Naturalistic Pantheism - History

History

China scholar Joseph Needham identified Taoism as "a naturalistic pantheism which emphasises the unity and spontaneity of the operations of Nature."

Stoicism rejected the dualist idea of separate ideal and the material realms, and identified the substance of God with the entire cosmos and heaven.

The 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza connected God and Nature through the phrase deus sive natura (God, or Nature).

The writer John Toland endorsed a form of pantheism in which the God-soul is identical with the material universe.

German naturalist Ernst Haeckel proposed a monistic pantheism in which the idea of God is identical with that of nature or substance.

The World Pantheist Movement promotes Naturalistic Pantheism, which it describes as including reverence for the universe, realism and strong naturalism, and respect for reason and the scientific method.

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