"Hello, is there anybody in there...?" A call to pagans, pantheists, and assorted...

Well, you keep saying it is not alive or is dead. If you don't know what matter is, how do you know it is dead?

 

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Are you suggesting that a grain of sand is alive ?

By the way I did answer that.. only I thought it was kind of vague.
Let me try again. Matter is what physical things are made of. Really that definition appears to be good enough.
Also, I'm not sure what you want to hear..

 

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I'm a pantheist. You can use deduction from there to get the answer.

It was just that you seemed to be sure that matter is dead. That grains of sand are dead. But you don't know what matter is. So I wondered how you could be sure. There is nothing I 'want to hear' per se. I just wanted to present what seemed odd to me.

 

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Ok, but you agree that life defined in the mainstream way is different from "dead" matter right ?
What is the difference in your view ?

 

Clams, trees, stones, rivers, lichen, sand grains.....
No.

 

What do you mean no ?
You do acknowledge that there is obvious structure and organization to living things that makes things like homeostasis, metabolism, growth, reproduction, response to stimuli etc possible ?
This structure and organization is absent in "dead" things such as boulders or a glass of water.
Don't you agree that life (define in the mainstream way) is different from "dead" matter in this respect ?

 

non-sequitur

Quite serious. And maybe smiling at the same time.

Let me consider this before giving you a answer, organize my thoughts, keep from rambling.

No, you don't need a soul to live by this.

All that reading the dictionary changed was my word.
This not to say that my ideas have remained static. If there is any connection to how my ideas have changed and identifying with 'pantheism' it has been thru talking with other pantheists.

The reason I don't 'believe' in 'evil' is, I feel it takes responsibility and gives it to a 'devil' or to "Satan" "The devil made me do it"
I prefer to use the word 'malevolence'. It puts the onus on the individual.

 

Oh nice, put me on the spot,

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Well, what I can tell from your posts; no I don't think you are.
But, again judging from your posts, you're more thought-full that most.

But neither of us controls industry.

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I disagree..
Gun = the paradigm
People = nature
As you have pointed out I carry a gun.. (ok I might see what you mean: why do I carry a gun..) but I definitely do not kill people.

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Sure.

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Well.. that is kind of what I meant. Of course you can still pick and choose what to believe.
I'm aware of the fact that pantheism isn't as strict as the big religions.. but still identifying with it influenced your beliefs.

So you still believe in good and evil ?
Also, I get the feeling you are speaking in archetypes instead of (what you belief to be) real things.
I doubt you think that an actual devil exists (?).

 

But one could say I'm almost a promoter of the "dead paradigm", which you say is "evil" and disrespects life and destroys nature.

I'm finding it difficult to come up with a good analogy.
So I'm just going to explain.. people that do harm to nature are not doing so because they believe in the "dead paradigm", but because they are stumbling morons in the first place that just happen to believe in the "dead paradigm" as well.
So it might be the tool of destruction but not the cause.
Compare with a shovel or a piece of string.
Both can be used to kill people but are not intended for it, and are actually very useful items.
There.. an analogy at last lol

 

No.
You are keeping the time scale too short.
It seems clear that most people do not really think trees are alive by their treatment of them. Certainly not in the 'same way' they do animals or at least humans. They see the tree, unmoving, seemingly unthinking and it means very little to chop it down. They think life is just like them and compare.

Let's toss out an intermediate life form: a glacier.

 

How is frozen water alive ?
All life reliefs on structure and organization.
And I know trees are alive.. I hope you just meant that as an example.

 

A tree is NOT alive.

 

Wtf ? Please tell me you are joking.

 

You live in a house which for years (20) you have been using the front door only. One day you NEED to use the side door. When you got to open the door it hits a large tree.

What do you do?

You live in a house which for years (20) you have been using the front door only. One day you NEED to use the side door. When you got to open the door it hits a human standing there.

What do you do?

 

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Do you want to make a thread out of this ?

 

I have to ask this now..
How old are you, and what education do you have ?

 

It depends on how free you are with the term alive. You can say a light bulb is alive too but a light bulb is made by a human and humans were made by nature. A fish that can jump a foot out of water is alive. This is an entirely different level of life.

 

More than you.

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John, the term 'alive' is not used exclusively to describe a state of humans.