Naturalism and Jediism

So, I've been doing a lot of research into two forms of Naturalism that are quite different from one another and I find that I love both of them: ground-of-being theism as well as process-relational theology. If people are familiar with these, does anyone here have a preference in terms of their relationship to Jediism? And if you don't think Naturalism of any kind is the right fit, why?

Would you happen to have some resources handy on those things? One can find a citation free treatise about Process-Relational Theology by Bruce Epperly easily enough for what it's worth.Ground-of-Being Theism seems a bit more obscure than that. I could find a source about Ground-of-Being Theologies.
I'm not sure what either of them have to do with various forms of Naturalism, much less how they qualify as any.
As for how I think they relate to Jediism... I don't think either of them directly conflict with the Code. If I must muster a purist critique I'd ask something along the lines of "why" rather than "why not". Since Jediism doesn't in all its forms have to deal with the nature of any gods, I don't see the necessity to construct - or deconstruct - any sort of theology like those at least insofar as they discuss possible natures of God.

The OP needs to be more specific in their descriptions. What is being referred to is not Naturalism but Religious Naturalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_naturalism

And specifically under that umbrella two schools of thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_theology

https://religiousnaturalism.org/god-as-ground-of-being-paul-tillich/

I'm not sure if I could have been more specific. Naturalism, as far as I understand it, is simply a return to detail to accurately portray reality. Be it in art, metaphysics, or theology. I specified the type of Naturalism with process-relational and ground-of-being to distinguish the type of naturalism that I was discussing. I feel that this is quite specific, perhaps overly so. I must admit that I am usually quiet and do not usually post, how is it that I could be clearer in my queries for the future?

They qualify as naturalism because they strip away the supernatural and supranatural aspects of certain lines of theology. Ground-of-being theology posits that God is not a supernatural agent but is that from which all being and non-being comes. It seems to fit nicely with the concept of the Force, but it also strips away all supernaturalism of any kind making God, and the Force, impersonal.

Process-Relational makes God part and parcel of the universe rather than sovereign lord over it. So while there is an agential being "god" this agential being is part of the natural world and shaped/changed by it. However, this also means that this being has thoughts/feelings, which means that there is a possibly of response from said God (or as I think, the Force). Part of me is drawn to the responsiveness but is weary of it at the same time...

The "why" would be the same as the other special interest groups here. As a philosophy and as a theology, Jediism seems ripe to be compared to other traditions and philosophical constructs. So the question is more of a person query if others have struggled or succeeded in pairing these two lines of thought that are attractive to me for explaining the nature of the world.

I don't know if that makes sense. I am still figuring it all out as I go and am struggling to make sense of everything. Thank you for your feedback and help!

There is a difference between the two terms. Naturalism is the "idea" or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world. Religious naturalism (RN) combines a naturalist worldview with perceptions and values commonly associated with religions. So both of the concepts you mentioned fall into the latter because the concept of GOD is inherently a religious one.

You are fine in your definitions, I was just clarifying because Gist was asking and usually just naturalism is not associated with religious ideas in philosophy. You did ask if naturalism was a good fit and so I guess you would say I disagree that it is. As for their relationship to Jediism I would assume you mean in relation to the concept of The Force, Correct? If so I would need for you to actually describe what you mean by The Force if I were to comment further.

For me it is not quite enough to recognize that Jediism encourages ponderings on or even specific thoughts about matters of philosophy in general or metaphysics in particular in order to conclude that therefore it touches upon matters of theology. On the face of it, as far as I see and as I stated before, the Code seems not to be making any comments on the nature of God. Thus, it is compatible with the forms of Naturalism - or Religious Naturalism, as the case may be - you proposed, in the sense that it does not conflict with them explicitly.
It has not been my experience that the Force is widely interpreted as in some sense anthropomorphic, be it in form or in spirit. Even when something like a "will" is alleged for it, it seldom is framed as anything comparable to the kind of will a mortal might have. I would for this reason say that, at least in a significant portion of, possibly even in most interpretations, the Force is not itself understood to be a deity and I am unaware of interpretations that pose any other deities beside it. Process theology seems to me to assert properties of God. I don't understand why this is helpful or necessary from a Jedi perspective shy of the specific interpretation involving the Force as a kind of being in its own right - which of course is as welcome as any of them...
Ground-of-Being Theism is a bit more sympathetic, I find, simply because it renders God as something properly abstract and impersonal. Again, I think that one can possibly interpret the Force in this way, the only question is "to what end?". Where without it the Force might be seen as an aspect of reality, or a purely conceptual reminder (a useful fiction, perhaps) of its coherency and omnipresence, GoB forces it to be something properly foundational. As before, this is not in principle in conflict. I couldn't claim that this is not what the Force means to you, nor could I argue why it shouldn't be. I just don't understand why it would be in the first place.

