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Elijah_Baley
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Discuss.
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OrdinaryMelkite
Guest
Materiallism is materialism, IMHO, Elijah. Most “materialists” I have known personally or of are really atheists.
Actually, the two types/definitions of materialists that can readily identify are A) people who believe in some sort of higher power (some are even Catholic) but nevertheless place a good deal on emphasis on the “physical desires, material possesions, here and now” aspect of their existence while being more “religious than spiritual;” then there is B)---- which are the above-mentioned------“this is all there is and after death there is nothing.”
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Sair
Guest
I guess that depends upon what you consider ‘boring’. A philosophical materialist is someone who holds that material reality is all there is, and as such, can account for all phenomena we might experience. On such an understanding, ‘immaterial’ phenomena such as consciousness arise from complex interactions between material substances.
To offer an illustrative example, I have seen some people claim that God ‘spoke’ creation into existence. This in itself implies a material conception of reality, since speech and sound are material phenomena. I have also seen (although I don’t claim to understand the details thereof) people claim that the existence of souls might be explicable through quantum mechanics. Again, this implies that souls are actually material phenomena.
Naturalistic pantheists (like me) are probably all materialists, essentially. Such a belief holds that there is some substance that exists essentially, and unifies all possible natural phenomena in that it provides the base upon which all other things obtain.
Is this boring? Not to me - I am quite excited at the prospect of eventually discovering all the capabilities of matter and energy.
To offer an illustrative example, I have seen some people claim that God ‘spoke’ creation into existence. This in itself implies a material conception of reality, since speech and sound are material phenomena. I have also seen (although I don’t claim to understand the details thereof) people claim that the existence of souls might be explicable through quantum mechanics. Again, this implies that souls are actually material phenomena.
Naturalistic pantheists (like me) are probably all materialists, essentially. Such a belief holds that there is some substance that exists essentially, and unifies all possible natural phenomena in that it provides the base upon which all other things obtain.
Is this boring? Not to me - I am quite excited at the prospect of eventually discovering all the capabilities of matter and energy.
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yppop
Guest
Sair
Does pantheism include a believe in the big bang theory?
Yppop
Does pantheism include a believe in the big bang theory?
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Sair
Guest
Naturalistic pantheism certainly does, but it also doesn’t hold, necessarily, that an existential ‘nothing’ obtained prior to the big bang. Quantum theory provides evidence - indirectly, through mathematical calculation and experimental observation of effects - that an actual void, a state of nonexistence, is at least unstable, if not impossible. Hence the big bang is not taken to be the origin of all that is, but the origin of the universe in its present state, as we know it.
The fact of the matter (if you’ll pardon the pun) is that we actually don’t know all the actual and potential properties and qualities of matter and energy, so the rational position is, in my view at least, that it’s premature to suppose a supernatural (however that could be defined) force is necessary to get nature going. If it turns out that, once we have discovered every capability of unassisted, undirected-from-outside matter and energy - whenever that may happen - there are still phenomena that cannot be explained in such terms, then it will be time to look beyond natural entities to a supernatural director/designer/creator.
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paduard
Guest
“then it will be time to look beyond natural entities to a supernatural director/designer/creator.”
In simple terms then - sit on the fence and wait - (smile)
God Bless.
In simple terms then - sit on the fence and wait - (smile)
God Bless.
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Elijah_Baley
Guest
Cool. Just wanted to run that by someone before I spout it off. It had seemed to me that, if the central tenet of pantheism speaking broadly is that god is more of a ultimate worth pursuing and that god is in all things, materialism is much the converse, i.e. “Things are all god.” Seems to me that, because the search for the ultimate good — God — is much the point of all metaphysics, throwing together a positive connection between this ultimate good and a kind of worldliness makes materialism enough of the same as pantheism to put them in the same camp.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that brilliant passage in Orthodoxy between circle as a symbol for pagan insanity — no offense intended to anyone, but any other word would not convey Chesterton’s meaning — and the cross at the core of Christian lucidity.
