1. That group names themselves, distinctly, "Symbiotic Panentheism" which clearly indicates that the beliefs they espouse come with unique qualification. They are not claiming to be the authority over the beliefs of every possible correspondent Panentheist, and neither should they.

2. I am not claiming to be an authority on the above either. I have told you over and over again, my reasons for identifying as a panentheist are philosophical not religious. I don't have to join a sect in order to have a claim to a belief.

3. Why do you even bother responding with the comment tha you have nothing to say? What gives? Isn't it just a bit pointless?

Hey guy, checkout the link I posted in my previous post above and skim all the way down to where they list the fundamentals of Panentheism IN PLAIN ENGLISH.

If after reading that "list" you've got any questions regarding Panentheism VS.Theism, I'll suck my own dick!

Extending the knowledge of others maybe poinless to you.
It isn't to me.

What "dialect" of Panentheism
you believe in is not of interest to me because you happen to believe in
whatever.

I made no claim as to any authority on Panentheism, but did poit out that readers interested in it could read about it on a web site of apparent Panentheists that explain the religion, AND IT IS A RELIGION, in very clear terms.

What aspects of Panentheism you pick and chose to buy, and whatever spin you might apply to your own version of it are of no interest to me.

The thread title did not indicate anything even approaching "My personal version of Panentheism", nor did anything in the thread post.

Just because you have your own version Panetheism does not mean that other people should be ignorant of Panentheism CLEARLY EXPLAINED
and in terms explained in an impersonal and detailed manner, just as one could find in a reference book.

At any rate, if whatever you claim to be Panentheism is not a religion, then one can be certain that you are not a Panentheist, even though you claim to be. That much is quite clear, regardless of the "dialect" Panentheism IS a religion. Sorry if that irritates you, but it's not simply something one can discover on a single web
site, but on many web sites.

I leave that for you to prove false by reference to a specific denial of it being a religion, from any Panentheist web site.

I'm talking about
Panentheism, not your interpretation of it!

What's your problem?

What's your problem? We're having a constructive conversation. We don't require or desire your input.

Why do you refer to God as "she"?

On the flip side, George Carlin thought no woman could mess up the universe this badly.  Hmm...

I also think that there would be just a single commandment:

"You know why I'm mad and if you don't you're obviously not sorry."

So you openly admit that you're here to troll?

eloise, just a few questions:

1. your elucidations of these two terms are immensely satisfying, as your posts usually are, but where exactly do you get your definitions?  can you direct me to some theorists of pantheism and panentheism?  in my experience, these kinds of labels get stuck on philosophers or theologians after the fact, e.g., in spinoza's case.

2. are you familiar with different trends in mysticism?  your definition of panentheism reminds me a lot of jewish sefira mysticism and especially hasidism, with its belief in "fragments" of the ein sof "trapped" in every part of creation (rocks, trees, humans, etc., etc.) which must be "liberated" by the performance of mitzvot.  i did my bachelor's thesis on possible connections between medieval rhenish mysticism (eckhart, et al.) and wolfram von eschenbach's parzival, so if you're conversant in the development of mysticism, we could have some interesting conversations indeed.  if not, allow me to recommend gershom scholem's major trends in jewish mysticism and martin buber's the way of man according to hasidism, as well as his ecstatic confessions.

3. is there any sort of eschatology involved with your idea of panentheism?  by that, i mean is god moving toward some sort of "goal," with or without the aid of humans, e.g., the "reconstruction" of god/the world ("tikkun olam" ) as in hasidism or hegel's "end of history" (though hegel of course was an idealist), or is your idea of panentheism a sort of "closed system," with or without a kind of cycle ("breathing," i want to say), as in the "kalpas" of hinduism or the rhythms of philosophical taoism (i'm thinking here chiefly of chuang tzu).

