Why would you believe the witness? When people ask, "Did you see that?" they expect somebody to confirm or deny that they saw it, not just confirm that seeing is possible.
Are all believers in God automatically idol worshipers?
- Thread starter Greatest I am
- Start date
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
I believe the witness as she only confirmed my initial view.
Before I could say anything to her like, "Did you see that?", she asked me, "what did you do?
Regards
DL
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
That is not an assumption. It is a fact.
If any Christian knew God in a direct way, they would be saying so and none do in any convincing way.
Your assumption is not accurate. Having a really poor memory forces me to try really hard to never lie as I would forget that I lied and astute posters would catch me in a lie. Can't have that now can I?
Seems that you are peeved because I called believers exactly what they are. Idol worshipers of whatever mental construct they have created for themselves.
Regards
DL
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
"Yahweh" is a Hebrew word of uncertain origin, although the etymology I find most convincing is that it was borrowed from the Egyptians. The Hebrew people (they had not yet begun to identify themselves as the tribe of Judah, whence the words Jew, Jewish, Judaic, etc. are derived) believed that it was a sin to speak the name of God--such a terrible sin that anyone who spoke it would be smitten dead in an instant.
Fortunately this dovetailed with their writing system, which has only consonants. The name of God was written YHWH, but when it was read aloud, the arbitrary vowels A and E were inserted to make it possible to pronounce: Yahweh. They were sure lucky that they, apparently, did not accidentally use the actual vowels that God uses in his own name.
Anyway, the Christians regard the Old Testament as sacred as the new, so they used the Hebrew name for their shared God. However, they didn't keep the vowels from the Hebrew name, and instead wrote and pronounced it as Yehowah, which in transliteration to Latin became Jehovah--pronounced the same as Yehowah, since Classical Latin J was pronounced "Y" and Classical Latin V was pronounced "W."
I wonder whether you're familiar with the Christian denomination that calls itself "Jehovah's Witnesses." In the USA they keep a very high profile, publishing a newspaper and sending their people to knock on our doors in the hope of converting us to their faith. Anyway, this is clear evidence that the name "Jehovah" is indeed used by some Christians, if not all of them.
Michael Jackson (and surely most, if not all, of his many siblings) was raised in that church by his mother, although his father was not a member, and in fact seems to not be very religious at all.
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Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
"Yahweh" is a Hebrew word of uncertain origin, although the etymology I find most convincing is that it was borrowed from the Egyptians. The Hebrew people (they had not yet begun to identify themselves as the tribe of Judah, whence the words Jew, Jewish, Judaic, etc. are derived) believed that it was a sin to speak the name of God--such a terrible sin that anyone who spoke it would be smitten dead in an instant.
Fortunately this dovetailed with their writing system, which has only consonants. The name of God was written YHWH, but when it was read aloud, the arbitrary vowels A and E were inserted to make it possible to pronounce: Yahweh. They were sure lucky that they, apparently, did not accidentally use the actual vowels that God uses in his own name.
Anyway, the Christians regard the Old Testament as sacred as the new, so they used the Hebrew name for their shared God. However, they didn't keep the vowels from the Hebrew name, and instead wrote and pronounced it as Yehowah, which in transliteration to Latin became Jehovah--pronounced the same as Yehowah, since Classical Latin J was pronounced "Y" and Classical Latin V was pronounced "W."
I wonder whether you're familiar with the Christian denomination that calls itself "Jehovah's Witnesses." In the USA they keep a very high profile, publishing a newspaper and sending their people to knock on our doors in the hope of converting us to their faith. Anyway, this is clear evidence that the name "Jehovah" is indeed used by some Christians, if not all of them.
The original Hebrew name for God, from what I can see from the first 10 minutes of that link, was an androgynous term with both male and female characteristics.
Christianity, in it's zeal to reduce women to second class citizens, tried to write all the feminine out of scriptures and God.
