The word “god” refers to something specific and separate, when no such separation exists. If it were all encompassing, it should not be viewed in parts.
comments?
The difference of your opinion is the foundation for my illusionary belief system.
A definition would suggest separation, which goes against my point.
The closest I could get would be saying,“us-ness.”
I view three parts to God.
words are where the perceived separation begins. slippery words. deception.
I’m not being hostile when I ask you this: do you understand what I mean by saying your difference of opinion is the foundation for my illusions. And the reverse.
Of course we do.
“there is no god when there is nothing but god”
I dont know who I’m trying to prove this to.
What a lonesome proposition. No wonder why I split.
God is all => there is no god
(where god=separate entity)
I am not sure how to understand it, but I’ll give it a try. This is how I see it: God is supposed to be all that there is, but man has chosen to turn his back on god (fell from god’s grace). According to some interpretations of the original sin (fall of man), man has chosen not to see things from god’s point of view (in a sense, separated himself from god), so for a man, god is, indeed seen as a separate entity (even though, in reality, it is not so).
Hence…difference of opinion is the foundation of illusion (of separate god).
(I hope that makes sense). 
Very good interpretation. =D> I wont pretend to know the reason for the perceived separation. But I can guess: god as a whole was in love with itself, but lonely, and so spilt into many different forms.
There is no god when there is nothing but god means there’s no room for religion, worship, or believers, even though those things come into play due to the perceived separation.
god has seperated himself or herself from us in gods demands .
What’s the point of calling everything God? What are the implications of everything being God, kev? Teleology? Design? Purpose? Duality? etc?
Perhaps the point would be to return to the source as a whole. Beyond that, I dont know.
yeah, when you asked me to define the term, I was thinking I am trying to be as termless as possible and he wants specifics. I can offer nothing in that regard. sorry if that wastes your contemplation.
I’ve always been of the belief that there is no such wastage, I just didn’t want you to think I was being difficult about the key term. After all, what else could we unlock the mystery with. . .
Right now I’m thinking not of god, but of monkeys humping aliens. That’s just the mood I’m in.
I’m glad you have such a filter. Good to know others are out there in the same capacity.
equivalent. Although I’m not sure pantheists practice anything other than understanding. No rituals that I’m aware. Which I like.
But the thread title comes from Tao Te Ching. So apparently Taoism relates in the same way.
what definition of pantheism are you referring too ?
the sacred wikipedia definition.
The god for which we argue as existing or not existing is an image. That image must be removed or “let go of” in order to actualize the reality of such a god. The image we cling to obscures the kind of truth that we are arguing for or against.
These ideas are the influence of Alan Watts. Anyone listen to his podcasts?
It seems to me that there are two types of unity, an absolute unity, which is a simplex, and a secondary unity, which is a unity with parts. Difference and distinction can exist in a unity.
I don’t see God as separate. God is just a way for one part of the whole to refer to another. The creator created within himself, for to have created outside himself there would have to be void and nothingness between him and this ‘other’. There is no void, and so no absolute ‘otherness’. All is one, but the one clearly has parts. These parts have distinction, and so can say ‘other’, but they are not ‘separate’.
Meister Eckhart echoes this in one of his sermons:
“In my birth, all things were born, and I was the cause of my own self and of all things. Had I wished that I should not exist, then neither would anything else have existed. And if I did not exist, then neither would God have existed as ‘God’. I am the cause of God’s existence as ‘God’.”