Pantheism and Anti-mysticism

Ultimately we can sort human thought into two categories:

1: Those looking for meaning and value "out side of reality" or what we could call mysticism and

2: Those looking for meaning and value with in the realm of reality its self.

The second category does not have such a clear cut name that we can attach to as mysticism does. Some of us call our selves atheists but this is not necessarily the opposite of mysticism but simply the position that there is/are no god(s). Perhaps there is a word that we can come up with to claim a more clear position for those of us that fall into the number two category. I have a couple of proposals.

Anti-Mysticism

My first proposal is a very safe and simple one: Anti-Mysticism. If a mystic is a person who finds meaning and value out side of the realm of reality then the anti-mystic is simply one who does not find meaning and value out side of reality.

Very simple as you can see but is it our most effective definition? It is simply a negative definition, it is more claiming a position that you do not have. So then is there positive definition we can claim? Well this leads to my next proposal.

Pantheism

This proposal is much more ambiguous and tricky but I find that it catches my interest. This proposal is pantheism.

When we break down pantheism into its Greek roots it means "all is god" but perhaps a better definition when put into cultural context is "nature is god" or "reality is god". For many pantheism is simply a way of being an atheist but still holding on to mysticism and "spirituality", and before some of you get too concerned I will state it simply, I am not one of these pantheists. If you define pantheism to its most simple and true definition that reality and God are equivalent then there is no room for mysticism or "reality being alive" or any of that nonsense that these "pantheists" advocate. By my definition Anti-Mysticism and Pantheism are the same thing: the belief that meaning and value are rooted in reality rather then "beyond it".

Redefining God

At this point it is probably clear that what I call god in the pantheist sense is not the same as what we call god in the traditional way (this being said, it becomes clear why my definition of pantheism is not in opposition with atheism, the god the atheist opposes and the "god" the pantheist endorses are two separate things). Perhaps the greatest difference is consciousness. I do not believe reality to be conscious, this would be mystical nonsense, thus in contraction with my definition of pantheism as anti-mysticism.

What then you ask do they have in common? Quite a lot actually. God in the traditional sense is something that is an authority, the source of right and wrong, something you try to understand and live in harmony with. Can't all these things be attributed to reality its self? The greatest difference between the theist and the pantheist is one embraces non-reality and the other embraces reality its self. The issue of a conscious god is rather trivial, its simply the difference between a person who believes in unicorns and a person who believes in unicorns and leprechauns. The real issue is mysticism vs anti-mysticism.

As you can see it is a matter of a hierarchy of values. The mystic values things "beyond reality" above reality its self, the pantheist values reality above things "beyond reality" (of course anything "beyond reality" is simply non-reality or in other words, not real).

Conclusion?

Forgive me if this has been very plain and straight forward, but I wanted to state some simple frame work for my beliefs in pantheism and anti-mysticism before I start writing more specific blogs with these terms. I plan to use pantheism and anti-mysticism interchangeably and always together to avoid any confusion due to how undefined pantheism is, but still be able to use it as the opposite of mysticism. This is all because I believe once put into the right context pantheism makes a very clear and powerful position. I may however have to drop the term if it causes more confusion then it reduces. So please feel welcome to give me as much feed back as you would like so that we can decide if pantheism is a word worth saving.

Thank you for reading. I plan to write more on this subject soon.