You wrote a lot, but I will try to address it all.
Before I begin though, I have to admit that I do not know much about Pantheism, so if my assumptions or beliefs are incorrect, they are done by ignorance, not with maligned intent.
From what I have read, Pantheism is the belief that God is everything and everything is God. Water, dirt, air, birds, bees, humans are all part or God. Their is no one single Deity that is God, but everything makes up God. (Is this fair, or right to say?)
Hi Chess,
Here we go…
1- What is a Saint? Someone closer to God than you or I? Somehow better? How is Sainthood determined? Can we all be Saints if conditions warrant?
A general definition of Saint would be someone that is close to God. I think we would need to discuss the next part on Sin to actually understand what a Saint is.
2- I don’t believe “sin” exists. Not original sin or venial or even mortal sin. The real, actual definition for “sin” means to “miss the mark.” That’s all. Religions have perverted that simple concept and used it as a tool to control the masses.
Sin is just another word for doing Evil. Evil is the opposite of Good. God is good, doing God’s will is Good. God did not “create” Evil, it is just that Evil is a product of not doing Good. So, to say that when I do not do God’s will, I have “missed the mark”, works for me.
Here is my ignorance on Pantheism. If their is no sin, is their Good and Evil? Or if everything is God, then everything we do must be okay? Where do ethics fit in or come from?
“All pantheism must ultimately be shipwrecked on the inescapable demands of ethics, and then on the evil and suffering of the world. If the world is a theophany, then everything done by man, and even by animal, is equally divine and excellent; nothing can be more censurable and nothing more praiseworthy than anything else; hence there is no ethics.” -Schopenhauer The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, Ch. XLVII
2a- I don’t get this at all. Because you feel excited seeing a pretty girl you feel an overwhelming “wrongness” and to cure that feeling you go to a guy and confess. Dude, you are an adult male. You are SUPPOSED to feel excited in the presence of an attractive girl! That is how this race perpetuates itself!
I suppose I should have distinguished between looking at girl and admiring her beauty OR looking at a girl and wanting to have sex (or anything physical) with. The latter is degrading, it is viewing a person as merely a means to an ends. There is no way for me to explain the meaning of sex as created by God, but John Paul II’s Theology of the Body or the book in my signature would explain it.
3- I’m speaking in broad terms. “Fifty years ago the U.S. was heeding God’s word more than today.” Oh hogwash! Prove THAT stat! Religiosity varies over time and location. Man has been on the planet and self conscious for what, 2.4 million years? If we average religiosity over that span, we would probably find that the average in total would be about the same as it is found presently, worldwide.
What I was thinking about was sex, marriage, contraception, and abortion (just to name a few differences from 1960 to 2010). I do not think it is “hogwash”, it is clearly evident that people have abandoned the teachings of Christ in these areas and society is now suffering the consequence. I am not sure what a Pantheist believes on these issues but it seems clear to me that:
a. Marriage is important to society. Children being raised by single parents are at a disadvantage that those with two parents. (I am thinking of a mother and father)
b. Sex has been completely objectified. It is now normal for people to say that they want to have sex before they are married to be sure it will “good”. Unfortunately, their is so much more to sex than just the physical side.
c. Contraception and Abortion can be discussed together because some contraception (the pill) cause abortions. I am not sure what you believe, but if you go ask any medical doctor when life begins, I am sure they will say at conception. How can it be otherwise? Murdering babies is clearly not what God wants. Did abortions happen before Roe v. Wade? Sure they did. But since 1973, the USA has killed more than 45 million babies by legal abortions.
Source
As for your comment about “average religiosity” and that it would be the same worldwide, I say HOGWASH
Can you in anyway back that up? Also, averages do not really matter. I could have you stand with one foot in a bucket of ice cold water, and your other foot in a bucket of boiling water, and say on average you are standing in warm water, but I think you would disagree.
What would matter more to me is who the ‘world’ has acted since God revealed himself to us. We could go back to Moses, Abraham, or since Christ, would not matter to me, but it is my belief that the ‘world’ is a better place because of the Decalogue or when Christ appeared and founded His Church.
cont…
The majority of the founding fathers of the US were practicing Christians and people like Jefferson had high regard for the moral standards based on God’s word. No other nation has been blessed in such a manner as this nation and as time moves along we will go the way of all nations that have turned their back on God, which you can read in Romans 1 and beginning of 2. You also should realize that if humans were around a million years ago, the population would be unsustainable and that based on population models that account for famine, disease and natural catastrophes, the current populations accord with the Bible creation account which makes the earth and man between 6-10k years old