Contemplations
One good question at a time. A reader asks it, everyone else answers: agree, add nuance, push back, or ask something better. No accounts. No algorithm deciding what you see.
15 open questions, 77 responses so far
When I die, what exactly is the "I" that returns to the universe?
Pantheists say we return to the whole. I want to be precise about what returns. My atoms, obviously, though they were only ever on loan. Not my memories, which are patterns in a brain that stops. Not my consciousness, unless someone here wants to argue for that. So is "return" just a nice word for "stop," or is there a sense in which something that was me continues to be part of the universe rather than just having been?
Can a place be more sacred than another if everything is sacred?
There is a beech wood twenty minutes from my house that I would defend with my body. There is a retail park ten minutes from my house that I would not. Both are, in the strict sense, the universe. Both are nature doing what nature does, since humans are nature. Yet one feels holy and one feels like a wound. Am I allowed to say the wood is more sacred, or is that sentimentality I should see through?
What did you find in pantheism that you could not find in plain atheism?
I was a contented atheist for a decade. Then something shifted and I started reading here. I am trying to name what pantheism added, because from the outside it looks like nothing: same universe, same facts, no extra beings. But from the inside something is different and I want to hear how other people describe it before I try.
Do you talk to the universe, and if so, who are you talking to?
Confession: I say thank you out loud. On the ridge at sunrise, in the garden, once in a car park for no reason. I do not think anyone is listening. I do it anyway and it feels right. Is this prayer with the address torn off? Is it a habit I should be honest enough to drop? Does anyone else do it?
Is there a pantheist reason to have children in a world this damaged?
I am 31 and I want children and I am not sure I should. The usual arguments are about carbon and about what kind of world they would inherit. I am asking something slightly different: does pantheism, specifically, have anything to say? If I am nature continuing itself, is having a child the most pantheist thing I could do, or is restraint the more reverent choice?
How do I explain pantheism to my religious parents without it sounding like I have joined a cult?
I am going home for the holidays. My parents know I stopped going to church. They do not know I now describe myself as a pantheist, and I would like to tell them in a way that does not end with my mother crying or my father googling "pantheism cult." Has anyone done this well? What worked?
Should pantheists be activists, or is that just another way of thinking we are in charge?
If nature is sacred, it seems obvious that I should defend it. But I also notice a tension: activism assumes we can and should steer the outcome, and pantheism keeps telling me I am a small part of something that does not need steering. Is climate activism the natural expression of pantheism, or a leftover of the old idea that humans are here to manage the earth?
If I am the universe experiencing itself, why does the universe feel so lonely from in here?
I love the Alan Watts line and I believe it. But I have noticed that believing it does not stop me feeling isolated, and sometimes makes it worse: if I am the universe looking at itself, then there is nobody else, just one thing looking in a mirror. Does anyone else find the oneness idea lonely rather than comforting? What do you do with that?
Is it dishonest to keep the word "sacred" if I do not believe in anything supernatural?
My partner is a straightforward materialist and he says I am borrowing religious vocabulary I have not earned. When I say the forest is sacred, he says I mean I like it a lot. I do not think that is what I mean, but I cannot explain the difference to his satisfaction. Is there one?
Does pantheism have anything to say about evil, or does it just change the subject?
Theists have the problem of evil: why would a good God allow suffering? Pantheists get to skip it, because there is no good God to defend. But I wonder if we skip it too easily. If the universe is sacred and the universe includes cruelty, what exactly are we revering? I do not want a worldview that goes quiet when the subject gets hard.
What does a pantheist actually do on a Sunday morning?
I miss church more than I expected. Not the beliefs. The rhythm: getting up, going somewhere, sitting with people, singing, the sense that the week had a hinge in it. I have tried "going for a walk" and it does not do the same thing. Does anyone here have an actual practice, with a shape to it, that they do every week?
Can you be a pantheist and still eat meat?
If everything is one sacred whole, and animals are as much a part of it as I am, I struggle to see how I justify eating them for pleasure. But I also notice that nature eats itself constantly and does not seem troubled. I have been vegetarian for two months and I am not sure if it is a conclusion or a mood. Where do other pantheists land?
How do you grieve as a pantheist without an afterlife to lean on?
My mother died in March. I have been a pantheist for years and thought I had made peace with death in the abstract. Turns out the abstract is easy. Everyone around me says she is watching over me, and I cannot say that, and I do not want to. But I also do not want to just say "her atoms are in the soil" at the funeral. What do you actually say, and actually do?
Is pantheism just atheism for people who cannot let go of the word God?
Genuine question, not a gotcha. I have been reading this site for a month and I agree with almost everything. But I notice that when I strip the word God out of any pantheist sentence, I am left with a sentence an atheist would sign. So what is the word doing? Is it doing philosophical work, or emotional work, or is it just nostalgia?
If the universe does not care about me, why do I feel cared for when I am outdoors?
I left my church three years ago and I do not believe anyone is listening any more. And yet every time I walk along the river near my flat I get this feeling of being held. Not watched, held. I know the universe is not a person. So what is that? A leftover from religion I should grow out of, a trick of a nervous system that evolved outdoors, or something a pantheist can actually take seriously?
Got a question that will not leave you alone?
The best contemplations are the ones you have actually lain awake over. Ask it plainly, give us a few sentences on why it matters to you, and it goes up for everyone to think about.
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