...and where does all this information come from?

the Greeks did not think a God of everything was particularly important — ernestm

Were you there? Presumably not. So I imagine you have some evidence to back up these beliefs that no-one else seems to have heard of...?

Pan was always Pan, that was the point of him. The Hellenic gods looked down on Pan as a satyr, but in other places he was considered more important than the Hellenic Gods. But nowhere ever worshipped Pan. For reason first stated. — ernestm

Do you actually believe that "pantheism" describes the worship of Pan? Is that why you keep saying "Pan wasn't worshipped"? :gasp: — Pattern-chaser

Where is the evidence to back up all this stuff you keep spouting about Pan, or have you just made it up?

You may look at this response and say, "that's art"; whether it deserves merit is down to logic. — Schzophr

I would be interested to know how we might usefully and meaningfully (to humans) apply logic to the appreciation of art. :chin:

We are that God, and no more so than animals and trees and the forces of nature because even though we are aware of that truth. — Possibility

[My corrections.]

What I tried to tell you, which you don't seem particularly inclined to hear, was that Pan, who was the God of everything, was not worshipped because Pan didn't care much about human beings, he just did his won thing. — ernestm

You said this before, but it wasn't correct then, either. Pan was not the "God of Everything". You're getting confused with the Greek word "pan", usually translated as "everything", or something close. All of the Greek Gods were worshipped, or they wouldn't've been Gods, would they? That Pan had no temples probably reflects his position as a Nature God (not the "God of Everything"). But I fail to see why you're so keen on this "no-one worshipped Him" idea. What does it have to do with this topic, which is about pantheism, not Pan:

Pantheism is "a doctrine which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God". But what exactly does this mean when taken literally? — Michael McMahon

Do you actually believe that "pantheism" describes the worship of Pan? Is that why you keep saying "Pan wasn't worshipped"? :gasp:

Anyway, if you have some evidence of your strange beliefs, post a link. Wikipedia is not infallible, but it's generally pretty good, and its entry on Pan makes no mention of the 'facts' you keep quoting. So, do you have evidence to back up your assertions? :chin:

I just noticed from your source that "39,773 Americans were killed by guns in 2017". That's about 110 per million per year. Even if 100 of them are suicides (hard to believe?), that's still ten times the UK rate.

OK, but would I be correct to observe that the number of gun-homicides per million per year is still much higher in the US than the UK? If 12 of the 22 deaths per million per year in the US was suicide, then that still leaves ten times the death rate of the UK. [And if my guess is wrong, and 17 of the 22 deaths were suicide, that's still FIVE times our rate.] More guns seem to result in more murders.

The gun homicide rate in England and Wales is about one for every 1 million people, according to the Geneva Declaration of Armed Violence and Development, a multinational organization based in Switzerland.

In a population of 56 million, that adds up to about 50 to 60 gun killings annually. In the USA, by contrast, there are about 160 times as many gun homicides in a country that is roughly six times larger in population. There were 8,124 gun homicides in 2014, according to the latest FBI figures. — USA Today"

The US allows its citizens to possess and use guns; the UK does not. We have 1 gun-killing per million per year, and our neighbours across the Atlantic have about 22 per million per year. Taking just these two countries as examples, it would seem that the availability of guns leads to the use of guns (for killing each other with).

Overall, there are 8493 deaths per million (from all causes) in the USA (source: link), and 8887 deaths per million (from all causes) in the UK (source: link).

So our overall death rates are very similar, but the gun-killings are not.

P.S. Guns aren't banned in the UK, because to ban them, they must once have been allowed. I have no idea when or if guns have ever been generally available in the UK, but it has not been so in my lifetime (born 1955), and I don't think it was ever the case.... :chin: So guns were never banned in the UK; they've never been allowed. [There are exception for shotguns, used in the country by gamekeepers and the like.]

[ The so-called ban on handguns in 1997 in the UK actually refers to a law that tightened up exceptions to our existing gun controls. Handguns were already illegal, except for some carefully-controlled exceptions. After the Dunblane massacre, some of these exceptions were removed or tightened up. ]

My country has a low gun crime toll and yet is proportionally worse in every aspect of the justice department. — Shamshir

I thought you were American. :blush: Sorry for my mistake. What country do you come from?

