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Simply stated, Pantheism is the view that everything is of God. More detailed definitions tend to emphasize the idea that nature and/or the universe (the terms are used synonymously in this sense) is somehow equivalent to the 'theological principle' of 'God'.

There is a difference of opinion of whether 'the universe is God' is the best way to state the belief, or whether 'the universe is equivalent to the idea of God' would best express it.

This brings up an extremely important distinction, namely if God is simply another way to say 'existence' or all, not necessarilly godlike in any traditional sense (this view is often scoffed at by atheists and personaltheists alike) or if God is a conscious, impersonal sum total of all existence.

One way to describe certain interpretations of pantheism is to imagine that mankind is to God as an individual blood cell in a blood vessel or vein is to a person. While the blood cell may be aware of its own environs, and even has some choices (freewill) between right and wrong (killing a bacteria, attacking other blood cells, or perhaps, just doing nothing, among countless others) it has little conception of the greater being of which it is a part.

This conception of God is not terribly different from Ancient Aryan originated Brahman Hinduism. It is important to note, however, that not all modern interpretations of pantheism would find this analogy very meaningful, and for that matter, not even all pantheists believe in free will. This is indicative of a wide diversity of pantheist belief which will be explored throughout this article.

Pantheism is often attacked as being vacuous, since it appears to some to do little more than redefine the word 'God' to mean 'world' or 'universe'. In the view of some critics who maintain this position, the most important task for pantheists then is to show that the universe has properties which deserve it being called 'God'.

This is most often accomplished through use of arguments which attempt to relate the nature of the universe to the theological attributes traditionally assigned to a deity. In this way, pantheists maintain that it is appropriate to regard nature in spiritual terms.

It should be noted, however, that there is no significant agreement that making 'god' synonymous with 'universe' must necessarily make either term less meaningful. Some pantheists do maintain that such an arrangement serves to create a new and potentially more insightful conception of both terms.

Some modern interpretations of pantheism place little emphasis on the concept of 'God' at all. This tendency, however, raises concern that this 'modern pantheism' is really no longer pantheism at all, but something more like 'spiritual naturalism' or marxist pan-atheism. After all, these critics ask, if we remove the God concept from pantheism, what is the purpose of retaining the 'theism' suffix?

In answer to this objection, naturalistic pantheists maintain that the 'pan' prefix (meaning 'all') modifies the 'theism' suffix (meaning 'god') to such an extent that pantheism in fact has little to do with traditional theism. Most Classical Pantheists or Cosmotheists completely reject this "modification" as being a "bait-and-switch" tactic from Classical "pantheism" to Marxist "pan-atheism".

In the view of some modern adherents, however, the objection to using the historical term 'pantheism' for the naturalistic interpretation of this viewpoint is essentially valid, and these adherents usually admit that the term is maintained only for the sake of convenience if not accuracy.

Traditional or 'classical' pantheists or cosmotheists regard this 'modern pantheism' as simply a more reverent and naturalistic form of pan-atheism, since this unusual conception of god is seen as bending the traditional definition so far as to make it atheism.

A typical argument intended to show that the term 'pantheism' remains appropriate for the modern (naturalistic) interpretation thereof is based upon the aforementioned fact that some contemporary pantheists see the term 'God' as a synonym for nature. If nature is equivalent to the theological concept of God, then saying 'all is God' (pan-theism) is the same as saying 'all is nature.'

Accordingly, this is the way that many pantheists choose to view the term 'pantheism' - All is nature, nature is All.

Pantheism, then, is (in this viewpoint) essentially a form of spirituality that is based upon nature rather than upon supernatural entities such as personal deities. Accordingly, it is widely accepted that the modern interpretation of pantheism is essentially naturalistic, and therefore that it constitutes a form of naturalistic spirituality.

However, general acceptance of naturalistic pantheism has been undermined to some extent by the existence of considerable disagreement within the pantheist community as to whether or not ideas such as 'sprituality' are truly applicable to a naturalistic worldview. Although there has been no clear conclusion that has been reached to date, the rough consensus currently holds that within a pantheistic framework, 'spirituality' can be meaningfully and consistently interpreted as 'the human relation to the numinous', as Carl Sagan and some others have suggested.