But there is such a thing as a mean infinity, a base and slavish eternity. It is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, whether sceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol, which is the very symbol of this ultimate nullity. When they wish to represent eternity, they represent it by a serpent with his tail in his mouth. There is a startling sarcasm in the image of that very unsatisfactory meal. The eternity of the material fatalists, the eternity of the eastern pessimists, the eternity of the supercilious theosophists and higher scientists of to-day is, indeed, very well presented by a serpent eating his tail, a degraded animal who destroys even himself. …
The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say “if you please” to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health.
As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers.
I don’t mean to stretch this farther than it goes, but lately I’ve been making something of a fairy tale — we know what Chesterton says about that
— about Christianity as liberator from the cynical, almost sarcastic pagan pessimism.
One recurring image I have is of Sisyphus condemned to push the boulder near to the top of the hill again and again, for all eternity, only to have the boulder roll back down the hill. It’s no accident, I think, that Sartre uses this very image to describe the absurd hero, the everyman in an atheist worldview, and no accident that he had to draw from a pagan tradition to get such a depressing vision of humanity. Here the fundamentally pagan tenet that men are at the whims of capricious forces beyond their control, that there is no hope. Then I get the image of Christianity abolishing all this to the farthest reaches of the world. Pantheism means a rigidly caste-like society, submission to a binding force through all things; Christianity means a kind of democratic monarchy, self-rule through the world and submission to God over matters of the spirit.
In the end, I propose that a committed materialism means to finally put back on these shackles of hopelessness, and an easy transition when Zeus need only be replaced with Mammon.
Our initial premise does not quite reflect this; if anyone can sum it up better with a fuller truth, I’m much obliged.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that brilliant passage in Orthodoxy between circle as a symbol for pagan insanity — no offense intended to anyone, but any other word would not convey Chesterton’s meaning — and the cross at the core of Christian lucidity.
But there is such a thing as a mean infinity, a base and slavish eternity. It is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, whether sceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol, which is the very symbol of this ultimate nullity. When they wish to represent eternity, they represent it by a serpent with his tail in his mouth. There is a startling sarcasm in the image of that very unsatisfactory meal. The eternity of the material fatalists, the eternity of the eastern pessimists, the eternity of the supercilious theosophists and higher scientists of to-day is, indeed, very well presented by a serpent eating his tail, a degraded animal who destroys even himself. …
The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid. The determinist makes the theory of causation quite clear, and then finds that he cannot say “if you please” to the housemaid. The Christian permits free will to remain a sacred mystery; but because of this his relations with the housemaid become of a sparkling and crystal clearness. He puts the seed of dogma in a central darkness; but it branches forth in all directions with abounding natural health.
As we have taken the circle as the symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as the symbol at once of mystery and of health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its centre it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travellers.
I don’t mean to stretch this farther than it goes, but lately I’ve been making something of a fairy tale — we know what Chesterton says about that
— about Christianity as liberator from the cynical, almost sarcastic pagan pessimism.One recurring image I have is of Sisyphus condemned to push the boulder near to the top of the hill again and again, for all eternity, only to have the boulder roll back down the hill. It’s no accident, I think, that Sartre uses this very image to describe the absurd hero, the everyman in an atheist worldview, and no accident that he had to draw from a pagan tradition to get such a depressing vision of humanity. Here the fundamentally pagan tenet that men are at the whims of capricious forces beyond their control, that there is no hope. Then I get the image of Christianity abolishing all this to the farthest reaches of the world. Pantheism means a rigidly caste-like society, submission to a binding force through all things; Christianity means a kind of democratic monarchy, self-rule through the world and submission to God over matters of the spirit.
In the end, I propose that a committed materialism means to finally put back on these shackles of hopelessness, and an easy transition when Zeus need only be replaced with Mammon.
Our initial premise does not quite reflect this; if anyone can sum it up better with a fuller truth, I’m much obliged.
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Elijah_Baley
Guest
Camus, not Sartre. (The two were close; they weren’t identical.)
