World Pantheist Movement
| Founded | 1999 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Paul Harrison |
| Type | 501(c)3 non-profit religious |
| Slogan | Revering the Universe, Caring for Nature, Celebrating Life |
| Website | www |
The World Pantheist Movement (WPM) is the world's largest organization of people associated with pantheism, a philosophy which asserts that spirituality should be centered on nature. The WPM promotes strict naturalistic pantheism without belief in any supernatural beings, realms, or powers.
The WPM grew out of a mailing list started by Paul Harrison in 1997, arising around his Scientific Pantheism website. An initial group of 15 volunteers worked on a joint statement of agreed beliefs (the Pantheist Credo). The WPM officially opened for membership in December 1999.
The official views of the World Pantheist Movement are listed in the nine points of the Belief Statement (see external links). These are summarized as follows:
The specific Statement is as follows:
The WPM encourages wonder and awe at the beauty and mystery of the Universe and fosters the full range of positive emotional responses to life. It promotes ethical principles such as respect for the rights of humans and other living creatures, non-discrimination, justice and peace.
It respects the scientific method as humanity's most accurate approach for deepening its understanding of nature, while accepting that science is a never-ending quest and that some technologies have created massive social and environmental problems. It accepts that there are some questions that science may never answer - such as why anything exists, rather than nothing at all. It does not give any credence to ideas such as a separate soul distinct from the body, or of the consciousness' survival after death, but believes that people achieve a form of immortality through the ongoing effects of their actions, the things they create, others' memories, the legacy of their genes, and the recycling of their elements in nature.
It does not prescribe any particular set of religious practices, instead leaving the matter up to individuals. Pantheistic activity is viewed not as a ritual that must be upheld in order to placate gods and spirits, or to follow rules prescribed in scripture, but rather as an individual expression of one's deep feelings towards Nature and the wider Universe. Among members and friends of the WPM, the most common practices are meditation and close, daily observation of nature. Both of these are sometimes accompanied by the use of natural objects such as pebbles, shells, bark etc. About a quarter of WPM members report using some form of pagan celebration, but this is done for self-expression and fun, rather than out of literal belief in pagan theologies.
...
Wikipedia