Beauty

'Beauty' is a puzzle. Though it is often framed as being a highly individualistic, 'in the eye of the beholder' sort of impression, experience certainly teaches that there are beauty standards -- things deemed desirable by any given general population. So then, what subtle forces contrive to dictate our deepest emotional reactions to a face, a flower, a painting, a sunset? Why is it that when we meet two people of indistinguishable personality, one may strike a spark in our hearts while the other simply does not register in that way, perhaps simply because of the shape of a chin or the width between the eyes? There are theories for all of these things -- that we have, perhaps, evolved an inclination towards being attracted to those traits or trails which best suit the survival of the species. Our bent, it is proposed, is towards finding lush green spaces beautiful for example because those are likely sources of food (though many would find as much beauty in cracked desert plains and solitary frozen ice floes).

But with respect to the sort of facial beauty which yields a physical, sexual attraction, the road may fall rather more narrowly. Here, the researchers speculate, attraction is all about a nagging desire to reproduce, and to do so in the way which will generate the most advantaged offspring. So here is where it gets interesting. After all, what exactly are the physical features most likely to yield offspring who will live to adulthood and outcompete their acquaintances in the reproduction contest? Why ought an oddly shaped nose or too much of a chin be off-putting in terms of the whole 'survival of the fittest' racket. Well it turns out that what makes somebody attractive tends to be their.... averageness.

Averageness and symmetry, indeed, go hand in hand on that score. Or, to be more exact, what tends to cause somebody to be deemed unattractive is their deviation from averageness and symmetry. Now this tends to be surprising because we often think of 'average' as a synonym for 'plain, but what is average and what is plain are not so aligned as one might think. There's an historical story here intertwined in the history of evolutionary biology. Charles Darwin, you see, was not the only scientifically minded member of family in his generation. Oh, you might think of his grandfather, good old Erasmus Darwin, but Charles had a cousin as well -- Francis Galton -- who invented 'composite photography' (that is, the laying of photographic images over one another to demonstrate a final image averaging the features of the initial ones). And in 1883, Galton set out to employ this technique in what he thought would be a crime-fighting endeavour. Specifically, Galton supposed that by taking many images of criminals and overlapping them, he could ultimately produce the image of the 'average criminal.' This, in turn, he thought would aid society in finding those with criminal features and identifying them before they engaged in nefarious deeds (all of this being in the age of phrenology, when it was believed that the bumps and knots of a person's skull provided details about their personality and characteristic tendencies). But as Galton put together more and more of these faces, he discovered the composite result to be not somebody looking more and more 'criminal,' but more and more conventionally attractive. And, indeed, further experimentation by Galton and by generations of later experimenters has repeatedly confirmed this, that if a random grouping of a few dozen or more randomly picked people from the population are image-composited, the 'average' person's face turn out a beauty.

The simple explanation of all this is that each face deviates from the average in some aspect or another, but most every faces deviates in a different way; and so, as more and more faces are composited together, any especial deviation displayed by one will be subdued by comparison to the others, which are free of that deviation. So, if one face has a very long nose, one too wide a brow, and one sunken cheekbones, the two faces with average noses will subdue the long nose, the two with average brows will subdue the wide brow, and the two with sharper cheekbones will subdue the sunken example. And indeed it goes beyond that, for a dozen faces with too-long noses composited with a dozen faces with too-short noses will yield one face with that perfectly average nose (and approaching perfect symmetry as well, for the same reasons). And in the same breath, since wrinkles and other signs of aging are not equally distributed amongst the aged, a composite of many people (even of many old people) will subdue all of these features, and end up looking youthful, smooth-skinned and vibrant. (Note that this effect is restricted by gender; mixing of genders yields androgynous faces, which are themselves a deviation from gender norms, and have generally been deemed unattractive by those surveyed).

So having gotten to that point, the question returns, what is the advantage of being most attracted to the person with the most average of faces? Well, it is always possible that any deviation from the average evidences a defect, a parting from the healthy biological norm. And so, though adhering to average faces causes the reproducing person to pass upon potentially beneficial evolutionary changes, it does so in the cause of keeping to the safest position, that of reproducing with the person least likely (based on outward appearance) to carry some harmful genetic quirk. And, just to provide an illustration to this principle, I went to faceresearch.org and generated some 'average' faces (try it yourself -- pick the twenty faces from one gender which you would find least attractive, and then see how those unattractive faces average out); and then uploaded those average specimens to morphthing.com, a site which allows you to create composite images of celebrities (and upload your own), and morphed dozens of Hollywood starlets and women similarly considered famously beautiful, and then morphed that into the other 'average' faces; then I put this in Photoshop and tinted the whole thing green for no especial reason, and got this face, for your consideration.

One of the startling discoveries man has made is that in taking a wide variety of faces -- all sorts of faces, the plain and typical and unremarkable, the quirky and unusual and memorable -- and 'morphing' them together to average out their features yields what people generally recognize as a strikingly attractive face. This is perhaps in part a consequence of the averaging out of asymmetry and the gradual elimination over every generation of morphing of every distinctive blemish, every outlier feature.

Consider this woman.  She does not exist. She is instead a carefully constructed average of sixty-four different actresses and models and other famously "attractive" women. Black, White, Asian, Latina, all went into the mix. Confessedly, none of them was green (that element was simply added to further remove the generated image from common notions of "race").

Pandeism on homosexuality and gay marriage

Today is an appropriate day to revisit this commentary:

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 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. 


---- 


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

Pandeism and Sexual Pleasure

When the impact of religion on sexual freedom is considered, it most generally is a strongly negative one. For it is the gist of religions that sex is either highly regulated by suppressive divine decrees, or that it is at least some sort of inherent flaw, distracting men from the path to enlightenment.