4. finally, you allude to another way of approaching god besides reason.  can you elaborate?  is it a form of meditation or "prayer" that results in ecstatic union (some form of hesychasm, perhaps?) or a sudden spontaneous insight, rather like a satori?  or both, or neither?

btw, i dig your theist badge and i'm glad not everybody here sees it as a sort of yellow star of david, and those that do are just fuck-ups.  my only complaint is that nobody sees things holistically here.  where are the "hegelian" badges?  or the "neoplatonist" badges?  or the "swedenborgian" badges?  shit.

oh, and don't waste your breath on treat.  that's like blu greenberg arguing with a retarded michael savage. 

That ship has long since sailed. treat is trying to get banned, for some reason, and the dynamic created is the classic:

Masochist: Hurt me.

Sadist: No.

1. Taa very much for the compliment.

2. My definitions are a synthesis of common statements specifying Panentheism and the objective science of explaining the universe. I feel this is appropriate because the reference to "the universe" in the general definition of panentheism* is a projection of human experience, such that the transcendent quality referred to in the definition is not exclusive regarding the objective universe, but only regarding a universe projected in the mode of human experience.

A Hindu text (stotra), widely believed to explicate the concept of Panentheism, the Vedasara Shivastotram, states "this universe of forms [emerges]" "from you" and "It is you in whom it finally disappears". This clearly involves an idea that the universe which panetheistic god "transcends" is ultimately the 'part' of the universe characterised by certain states relevant to human experience. (ie forms).

So the trancendence of God in panentheism (by any traditional account that can associate itself with this Hindu theology or its likeness) doesn't predict an entity falling outside of objective naturalism but an area of objective naturalism which falls outside the mode of human experience contained in the idea of forms, identities and mutual exclusivity, that area is the 'perfection' of God. 

Of course, this we have and all our understanding of it is almost exclusively within the domain of the ongoing scientific endeavour to describe the universe** hence why I synthesise my definition with the knowledge in that domain.

*General definition of Panentheism:- belief in a god which is the universe and also transcends it.

**where "the universe" implies everything everywhere in existence not to be confused with the other "the universe".

Historically we have Charles Hartshorne, Karl Krause and Alfred North Whitehead.

More recently there is Paul Davies and Joseph Bracken.

I'm somewhat familiar. The bulk of study I've done is in Gnostic Alchemy which (sometimes only superficially) covers a wide range of mystical trends.

In an alchemy study group I am a member of (noncontributing at the moment) one of my partners was a jewish mystic... that's the kinda lame extent to which I've been exposed to it, but if it's of any value, she, clearly, perceived commonalities too.

That said, we could still probably have an interesting conversation on mysticism, I'm not completely in the dark.

To steal a line from Hawking you might say it's closed but unbounded.

Principally this god is teleologically involved with existence, ie it is unequivocally for "something rather than nothing" to coin another old chestnut^.

Implicit in existence, of course, are "modes in which to exist" which equally involves the assignment of values. So the teleology is actualised by the establishment and consequent fulfillment of values. This gives us the unboundedness. Closure is derived further from the values having relationship to each other thus implying order which gives us combinations of values closed under the event of their addition.

To that end, we can assume an eschatology which applies to forms, or modes of existence through combinations ie the ends of worlds, but the unboundedness leaves us to conclude that the passing of one world essentially implies its replacement with another one.

^silly mixed metaphor alert! Score 1 for Eloise.

Both. But with qualification on the result.

I would advocate that it should be uncontroversial to approach an understanding of God through freely exercised intuitions and/or contemplations, and to respect the claim of having successfully acheived a vision or inspiration of sorts as a result of this activity. However, it is a given that such insights are simply not objective and as such are intrinsically not equipped with much by the way of transferable value.

That is to say, just having a revelation doesn't automatically impart respect on one's delusions of grandeur (although to have them is probably par for the course) however given such an insight can be logically followed to it's confirmation by the reciever, god can be found prior to and apart from the exercise of reason.

