Paul Harrison > Quotes

“All pantheists feel the same profound reverence for the Universe/Nature, but different pantheists use different forms of language to express this reverence. Traditionally, Pantheism has made use of theistic-sounding words like “God,” but in basically non-theistic ways - pantheists do not believe in a supernatural creator personal God who will judge us all after death. Modern pantheists fall into two distinct groups in relation to language: some avoid words such as God or divine, because this makes listeners think in terms of traditional concepts of God that can be very misleading. Others are quite comfortable using these words, but when they use them they don’t mean the same thing that conventional theists mean. If they say "the Universe is God," they don’t mean that the Universe is identical with the deity in the Bible or the Koran.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Think of some part of nature that you love - a particular forest, say. Do you expect the forest to love you back? Does it worry you that the forest cannot love you back? Does it make you love the forest any the less?”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Children are born pantheists. They see reality unshaped by culture or language. The whole world seems divine to them, full of mystery and power.”
― Paul Harrison

“The focus of pantheist reverence is not a good God. The Universe is neither good nor evil. The human categories of good and evil do not apply. It simply is. Again, this conception is easier to square with reality than the idea of an omnipotent and perfectly good God who allows or even causes devastating hurricanes, floods, epidemics claiming millions of lives - actions that in human terms would usually be seen as monstrously evil. The question why God would allow pain and evil to exist is one of the most difficult of all for theists to answer. Pantheists do not have to answer it. The Universe is what it is.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“All things were interconnected with a sacred bond. Nature was in a process of constant change, using the universal substance to mould now a horse, then when the horse dies a tree, then a man. It was crucial, Marcus believed, for us to realize that we were part of the universe and to be in harmony with it:”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“When Tung Kuo Tzu asked Chuang Tzu where the Tao was, he replied that it was in the ant, the grass, the clay tile, even in excrement: "There is nowhere where it is not . . . There is not a single thing without Tao.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“The ideal of Taoism was to live in harmony with the Tao and to cultivate a simple and frugal life, avoiding unnecessary action: "Being one with nature, he [the sage] is in accord with the Tao.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Buddhism began in Northern India in the sixth century BC. In origin it was not at all pantheistic. In the oldest scriptures, written in the Pali language, Buddha teaches that life is essentially suffering. His doctrine is above all a method for avoiding suffering and rebirth into a world of suffering. To do so we must abandon desire and attachment to worldly things, and give up the illusion of having a self. If we achieve this, we can attain nirvana. Nirvana is seen not as some separate divine realm, but simply the permanent cessation of all craving and suffering.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Pantheism is atheistic towards the gods of all traditional religions. It does not believe in any separate creator, or in a personal judging God. Many pantheists of a physicalist bent agree with atheists that all phenomena are a part of nature. They do not believe there are any supernatural beings or spirit realms, and that if any currently unexplained phenomena such as extra-sensory perception should eventually be established as real, they will operate through natural physical forces.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“True Pantheism has rarely been recorded in Christianity, for the very good reason that until the late seventeenth century it would have been punished as profound heresy. The few pantheists who did stick their necks out often paid for it with the burning of their books and often with excommunication and death.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“The day before yesterday we were atoms in the heart of a burning star - yesterday we were dust in a collapsing proto-star - today we are living humans - tomorrow we may be soil, beetles, grass, trees, birds.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“What kind of a god is the pantheist “God”? The word God brings up in most listeners' minds ideas of the particular God they have read about in the Bible or Koran or were taught about as children. Yet the God or gods of different religions differ in their characteristics. The pantheist “God” is quite different from the God of Judaism, Christianity or Islam. The central object for pantheist reverence is the existing Universe. It is not a personal God, indeed many Scientific Pantheists do not even use the word God. It is not a loving father, conscious of and caring for each one of us. It is simply the Reality of Being, just as it is. It is beyond personality, in any human sense. It cannot really love us, but it cannot hate us either.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“If Marcus Aurelius had encouraged Stoicism as the official religion of Rome, the cultural history of the following 1500 years might have turned out very differently. But the Roman emperors from Constantine on chose to favour and later enforce Christianity as the state religion, and Pantheism was forced underground. For some 1200 years, from the fourth century until the end of the sixteenth, Pantheism in the West appeared only as occasional sparks amid the great theistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Finally, the greatest scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a pantheist. Of course Einstein is best known for his theory of relativity, but he frequently pronounced on political and ethical questions. Einstein made it plain that he did not believe in any kind of personal humanlike God who would work miracles and answer prayers in defiance of the laws of nature, and reward and punish us in the afterlife. For Einstein God was the order and harmony and law of the universe itself, and science was in that sense a religious quest. "I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Toland was the first modern pantheist to combine a religious reverence for the Universe, with respect for science, and a belief that everything is made of matter. A pantheist, he wrote to the German philosopher Leibniz, was one of those persons "who believe in no other eternal being but the universe." When asked for a brief statement of his credo, Toland replied, "The sun is my father, the earth my mother, the world is my country and all men are my family.