In addition, a number of modern (naturalistic) pantheists further identify themselves as 'mystics,' which only creates another potential source of confusion, although the debate over this has been somewhat less heated than that over other terminology. It is widely (although not universally) accepted that the essence of mysticism within the context of pantheistic thought lies in a 'direct knowledge or a direct experience of God,' which is obviously readily attainable by the pantheist, considering that his or her 'God' is all that exists.

As the above elaborations show, the pantheist community is one that has, in modern times, been somewhat fragmented in terms of doctrine. Additionally, sectarianism has appeared within the community of 'modern pantheists', taking the form of two large organizations and a host of many smaller ones.

The one large pantheist organization which promotes a more agnostic naturalistic pantheism is the Universal Pantheist Society (UPS). The other large organization, the World Pantheist Movement (WPM) promotes mostly only a marxist pan-atheism.

Although the UPS is the older of the two, it has seen decreased activity in recent years.

The WPM (founded by former UPS vice-president Paul Harrison), on the other hand, has expanded considerably due to its promotion of 'Scientific Pantheism', which many critics submit is essentially nothing more than pan-"atheism for nature lovers".

This charge seems to stem from the fact that 'scientific pantheism' is not only naturalistic, but is avowedly marxist materialistic as well, and with little tolerance for any reference to any traditional theological or classical pantheistic concepts.

Despite a history of controversy ignited by the WPM's appearance as a pan- atheistic sect within the UPS and its eventual seccession from that organization, the WPM approach has met with some acceptance, even while it may not actually constitute any strict pantheism.

Classical pantheism of the sort that equates Nature and God without attempting to effectively redefine or minimize either term is essentially a classical concept, represented on the one hand by Spinoza, and on the other by some forms of Aryan Hinduism and even Kabbalistic mysticalJudaism.

This classical pantheism is sometimes referred to as 'dualistic pantheism' due to the importance placed on the concept of immanence, in which all matter is suffused with 'spirit' or soul and the two are often seen as being co-substantial.

There is a movement within the 'Classical Pantheist' or cosmotheist community which maintains that this dualistic pantheism is in fact the authentic variety of pantheism, whereas the modern marxist or pan-atheist approach is seen as being only a pseudo-pantheism.

An argument frequently used to support this position frequently holds that the majority of people with classical or dualistic 'pantheistic' beliefs mostly do not refer to themselves as being "pantheistic" at all, and that few have likely even ever heard of the term, although the vast bulk of these pantheists do mostly subscribe to a dualistic or to the classical pantheist or cosmotheist interpretations.

While this may actually be the case, a counter-argument still points to the fact that philosophical Taoism is still a naturalistic pantheism with no small number of adherents of its own, although, any "naturalistic pantheism" need not be any marxist pan-atheism.

Although the Universal Pantheist Society ostensibly accepts pantheists of all varieties, in practice, it too tends toward the 'marxist' (naturalistic) pan-theism.

To understand all this, it must be re-emphasized that the theological concept which the term 'pantheism' was originally intended to describe (the equivalence of the traditional God concept with Nature) it is considered to be essentially obsolete by many contemporary members of the 'modern marxist pan-atheist' community, whose real intent in describing themselves as being 'pantheists' is chiefly only to identify themselves as adherents of a marxist and pan-atheistic anti-"spirituality" by only hi-jacking a respectable and established religious term: pantheism.

Opponents and critics of marxist pan-atheism and true adherents of all of the 'classical' interpretation of pantheism do correctly charge that this deceptive hi-jacking of religious terms only constitutes the intentional misuse of their religious terminology, and is only the disguised attempt to justify their materialistic and nihlistic atheism by deceptively mislabeling it as being a pantheism.

Some naturalistic pantheists, recognizing this, are willing to concede that the term may in fact be more appropriate for the dualists than for themselves, and that there is currently some discussion over several possible alternative terms for the worldview most commonly being promoted as being 'pantheism' today, but, that is truely only disguised marxist pan-atheism.

It is traditionally held that one important (classical) and dualistic pantheistic system was that advanced by Baruch Spinoza. There is currently some disagreement as to whether or not Spinoza's system is best regarded as being classical pantheism or as being panentheism.

A few of the notable people who have held classical or dualistic pantheistic world-views are Albert Einstein, Giordano Bruno and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

See also: Hinduism, kabbalah, panentheism, universism Cosmotheism, Cosmology