The most typical restriction imposed by religion is that sex must be restricted to married couples -- which, in this day and age oddly juxtaposes secular government giving its stamp of approval on a piece of paper, without which it matters not what the couples' religious advisers contend, nor what their congregation would have. It seems these days no one is married until the government puts in its two cents. As to actual sexual activities, the 'marriage' requirement effectively precludes threesomes (and foursomes, and fivesomes, and I think anything above that would qualify for general orgydom). Polygamy (and polyandry) might ameliorate this a bit, but both are becoming rarer and less acceptable amongst the religious, even amongst those whose doctrines once lauded the practice -- and to the nonreligious, they have little relevance because marriage itself originates as a religious institution, and outside of that life is the free-for-all.

Religious mores may require the wife to be submissive (and note, it is always the woman whom religion puts down; and with all that submissiveness implies); may limit sex to purposes of procreation (which cuts out a great many activities and endgames); and may bar masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, homosexuality, partner swapping, and all other activities consensually maximizing sexual variety. Theistic adherents may contend that they are able to find sufficient sexual release within the constraints of their own beliefs, though this is hardly a justification for wishing to will others sexual rights away.

But Pandeism takes quite a different approach. So much so that it may well be claimed to be the most sex-positive of all religious beliefs. Indeed, the sacredness of sexual pleasure is consistent with the core of understanding and practice of Pandeism, and one reason why it might modernly be enjoying greater popularity as it receives wider exposure to open-minded persons of a spiritual bent. Recall that Pandeism is the belief that our Creator not only created the Universe, but in fact ceased to be a separate entity and instead became our Universe in order to experience existence through the experiences of the Universe (and thereby to learn what it was like to face obstacles and limitations unknowable to a deity). Pandeism teaches therefore that our Creator shares in and learns from all of our experiences, and thus our positive experiences, including our consensual and mutually enjoyable sexual practices, must be no less than a gift to our Creator!!

Now it must as well be further recalled that Pandeism holds our Universe and our experience of it to be essentially natural phenomena, existing in accordance with the governing dynamics designed by our Creator and actuated in its becoming of our Universe. But within that scheme, our ability to experience pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow, are not intentional bestowals from a Creator using such things to test or control us. They are evolved capacities. True, they have come to pass in accordance with our Creator's physical laws, but not as part of a specified plan. They are instead happenstance outcomes, outpourings of the randomness with which our Creator imbued our Universe, so that it might generate a useful variety of experiences. Thus, there is no 'wrong' in receiving pleasure sexually, any more than in receiving physical pleasure through other natural functions such as eating, drinking, or basking in a cool breeze on a hot day or a warm spot on a cold day. In each of these instances we may be assured that nature rewards our essential enjoyment of them because they in some way tend towards the benefit of our progression as a species -- a progression which is itself surely appreciated by our Creator.

In this light, there can be nothing immoral about any consensual act between persons who are competent to make decisions for themselves. When a man and woman (or two men, or two women, if so inclined) find mutual attraction in a smoky bar, and hasten to release their desires in a one-night-stand of passionate pleasuring in multiple positions, our Creator necessarily shares in each moment of pleasure, for they are of our Creator. When one person contracts with another to be brought to orgasm with the other's mouth, our Creator experiences the wonder of orgasm (and perhaps the prostitute ought to rejoice in giving to our Creator that wonderful experience); when one is privileged to participate in a menage a trois with two sensual specimens of the opposite sex, who pleasure the lucky third with their fingers and toes and multiple orifices, perhaps even their elbows, our Creator shares equally in this arousal. Our Creator must delight in the pleasure of those moments as much as either of their human actors; and when a man (or woman) sits alone in front of the tv or computer screen or simply a magazine and masturbates while viewing the topography revealed by pornography, our Creator experiences the enjoyment of that orgasm as much as its recipient.



There can be few better lives lived than those in which the experience of giving and receiving pleasure is maximized by the sharing as great a variety of sensual joy with as many people as possible!! So long as this is done honestly and consensually, it is no harm but a positive good to share sexual pleasure with others, and reap the same for oneself, to be shared among all in the end.

It is true, naturally, that sex may be used to inflict suffering, which imposes suffering upon our Creator -- and in the end we will perhaps share in this suffering as well -- and the responsible party will have the most poignant experience of the suffering he has caused. There may be no question that to force sex on another, through brute strength or through more subtle emotional or financial extortion is still an immorality!! Although I lauded the gift of the prostitute before, if that person is not acting of his or her own free will, but instead out of a compulsion to feed a terrible drug habit or provide for an abusive pimp, so would our Creator experience the deprivations of such a condition. And further, some consideration must be given to the suffering that even consensual sex can cause to the spouse who finds him or herself cheated on, to the parent who fears their offspring's loss of 'innocence,' even to the complete stranger who is distressed that sex is happening at all. But these feelings must be taken with a grain of relative rationality -- consider the racist or the homophobe, who is angered by sex between people of different races, or of the same gender -- this act does him no harm, so his 'suffering' is irrational, a self-inflicted bogeyman; it may only be in another next life, when he shares in the pleasure of these experiences (which he may have denied himself in life) that he will realize what a gift he was receiving when these objectionable acts were carried out, and how thoughtless was his disdain for the experience of them!!

So let us not disgrace our Creator by denying ourselves the wonderful gift of sexual titillation, the pleasures of sensual play, and the ultimate joy of a rain of orgasms!! An understanding of Pandeism opens our eyes to the possibility that such denial is the greatest immorality!!