Speculations on paganism

Theological materialism could be seen as having a very ancient lineage if, and that's a big if, pagan “immanence” is defined as the divine in the world and not transcendent, which seems to have been the pantheist position. This is different from the panentheist position which sees the divine as transcendent from the world as well as immanent in the world. The material immanence of the divine might be older than the transcendent view. Could the Cro Magnon's have been immanence-believing pantheists affirming a natural material Goddess giving birth to the world, as seen in their many “Venus”carvings?

Hinduism and Native American paganism, to name two, have an unbroken tradition going back to the beginning of human beings, whereas European Paganism was wiped out by the state and church. Neopaganism rose again in the West, but with a bit of a Christian influence.

Ironically, modern science and naturalism seem to be in this ancient material-immanence camp, although they claim no divinity in or outside the world. Theological materialism sees the world as containing material order but also beauty, intelligence, power and truth, with divinity defined as the highest evolution of these things, or the zenith of material and supermaterial evolution, immanent, not transcendent, in the world.

As in the oldest pagan world hypothesized in this note, the object itself, the living object, and not the symbol or definition of the object is featured in theological materialism, a tree is a tree with divine life in the tree, and Godhood is real living Godhood and not merely a symbol of something else. The written word, faith, the inward transcendent God were elevated in the great religions to the point of worshiping the non-object transcendent, eventually at the expense of material life and ongoing evolution toward real Godhood.