Like I've explicitly told you, with or without guns, people will kill and not less. — Shamshir

And yet the statistics clearly show that countries where guns are controlled or forbidden have less gun crime (obvious? :wink: ). And the difference is not taken up in murders using other weapons. There are not appreciably more stabbings when there are no guns around. Guns make it easy and convenient to kill, quickly and efficiently, in anger, before one has the time for sober consideration.

OK, if that's what you want. But why not just come out and say that you think beauty is objective? Then we'd know what we were discussing, and why. :chin:

That isn’t an argument it’s opinion. You’re confusing blind opinion ans want with measurable differences in aesthetics. — I like sushi

Agreed. Again. :wink: Opinion is all there is when we're judging art. Subjective truth, wholly dependent for its truth on the person who holds that it is true. As for measurement, if you're trying to measure art - aesthetically or otherwise - in order to judge it, I think you may misunderstand art. :chin:

That is likely why you believe no art is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ even though you personally experience ‘better’ and ‘worse’ every moment of your life. — I like sushi

I make value judgements all the time. As you say, we all do. But the words we use to express ourselves matter, especially here, in a philosophy forum. So I say it's wrong to describe art as being better or worse, because those words imply that my own conclusions have meaning and value to someone else. If they do, it's mere coincidence. What I experience every moment of my life is 'like' and 'don't like'. My opinions, not presented or offered as anything more. There is no reason to expect you to agree with my opinions, and it doesn't matter anyway. If we're offering value judgements on art, then our words reflect only our own opinions of it.

Just because something cannot be measured precisely it doesn’t mean it cannot be measured at all - or you wouldn’t have an opinion in the first place. — I like sushi

In the broadest sense of the word, I suppose we could agree that a value judgement is a sort of measurement. But I wouldn't use that word, as it carries many baggage concepts that don't belong (in a discussion about value judgements). Opinions aren't based on measurements. They're based on mood, feeling and emotion. And loads of other influences too. Maybe the pattern the wind blew the leaves into just before you saw the art you're judging. This is not measurement; it's just saying, what you (or I, or whoever) like.

If you shit on the floor and call it ‘art’ I ain’t gonna do more than regard you as an imbecile — I like sushi

And yet, if he was still with us, Salvador Dali might disagree with you. [Remembering that Dali was a renowned artist and coprophile (if I spelled that correctly).]

So how come shootings aren't due to careless wielding of firearms? — Shamshir

But they are. ... The ones that aren't deliberate, of course.

All I'm hearing are excuses on how guns hold all the responsibility and humans hold none. — Shamshir

Guns don't kill people, people kill people? It's a tired old cliche, true as far as it goes, but incomplete and dismissive of the real world. Humans kill other humans, even though we all say (and apparently believe) that we shouldn't. So we need to remove temptation from our paths. And that's guns. Yes, there are many other things that can be used to kill people, but to minimise the number of killings, we need to minimise the number of weapons available.

Those potential weapons that have no other use but as weapons: we should get rid of them straight away. That includes guns, for example. Other things, that have other uses, maybe the best we can do is to be careful of/with them. That includes cars, for example.

The responsibility for all the killings lies with us, the killers. And since we cannot control our deadly urges, but we want to, we do the next best thing, and remove temptation. That is the rationale behind banning guns, and it's what America must do if shootings are to be minimised. Or don't bother, if you're happy with the level of gun crime in your country?

No, authorities don't constitute it's due to high speed, but due to careless driving. — Shamshir

Driving at high speed when the road conditions don't permit it is careless driving. It's not one or the other; one is (sometimes) the other.

Art is art if the artist says it is.
— Pattern-chaser — Pattern-chaser


That is not the same as saying some art is better than other art. — I like sushi

No, it isn't. We agree. :up: Art is art if the artist says it is. There is no art that is "better" than other art; there is only art. You will find that you like some art, and don't like some other art. This is the nature of you (i.e. all of us humans), art and the world.

Art is art if the artist says it is. — Pattern-chaser


This is probably based on the comment of Duchamp. It has some merit, but it only leads us to ask “What is an artist?”

How do we trust the artist, how do we know he’s being honest and not just playing a game? — Brett

An artist is someone who creates art. You don't trust an artist, any more than you admire a scientist. Trust yourself to determine if you like it (the art, that is). Art can be a game too, and maybe even a deception (for artistic purposes). Art is art. Analysing art leads to misleading and misguided conclusions.