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Sair
Guest
Take care that you don’t conflate paganism and pantheism - the two are similar in some respects, but not identicalCool. Just wanted to run that by someone before I spout it off. It had seemed to me that, if the central tenet of pantheism speaking broadly is that god is more of a ultimate worth pursuing and that god is in all things, materialism is much the converse, i.e. “Things are all god.” Seems to me that, because the search for the ultimate good — God — is much the point of all metaphysics, throwing together a positive connection between this ultimate good and a kind of worldliness makes materialism enough of the same as pantheism to put them in the same camp.
I don’t mean to stretch this farther than it goes, but lately I’ve been making something of a fairy tale — we know what Chesterton says about that
One recurring image I have is of Sisyphus condemned to push the boulder near to the top of the hill again and again, for all eternity, only to have the boulder roll back down the hill. It’s no accident, I think, that Sartre uses this very image to describe the absurd hero, the everyman in an atheist worldview, and no accident that he had to draw from a pagan tradition to get such a depressing vision of humanity. Here the fundamentally pagan tenet that men are at the whims of capricious forces beyond their control, that there is no hope. Then I get the image of Christianity abolishing all this to the farthest reaches of the world. Pantheism means a rigidly caste-like society, submission to a binding force through all things; Christianity means a kind of democratic monarchy, self-rule through the world and submission to God over matters of the spirit.
In the end, I propose that a committed materialism means to finally put back on these shackles of hopelessness, and an easy transition when Zeus need only be replaced with Mammon.
I’m fairly new at the philosophy side of pantheism, but one of its central concepts is that of oneness, the unity of all things; god is not so much in reality, as god is the whole of reality. The universe is everything that exists - it is all, and it is enough. I think a key difference between pantheism and more supernaturally-focused religions is that whilst the latter generally seek to transcend the physical world, and see it as primarily a source of suffering, the pantheist seeks to embrace life within the physical world - understanding that joy and love and peace are as material as pain and anguish.
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Elijah_Baley
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So not only is pantheism the converse of materialism, but its philosophy might as well be gnostic. Pantheism, you say, means that there is goodness and evilness and they are opposed, as opposed as a Taoist would have it — and both are material. In Gnosticism, there is a capricious creator of the world who entraps us within our flesh to keep us from getting to the wholesome creator of the spirit, but don’t worry — our gurus are here to guide you. Pantheism takes the Taoist and Gnostic dualism of clearly defined good and evil and greys out the blacks along with the whites. Rather draw into focus the good and bad it is a drunken, limp akido against all forces, a bending tree in a hurricane too inconsequential to stand firm in defiance.Take care that you don’t conflate paganism and pantheism - the two are similar in some respects, but not identical
I’m fairly new at the philosophy side of pantheism, but one of its central concepts is that of oneness, the unity of all things; god is not so much in reality, as god is the whole of reality. The universe is everything that exists - it is all, and it is enough. I think a key difference between pantheism and more supernaturally-focused religions is that whilst the latter generally seek to transcend the physical world, and see it as primarily a source of suffering, the pantheist seeks to embrace life within the physical world - understanding that joy and love and peace are as material as pain and anguish.
It’s getting too easy, now, to conflate pantheism, paganism, Marcionism, Gnosticism, materialism, spiritualism, communism, socialism, pragmatism, atheism and the Enlightenment as facets of the same opposition to Christian truth. I think I need to step back. There’s an abyss out there looking forward to looking back at me, I think.
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Sair
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It does kind of sound like you’re just delivering a blanket rejection of everything that’s not specifically Christian - which is about the only thing that the items on your list have in common. Never mind the fact that Christianity itself contains elements of paganism, spiritualism, socialism and from its early days, gnosticism, amongst other things. Wanting the world to be divided up into black and white will not make it so. Reality is complicated, and the sooner we accept this, the sooner we may understand and find our way within it.
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inocente
Guest
If I remember my comparative religion there are three schools of pantheism. One says only matter really exists, another that only mind really exists, and a third that both exist.
These may look like materialism, idealism and dualism but in each case God is everything that exists, although it may be better expressed by saying everything (and therefore everyone) is sacred - pantheists are less likely to destroy the planet than materialists.
A battle line with Christianity is that pantheists may not believe humans are different in kind/superior to animals.
If I remember correctly.
