The first is the ‘Swiss Cheese’ qualification mentioned above and here ignored. The second is that my use of the term ‘body’ as the object of proprioception rather than by definition something made of flesh and blood is a semi-technical stipulation. Atheism is compatible with awe at the Universe, by which I mean the sum total of all that is physical, and the natural order it exhibits. By pantheism I understand something more than awe, namely worship of the Universe.

This requires submission to the ‘will’ of the Universe. Most pantheists take the ‘will’ in question by analogy. And their submission to it amounts to being reconciled to what is necessary. Maybe this was Baruch Spinoza’s attitude; maybe it was Margaret Fuller’s attitude expressed by ‘I accept the universe’. Personal pantheists, however, take the ‘will’ literally.

Personal Pantheism is compatible both with polytheism and theism. I am advocating it as a version of theism, however, in that the God identified with the Universe is taken to be supremely worthy of worship. On it we first conceive of the Universe to be the divine body and then, just as so-called ‘non-reductive physicalists’ identify themselves with their bodies without reducing the mental to the physical, we identify God with the divine body.

 

Atheism is compatible with awe at the Universe, by which I mean the sum total of all that is physical, and the natural order it exhibits. By pantheism I understand something more than awe, namely worship of the Universe.