I don't object so much to universal "Nature" as a synonym for "God", so "Mother Nature" bothers me only because everyone knows that God is a man. ;)

Folks, OK, this is just and FYI. I fixed the problem where no e-mail went to proposed new supporting camps till they went live. So everyone should now get this e-mail (except the atheist camp - which objected to the change already). Everyone else still has till Tue of next week, if they want to object. (or the camps can always be moved back after that....) Brent

Hi Rich, Thanks for speaking up. I posted a [http://canonizer.com/thread.asp/2/1/1 message] some time ago, where I suggested these changes. And nobody spoke up, so I figured such a change might be OK? The change won't go live till next Tue, so any supporters can object to this proposal before then. The atheist manage page where atheists can object is [http://canonizer.com/manage.asp/2/2?class=camp here] and others can object on their manage camp pages. My desire is to have have as few camps as possible, with as much information that everyone agrees on as possible in the highest camps. The highest priority is for the reader - so they can know as easily as possible, what everyone believes, concisely and quantitatively, with the highest priority on what everyone agrees on. So, for me the spirit is to not just object, but if possible to help negotiate changes that everyone can agree on. In other words, if you are going to object to these changes, could you also propose something better or help us know how to make it better or at least acceptable to all? And of course, all this is all only what I want. What is more important to me is what does everyone else want. So I"m also always interested in what others think the goals and the 'spirit' of things should be. Thanks! Brent Allsop

There has been a sudden change here which i object to: the "Mother Nature" statement does not accord with my views and is not compatible with the subcamp that i support. What is going on?

Hi restonthewind, Thanks for pointing this out, I didn't know this. Could it still be considered that Gaia, then, is also a subset of nature or "all that we can all agree that we know"? If so, would the current Mother Nature statement still be agreeable to all, from your perspective? Or is there some change we could make that would improve the statement? Brent Allsop

"Gaia" is meaningful but is not synonymous with "God". "Gaia" describes the Earth's biosphere over eons holistically as a single, living organism. Gaia "thinks" "intelligently" insofar as we describe the development and interaction of living forms as an information processing system. This usage of "intelligence" is meaningfully equivalent to the "intelligence" of the Artificial Intelligence paradigm for example. Gaia is not the pantheistic God. She is more like a minor god in a pantheon of gods. The pantheistic God is universal.