User:BD2412/Archive - Pandeism

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This page contains only the discussion relating to the pandeism article. -- 8^D gab 15:47, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Quotes

I think Pandeism was system; — and that when I say the country or kingdom of Pandæa, I express myself in a manner similar to what I should do, if I said the Popish kingdom or the kingdoms of Popery; or again, the Greeks have many idle ceremonies in their church, meaning the Greeks of all nations: or, the countries of the Pope are superstitions, &c. At the same time, I beg to be understood as not denying that there was such a kingdom as that of Pandae, the daughter of Cristna, any more than I would deny that there was a kingdom of France ruled by the eldest son of the church, or the eldest son of the Pope.
We have seen that though Cristna was said to have left many sons, he left his immense empire, which extended from the sources of the Indus to Cape Comorin, (for we find a Regio Pandionis near this point,) to his daughter Pandæa; but, from finding the icon of Buddha so constantly shaded with the nine Cobras, &c., I am induced to think that this Pandeism was a doctrine, which had been received both by Buddhists and Brahmins.
--Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis: An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis: Or an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations and Religions (1833), p.439.
'The Unknowable is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,' is what would occur to no man to think or say." But one may fairly ask whether man would be any more likely, in the searching emergencies which beset all lives more or less, to invoke the "Power not-ourselves which makes for righteousness." One wonders if even Arnold himself meant no more than this when, an alien in a strange land, his heart went out from distant America to the sanctities of his serene home amongst the Surrey hills, and he wrote to his daughter, "God bless you, my own precious Nell!"
But whatever the deity which satisfied Arnold's personal experience may have been, the religion which he gives us in Literature and Dogma and God and the Bible is neither Deism nor bare Pan-Deism, but a diluted Positivism. As an ethical system it is in theory admirable, but its positive value is in the highest degree questionable. Pascal's judgment upon the God who emerged from the philosophical investigations of Rene Descartes was that He was a God who was unnecessary. And one may with even greater truth say that the man who is able to receive and live by the religion which Arnold offers him is no longer in need of its help and stimulus. To be able to appreciate an ethical idealism a man must himself be already an ethical idealist.
--William Harbutt Dawson, Matthew Arnold and His Relation to the Thought of Our Time (1904, republished 1977), p. 256 ISBN: 0849206480
If the Bible is only human lore, and not divine truth, then we have no real answer to those who say, "Let's pick the best out of all religions and blend it all into Pan-Deism - one world religion with one god made out of many".
--J. Sidlow Baxter, The Most Critical Issue (1991)[1]
Heracleitus’ last and most remarkable insight about the cosmos was that fire not only holds in itself, but is the logos, that is, the plan for everything, the principle of all the complex organization that exists in the universe. And since this plan contains instructions for execution that lead to order (which we now call algorithms and are mathematical), the logos, which is boundlessly resourceful, is supremely intelligent and powerful as well, and consequently deserves to be considered the supreme deity. The logos is therefore divine, fire is divine, matter is divine. And since there is nothing in the universe that is not ultimately becoming, fire, and logos, Heracleitus’ view of the cosmos was not only monistic and pantheistic—like that of all of his Pre-Socratic contemporaneous, predecessors or immediate successors—but the purest form of immanentistic pantheism that has ever been conceived, and at the same time the one vision of the universe that is most congruous with what science has taught us recently about the universe. For others, the Big Bang fire may have been a sufficient beginning and end of the divine, the logos that contained all that was necessary to the plan of the universe—that would suffice for pandeism, for the pandeist god is the salmon god – it spawns and it dies. But for Heracleitus, death could no more come to the logos than stability could come to the logos.
--R.G. Mendoza, History of Ideas: Pantheism, (1996)
What appeared here, at the center ot the Pythagorean tradition in philosophy, is another view of psyche that seems to owe little or nothing to the pan-vitalism or pan-deism (see theion) that is the legacy of the Milesians.
--F.E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon, p. 169 (NYU Press 1967).
  • All the actions of created intelligences are not merely the actions of God. He has created a universe of beings which are said to act freely and responsibly as the proximate causes of their own moral actions. When individuals do evil things it is not God the Creator and Preserver acting. If God was the proximate cause of every act it would make all events to be "God in motion". That is nothing less than pantheism, or more exactly, pandeism. The Creator is distinct from his creation. The reality of secondary causes is what separates Christian theism from pandeism.
    • --Bob Burridge, Theology Proper - Lesson 4: The Decrees of God (1997)[2]
  • Why does calling God the author of sin demand a pandeistic understanding of the universe effectively removing the reality of sin and moral law.
    • --Bob Burridge, Theology Proper - Lesson 4: The Decrees of God (1997)[3]
The Korean War has been called the forgotten war, the men who fought there the forgotten warriors.. But Jim Garvin of Albuquerque -- a Marine Corps veteran of that gritty, bitter conflict who went on to become, among many other things, a key figure in attracting blue-chip industries to the city in the '60s and '70s -- just won't let it go. ... [He] describes his current spiritual position as "pandeism or pan-en-deism, something very close to the Native American concept of the all- pervading Great Spirit"
--"Marine's Balled Honors Soldiers, Trappist Monks" Albuquerque Journal (Saturday, November 11, 1995) B-10
Spinoza's "Ethics" argues that God is nature (Dues sive Natura) and that all natural law emanates from God/Nature. Therefore, when one acts according to these principles, or laws, one becomes resonate with God/Nature. This resonance leads to beneficent outcomes which could be interpreted as "Divine Providence" even though no separate sentient and cognitive being bestowed blessings in an "unnatural" (i.e., "supernatural") way.
The argument then progresses to the conclusion that the teachings and miracles of the prophets and Jesus were in fact this very resonance achieved by those individuals and manifested by them to the world in accordance with their own individual capacities to understand. The labeling of Spinoza's philosophy as "pantheism" by the Church was meant more as an invective and indictment than a true analysis of his writings. It was really a variant of Deism -- a "pandeism," if I may.
Theism, however, posits something very different. Theism believes that nature was not God, but created BY God. That God is a completely independent sentient and cognitive Being, and that God interacts with his "children" on a personal level (e.g., The Bible).
--Roncelin de Fos, Christian Origins of the U.S. (2004)
Pandeism: The belief that God precedes the universe and is the universe's creator, that the universe is currently the entirety of God, and that the universe will one day coalesce back into a single being, God. Pandeists believe all consciousness, in all life, to be fragments of God's awareness.
--Christian Forums (c. 2006) [4]
Pandeism combines the major elements of deism and pantheism, and holds that a transcendent God existed before the universe was created, but that this God became the universe in the course of creating it, and thereby ceased to be an active participant in its operations.
--Theology: Summary, History & List of World Religions & Religious Beliefs. On Morality, Free Will & God (c. 2006)[5]
Three key concepts guide us with all certainty when defining the terms of Deism, Pandeism, Panendeism, Theism, Pantheism, and Panentheism (Omnientheism). These concepts are transcendence, immanence, and holism of God.

