Naturalistic pantheism: Encyclopedia II - Naturalistic pantheism - Adherents

Naturalistic pantheism - Adherents

Adherents feel that naturalistic pantheism might best be understood through the teachings of Spinoza and Taoism historically, and the Universal Pantheist Society (UPS) and World Pantheist Movement (WPM) today.

Although the UPS is the older of the two, it has seen decreased activity in recent years. The WPM (founded by former UPS vice-president Paul Harrison), on the other hand, has expanded more considerably due to its promotion of "scientific pantheism", which many critics claim is essentially no more than "atheism for nature lovers". This charge seems to stem from the fact that scientific pantheism is not only naturalistic, but avowedly materialistic as well, with little tolerance for any reference to traditional theological concepts. Despite a history of controversy ignited by the WPM's appearance as a sect within the UPS and its eventual secession from that organization, the WPM approach has met with some acceptance, even while critics claim it may not actually constitute any strict or authentic or classical pantheism.

Although the Universal Pantheist Society ostensibly accepts pantheists of all varieties, in practice, it too tends toward the modern (naturalistic) pantheism. To understand this, it must be re-emphasized that the theological concept which the term "pantheism" was originally intended to describe (the equivalence of the traditional God concept with nature) is considered to be essentially obsolete by many naturalistic pantheists. It is often maintained that the intent of such individuals in describing themselves as "pantheist" is chiefly to identify themselves as adherents of a naturalistic spirituality by using an established religious term.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Adherents", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki