Nature's God

You may have noticed that ALMOST ALL people known as Deists today:

1- call Thomas Paine's deism as negative
2- are not interested in Thoms Paine's staunch iconoclastic view that bursts out of him every time he comes across iconophobic Christianity in his writings

3- have little interset in exposing to the world that ancient religion of all honest and intellectual leaders of humanity everywhere has always been Deism and it is the recent appearance of Christianity(Catholic: Fellows of Spanish Castile Kings; known as first Catholics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Castile ) that has influenced writing a forged european and then world history with the tacit encouragement, assent, participation and leading by the WESTERN EDUCATION & MEDIA to spread anti-Deism world over.

It seems that if Thomas Paine vists us today he will declare either he is not interested in the deists of today or that he will take on us all as his enimies.

I thought and reasoned like a Deist of sorts long before I had even heard of Thomas Paine...
Althought I agree on many things he had written during his time- but his time is not our time...
I do much prefer the company of the living.

Here I am able to freely express my thoughts and feelings... this is how you 'get to know' the people you are in a 'fellowship' with... all I asked for, was your thoughts. I would like to 'get to know' you better, so that I may 'understand' you better....

"I come in peace "

Greetings spiritseeker

Does God actively participate in this world?

I don't think you can separate God from his creation. How can God not participate in this world when He is part of this world? His presence, His touch is in every particle of it, and in every particle of the universe, and I think that to think of Him as a separate being is to define Him in human terms. When faced with something we can't understand we tend to define it in terms we can comprehend and to understand an intellegence able to understand all aspects of the universe at once is simply beyond our current ability to understand. So we take the natural, and intellectually lazy, method of redefining it in terms we do understand. I mean no disrespect to any here by stating this as it forms the basis for many organized religions today, including Christianity.

But try to step outside your current perspective and think of God, not as you would have Him be, or as you can understand Him to be, but as He may be. Have you never seen an artist who puts some of himself into his work? Now look at God's work, his creation, and yourself, a part of that creation. To state that God is within you as He is within all His creation is not to state you are God, any more then the tree in your yard is God, but like a painter that puts some of himself into his creation God puts some of Himself into all of His creation. It is just that unlike the painter he still maintains contact with that creation.

It is hard in a medium such as this to explain the change in perspective I am trying to describe, and easy to misconstrue the result. So if I am unclear feel free to challenge or question any part of what I wrote.

Peace - Yehya

PS. I use the terms He and His and Him to describe God not to assign gender, or human attributes, to God but because I think it sounds more respectful than It. It is a literary convention, or an eccentricity, nothing more.

This post has a definite pandeistic or panendeistic tone to it. Your thoughts have wandered down many paths.

Greetings cclendenen

If I understand Pandeisism the thought is that God becomes one wih the Universe and ceases to be God? I won't say I have gone down that road neither would I say I haven't looked at it. I simply admit that not knowing the nature of God He may be connected to the workings of the universe in ways we do not understand. When it comes to God we need to admit what we don't know and not try to limit Him to our understanding.

I have used the analogy of a spider. The spider creates his web from his own body and resides in his creation. He is separate from it, yet connectedt to it. He can feel every tug, every disturbance, knows when there is dew in the morning, or a fly has blundered into it. He doesn't observe it as a man does a net but feels though his body the effects of others on, and in, it.

Peace - Yehya

As I understand Pandeism, God and the universe become one and the same, but I am not sure about ceasing to be God. I haven't heard that part. I meet more Panendeists who believe God and the universe are the same, but God also transcends the universe.

Greetings cclendenen

As I understand Pandeism, God and the universe become one and the same

Interesting. I don't necessarily agree that they become one and the same, although I do admit I don't know, but I would instead term it that God is connected to His Creation in ways we may not understand. My writing is my creation but once written it stands on it's own. Yet there is still some of me in what I write.

Peace - Yehya

Panendeism, as I have said before, is my closest link to Deism. It just seems to make more sense to me, and that is really what it all boils down to when a person forms their beliefs. We are, each of us, unique to some degree, especially in the way that we process information.

Say for example, Chuck and I are given the same philosophical text to read. What I get out of it, is almost certainly going to be slightly different than what Chuck gets out of it. Now consider the fact that we are both constantly assimilating new information (even though it may often be the same information), and the differences just keep adding up. Eventually, we both still come to the conclusion that Deism is the closest representation of our personal belief system, even though we have come to it with considerable differences in opinion.

This is the beauty of Modern Deism, as far as I'm concerned. It leaves plenty of room for these differences of opinion. And even though we debate these differences quite often, 99% of the time the debates remain civil. Modern Deism, in my opinion anyway, is simply organized Freethought.

What unites us is not our conclusions, but the way we reach them. We examine new information critically, applying our experiences (and prejudices) and rejecting unsupported evidence.

Greetings

"What unites us is not our conclusions, but the way we reach them"

This is an excellent statement.

My conception of God and His role in creation may differ from yours, as may my views on the afterlife, our purpose here on earth, and a host of other issues as it is not only our differing interpretations of events but our different experiences that guide us in these views. Yet it need not be the same for us to share a common understanding of the process to form those conclusions knowing that the outcome will be different

Peace - Yehya