...

The terms Theism, Pantheism, and Panentheism have their root in Greek, which is a Biblical language, and therefore it is correct. In a discretionary way we assume that these terms present the idea of a personal, individual God. However, the terms Deism, Pandeism, and Panendeism have their root in Latin, which is not a Biblical language, and therefore it is not correct. These terms present the idea of God like synonymous of Energy or Cosmic Force, because God is not personal here, He is not individual.

...

Assuming these definitions of transcendence, immanence, and holism, we can say that Energy or Cosmic Force in Deism is transcendent, but is neither immanent nor holistic. Thus we see that Energy or Cosmic Force in Pandeism is immanent and holistic, but it is not transcendent. However, Energy or Cosmic Force in Panendeism is immanent, transcendent, and holistic.
--Orlando Alcántara Fernández (Cristorly), Omnientheism: GOD According to Biblical Universalist Unitarianism (2005)
Let us consider the three eras of animism to polytheism and then to near-monotheism as a trend. Are we to then conclude that the trend leads next to the recognition of the "One God" —or that there is no such thing as "a god"? Science needs no god at all. The very function of science is to find natural ("non-spirit") causation. However, it seems unlikely mankind could now accept, instead, a world-view and way of thinking that totally skipped true monotheism or mono-deism. Would it be skipped? Judaism has always been a monotheism. Judaism was never a mainstream belief system, however, because of its tribal-barbaric racist and expansionist features. Both the Islamic and Christian faiths absorbed its god, but both then also adopted demonology. Christianity even regressed further by adopting other gods whom it deviously mislabeled "the fallen angel," the "Mother of God," the "Son of God," and "the Holy Spirit" — most of whom were, supposedly, only incarnations or parts of "the One God. ”
Belief in a single deity, however, is consistent with science and natural cause as long as that belief is in a First Cause that has not and does not, subsequently, alter or change natural order. Reader and Author alike have their own personal preferences, but what is important to the next world-view and way of thinking is accommodating to the still-widespread longing to believe in a "supreme being" while at the same time, not adopting anything which can disturb natural order and natural cause. The next belief system would need to be like an umbrella that reached out to cover atheism, deism, agnosticism, and pantheism (that is, pan-deism). Only in this way, now, can we bring humanity into the real age of scientific discovery, build a new civilization, and ultimately expand the human race far out into the universe beyond this cramped small planet in which we are now so confined.
Charles Brough, Untwisting the Social Sciences (2006), p. 142.
FREE THINKERS: all people whose beliefs regarding "spirits" are compatible with modern science. Deism, pandeism, agnosticism and atheism are compatible, while theism is not.
Charles Brough, Untwisting the Social Sciences (2006), p. 220.