Pantheism is "a doctrine which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God". But what exactly does this mean when taken literally? — Michael McMahon

Very little. The mistake is to take a spiritual declaration "literally". It normally leads to problems of misunderstanding. Perhaps the following quote will be useful?

Pantheism is the belief that God = the universe. The word “God,” on this view, is just another word for “Nature” or “Everything that Exists.” If you take everything in the universe – all the humans, planets, stars, galaxies, alien creatures, dirt clods, etc., and add it all up, what you get is God. In this sense, pantheism has only one god, and therefore it’s a form of monotheism; however, since pantheism implies that every part of nature is divine, most pantheistic religions recognize a variety of nature spirits.

Pantheism is a kind of nature-worship, but in a very special sense. To pantheists, Nature doesn’t just mean wild mountains, lakes, and trees. Nature includes everything that exists— human beings, cities, computers, asteroids, songs, nuclear waste, and supernovas. In pantheism, God is the sum total of all these things, not just the pretty or unpolluted parts.

Pantheism is often confused with pan-EN-theism, but they’re actually quite different. Panentheism is the idea that God is in everything, whereas pantheism is the idea that God is everything. You may believe that human beings, trees, and physical objects have a divine spirit or a “spark of the sacred” within them. Technically, this wouldn’t be pantheism:

Panentheism: God is in the tree, the rock, and the river.
Pantheism: the tree, the rock, and the river are in God.

However, a lot people with these beliefs don’t think carefully about this difference, so, practically speaking, pantheism and panentheism tend to overlap or blend, as they do with polytheism.

Link to original article. For myself, I would go with the definitions of pantheism and panentheism (above), blending and accepting both.

Because something gets militarised it's suddenly only for killing people, is that it? — Shamshir

When the empirical evidence confirms that this is so, then yes. Guns are used by people to kill people. That is their primary function, as verified empirically.

Good luck then. — ernestm

Thanks. But what are you going on about? You don't seem to know much about the ancient Greek Gods, nor are you aware of the modern Gaia Hypothesis, which merely uses the name of an old Greek God as a label for something new (but related to the original role of Gaia).

In anceint Greece, pantheists believed there was one god for everything, called Pan, who didnt care much what people did. — ernestm

No, the "pan" in "pantheist" is not "Pan", the name of an old God. You seem to have no idea what pantheism is. :chin:

Guns are just for killing people. — Pattern-chaser

Except they're not. They're for hunting wildlife and firearms displays and shooting competitions too. — Shamshir

Those are unusual uses of guns, and "firearms displays and shooting competitions" are just demonstrations of how they could be used to kill people. Such uses do not take away from the primary point: guns are for shooting people with. Empirical evidence shows conclusively that the most common use of guns - by far the most common use of guns - is to kill people.

If you ban guns, please ban cars as anyone can simply get in his car and run over a dozen people at will. :smile: — Shamshir

On a purely practical basis, cars have a use: transport. Guns are just for killing people. Even knives have other uses than stabbing people, although the case for them is nowhere near as clear as it is for cars.

Are you saying here that removing guns from general circulation would CAUSE civil and world war? :gasp: — Pattern-chaser

Didn't it already happen with the French Revolution? — Shamshir

Did it? Did the removal of guns from French society cause the French Revolution? I'm not a history buff, but I'm not convinced that happened. Yes, there was a revolution, but it wasn't caused by the removal of guns from citizens. It was caused by the rich, who took everything and left the poor to starve. The poor had other ideas, eventually.

It's not that people resist the urge, PC, it's that any such attempt leads to a civil and consequently world war. — Shamshir

Wait! Are you saying here that removing guns from general circulation would CAUSE civil and world war? :gasp:

Give Serbia guns and watch another Balkan War. — Shamshir

So you agree that free access to guns is a Bad Idea?

Because offenders are quickly disarmed. — Shamshir

No, it's just that, in general, they don't shoot each other. I believe Switzerland and Canada are good examples of countries that allow guns, but whose citizens manage to resist the temptation to kill one another. :chin:

Are mass stabbings and being run over by a car better? — Shamshir

So you will allow guns because there are other causes of death? That's logical....

Why are you acting like this is an American problem when it's clearly global? — Shamshir

Because, with one or two exceptions, this is an American problem. Other countries don't allow guns. Still other countries do allow guns, but their citizens rarely shoot each other. As you Americans say: go figure.