Assuming the "UU" at the beginning of your nickname is related to Unitarian Universalist, I would then assume that there is an underlying need for an overarching view of religion that both includes theological language that enables the inclusion of the "gist" of all world religions, while simultaneously attempting to embrace a scientific method to what is usually dubbed as metaphysical knowledge.

I took a shot in the dark there. I might be wildly wrong, but it seems we are in search for an umbrella label that meshes well with Jediism... and everything else.

These ideas of God becoming the universe or some component of the universe has taken on many forms over the centuries and these ideas seem to be similar to that. It is the concept that God is not the creator of the universe but actually is just transformed into the universe, thus ceasing to exist as a conscious entity. Its a from of Pan-deism that espouses the idea that nature (or a portion thereof) and God are actually one in the same.

The first problem comes in this being how you can show that this was actually the case. Namely, how do you show that a God was necessary or even probable in this creation? Secondly even if God did exist at one time and became the universe that would mean god no longer exists and we already have a name for what we experience as just "The Universe" making the concept of needing yet another name beneath that redundant. Further more if this were an ongoing act of evolution instead of a static event then there would be no means to ever ground anything in our reality as truth. reality would be subject to constant modification and interruption of continuity. I see no means by which either of these ideas really hold much water.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: ... if this [creation?] were an ongoing act of evolution instead of a static event then there would be no means to ever ground anything in our reality as truth.

Why not? And if indeed so, how is that different for a "static event"?
It is a common trope I hear usually from presuppositionalists, who insist that if there be no rigid, static reference point there might as well be no standard at all. I don't understand that. Whether reality is ever changing or not, we are still stuck with it and we have better chances of coping with it the more of it we can bring ourselves to understand. The fundamental incompleteness of that understanding is a part of our condition and that is neither alleviated nor exaggerated in either model of the universe's coming into being or subsequent being. One may argue that we do as a matter of fact have some unchanging laws we can rely on, be they rules of inference or physical relations. But then with only having one universe to look at, who is to say that our amount of "statics" is a necessary or a sufficient one? Algebraically it is not much of a deal to project a variable space down to a subspace of less dimensions, a slice of the total space at some otherwise variable thing's value being some arbitrary function of others or constant. It becomes more philosophical when considering what can be learned of a variable space that has no laws or constants in it at all. Can one meaningfully speak of something like a toplogy of that space, of any kind relation when we deliberately exclude it having any... I think so. At any rate, surely there is plenty of dependencies we can introduce, plenty of constants we can relax into being variables long before that extreme limit case becomes a concern.

Gisteron wrote:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: ... if this [creation?] were an ongoing act of evolution instead of a static event then there would be no means to ever ground anything in our reality as truth.

Why not? And if indeed so, how is that different for a "static event"?

The very point of the thought is one in which the existence of some underlying supernatural phenomena that we cant measure, study or grasp and is under some dynamic process of constant change is something we can never know anything about and as such could be capable of changing the very laws of physics as we know them on a whim. Our reality could be one that is constantly being recreated, modified or even just put into existence 5 minutes ago with only the appearance of having existed millennia. Given such a scenario it would be impossible to arrive at any truth in the reality we experience because we can never have direct access to it in any way.

Now given, a supernatural and yet static creation might bring about the same results, But still the static nature of this type of creation lends itself better to something put in motion that must work its course through to finish and therefore one can conclude in this case that, even though true nature of reality can never be known, at least we can discern some truth in the function of the reality we do experience as a constant function.

Manu is correct: I am coming to Jediism from Unitarian Universalism and so, perhaps, I have a propensity to seek for things to fall in together. However, I would ask what the Special Interest Groups do here but try and look at how Jediism and other traditions match together. It is quite possible that I am unfamiliar with the special interest groups but my conception is that these groups look at Jediism through the lens of Abrahamic traditions or vice-versa. I'm not sure that this is much different than that. Also, process-relational and GoB theology are not restricted to religion but are philosophies that are applied to a number of religions. GoB can be found across the major traditions and I have read articles from Baha'is linking process-relational thought to the Baha'i Faith. Perhaps process-relational and GoB theologies have a strong presence within my Unitarian Universalist contexts, so I am already looking at how Jediism matches these?

I also do not understand how looking for the connections is a "why" question. Perhaps I am too focused on the connections but I think there is something important to finding archetypes. From my understanding, Joseph Campbell did the same (looking at the commonalities of myths) which, ultimately, influenced the story from which the terms we use arose. But, as I mentioned, perhaps I have a leaning to do this?