Compare:

FREE THINKERS: all people whose beliefs regarding "spirits" are compatible with modern science. Atheism, agnosticism, even Deism and pandeism, are compatible with science. Theism is not.
--The Social Science Undeground, GLOSSARY: Terms defined for a real science of society (March 2006) [6]
Su visión es pandeísta y debió ser panteísta. Para lograr panteizar el cuadro hace falta Cristo como insignia, sendero y faro. El pandeísmo es impersonal como el presente cuadro en que hombre, naturaleza y palabra se integran, mientras que el panteísmo es personal, vivencia crística de todos los días.
(translated):
His vision is pandeist, and it had to be pantheist. In order to get a pantheist painting, it is necessary to have Christ as pennant, footpath, and lighthouse. Pandeism is impersonal like in the present canvas, in which man, nature and word integrate themselves; whereas pantheism is a personal Christ-like experience of every day.
--Meta-Pintores Uno (August 2003)[7]
Jubal... is a devout and fierce individualist in a world filled with cults and bureaucracies, and by novel’s end it is he, not Jill nor Mike, that is still a stranger, still tilting against the windmills. He honestly believes in his own free will, which Mike, Jill, and the Fosterites misinterpret as a pandeistic urge, 'Thou art God!' Mike, by contrast, readily abandons his Martian beliefs for human ones, even as he claims to merely find a congress between them.
--Dan Schneider, Review of Stranger in a Strange Land (The Uncut Version), by Robert A. Heinlein (7/29/05)[8]
Pantheism states that God and the Universe are the same thing. Pandeism states that every movement or doing in the universe is the action of God. Some Christians and other religious people take on a Pandeistic view; that is, if they believe in determinism.
--Emily Blaine, 2005
The Pandeist Project is the brainchild of ULC Ordained Minister Naomi Dawe, and is dedicated to the study, demonstration, and advancement of Pandeism, a quickly growing spiritual movement among contemporary freethinkers who strive to understand the nature of all things, and who seek higher truth within themselves.
This is a work in progress.
Precepts of the Pandeist Project
  1. Belief not only in God, but that creation is the manifestation of God, as realized through personal experience and personal observations in science and nature, rather than based on the faith based "supernatural revelations" of others.
  2. Belief that while we can theorize and speculate about God, the nature of God is beyond human understanding, and no man-made theory of God can possibly be adequate, and no religion, including our own, can be considered the "true" religion.
  3. Belief that the "Will of God" exists in the laws of nature.
  4. Belief that God guides humanity in matters of morality by way of the human conscience.
  5. Belief that humans have the capacity for experiencing God, which is defined as "spiritual awareness of our interconnectivity," and that "religious experience" is any experience that defies the "illusion" of individual separation from "all".
  6. Belief that mankind's purpose is to live life to the fullest, and to do our best to secure happiness and contentment for "all".

[9]

The WHO and MSF and other organizations do great work, but they often lack the long-term committment and grass-roots organization needed to build a sustainable program. Missionaries and hospitals like Holy Family also have made contributions and they recognize the need for providing economics-based aid (i.e. finding employment), but they lack the vigour and drive of the St. Stephens community. The government also does very little, but generally co- operates with St. Stephens in terms of getting OKs, partly because it is older than the Indian government itself and partly because it has a stellar reputation for secularism. Indeed, most of the staff is either Hindu or Moslem, but they are full of these pan-deist ideas, and even Zahir deliberately used the Christian word "God" rather than "Allah" when talking with me.
Paul La Porte, October 2003 [10]
Today we are witnessing movements of all kinds toward union. In the commercial world we are seeing great mergers. In the economic world we are seeing whole nations uniting. In the labor world, the unions are waxing bigger and becoming more powerful. In the financial world there is evident an increasing monopoly. In the religious world there are great movements toward union and not only in the professedly Christian world. The church of Rome uses the term “pandeism”, to describe her current program of bringing under her wing the non-Christian religions of the world. In this, Rome will finally succeed, because the prediction says, “all the world wondered after the beast”. (Revelation 13:3)
Conrad Baker, The Three Powers Of Armageddon: An Exposition of Revelation 16:13-16, August 12, 2005 [11]
Pandeism: Very similar to modal and developmental deism, except that it is based on the notion that God was no longer existing once this transference took place. It could be combined with all the other deisms mentioned above (for its own separate list--I'm afraid).
"Harvey" [12]
First, you seem to be drawing a strict distinction between God and the universe. Not all Deists do this, so for these "PanDeists" the point becomes moot.
"Wandered_Off" [13]
[M]any panentheists are actually panendeists, many process theists are actually process deists, many scientific pantheists are actually pandeists, etc.
"Native Son", Nov 22, 2004 [14]
"Pandeist" - registered November 24, 2003 [15]

[edit] Preface

The following background information provides a necessary preface to the discussion that arose regarding the original version of my article on pandeism.

In 1996, I was in my fifth year as an undergraduate (you might say I was taking the scenic route, having opted to double-major in Sociology and Philosophy). At that point, I had already taken a number of courses on philosophy and religion, and was comfortable in the parlance of these topics. In the Spring of 1996, I enrolled in a seminar course titled "The History of Ideas", taught by a venerable professor named Ramon Mendoza, who I knew to be well-regarded within his department.