Regards
DL
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
"Yahweh" is a Hebrew word of uncertain origin, although the etymology I find most convincing is that it was borrowed from the Egyptians. The Hebrew people (they had not yet begun to identify themselves as the tribe of Judah, whence the words Jew, Jewish, Judaic, etc. are derived) believed that it was a sin to speak the name of God--such a terrible sin that anyone who spoke it would be smitten dead in an instant.
Fortunately this dovetailed with their writing system, which has only consonants. The name of God was written YHWH, but when it was read aloud, the arbitrary vowels A and E were inserted to make it possible to pronounce: Yahweh. They were sure lucky that they, apparently, did not accidentally use the actual vowels that God uses in his own name.
Anyway, the Christians regard the Old Testament as sacred as the new, so they used the Hebrew name for their shared God. However, they didn't keep the vowels from the Hebrew name, and instead wrote and pronounced it as Yehowah, which in transliteration to Latin became Jehovah--pronounced the same as Yehowah, since Classical Latin J was pronounced "Y" and Classical Latin V was pronounced "W."
I wonder whether you're familiar with the Christian denomination that calls itself "Jehovah's Witnesses." In the USA they keep a very high profile, publishing a newspaper and sending their people to knock on our doors in the hope of converting us to their faith. Anyway, this is clear evidence that the name "Jehovah" is indeed used by some Christians, if not all of them.
It seems to me that using Jehovah's Witnesses, of all people, to exemplify Christian belief and practice is a rather perverse thing to do. Jehovah's Witnesses do not subscribe to the doctrine of the Trinity and thus do not regard Christ as God. This is mostly definitely not mainstream Christianity at all.
As far as I am aware, most mainstream Christians call God "God", although the names Yahweh and Jehovah (though that latter is now considered old-fashioned) are recognised as Jewish names for God in the OT.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
You're ignoring the entire tradition of mystical and contemplative Christianity. (I don't think that most people who post to boards like this realize quite how mystical the Eastern Orthodox traditions are.)
In the Roman Catholic tradition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_contemplation
And in the Orthodox tradition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosis_(Eastern_Orthodox_theology)
Similar practices are even more prominent in some varieties of Islamic Sufism. The Hindu theists are famous for their meditative and yogic practices.
And it isn't necessary to be an ascetic or a monastic. Many everyday theists say that they sense the presence or the activity of God around them. It isn't all that unusual. It needn't be some dramatic opening up of the sky, like Moses on Sinai. It can happen in everyday events.
But let's assume that you are right. Suppose that all theists really do encounter God at second hand. How does that advance your assertion, which is apparently that whatever it is that theists believe in isn't God at all? I gave the example of Paris. I've never been to Paris and have never experienced it. So why should I believe that the Paris I've read about in travel books and the Paris others who have actually been there have described to me isn't Paris at all? Obviously the words on the page and the spoken words weren't the city, but nobody has ever suggested they were. Why can't the words refer to the city?
You seem to me to implicitly be denying the possibility of linguistic reference, the possibility that words and concepts can refer to realities beyond themselves. (How that works is still an unsolved problem in philosophy, btw.)
Do you have better access to God than other people? You've written about your own "apotheosis". My question to you is this: How did you experience this 'apotheosis'? Did you see God? If so, aren't you confusing God with a vision? Did you hear God? So aren't you confusing God with a sound? If you think that you sensed God through some unfamiliar sense channel, aren't you in danger of confusing God with a sense impression (of however unfamiliar a sort)? You've mentioned telepathy. So did the direct revelation of God come to you as an idea? You obviously have some way of representing it to yourself, when you try to understand what it was, when you remember it. You call it 'apotheosis'. But is that representation in your head really God? How can you be so confident that you aren't doing what everyone else does and that you aren't just another idol worshiper?
I think that's one reason why practitioners of the 'mystical' traditions are never supposed to boast of their own attainments. Another is that in all traditions these practices are associated with reduction in what the modern West would call ego. So there's less motivation to aggrandize one's own sense of self. In Buddhism, bragging of meditative attainments and siddhis (supernatural powers) is one of the worst offenses a monk can commit, and it can get him/her expelled from the sangha.
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Well exactly.