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Filippo_Bruno
Guest
A recent book about “jazzing up” scientific materialism is Chet Raymo’s When God Is Gone Everything Is Holy.
He argues that praise, adoration, and reverence of the compelling totality of the universe should be given more attention, relative to faith in particular dogmas or texts.
He argues that praise, adoration, and reverence of the compelling totality of the universe should be given more attention, relative to faith in particular dogmas or texts.
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Warrenton
Guest
Boring? Not in the least. You need to read Sair’s posts on the monogamy thread in this philosphy section.
Sair reports that some are practicing “ethical polyogamy.” I’m uncertain exactly what the practice entails, but it seems to have something to do with acrobatics, kissing, and the communal enjoyment of novels like Tristram Shandy.
It may be jejuene to the rugged Catholic, but even such jaded cases as we would have to admit that it is somehow fresh.
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Elijah_Baley
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So then let’s look at what pantheism is, at the very core.
There’s what Peter Kreeft calls a sort of vague “wafting up” of the divine, an impersonal deity. This is certainly central to pantheism, and is a common thread between all three sorts of pantheism described. This is, in short, what moderns mean by spiritualism, a kind of Calvinist Deism with safe, exotic Eastern influences. If by pantheism we mean that there is any supernatural element to truth and existence, then these specifically have more in common than they do in difference.
If by pantheism we mean the dualist idea, of a spiritual half and material half at odds with each other, we very specifically have Gnosticism, Taoism, Buddhism and Marcionism, as well as some of the Enlightenment, where evil is of substance rather than a privation of good.
If by pantheism we mean that God is in all things and then simultaneously strip God of personhood and will and any spiritual essence, then in addition to the spiritualist Calvinist Deism of the first sort of pantheism, we also have materialism, communism, socialism, atheism, pragmatism and the rest of the Enlightenment.
Therefore, I apologize to any pagans for their inclusion in my previous laundry list. Otherwise, however, there is no false conflation.
There’s what Peter Kreeft calls a sort of vague “wafting up” of the divine, an impersonal deity. This is certainly central to pantheism, and is a common thread between all three sorts of pantheism described. This is, in short, what moderns mean by spiritualism, a kind of Calvinist Deism with safe, exotic Eastern influences. If by pantheism we mean that there is any supernatural element to truth and existence, then these specifically have more in common than they do in difference.
If by pantheism we mean the dualist idea, of a spiritual half and material half at odds with each other, we very specifically have Gnosticism, Taoism, Buddhism and Marcionism, as well as some of the Enlightenment, where evil is of substance rather than a privation of good.
If by pantheism we mean that God is in all things and then simultaneously strip God of personhood and will and any spiritual essence, then in addition to the spiritualist Calvinist Deism of the first sort of pantheism, we also have materialism, communism, socialism, atheism, pragmatism and the rest of the Enlightenment.
Therefore, I apologize to any pagans for their inclusion in my previous laundry list. Otherwise, however, there is no false conflation.
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Elijah_Baley
Guest
This is mostly intended as a critique of materialism. Materialism, says the thread title, is the boring one.
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Filippo_Bruno
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But materialism is not boring to many who subscribe to it…
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Elijah_Baley
Guest
Explain ennui and why it is as curiously modern as pop psychology.
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Filippo_Bruno
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Alienated labor – a result of the advent of industrialized society?
In any case it seems to me that some may find materialism boring while others do not. XKCD has a relevant comic strip.
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Warrenton
Guest
Not necessarily to disagree, but perhaps the best expression of ennui is to be found in Madame Bovary, which is what, 130 or 140 years old now?
It seems that ennui predates pop psych, which I would peg to the advent of Freud (not that he was “pop” himself, but that his work spawned a cottage industry of fakirs).
Ennui comes from the realization that what we are doing is not important, and that our insistance that it is, is a lie. I suspect that ennui is closely related to shame.
I do not think that mechanization, or industrialism needs to produce this. But the insistence of modern society to govern all of the important aspects of life produces it. With our population, we should be able to get the work done in three days, leaving three days for us to work at home, educate our children, grow our food, and one day to pray and relax.
The only reason we do not live so is greed.
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