The course covered a wide variety of topics, covering such developments as the Copernican Revolution, the changes brought about by the work of Giordano Bruno and Galileo, and the development of pantheism, deism, and pandeism. I found the relationship between the latter three topics particularly intriguing, and spoke to the professor about them outside of the class. The class required a paper, and mine covered these topics.

To the best of my recollection (and I believe my recollection of this course is pretty good), the exact scope of the discussion of pandeism was as follows:

  1. Pandeism, like deism, characterizes God as having been an intelligent designer/creator of the universe.
  2. Pandeism, like pantheism, characterizes God as currently being identical with the universe, and unresponsive to human activities.
  3. The logical step is that God designed the universe and then created it by becoming it - transforming the infinite energy that was God into an infinite universe (which is still God).
  4. A modern pandeist would probably look to the Big Bang as the point at which this transformation took place.
  5. Some of the proofs of the existence of God - particularly the cosmological argument and the teleological argument - are equally applicable to deist and pandeist theories which presuppose a God who with whom we can not interact.
  6. Some ancient mythologies have pandeistic characteristics, characterizing the physical world (or what was then known to be the physical world) is actually being the body of a deity (who was either slain by newer deities, or chose to become the physical world).
  7. The ideas presented by Giordano Bruno and Baruch Spinoza were closer to pandeism than to any of the other theological systems, and they should be considered pandeists.

Although the course itself was fascinating, I didn't give much thought to the subject of pandeism for about nine years after the class - when I started editing Wikipedia.

As I became acquainted with Wikipedia, I noticed that articles existed for three of the four key religious theories of which I had been taught - Theism, Deism, Pantheism - and for theories in that genre of which I had never heard - Panentheism and Panendeism - but this collection seemed incomplete to me due to the glaring omission of another theory of which I had learned. Therefore, at 03:54, 2005 Mar 13, I created the original Pandeism page.

[edit] Pandeism ???

What is this nonsense? Is the whole article your own original "research"??? It has virtually no hits on Google (of the 29 that don't mention Wikipedia, the majority are copies of Wikipedia's content, or references to the content) --brian0918™ 19:56, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • I assure you, this was not "original research" - I had a humanities class as an undergrad where the professor (Ramon Mendoza) spent several classes on the subject. The prof had himself written in his book (which was assigned for the class) that Giordano Bruno was truly a pandeist, not a pantheist, as he is popularly described. I tried googling the term myself, and have gotten few hits, but I've seen the term in print more than once. Someone else added the part about "spiritual pandeism", which I'd never heard of, but I have no way of discounting it, so I haven't touched it, except to edit for style. -- 8^D gab 20:11, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
Please provide the full book reference including the ISBN so that this can be checked out, because right now, it looks like your article has no place in the encyclopedia. Has this book been published? Was it by a vanity press? Do any other academics use the term? — Trilobite (Talk) 20:27, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • There are quite serious issues with verifiability here. Even if it is not your own original research, it might very well be your professor's. "Pandeism" is not in Merriam-Webster, the American Heritage Dictionary, Britannica, or the Catholic Encyclopedia (which does have pantheism). Either this concept does not exist at all outside of the humanities class you followed or it is only slightly less obscure. If not other sources can be provided than your assertion that Ramon Mendoza lectured on it, this article would be in serious danger of deletion if nominated—notwithstanding the fact that it is well-written, and notwithstanding that I don't doubt you created it in good faith. Your own remark that "someone else added the part about "spiritual pandeism", which I'd never heard of, but I have no way of discounting it, so I haven't touched it" clearly illustrates the problem: at present we have no reason to assume anyone will ever be able to discount anything on the topic. JRM · Talk 20:30, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
The name of the professor's book that was assigned to the class was The Acentric Labyrinth, [16]. I have no direct knowledge that this term has been used by other academics, beyond the fact that the Professor Mendoza discussed it as though he was passing on someone else's earlier idea; however, I'm quite certain I've seen it in print on other occasions, either in books or articles. I should mention that I took this class nearly a decade ago, and did not give it much thought until I came across pantheism on Wikipedia, and remembered this philosophy in the same category. However, if you have any suspicions about the possibility that I would put "nonsense" in Wikipedia, please look to my contributions. -- 8^D gab 20:45, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
Your reputation built up by your other contributions doesn't really enter into it, I'm afraid, because you need to cite sources, and the article as it stands cites none. It should be possible for any reader to verify the factual accuracy of an article by following the paper trail and looking things up in the books you've listed. Your professor may have been doing valuable research and talking about a valid topic, but unless this term is recognised and discussed by others, it can't be considered a part of the sphere of human knowledge that encyclopedias exist to document. I don't like to point the finger of suspicion at you without good reason, but when the term appears so rare as to only show up in Google in Wikipedia and its mirrors (and usually I strongly discourage the Google test, but you'd expect this to appear on the internet somewhere), this does begin to look like a fraud. — Trilobite (Talk) 20:54, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
For the record, I do not have any suspicions about this whatsoever. But it doesn't really matter: the issue here is that the article must be independently verifiable. I'm willing to take your word for it, but the reader should not be required to. JRM · Talk 21:00, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
Looking at my comments above I'd like to make clear that I don't think it's likely you've made this up, just that it looks made up and is unverifiable. I'd tend to think it should go under the "no original research" rule, as I have no evidence that you've made it up and it would be wrong to accuse you of such a malicious act. However, articles that look like frauds don't belong. — Trilobite (Talk) 21:06, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Look, I completely understand your point of view, but the internet is not the fount of all human knowledge it's made out to be. My intention in writing this article was to fill a gap in the collection of knowledge based on a theory I know to exist from my personal experience of having been taught about it in a classroom, by a professor who I understand to be respected in the field. Maybe the term is out of vogue, but I am certain this term is not one person's passing fancy. Also, not every reference that comes up on Google is a wiki mirror. See, e.g., [17]. -- 8^D gab 21:09, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
Even panendeism has a much larger number of hits on Google. I'm not sure we can trust a rough translation of a page to be accurate. Check out one of the other few hits for pandeism on Google:
Since I'm a mixture of Pantheist and Deist, I woke up this morning with the brand new word Pandeist, in my mind. Too cool. Before breakfast I googled it to see if it was unique. There were 4 hits.... But Pandeism was used as a descriptor by folks describing others philosophical view, no one used it to describe themselves. As near as I can tell I'm the first to use it to describe my own outlook. [18]