If everything is in constant change, what is keeping it from changing drastically? Is the rock constantly on the verge of changing? If so, what is keeping it from changing? And if not, what is keeping it from the possibility? Process-relational theology states that God is constantly trying to lure reality towards what is best. This means that God is the solution to the problem of perpetual change while yet there is some continuity. This God does not have to be agential, but it does make God the thing necessary for keeping the world together and balanced. This is why Alfred North Whitehead even stipulated that there was a God, not out of a confession.

Not everything in the universe fits together in a neat and tidy box like some tetris puzzle and all tied up in a bow by some benevolent solution providing God though. The universe is messy and it is chaos and it is deadly and it makes no sense in the fact that it is a living breathing paradox. Trying to discern the logic from this is a futile effort. There is no answer for the question you ask. There is no solution that can be provided by a God or any other thing to the puzzle. That's because there is no fucking puzzle! Or at least there is none we will ever make sense of, there is just life. And because of that God is irrelevant. He is not the answer, he is the question. Why do men create Gods to explain things they cant understand? And then when they come to understand new things they push God out to the next plateau in lack of understanding and say, oh he exists there now because we have figured this out!! Its a self aggrandizing celebration of false victory while at the same time using God of the Gaps to fill in the blanks we will never understand so that we can sleep at night. Well I say damn the sleep, I want to get intimate with the uncomfortableness of the dilemma and face my own fears,... and wrestle with them in the sweat soaked sheets so that I may one day conquer them!! Dispel your thoughts of God, Find that concept of God in yourself and set out to defeat it! Because in the end, that is the only thing holding you back.

What you all say makes perfect sense. I cede your points.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

Gisteron wrote:

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: ... if this [creation?] were an ongoing act of evolution instead of a static event then there would be no means to ever ground anything in our reality as truth.

Why not? And if indeed so, how is that different for a "static event"?

The very point of the thought is one in which the existence of some underlying supernatural phenomena that we cant measure, study or grasp and is under some dynamic process of constant change is something we can never know anything about and as such could be capable of changing the very laws of physics as we know them on a whim. Our reality could be one that is constantly being recreated, modified or even just put into existence 5 minutes ago with only the appearance of having existed millennia. Given such a scenario it would be impossible to arrive at any truth in the reality we experience because we can never have direct access to it in any way.

Now given, a supernatural and yet static creation might bring about the same results, But still the static nature of this type of creation lends itself better to something put in motion that must work its course through to finish and therefore one can conclude in this case that, even though true nature of reality can never be known, at least we can discern some truth in the function of the reality we do experience as a constant function.

Imagine a world of intelligent beings that live in two dimensions, say, on a plane in a larger 3D space, where every point (x,y,z) they can walk or observe satisfies ax+by+cz=0 with some constants a, b, and c. They can see far from all directions of motion, but everything they can see is a projection onto their "existence plane". The equation above may well be something they'd call a law of the universe, a law of nature, of physics, if you will. Every observation they make is mostly consistent with it. Not only that, they are able to construct models to predict, say, not motion trajectories in the 3D space they are embedded in, but rather the projections of those trajectories onto their plane. Much like for us it is helpful to consider spacetime as a composite space, so it may be to them helpful to model their plane as if it were embedded in a three-dimensional space. Maybe it is not a plane exactly but slightly curved, maybe further correction laws will be discovered down the line.
Now, is it true that the world is two-dimensional? Is it true that it is three-dimensional? No, I don't think so. I don't think that the study of nature is a study of truth. They should be no more - nor less - confident in their pursuit of truth for having an additional law, an additional constant, an additional restriction to what the universe can be like to them, than we are. The laws and constants we have describe what we observe, they help us foresee the future. They do not describe what the world is truly like, if it even is "truly like" anything. And if "in truth" we live in but a slice of an n-dimensional parameter space, defined by the laws we identified, if "in truth" there are far fewer constants and laws than apply to us, that means nothing. We are still stuck in the world we live in. These laws apply to us either way. They are arguably not even "truths" about reality so much as models of what we can observe. Their purpose is then not to inform us how things generally are, but to help us work particularly with our experiences. There is nothing to tell us that the laws we perceive are general, fundamental truths. Nor are things that seem whimsical or probabilistic to us necessary without any rhyme or reason also in some submanifold of our variable space.
One way or another, we are stuck with the world we happen to be in, and there is no telling if there even are genuinely different perspectives on it, let alone different worlds altogether. Pragmatically we can speak of lawfulness and whimsy and discover what parts of our world behave in which of those ways. There is definitely some philosophical discussion to be had whether or not any truth can be discovered in a world that is entirely chaotic, but there is quite a number of laws to shave off before conceiving of such a world, and I don't think that any one of the worlds inbetween necessarily yield less truth for its explorers.