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“The Tao te Ching never speaks of a transcendent God or God. Its central focus is the Tao or Way, conceived of as a mysterious and numinous unity, infinite and eternal, underlying all things and sustaining them. But there is a profound religious reverence and respect for the Tao, and an acceptance of the need for human submission to the Tao. In this sense the Tao is discussed much in the same spirit as Pantheism discusses the awesomeness of the Universe.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“We are conscious observers of the universe. Even if the universe as a whole possesses no consciousness, we do. In this sense we can be said to be a part of the consciousness of the universe, or of its self-consciousness.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“But many atheists have been uncomfortable with the purely negative. Many have had a profoundly spiritual or religious awe and humility towards nature and the Universe. As Carl Sagan wrote in Pale Blue Dot: "A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Heraclitus mocked conventional religious belief, and held that the cosmos was its own maker and creator: "The Cosmos was not made by gods nor men, but always was, and is, and ever shall be, ever living fire, igniting in measures and extinguishing in measures.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“The Universe is our creator. We are made of star stuff. Our hydrogen and much of our helium emerged in the first few minutes after the big bang, the rest of our elements were forged by fusion inside stars, strewn across space in novae and supernovae, and transformed into heavier elements in successive star generations. Finally they were regathered in our solar system providing the elements that allowed life to evolve.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Even though, in Judaism and Christianity, humans are seen as central to the entire creation, their role is not a distinguished one. Since God is seen as perfect and self-sufficient, it is not at all clear why God needed to create humans, or what purpose they serve to Him. Our role on earth seems to be simply to undergo testing, to see if we are worthy of heaven or hell: to prove to God that we obey his commands and that we believe in him and worship him. If we fail in one short lifetime we will be punished for all of eternity. And the role of the earth, indeed of the whole vast cosmos, is simply to serve as the backdrop for this brief pathetic drama.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“The pantheist “God” is the community of all beings. It is not a He, or a She, or an It. It is a "We," and a we in the broadest and most inclusive sense, embracing everything from rocks and algae, through butterflies and humans, to suns and planets.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Al Hallaj overreached himself when he said "I am the truth" - ie "I am God." By this he meant, no doubt, that theologically God was in all of us and that he felt one with God: "You have manifested yourself so much that it seems to me that there is only You in me!" But the orthodox viewed statements like these as the deepest heresy. Al Hallaj was put on trial in Baghdad, and executed after horrific public tortures.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“The Stoics believed that the Universe itself was a divine being, a living thing endowed with soul and reason. All conventional gods were merely names for different powers of the cosmic God. Everything in the earth and heavens was the actual substance of God. The Stoics were physicalists, and yet they saw this God as a being with intelligence and purpose, a "designing fire" pervading every part of the universe. "God is the common nature of things, also the force of fate and the necessity of future events," wrote Zeno's follower Chrysippus. "In addition he is fire, and the ether . . Also things in a natural state of flux and mobility, like water, earth, air, sun, moon and stars; and he is the all-embracing whole.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Again and again pantheists have arisen from within all three religions, sometimes disguising their views carefully enough to avoid persecution - sometimes being condemned as heretics.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Let's take a look first at what Pantheism is not. Theism (from Greek theos = God) is the belief in an all-powerful, omniscient, thinking God who created the universe and watches personally over each one of us. He may be present to the universe in carrying out his actions or sustaining things in existence, but essentially he is thought of as infinite and eternal, beyond space and time. This is the God of the central traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Pantheism does have its own "God" (though many pantheists choose not to use the word), but this "God" is the Universe itself. Some pantheists such as the Stoics have believed that the Universe has a collective soul or a purpose in its evolution. But many simply revere the physical universe that science and our senses reveal to us, just as it is.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“In Islam, it is a sin to claim that any other divinity existed beside Allah. Moreover, Allah is totally self-sufficient and needs nothing to complete him. This rigorous monotheism led some of the Sufis to the logical conclusion that nothing at all exists except Allah. And since Allah is within each one of us, it is possible to attain mystical union with Allah.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“The first truly post-Christian pantheist in Europe, Giordano Bruno (15481600) paid for his intellectual courage with his life. The young Bruno became a Dominican monk, but fled Italy under suspicion the heresy and murder. He spent most of his life roaming restlessly between England, France and Germany where he could be safe from the Catholic Church’s authority. He was, beyond all doubt, a heretic in the church's terms. Like Lucretius, Bruno believed that the universe was infinite, containing an infinity of worlds just like our own. For him the Universe was God, and God was the Universe. Every individual thing had something of the whole within itself.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“The focus of pantheist reverence is not, in the normal human sense of the word, conscious. Some pantheists, such as the Stoics or Hegel and many modern pagans, have believed that the universe does have some kind of collective mind or soul and sense of purpose. Scientific Pantheism, however, does not believe there is anything resembling a soul or spirit to the universe. Conscious awareness emerges only after a long process of evolution, and requires at least a sensory system and a central nervous system.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe

“Allah is essentially all things. He permeates through all beings created and originated . . . He who knows himself understands that his existence is not his own existence, but his existence is the existence of Allah . . . For He will not have anything to be other than He. Indeed, the other is He, and there is no otherness.”
― Paul Harrison, Elements of Pantheism; A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe