[WikiEN-l] NPOV COSMOTHEISM ARTICLE

Thu May 6 17:22:37 UTC 2004

('''Cosmotheism''' is a form of [[classical
pantheism]] that 
identifies [[God]] with the ''cosmos'', that is, with
the 
[[universe]] as a unified whole.

==Overview==

Cosmotheism asserts that "all is within God and God is
within all". 
It considers the nature of reality and of existence to
be mutable and 
destined to co-evolve towards a complete universal
consciousness, or 
godhood.

[[etymology|Etymologically]], ''cosmotheism'' differs
from 'pan-
theism' in that "pan" is [[Ancient Greek|Classical
Greek]] 
for ''all'', while the Greek word ''cosmos'' means an
orderly and 
harmonious universe. Cosmotheists take this as meaning
the divine is 
immanent to reality and consciousness, an inseparable
part of an 
orderly, harmonious, and whole universal system. 

In its broadest sense, the word cosmotheism may be
considered simply 
as being synonymous with ''[[pantheism]]'', although
not all modern 
pantheists would accept Cosmotheism as a synonym for
their own 
worldview due to the historical association of
Cosmotheism with a 
political movement, [[white separatism]], which some
within the 
pantheist community may find objectionable. 

According to a Cosmotheist Web site dedicated to the
late Dr.
[[William Pierce|William L. Pierce]]:

:"''Cosmotheism is a religion which positively asserts
that there is 
an internal purpose in life and in cosmos, and there
is an essential 
unity, or consciousness that binds all living beings
and all of the 
inorganic cosmos, as one.''"

:"''What is our true human identity is we are the
cosmos made self-
aware  and self-conscious by evolution. ''"

:"''Our true human purpose is to know and to complete
ourselves as 
conscious individuals and also as a self-aware species
and thereby to 
co-evolve with the cosmos towards total and universal
awareness, and 
towards the ever higher perfection of consciousness
and 
being.''"[http://www.cosmotheism.net/]

Some claim [[Albert Einstein]] was a Cosmotheist, 
[http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1982/JASA3-82Seeger.html],
along with 
[[Carl Sagan]], [[Benedict Spinoza]] and other
historical 
figures—although there is no quoted evidence of any of
these 
three claiming to be "cosmotheist" as such, and all
could also be 
said to be [[Pantheist]].

==Mordekhay Nesiyahu's cosmotheism==
In Israel, Cosmotheism was also described by
[[Mordekhay Nesiyahu]], 
one of the foremost ideologists of the Israeli Labor
Movement and a 
lecturer in its college Beit Berl in Israel. 

In ''Cosmotheism — Israel, Zionism, Judaism and
Humanity 
towards the 21st Century'', Nesiyahu proposed not to
just assume the 
existence of God, being "prior to all that was
created," but to 
consider God as only being a result of the development
of the 
universe and the consciousness of all of humankind. 

Divinity in this particular view is inherently a human
invention. 

The development of the divine (or what the believer
would qualify as 
being "the revelation of the Divine") was, in
Nesiyahu's opinion, 
both the condition for a more exalted human
functioning and all that 
bears the fruit that comes out of it. 

In Nesiyahu's universalist re-imagining of a secular
divinity, the 
universal celebration of Cosmotheism is the basis for
rebuilding the 
Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and is also a secular
ethnically Jewish 
and a Zionist contribution to all of humankind.

==Dr. William L. Pierce's Cosmotheism==

===Origins===
In the United States, ''cosmotheism'' sometimes refers
to a religion 
adopted in [[1978]] by [[National Alliance]] founder
and [[white 
separatist]]  the late Dr. [[William Pierce|William L.
Pierce]]. 
Pierce affirmed his cosmotheist belief in a speech
that he once gave 
entitled "Our Cause":

:''"All we require is that you share with us a
commitment to the 
simple, but great, truth which I have explained to you
here, that you 
understand that you are a part of the whole, which is
the creator, 
that you understand that your purpose, the purpose of
mankind and the 
purpose of every other part of creation, is the
creator's purpose, 
that this purpose is the never-ending ascent of the
path of creation, 
the path of life symbolized by our life rune, that you
understand 
that this path leads ever upward toward the creator's
self-
realization, and that the destiny of those who follow
this path is 
godhood."''

Pierce's interpretation of cosmotheism 
([http://baldur.libertyforum.net:8079/Our_Cause.txt]) 
was greatly 
influenced by several disparate factors:
interpretations of [[George 
Bernard Shaw]]'s play ''[[Man and Superman]]'';
strains of [[German 
Romanticism]]; [[Charles Darwin|Darwinian]] concepts
of [[natural 
selection]] and of survival of the fittest, mixed with
the related 
early [[20th century]] [[eugenics|eugenic]] ideals;
and [[Ernst 
Haeckel]]'s version of [[monism]].

===Religion, society, and race===

The foundation of Pierce's Cosmotheism was essentially
similar to 
classical monistic pantheism — he recognized no
physical 
difference or separation between human and divine,
between  creator 
and created — but with a few differences.

Pierce described his form of Cosmotheism as being
based on "[t]he 
idea of an evolutionary universe ... with an evolution
toward ever 
higher and higher states of self-consciousness," and
his political 
ideas were centered on racial purity and [[eugenics]]
as the means of 
advancing the [[white race]] first towards a
superhuman state, and 
then towards godhood. In his view, the white race
represented the 
pinnacle of human evolution thus far and therefore
should be kept 
genetically separate from all other races in order to
achieve its 
destined perfection in Godhood.

Dr. Pierce  believed in a hierarchical society
governed by what he 
saw as the essential principles of nature, including
the survival of 
the fittest. In his social schema, the best-adapted
genetic stock, 
which he believed to be the [[white race]], should
remain separated 
from other races; and within an all-white society, the
most fit 
individuals should lead the rest. He thought that
extensive programs 
of "racial cleansing" and of [[eugenics]], both in
Europe and in the 
U.S., would be necessary to achieve this
socio-political program.  

His [[National Alliance]] was to be the political
vanguard and the 
spiritual priesthood of this program, which was
designed ultimately 
to bring about a "White racial redemption". His
Cosmotheist Community 
Church, which was to be the next step of this plan,
was set up in the 
mid-1970s, alongside Pierce's other political projects
— the 
National Alliance, National Vanguard Books, and the
weekly 
broadcast ''American Dissident Voices'' — all from his
mountain 
retreat headquarters in West Virginia.

===Critical assessments===
Pierce's views have been characterized as a version of
early 
twentieth century racial anthropology, but driven by
spiritual, as 
well as scientific, beliefs. This area of his belief
was likely 
influenced by his early association with [[George
Lincoln 
Rockwell]]'s [[American Nazi Party]]. Others have
noted the German 
Romantic roots that Pierce's ideas shared with
[[Nazism]] and have 
observed similarities between the two ideologies:
Pierce's plan for 
white divinity was similar to [[Adolf Hitler]]'s
vision for 
the ''[[Master race|Herrenvolk]]''; also, his attacks
against Jews 
as "parasites" on white society, who would prevent the
white race 
from reaching its destined godhood by replacing the
white elite with 
their own kind, echoed previous Nazi descriptions of
Jewish traits 
and character.
[http://www.natvan.com/who-rules-america/wra.pdf]

Other criticisms have been harsher if not as
factually-accurate; for 
example, the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] has
characterized 
Pierce's Cosmotheism as "an unsuccessful tax dodge".
Followers of 
Pierce's cosmotheism do call many of these
characterizations 
erroneous, as can be seen from this part of the Dr.
Griffin interview 
with Dr. Pierce below from "The Fame of a Dead Man's
Deeds":

Dr Pierce-"And then there was a big fight with the IRS
which I lost. 
They said that we weren't a church. They were
obviously under 
pressure to take away the tax exemption we had. The
IRS sent some 
agents out here to check us out. I still have the
report they wrote. 
It had things like the road out here was very rough
and not conducive 
to people getting to the services, and that we didn't
have enough 
chairs and where were people going to sit, and there
was no central 
heating system and so there couldn't be services in
the winter— a 
bunch of baloney." 

Dr. Griffin-(The IRS revoked Pierce's church status
and the 
revocation was upheld in court. Pierce thinks the IRS
was responding 
to pressure applied on it by the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai 
B'rith. While the vast majority of people view the ADL
in a positive 
light, as an opponent of bigotry and intolerance,
Pierce sees it as a 
Jewish instrument of thought control and the
abridgment of freedoms. 
He contends that the ADL seeks to harm or even destroy
anyone or 
anything that gets in the way of the Jewish agenda for
this country, 
which includes him and his organization.) 

Dr. Griffin-"You think your racial views were the real
reason the IRS 
got on your case?" 

