Panconfusionism

Australian physician and anti-nuclear advocate Dr Helen Caldicott's impassioned campaigning against nuclear power makes for very informative and thought-provoking listening on this week's Encounter program.

I must say, however, the good doctor's statement, "I'm a Pantheist and Pan was the God of Nature", is quite baffling, given that Pan is the Greek god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music (the Greek paein means 'to pasture'), and pantheism is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God; or that the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent (pan means 'all' and theos means 'God' in Greek). (These are Wikipedia definitions that accord with my own understanding of the terms.)

Nonetheless, good luck to Dr Caldicott with her important campaign against a completely unnecessary mode of energy production.

Categories: nuclear, mythology, ancient+greece