Poking Holes in Pantheism

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Hey, it's John with a conversation that matters for January 2018. I'm calling this video poking holes in pantheism

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I was talking to someone the other day who was young a millennial like myself and she was raised in a traditional

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Christian home yet now she believes in certain aspects of Pantheism Eastern mysticism the

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New Age movement these kinds of things now. She still calls herself a Christian. She still Has some

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Christian values in her own words and In addition, she also says she's agnostic.

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So I'm not really sure where she lands, but I started thinking to myself I've had a lot of conversations with people especially people that were raised in fairly traditional upbringings in the

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United States and they're Millennials and yet they like the idea of karma.

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I've heard that word come up so often and certain aspects of pantheism Seem to be incorporated in their worldview and it's not

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Like they're following Buddhism or they're following Taoism or an actual religion but it's kind of like they're picking and choosing choosing certain aspects of Eastern religions and then mixing it up and westernizing it and then saying that that's their religion

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So I wanted to give you a brief video Highlighting how I like to respond to this

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Worldview and I'm just gonna call it. It's just a westernized or an Americanized pantheistic worldview

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Now if someone doesn't want to reason with you, it makes it kind of hard to try to have this conversation

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But assuming that they do want to reason with you Which in the case of this person that I'm referring to she actually was allowing me to prod her a bit and have some conversation

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Here are some of the things that I would bring up in conversation number one the issue of unity and diversity

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Pantheism doesn't really have a great answer for why I have intrinsic self -worth why

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I actually am valuable why I'm a person and I'm distinguished from you or I'm different than Pick any object you'd like any particular in the universe

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I am not one with my bald cap My bald cap is a separate entity than I am and I can tell that I have different thoughts than other people

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My thoughts are my thoughts. I have ownership. I have identity. I have personhood now if pantheism is true and God is in everything and like this girl that I was talking to the other day said everything started off as one and then somehow we got off track and now we're in the cycle of reincarnation and eventually the goal is

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To get back to this state of she didn't call it nirvana, but it's a nirvana state where everything's one again you know what

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I first of all what went wrong, but what I'm addressing now is You know, how is it that I we went from all being one with no distinguishments between each other

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No distinctions could be made no lines could be drawn and now all of a sudden there's lines everywhere I know

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I'm different than you, you know watching this video. We're different entities So so how does pantheism explain that now

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I asked her this question and I said wouldn't that get rid of? My own identity do it do

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I even have an identity anymore? And she really didn't know what to say just that I Eventually, you know,

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I have one now and she doesn't know why I you know, originally we didn't have an identity We're all together in this one

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Singularity she said she didn't have an answer for why now I seem to have an identity So I I think that was poking a hole in her worldview

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It doesn't doesn't seem to conform to the world that she actually lives in because it's the world

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God created So it's kind of hard for you to it's like taking a sock that doesn't fit and trying to stretch it

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It just doesn't stretch. So So that's one of the things that I would bring up another thing that I brought up and this actually flowed the conversation of Of unity and diversity flowed right into this is the conversation about morality

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So I said if everything is one and good and evil are one and why are there distinguishments between good and evil?

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How can we say that one thing is good and one thing is evil and I brought up an extreme example Torturing children for fun is wrong right in every circumstance in every way.

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She agreed with me that that was wrong but then she also turned around and tried to Claim situational ethics and say well, you know some things work out

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Better in the end, even though they seem bad at the time and we are our experience is limited.

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Well Those two don't seem to jive either it's wrong to torture children for fun in every circumstance you can possibly be in or You know, it's you know, it could be right to torture children for fun.

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It's gonna work out in the end So she seemed to have a contradiction there and I could tell that I think it bothered her

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That her worldview didn't seem to really substantiate her strong moral conviction in that area

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So the distinguishment between good and evil is completely eroded if everything is just one and there's one singularity

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The other thing that I started to try to bring up with her, but I could tell she was I was getting to her

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So I I didn't really pursue it as hard as maybe I would have is the issue of karma.

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So The question is why are we here if we were one singularity if we were all one and and Now we're trying to get back to the point of nirvana.

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We're all as one again Why in the world are we at where we are? Because if we started off with everyone in this nirvana state ever all is one then we would have all had perfect karma

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Right, nothing would have been wrong in the universe, but something went wrong somewhere because we're here people are being reincarnated as animals or She didn't know she believed in that but you know, someone was reincarnated into the body of Osama bin

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Laden, for instance, so Why is that if we all started off it with good karma and everything was was perfect all of us one

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Then why where the evil enter into it? Where where did the bad karma come in?

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So She did not have an answer for that another thing to And this is more of an emotional kind of angle but what you know ask what the goal is

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Why should we be pursuing a nirvana state? Why should we through meditation and in certain kinds of healing be?

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Trying to get to a state where we don't have any attachments because that's what nirvana is You don't have an attachment to anything.

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You're one with the universe Love is an attachment having actual love for someone.

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I'm caring about them Wanting to sacrifice yourself for them. Are these things so wrong?

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I think a mother Would be hard -pressed to say that she would be willing to give up the love that she has for her children

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Simply so she could be in a nirvana state So I think that's a really good angle to try to try to address someone at least from an emotional standpoint

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Just so often. I think these conversions to this kind of westernized Eastern Mysticism is you know, they're they're really emotional conversions.

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They're not it's not just someone really thought deeply intellectually about it And last but not least

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I would want to point out the contradiction. If in fact this person does believe that Getting good karma and becoming one with the universe is achieved through Non -attachment and or getting rid of your desires as Buddhism would put it.

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I would ask the question Do you desire to get rid of all your desires is the nirvana state a state that is

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You know devoid of desire because if it is and you desire to get there Then there's a contradiction right off the bat.

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You are desiring to have no desires. So So these are just a few holes that I would cope in a pantheistic worldview

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And so I hope that helps you if you're dealing with You know someone or a group of people or friends that you just you know that you know

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They believe in in this new age movement and You know, they think that maybe

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Christianity doesn't have the answers you can have that as a conversation as well, and I would encourage you to but you might want to first let cause them to examine the worldview that they've

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Adopted to just see if that actually has the answers that they're looking for because chances are there's more holes in it than Swiss cheese

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So there you go There's my answer to pantheism poking holes in pantheism,