Dr. Pierce-"If I had been preaching a doctrine that
didn't irritate 
the Jews they would have left us alone. There are all
kinds of snake-
handling cults and everything else up here in these
hills, and the 
IRS lets them call themselves a church and doesn't
bother them. It is 
no big drain on the federal budget, and the IRS stays
in good graces 
generally by not bothering people more than it has to.
But in our 
case they were determined to get us, and it was
strictly because of 
what I was teaching on racial and Jewish matters." 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------

==Related articles==
*[[Classical pantheism]]
*[[Creativity Movement]]
*[[Eugenics]]
*[[List of Pantheists]]
*[[Pan-atheism]]
*[[Panentheism]]
*[[Pantheism]]

==Uncritical Reference for Nesinyahu's Cosmotheism==
*''Cosmotheism, Israel, Zionism, Judaism and Humanity
- towards the 
21st Century'' by Mordecai Nesinyahu (Poetica - Tuvi
Sopher 
Publishing, Tel Aviv.)

===[[Jewish]] or [[Marxist]] Critical References for
Dr. Pierce's 
Cosmotheism===

*''Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White
Separatism'', by 
Mattias Gardell[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:aDOMqBmbq40J:www.spunk.org/texts/pubs/llr/sp000382.txt+Mattias
+Gardell+and+Sweden+International&hl=en] (ISBN
0822330717)
*''The Turner Diaries and Cosmotheism: William
Pierce's Theology of 
Revolution'', by Brad
Whitsel[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:r4e9cNal8AMJ:www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/titles.html+Brad+Whi
tsel+Marxist&hl=en]  published in ''Nova Religio''
Vol.1, No.2, April 
1998.

==External links==

=== Mordekhay Nesiyahu's cosmotheism ===

*[http://members.tripod.com/~TheHOPE/mikt2.htm
Nesiyahu's 
interpretation of Cosmotheism]

===Dr. William L. Pierce's Cosmotheism===

====[[Jewish]], [[Marxist]], [[Pan-atheist]], and
[[Fundamentalist]] 
[[Christianity]]  Criticisms====

*[http://www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/usanazis/cosmotheism.html
''The 
Turner Diaries and Cosmotheism: William Pierce's
Theology of 
Revolution''] by Brad
Whitsel[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:r4e9cNal8AMJ:www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/titles.html+Brad+Whi
tsel+Marxist&hl=en]  (''Nova Religio'')
*''Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White
Separatism'', by 
Mattias Gardell[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:aDOMqBmbq40J:www.spunk.org/texts/pubs/llr/sp000382.txt+Mattias
+Gardell+and+Sweden+International&hl=en]  (ISBN
0822330717)
*[http://www.pantheist-
index.net/Distortions_Aberrations/Hugenholtz.html ''A
Blemish on the 
Blossom: Pantheism and White-Supremacist Hate
Groups''] by Esther 
Hugenholtz[http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:EqSl-
UZPAR8J:www.geocities.com/esther_hugenholtz/introduction.html+Esther+H
ugenholtz+(Pantheist+Index)+&hl=en]  (''Pantheist
Index'')
*[http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/p/pseudo-pantheism.html]
  Pseudo-
Pantheism by
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Naturyl]  
(Encyclopedia4U)]
*[http://66.102.7.104/search?
q=cache:ZqR0uWfk_V4J:www.christianseparatist.org/briefs/sb1.03.html+Co
smotheism+and+Pastor&hl=en  The Devil and its False
Faces]  by 
[http://www.christianseparatist.org/index.html]

====Cosmotheist Advocacy====
*[http://www.cosmotheism.net Cosmotheism site]
**[http://bks.ark11.net/dpm.htm A Tribute to the late
Dr. William L. 
Pierce]
**[http://www.cosmotheism.net/thepath.shtml The Path],
by Dr. William 
L. Pierce 
**[http://www.cosmotheism.net/onlivingthings.shtml On
Living Things], 
by Dr. William L. Pierce
**[http://www.cosmotheism.net/onsociety.shtml On
Society] by Dr. 
William L. Pierce
**[http://www.cosmotheism.net/affirmations.shtml An
example of a 
Cosmotheist affirmation of belief]
*[http://forums.originaldissent.com/showthread.php?t=12548
Interview 
with Dr. William L. Pierce on Cosmotheism] (from ''The
Fame of a Dead 
Man's Deeds'' by Dr. Robert Griffin)

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