I second that suggestion... though I understand it entails a heap of extra work for those running the site so likewise that it probably won't happen.

what can I say, iwbiek? you're right again.

oh and finally: Thanks for the brilliant reply.

still trying to wrap my brain around this completely.  it's as slippery as a rainbow trout: once i get a good grip on it, it pops out in one direction or another.  you'd have been very much at home in 18th century prussia.  can we as humans bring an end to god's "transcendent" aspect?  can we ever completely close the gap between the universe of our experiences and the objective universe through science?  can we throw out kant altogether?  i'm sure you realize, but just to make sure, these questions are in no way rhetorical.

i'm a man with a whole hell of a lot of books queued up, currently reading 5 simultaneously.  where's the most comprehensive yet concise place to start?

alchemy can be interesting but i find it somewhat clumsy (my opinion) and overwrought in its esoteric symbolism.  when it comes to medieval europe, i'd honestly rather go to the "christians" like eckhart, tauler, and julian of norwich.

you clearly are not in the dark at all.

better and better?  (i.e., more perceptive of the objective universe, more "unified with god"?)

can one be trained in achieving such insights, as, e.g., in the tradition of the zen masters?  is there any value to such insights that can be manisfested in the objective world (e.g., eithically)?  what do you think of the buddha and the noble eightfold path?

It will be a "cold day in hell" before your Borg hive cold huurt anyone, pea-brain.

i don't really need to google, as i've read spinoza fairly in depth.  i strongly contest the idea that he was a "mystic," as he clearly had no use for god's immanence and the overall goal of his thought was a rational ethic, not an ecstatic union with the immanent/transcendent god, which is the universal goal of mysticism.

in fact, spinoza is usually accused of atheism, which i also contest.

i was referring to his critique of pure reason and the idea that it's fundamentally impossible for us to rationally apprehend the objective universe: that our reason (and i'm being a bit naughty and equating that with "science&quot cannot overcome the medium of our perceptions.

many here aren't, both theist and atheist.  whether or not you believe them "inerrant" or even think there's any ethical good to be drawn directly from them, like it or not, books like the hebrew bible and the new testament are reflections of ourselves spanning 5,000 years.  while i do not believe the writers of most scriptures had any esoterica in mind while writing them, i think that later esoterica (like the zohar, for example) can often help us get at the subconscious element that can connect us with this seemingly whacked-out writer and help us glean some useful lesson from it.

om shanti shanti shanti

FYI. Per bodhisattiva there is not one there are multiple bodhisattivas.

FYI. All of the statues I've seen of bodhisattivas have been female, not male.

well, you see, treat, in the english language, when you add the definite article to a noun, it often makes it collective, like in nature documentaries when they say, "the manta ray is capable of injecting a deadly venom when threatened."  jacques cousteau knows there's more than one manta ray, and eloise knows there's more than one bodhisattva.  "bohdisattIva," on the other hand, as you wrote it, is a steely dan song rather than a buddhistic ideal.

well, even though you've clearly seen them all and know everything much better than anyone else here, all the same, here ya go:

avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, of whom many tibetan buddhists believe the dalai lama is an avatar.  this is a chinese statue from the high t'ang period.  here he is clearly portrayed as male, though it is accepted among most scholars that the chinese bodhisattva kuan yin (whom the japanese call kwannon) was derived from avalokitesvara, but she also has unrelated taoist origins.  bodhisattvas can be male or female, as can buddhas.

OOps, it was my typo to begin with, iwbiek, but yeah. Bodhisattva are like a species of entity, treat, that's the right analogy. And there isn't, to my knowledge, any distinct plural or even nominative forms of the word. The bodhisattva, a bodhisattva, Bodhisattva is, and bodhisattva are, they're all correct.

I guess I was wrong. Turned out fairly long.

well, note the absence of breasts.  that should tell you something, hoss.

nevermind the fact that in all buddhist literature, sacred or otherwise, avalokitesvara is invariably male.

how many depictions have you actually seen?  did you do grad work under burton watson or something?

sorry the male ideal of indian religions doesn't look like fuckin' vin diesel.  sakyamuni himself, for example:

and krishna:

you're a legend in your own mind, buddy.

Glad you're a devoted fan.
I love your posts!