If you aren't already aware, I recommend mentioning all this on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Pandeism, which will do wonders for turning around the vote. JRM · Talk

  • The above quote from [19] is not from me, and there is absolutely no basis to present it as though it were. I have requested brian0918 to clarify this on the vfd. -- 8^D gab 21:38, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
    • Where did I say you said it? I didn't. "Of those <30 results, nearly all of them appear to be references to Wikipedia, or for example, this interesting entry: ..." --brian0918™ 21:45, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • Yes, and immediately following that, you wrote "I'm not sure if the user who created all of this has been purposely deceptive, but according to him on his talk page..." - which suggests that the preceding quote is part of the "all of this" authored by the same person who authored the following quote. If you did not intend to present it that way, then I don't see why you would have a problem making that clear on the vfd, unless your intent is, as JRM seems to suggest, to "do wonders for turning around the vote." -- 8^D gab 21:50, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
        • I don't have a problem with it. You just brought it to my attention, and in the same sentence suggested that I might have a problem with it. I'll fix it now. --brian0918™ 21:53, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • Thanks. I hope you're willing to accept that I was attempting to make a legitimate contribution, not perpetrate a fraud. I apologize if I failed to properly gauge the notablity of this term before placing it in Wikipedia. -- 8^D gab 21:56, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

Well, I can only repeat that I have never come across the term, and have been unable to find it in any of my books. ("Spiritual pandeism" is obvious flannel.) The article doesn't really make much sense of it either. I'd contact your ex-teacher, but I haven't been able to find his e-mail address anywhere. Do you have any idea where I might look (what university was it)? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:29, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • He's in the philosophy department at Florida International University. I'll look it up after dinner (it's that time here). -- 8^D gab 22:46, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)


Sure, panendeism is fine. That word gets 1300+ non-wiki hits on Google. It's the word "pandeism" that we're contesting. --brian0918™ 01:20, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)


I made all of those edits before I started the VFD. I can't go back and change the edit summaries. The article has been removed from all other articles, so this won't happen in the future. --brian0918™ 03:00, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pandeism vfd

Please consider changing the basis for your vote on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Pandeism from "original research" to "non-notable." I believe I have adduced sufficient referential evidence to show that this article was not "original research," but simply an exposition on a philosophy which, although real, lacks enough adherents/proponents to be notable enough for inclusion. I apologize for having overestimated the importance of this topic. It was, after all, one of my first posts, when I was new to Wikipedia and not yet familiar with the criteria for notability. -- 8^D gab 04:40, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

  • I will consider it. There is nothing on Google or Britannica though which can reference this word. Megan1967 05:26, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Pandeism as original research. I applied that label principally because there is no sign of any external references. So assertions like "Spiritual pandeists point to ..." or "Some pandeists believe that..." seem to have been pulled out of thin air. I'd be very happy to see this develop into a good article, and if you can share with us how you know what "some Pandeists" believe then I'd be willing to change my vote. Thanks for your many contributions to Wikipedia, above and beyond this one. Cheers, -Willmcw 05:31, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

There are a number of articles in Wikipedia based upon the work of a single professor. But it is important that they indicate that fact. If the article said "'Pandeism' is a term coined by Professor Ramon Mendoza to characterize beliefs that...." or something like that then it would be grounded in some kind of reality. However, that being the case, it should explicitly be a summary of the Mendoza's idea along with a summary of responses to it. -Willmcw 06:18, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
If you think a redirect is the best solution then you might want to make that suggestion prominently on the VfD page. -Willmcw 09:08, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