I know thats not what you want to hear, but thats the way it was. — ernestm

At least I heard it from someone who actually knows how things were, back then. :wink:

Truly sorry. I have no grounding in academic philosophy, and I haven't a clue what you just said.

I couldnt say exactly where this Gaian perspective came from except perhaps Star Trek — ernestm

I wonder if you are getting confused by Guinan, Whoopi Goldberg's character? "Gaian" refers to Gaia, the Greek God of Nature.

Yes, something like that.

In anceint Greece, pantheists believed there was one god for everything, called Pan, who didnt care much what people did. — ernestm

That's a new one on me.

Early traces of pantheist thought can be found within the theology of the ancient Greek religion of Orphism, where pan (the all) is made cognate with the creator God Phanes (symbolizing the universe), and with Zeus, after the swallowing of Phanes. — Wikipedia

No mention of Pan, the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs. :chin:

I couldn't say exactly where this Gaian perspective came from... — ernestm

The Gaia Hypothesis by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. I thought it was quite well-known. :chin:

The basic premise of mysticism (take vedanta or sufism) is that there are infinite paths to the truth, and all are equally valid. This is, as far as logic goes, nonsensical... — Nasir Shuja

Is it? Consider a hill, with a rock on the top. There are an infinite number of paths from the bottom of the hill to the top, but all of them lead to the rock. Perhaps the point is the simple and obvious one: that, if your path leads to the rock, it's as good as any other path, because the destination is the object of interest? I don't know.

Actually, solipsism is pretty hard to escape in a pantheistic universe. You can use the Barcan formula to prove this even in a universe with a near infinite amount of possible worlds. — Wallows

I'm not convinced. Applying formulae to God is never a good idea, IMO. God isn't like that. :wink:

But, out of curiosity, how does the Barcan formula ("If everything is necessarily F, then it is necessary that everything is F") lead us from pantheism to solipsism? If God is part of everyone, and vice versa, how does this become "the philosophical theory that the self is all that you know to exist"? [The latter is how WordWeb defines "solipsism".]

Under pantheism I tend to view God as the collective sum total of individuals rather than one omniscient all conscious entity. — Michael McMahon

Interesting. I view God as both of those things, probably including the maxim the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This is essentially the Gaian perspective, which is my personal belief position. Oh, but not necessarily "omniscient". I missed that at first. :blush: Gaia is the soul of the universe, not its creator. But let's not get too detailed. This is an interesting discussion at a simple, general, level. :up: :smile:

Under pantheism, aren't we all simply part of God, though? — Terrapin Station

Too literal for this discussion. The claims under discussion are spiritual in nature. So we are all part of God, but that isn't all we are, and being part of God doesn't mean we're immortal, which is what you're implying. If you want precision, perhaps a more scientific discussion would better suit you? :wink:

who knows what 'dead flies' humans may be 'missing' ? — fresco

A question that's always haunted me (in a good way :smile: ). But it's another topic, and I doubt there is much appetite here to discuss such things.

Is there?

If the world isnt real then what does that say for the other humans that are part of it? This is the typical anti-realism nonsense that doesnt admit that human beings are a "physical" part of the world like everything else, yet they don't seem to apply the same illusory characteristic that they apply to everthing else. How can there be a mass hallucination when the existence of other human beings with minds would be part of the entire illusion of reality? How does this idea not collapse into solipsism? — Harry Hindu

I'm not sure. All I know is that new perspectives nearly always offer something worthwhile, no matter how small. This particular perspective may prove to be useful ... or not. Consider it in a positive light first, and see if you can glean anything useful?

:up:

it's still a fallacy to say that something is a factual value just because there's a consensus about it — Terrapin Station

I absolutely take your point. But in the case of a technical appraisal of a musical performance, such as one musician might make of another's performance, it's fair to say that some have more expertise than others. :chin:

That is simply wrong. You’ve not explained anything regarding an understanding of musical composition, a trained ear, a broad appreciation and exposure to various music forms, let alone the tone and timbre of someone’s voice (which can be in and out of key).

The simple fact is some people are better equipped than others to judge music; in this sense they have more EXPERTISE. — I like sushi

If you're talking about a technical appraisal of the music, you're right, of course. But if you're referring to making a value judgement of the music as art, then you are wrong, I think. There's no such thing as Good Art or Bad Art, in that sense, but only art. Art is art if the artist says it is. You only get to say if you like it or not. And no-one is more qualified to do that that anyone else.