly actions through the memories of those who experienced those consequences).

And, naturally, whether one sees the dichotomous nature of typical afterlife beliefs as problematic may itself be a matter of perspective. There is a certain amount of black-and-white thinking which permits for a stark split, with trust that the god in question knows just where to make the cutoff, and all above are in fact worthy of eternal Heaven (even if some are just barely worthy) while all below are deserving of whatever Hell befalls them. But, though most every religious person believes that both they and those they care for will end up all together in an eternal Heaven, there must be some doleful tossing and turning in the dark of the night over where, exactly, the cutoff lies, and whether it is imaginable that they'll fall below it -- since perhaps even less than firmly belonging in Hell, nobody wants to be amongst those very last people who failed to make the cut.

Pandeism: An Anthology, around the world!!

Map of Pandeism: An Anthology shipping destinations.

To this date, copies of Pandeism: An Anthology have now shipped to, and been received by, dozens of our contributors and supporters around the world -- to more than forty cities, in eight countries, on three continents!! We have heard confirmation from recipients in widespread and diverse places, and so we expect that every contributor slated to receive one, and who provided their information, has by now received their designated book(s), inscribed with a message from editor Knujon Mapson.

A gathering for supporters and authors is tentatively planned for early December (probably the 9th/10th) in Los Angeles, California. Our literary agent will be traveling there in that period, and so will organize the event. Details about this and other such things will come -- and who knows, you may even choose to plan your own such event!!

Blessings!!

Pandeism: An Anthology -- forthcoming in January 2017!!

Pandeism: An Anthology is a collection of articles by more than a dozen authors, from all over the world, presenting diverse viewpoints on the theological theory of Pandeism. This theory seeks to reconcile aspects of Pantheism and Deism, proposing as a logical possibility that we are all part of a Creator which became our Universe to experience existence through our lives. This theory is proposed to be a more elegant and parsimonious model than theistic faiths, with implications argued to be more conducive to claiming the title of a "religion of peace."

This anthology is the first of its kind -- though Pandeism has been identified in philosophies going back thousands of years, was first identified as a formal theological category over 150 years ago, and has been touched on by dozens of writers, it has not itself been the subject of a book dedicated to examining it for over a hundred years. It is important to note that though all of these articles are in some way or another about Pandeism, they are not all advocating of the theory -- indeed, we as compilers as well as writers have taken the unusual step of intently soliciting and receiving commitments from Atheist and Theist authors offering their critical views on Pandeism.

Our Authors

Authors who have committed articles to this book include an outstanding group of contributors to a variety of areas of philosophical thought:

• Michael Arnheim (barrister and Deist, United Kingdom)

• Robert G. Brown (physicist and philosopher, United States)

• Dan Dana (Atheist writer, United States)

• Alan Dawe (author of the award-winning "The God Franchise," New Zealand)

• Orlando Alcántara Fernández (Christian poet, Dominican Republic)

• Ismaili Gnosis (Muslim Neoplatonist philosopher)

• Zoltan Istvan (Transhumanist author, United States)

• Bernardo Kastrup (computer scientist and philosopher of consciousness, Netherlands)

• William C. Lane (lawyer and philosopher, United States)

• Raphael Lataster (religious studies scholar, Australia)

• Knujon Mapson (Pandeist theologian, United States)

• Poffo Ortiz (Biopantheist author and artist, United States)

• Anthony Peake (author and lecturer on consciousness, United Kingdom)

• Amy Perry (transcendental poet, United States)

• Sushma Sahajpal (Hindu interfaith educator, United Kingdom)

This Anthology will be published in January 2017 -- we look forward to it, and hope you will as well!!

Can many fictions create a fact?

"Have I ever told you about the guy who used to live on my block? He is actually a pointy-eared, green-blooded alien, from a civilization which endeavors to function by emotionless logic."

"Um, you mean like a Vulcan, from Star Trek?"

"No, nothing at all like Star Trek, because this alien former neighbor of mine belongs to an ancient order of warriors for peace and justice who wield swords made of laser light, and have power over a mystical unifying force which suffuses the Universe."

"So.... like the Jedi in Star Wars."

"Have you not been listening? My former neighbor is obviously a real person, and not some made up 'story' derived from Star Wars, because Star Wars has no pointy-eared, green-blooded, emotionlessly logical alien. And he is obviously not some story derived from Star Trek, because Star Trek has no swords made of laser light and no mystical unifying force suffusing its Universe. Besides, there's more -- you see, my former neighbor was sent here in a spaceship as an infant, because his own planet was unstable and was going to explode."

"Okay, now this sounds like a mix of Star Trek and Star Wars and Superman."

"Don't be ridiculous -- Superman shoots freakin' laser beams out of his eyes and is vulnerable to Kryptonite, from his native planet. But my former neighbor doesn't shoot laser beams or anything else from his eyes, and isn't at all affected by Kryptonite. Plus I already told you, he has green blood. Superman doesn't have green blood. Or pointy ears. So, obviously he can't be some story derived from Superman -- I'm telling you, he's a real pointy-eared laser-sword-wielding logical alien, sent as a baby from an exploded planet to Earth, where he gains strength from our yellow sun!!"

"And you didn't get any of this from, I don't know, maybe reading some comic books? Watching TV?"

"No, I got none of this from any of that. I heard all this directly, straight from the kids of the people who lived on the house on the other side of the street, who heard it from their parents, who heard it directly from my former neighbor."

"Wait -- so, your former neighbor didn't tell you this himself? He told some other people this?"

"Tell me? No, I've never even met the guy. He moved out before I even lived there. But my other neighbors across the street, their parents knew these things about him, and their kids even wrote all this down. Years ago."

"And how do you know the parents who told the kids all this didn't, maybe, mix in a little sci-fi. Even by accident, mixing things in? Or that the kids didn't mix some of these sci-fi things in?"

"Because that makes no sense -- why would they mix anything in? Look, you're overthinking this, my former neighbor obviously isn't a fictional character because there is no fictional character which combines all of these characteristics which he's been, I stress, recorded in writing as having. I mean, look, if I tell you my former neighbor breathed oxygen and ate food, would you conclude he was a fictional mix-up because everybody else breathes oxygen and eats food?"

"But we see people every day doing those things. We don't see pointy-eared green-blooded logic-observing aliens at all, except in Star Trek and things derived from it. We don't see laser-sword-wielding force users at all, except in Star Wars or its copycats. And we don't see an alien from a doomed planet sent to Earth in a spaceship except in Superman, and knock-offs of it."

"I'm sorry, but I hardly see that as proof that what I've heard about my former neighbor is untrue. In fact, maybe you've just misremembered all your sci-fi stories."

"Well I guess we'll have to agree to disagree."

"I guess. So, hey, have I ever told you about the religion I follow?"