There is no need to apologize at all. First of all, Wikipedia is a wiki; its capacity for self-repair is virtually limitless. All in a day's work, no harm done. Second, you were making a good-faith addition. Even if we decide it was wrong, the encyclopedia is still better off for you having made it. While some might be personally offended by someone adding something to the encyclopedia that they truly considered beneficial, I'm not one of those people. Keep up the good work.
For the record: I do not vote on notability, for lack of sufficiently objective criteria; I do vote on verifiability, which was the problem here. As it stands, I will not change my vote to merge and redirect (redirect implies there's nothing to merge, but this would mean de facto deleting of the article, so I'd rather have an explicit delete) because I have still not seen any evidence that pandeism exists as anything more than an obvious neologism coined independently by multiple people, and that there are any independent sources for the precise concept you describe other than your class notes (which, for obvious reasons, are not suitable material for cites). Keep in mind that I do not even contest that what you've written is true (both in the article and on it)! But when a reader asks "how do I know what you've written here is not nonsense?" we can only answer "one of our contributors had a professor who lectured on the concept, and some people have independently coined the word". In my opinion, this is not good enough. JRM · Talk 10:36, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

Update: just seen your pandeism reference. This seems to be yet another independent coining of the word, with yet another meaning. Reading the pages preceding the introduction, I absolutely cannot find "pandeism" being used in the way it's described in the article: instead, the writer argues for a common origin of a god or Gods whose names start with "Pan-" (note the capitalization of the word). We may now conceivably have enough verifiable information for an article on the word pandeism and how it's been used by various people, but whether such an article is encyclopedic is another matter altogether. JRM · Talk 10:36, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)
"Why would a man in Higgins position make up a word like that, and use it as he does?" I don't know. If you know anyone else who does, who has written on this particular metaphorical sleight of hand, and can back it up with references, feel free to add it. Again: you only establish that the word "pandeism" exists! I'm quite convinced of that by now. But we still have no references that describe pantheism as "a theological system of belief that combines the major elements of pantheism (that God and the universe are one) and deism (that a creator God created a self-regulating universe, but subsequently ceased to actively intervene in its operations)". Higgins at best establishes that Toland may have used the word—how and why is left open. The obvious etymology of "pandeism" is not good enough, because I can conceive of many internally consistent belief systems like that, and claim people in the past have avowed beliefs that match it rather well—which would still be original research. And though I completely believe you when you say it's not original research, and that someone else thought of it first, they apparently didn't go through the trouble of documenting it in such a fashion as to make it suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia. JRM · Talk 10:58, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

Are you aware of the exchange of meanings of deism and theism around 1700? See Atheism#Etymology. The old meanings lingered, although I am surprised to find them in use in the 1880s. In any case, you would need to find a reference contrasting pandeism and pantheism. dab (ᛏ) 11:00, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hello, BD2412! After looking at your explaination on my page, I must say I'm still hesitant to change my vote. The conclusive evidence that you speak of is located on a Tripod page. Even if this is correct, I would not call ANYTHING found on Tripod or similar hosts "authoritative". Secondly, if this is the only site that you have to prove this, then I wouldn't consider that "conclusive", either. Sorry.. Linuxbeak 11:46, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

The article is original research. You did not use any of these "sources" you keep citing as sources for the article. Half of your "sources" are forum posts that likely utilized your very article. Also, showing that the word was used once almost 200 years ago doesn't mean that it gets its own article. For example, duck tape doesn't have its own article, despite it being the original term for duct tape (and being 100 years newer than the 1833 book). Why? Because the latter term is the popular usage today. --brian0918™ 12:12, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] re: Pandeism

Thanks! I'm a hero! :-)

I attempted to clearly describe the difference between pandeism and pantheism in the pandeism article (since showing that the term is different means that it definitely deserves it's own article), but I am not an expert on the concepts--I only know what is written on those two pages and what Higgins wrote in the quotes that were provided. I paraphrased from existing information. Let me know if I got it right.

- Pioneer-12 16:32, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Now I wish I'd said exactly that in the article". Heh, and now you are probably about to do just that. I've found that when I describe something to someone else, I also describe it to myself.... It's true that the meaning has shifted since Higgins first used it. Hmmm, probably the shift of the meaning since his time should be mentioned in that paragraph, too.

- Pioneer-12 16:57, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, it seems like sufficiant explaination has been submitted for me to withhold my vote. I will do so right away. Linuxbeak 19:28, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

  • Heh, well, don't take it personally, BD. Some of us ARE trigger happy, and I think that you meant well. If this article is destined to continue, let it be so! Go get some sleep ;-) Linuxbeak 19:48, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] How to deal with people who won't stop yelling

Brian0918 seems to be a talented and dedicated Wikipedian, but he lacks people skills. It seems he is not going to stop yelling and antagonizing even after you have asked him to. His latest edit summary on the pandeism vfd is "i can add bs header titles too! weee" That is NOT how an administrator is supposed to act. It may be helpful if you find an old, wise administrator to step in. Wikipedia:Resolving disputes should help.