I agree with everything you said Gist. I probably need to clarify my points a bit. You are right that the underlying nature of reality may be something we can never discover in the form of a truth. What I am talking about is the truth of the nature of the reality we do experience as you say. We do experience a reality, but we can never know the absolute truth of it. So we must make some assumptions (presuppositions if you will) Those assumptions are that the reality we do experience is real, i.e. - it exists, and that we can learn something about it, i.e.- it is consistent. This is the basis of all knowledge we can obtain.

In this environment it stands to reason that a natural reality would remain consistent as it has no will nor the power to change its nature. However a sentient reality creating entity or one with unlimited power over reality would not only have this power but also quite possibly the inclination to change the nature of the reality it controls as it desires. So this would mean that in your two dimensional world that the beings there would be capable of moving in longitude and latitude only one minute while conceiving of a dimension of height. And then the next minute be capable of moving in all 3 dimensions and never even realize they could once only travel in 2. As well in this sort of reality controlled by a sentient will with unlimited power, time could stop or even go backwards and forwards each time unfolding a different series of events and we in our limited capacity would never know it. This is the sort of changeable reality that I speak of.

Sure. The problem I see is that I have no indication as to how our reality is not like that. We already know that "in truth" pretty much nothing in our world behaves deterministically, close though it may seem to it at times. We can still formulate laws of varying strength for some things whilst leaving others to be modeled strictly stochastically. Maybe in some slice of the world, a sub-world of ours, things that we perceive as "random" follow some weak or strong law that doesn't apply in our super-world. Maybe there too lives a sub-Kyrin and argues that this plane equation is a law that she would expect not to be one if there was some supernatural force that could let it fluctuate any way at will. And maybe in this same sense our world is itself but a slice of yet a broader super-world where what we think as lawful things behave as whimsically and for some reason or for none we don't get to see that.
I understand your point, in that at least as far as we can tell, there seem to be some invariants, some laws that govern if not "true" reality, at least what ever slice we get to work with, and the extent to which it is "consistent" with itself it is not being fooled around with by any magical beings. And yet some things do behave unpredictably just as we would expect them to if no law forced them to be orderly.

I'd also contest just how much of an assumption we need to make before making any sense of the world we find ourselves in. My approach to such things is rather pragmatic. We may need to operate as if we assumed things like the realness of our (presumably) experienced reality, but I wouldn't need to go as far as actually assuming it. If someone were to challenge me on whether or not the world was truly real, I'd have nothing to respond to that challenge.
The very least we need is the observations. Whether we exist, or a thing observed does is unimportant. There is an observation, some kind of factoid and we subjectively feel individually and collectively better off the better we can predict one yet to be made. Though that expression sounds like it assumes the progression of time, I'd say this is an artifact of our language only. We may well say that observations made "at a later date" are just different observations, and a model has predictive power if it is constructed from one subset of the set of observations and matches a superset of that subset irrespective of any progression of time.
Consistency, too, needn't be assumed. A model working only once, or for a short period of time because the world is inconsistent would in my formalism correspond to a model that can predict only a marginally larger set than the set it was derived from. All else being equal, it is inferior to a model that predicts a larger set of observations accurately. The inferiority of the former model is then not a statement about the consistency or lack thereof of the world it aims to describe but rather just about the quality of that model. And this is fairer, too. After all, in practice we would never say that the world is inconsistent just because our internally consistent model contradicted it in some respect. What would that even mean? What for that matter does it mean to say (or to assume) that the world is consistent?
If the model and observations are in conflict, that's all there is to it. We may be tempted to say that the observations are true and the model fails to match them, or that the model is true and that the world is whimsical. But my observations-models-space yield no such sensibilities. The only structure of that space is the measure. While that is entirely subjective, one may say arbitrary, so is everything above and beyond it. This just happens to be what I believe is the very minimal groundwork short of which no assessment of experience can proceed.

yes I can understand all you are saying there. You are right there is no indication that our reality is one of continuity or not. That is the ultimate base of our lack of knowledge. People take this base and insert God but really they have no more basis for doing this than we do for making any other such claim of continuity. So we are left only with the question. However we must start somewhere, and where is start is what I called assumptions. But more succinctly they are presuppositions we adopt in order to begin to make the argument that what we experience is real and consistent. This is one step removed from that question but for us, we can get no lower in our acquisition of knowledge.

And yes very much so the possibility exists that there are not only one but many sub-kyrins. The very basis of String Theory teaches this in its 10-11 dimensional construct. That in those higher dimensions of the subatomic exists not the reality we experience but only possibility. The possible futures and pasts that do not exist for us in our reality. And still higher in these compactified realms exists even the possibilities of non existence altogether until we finally get to a place where all things are possible and exist simultaneously. This may be the true base that our reality exists on, but will we ever know this? I cant say. What I can say is that currently all we presuppose we know is not absolute but really only a conditionally subjective model that we can compare with others to try and arrive at an objective yet still conditional conclusion. And even then the results are less than optimal.