- Pioneer-12 08:03, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Note: In fairness to Brain, whose comments are below, it looks like he was having a really bad week. - Pioneer-12

[edit] Pandeism Discussion

Yeah, sorry about that as well. I've been involved with several true vandals who have created fake articles and stuck them in various legitimate articles, and other vandals who've made up fake -theism articles and then vandalized other legitimate articles with that religion's take on the issue, so I quickly jumped to the conclusion that you were the same way. Plus, this is hell week for me, so I've been on the edge the whole week. I'm just going to stay away from disputes for the next couple weeks when all the rage has dissipated :) brian0918™ 17:24, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it must get tiresome dealing with all the vandals. I can see how that could cause a bit of cynicism... it's like seeing a string of bad movies in a row... then you see one thing wrong in a decent movie and go "not again!" - Pioneer-12 23:14, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Orlando Alcántara email exchange

In the course of doing research in support of the meaning of pandeism as I had been taught it, I contacted Orlando Alcántara Fernández (who goes by Orlando Alcántara, or by Cristorly) the author of a web-post in which he had identified Spinoza as a pandeist (correctly, according to the subject as it had been explained to me). We had the following email exchange:

[edit] My email to Orlando Alcántara

Dear Orlando Alcántara, Hi, I'm working on a project on pandeism, and am having trouble finding source material explaining exactly what it means. I found a post of yours on a forum where you wrote:

"God is inmanent, trascendent and holistic. That is Pantheism, not Pandeism. Pantheism is right, because we are speaking about a personal, individual, trascendent God. Pandeism (like Spinoza's) is not right, due to the fact that is not a trascendent God, a God beyond Creation."

I was wondering if you could give me some guidance as to how you heard of pandeism, and what it means. It was my understanding that pandeism referred to a Deistic form of Pantheism - that a Creator God created the Universe by becoming the universe, and that under this theology, God does not have an existence separate from the material universe.

Thanks

[edit] Orlando Alcántara's response

Hello, Brian! Thanks for reading the post in the forum. I will give you a detailed explanation of the different terms involved in my own Theognosis. I have arrived at those definitions out of my belief in Biblical Unitarian Universalism taught at God'sTruthForToday.Org (http://www.godstruthfortoday.org), especially out of the teachings of A. E. Knoch, A. P. Adams and Adlai Loudy, among many others. We have to talk about Panentheism (Krause). I didn't mention that term in the forum. I want to talk to you about the following terms:

1.- Theism;

2.- Deism;

3.- Panentheism;

4.- Panendeism;

5.- Pandeism;

6.- Pantheism (this is the correct view in my Theognosis (epi-gnosis according to John 17:3, or Correct Knowledge) ).

My definitions are discretional. It means that I integrate the 6 definitions into a coherent corpus or canon and at the same time my definitions are valid by knowing what I really understand of those 6 definitions. If you look those words in a dictionary like Webster's they will give you conflicting answers. In order to define one term in my taxonomy you have to know what I mean about the other terms. That is why it is a discretional definition. So I want you to give a little time to write a short essay explaining all the terms so it can be useful for a wider audience. By writing an essay in a formal way I can publish it over the Internet so more people can learn about our topic.

Brian, feel free to visit my homepage (http://geocities.com/cristorly) where you can read some literature in English about my theological views (The Sovereignty of Grace -essay-, etc.). Thanks for reading. Thanks for being ecclectic. Thanks for contacting me. May God in Jesus Christ lead us to a correct understanding of the Bible. Feel free to contact me whenever you wish. Blessings and happiness in Christ Jesus. Cristorly

[edit] And Who is Orlando Alcántara?

Obviously Orlando Alcántara is doing his own original work: "My definitions..." "I integrate the 6 definitions...", "...in my taxonomy..." "...you have to know what I mean..." What theological training, background, legitimacy (or even notoriety) does he have? This "Biblical Unitarian Universalism" is NOT to be confused with Unitarian Universalism. You can see that this is self published work...He says so. It is also religious and dogmatic in nature rather than descriptive/scholarly. Placing these sort of extreme minority religious musings on the par with widely accepted theological and philosophical concepts is to do us all a disfavor. If the citations for the concept "pandeism" come down to mere links between a few odd web pages and one link to an esoteric magical religious pseudo-historical 18th century text of dubious soundness, what you have here seems curiously like a Flat Earth tract. Now don't get me wrong; I appreciate the Flat Earth article and enjoyed reading it. It would have bothered me though, if it had been put forward as serious geo-science. The lack of any real connection with the legitimate scholarly academy makes this "Pandeism" article seem like a trick done with smoke and mirrors. I may have to eat my words once I've gone to the Harvard libraries and checked out Higgins' books (yes, there are copies there... But I need to find out in what section and how they are classified and what scholars say about his stuff...); but something still doesn't smell right here. Is there a "No bull shit" award that can be given out? Or, perhaps the article can be reworked down the line of the aforementioned Flat Earth article. That I could swallow. Emyth 23:01, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

  • Frankly, I'm not exactly sure who Orlando Alcántara Fernández is ("Orlando Alcántara" gets about 150 unique Google hits; strangely enough, "Orlando Alcantara" without the accent gets about 200, but they're completely different; Cristorly gets about 130, mostly in Christian discussion forums). The important thing, to me, is his comment about Spinoza. You see, almost a decade ago, my humanities professor said that Giordano Bruno and Baruch Spinoza were properly classified as pandeists, not as pantheists. Now, I don't know how many people are very familiar with Spinoza, but this Orlando Alcántara stated in a webpost that "Pantheism is right, because we are speaking about a personal, individual, trascendent God. Pandeism (like Spinoza's) is not right, due to the fact that is not a trascendent God, a God beyond Creation."[20]. In January of 2004, one Roncelin de Fos posted a discussion which states that "The labeling of Spinoza's philosophy as "pantheism" by the Church was meant more as an invective and indictment than a true analysis of his writings. It was really a variant of Deism -- a "pandeism," if I may."[21] Now, granted the second guy sounded like he was "coining" the word, but since I'd heard it used before in exactly that context, I can't help thinking that he got it from somewhere - kind of like if someone came up to me and said, "I've invented a device with four legs supporting a flat level surface -- a "table" if I may." There are no references saying "Thomas Jefferson was really a pandeist" or "Augustine was really a pandeist" or "Socrates was really a pandeist" - but I have three (these two and my professor) who have specifically identified Spinoza as a pandeist, and I find that a bit tight for a coincidence. -- BD2412 thimk 00:12, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
    • After my discussions with Cristorly, he was kind enough to write an essay outlining his theognosis - including his concept of Pandeism. http://jesus.50webs.com/god.html

[edit] Natalie Kita email exchange

In the course of doing research in support of the meaning of pandeism as I had been taught it, I contacted Natalie Kita (see [22]), who had posted a comment on a forum indicating that she is a "transcendental pandeist." We had the following email exchange:

[edit] My email to Natalie Kita

Dear Natalie Kita,

Hi, I'm working on a project on pandeism, and am having trouble finding source material explaining exactly what it means. I found a post of yours on a forum where you wrote that you classify yourself as a "transcendental pandeist."

I was wondering if you could give me some guidance as to how you heard of pandeism, and what it means to you. It was my understanding that pandeism referred to a Deistic form of Pantheism - that a Creator God created the Universe by becoming the universe, and that under this theology, God does not have an existence separate from the material universe.

Thanks

[edit] Natalie Kita's response

Hello Brian,

I will gladly write more when I have the time, but in short, my classification of my own beliefs as "transcendental pandeism" means that I believe most of what you outlined, except that I believe God not only is, always was, and always will be the universe, but that the Universe is contained within God, and God transcends that which we know as the Universe. I also believe that all living beings contain the knowledge/wisdom of God/the Universe within them, if only they open their minds to it. I view God not so much as a being, but as a force of pure spirit and energy, containing all the knowledge/wisdom there is, and sharing it with all. Of course, I also believe that human beings are only housed in physical bodies, and are themselves really just spirit and energy, with the ability to transcend the universe as well. In other words, we are all just little pieces of God, living in an illusion of separateness. To put the concept into an analogy---Imagine an endless ! ! ocean, filled with amoebas. The ocean flows in and out of, through and around every one. We are the amoebas, and the enless ocean is God. The only separation is the thin membrane that is our human bodies, complete with experiences and the chemical processes that create our distinct "personalities." I believe all that is always was, and is only "created" in the moment we allow ourselves to see it. I believe that miracles do occur, and that God intervenes, but not as a distant being with a watchful eye, but as the God within us. We create miracles through our thoughts and the energy that we put out into the world.

Of course, all of this is only theory that makes sense to me, and my overriding belief is that noone really knows the secrets of God and the Universe, and noone ever will until the moment when they leave their physical body and return to the whole (God). When and if our spirits return to earth, I believe that most of the secrets learned are temporarily forgotten, so that we may return to a new physical body---perhaps intact as the same "one" spirit, perhaps intermingled with other spirits, creating a new and distinct "person"---and learn (and/or teach) a new lesson or lessons to/from humanity.

To be honest, I don't really believe in classifying a set of beliefs, but since this world seems to require labels (even if there are widely varying definitions of each one), I thought transcendental pandeism fit me best. Interestingly, in talking to many, many people about my beliefs, I have found that many people (often secretly) share them to a great extent, regardless of the label they have chosen for their own beliefs. This has led me to believe that many (if not most) of the differences between the TRUE beliefs of people of many "religions" are merely a matter of semantics. I have a "church" and a website that are still in their infancy----both free of labels and classifications. If you are interested, feel free to check it out at www.onespiritunited.com

I suppose you could classify my beliefs as being on par with the ideas of Jung & Emerson---with God cast in the role of the Oversoul/Collective Unconscious. This may seem vague, but as I said, I will be happy to expand on my beliefs at a later date. Right now I have to get back to the material world and go to work.

Have a nice day!

Natalie Kita