Most of us would say we more or less believe in the existence of molecules. But that is all due to second hand reasons that are taught to us, rather than direct experience. But nobody accuses us of false belief because of it. The same obviously applies to much of religious belief. Including the more or less caveat - a great deal of belief is hedged about with circumspection and lack of certainty.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Fine. Nonetheless, despite not being regarded as "mainstream" Christians (which must surely also exclude the Christian Scientists and the Latter-Day Saints or "Mormons" but for much different reasons) they must surely be counted as Christians because they revere Jesus.
And yes, I know that the Rastafarians are extremely inclusive, regarding Christ with reverence and quoting from the Bible. But their spiritual leader is Haile Selassie, whom they call by his pre-royal name, Ras Tafari Makonnen. Anyone who puts anyone except God ahead of Jesus can't possibly be called "Christian!"
Many Christians call God "the Lord" more often than "God." Even many people who are (more-or-less accurately) regarded as pretty decent Christians use "God" primarily in curses like "Oh my God," "God damn it," or "For the Love of God."
As for "Jehovah," that is the name that the Romans gave God. As I noted in an earlier post, "Jehovah" is merely the Latin transcription of Hebrew "Yahweh." Since Hebrew is never written with vowels (except for foreign students and new converts just learning the language), it is written YHWH, leaving communities that use a complete alphabet rather than an abjad (a writing system with symbols for consonants only, which is nearly universal in the Afro-Asiatic language family, in which vowels have virtually no influence on the meaning of a word) to choose their own vowels.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Yes the Christian Scientists and Mormon are barely Christian in the normal sense, but these are just more wacky offshoots. If you want to make generalisations about Christians, at least base them on denominations with mainstream theology: Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican/Episcopalian or what-have-you, not these far out splinter movements.
Most Christians I know would not refer to God as "the Lord" outside the context of religious services or prayer, as it assumes a degree of veneration that needs to be shared by the listener in order to be appropriate. It would seem a pious affectation - and possibly annoying - in other contexts. Speaking of "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" is largely confined to bible reading and interpretation. But they might well refer to Christ or Jesus in lieu of God, seeing as belief in the Trinity makes the terms virtually interchangeable in many contexts.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I think that Yahweh (YHWH) was more or less taken to be God's personal name. The word 'god' on the other hand, while (maybe) being derived from a proto-Germanic word for 'evoke', has evolved into being more of a job description, so that being the 'god' of a city or culture names a function the deity performs. A god is what Apollo is, 'Apollo' is his name.
In the ancient world, the true name of something was often thought to have some occult connection to the thing named ( it was the ancient world's early concept of word reference, I guess) and invoking something's true name created a connection through which power could flow in both directions. Names were often used in incantations for purposes of conjuration and evocation. Magicians could command things by knowing their true names, and could also be terribly burned if power flowed the other way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name
So obviously, the true name of God was a powerful and exceedingly dangerous thing.
In the ancient world, the true name of something was often thought to have some occult connection to the thing named ( it was the ancient world's early concept of word reference, I guess) and invoking something's true name created a connection through which power could flow in both directions. Names were often used in incantations for purposes of conjuration and evocation. Magicians could command things by knowing their true names, and could also be terribly burned if power flowed the other way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name
So obviously, the true name of God was a powerful and exceedingly dangerous thing.
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DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
This is a total non sequitur. It does not address the issue of your attempting to conflate an object of worship with the entity of worship.
Since that is the core of the OP, it still stands as a great big 'nope' - by the definition of the word "idol" in the context of god-worship. An idol is a thing. The people (those to whom you refer in the OP) who worhsip god do not worship an idol.
It's as straightforward as that.
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
What real God are they worshipping if not their own mental construct of that God gleaned from the words of other people?
Regards
DL
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
An interesting question, to be sure, but not the same question asked in the opening post.
You are now conflating a mental construct with a physical object.
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
As stated, what they worship is their own mental construct of God. Just as Paris is your mental construct of Paris when you are going by what others have said of Paris. When you actually get there, it is likely different form what you have been told.
By accessing what I call a cosmic consciousness via telepathy. A process that has yet to be fully proven to exist.
For all I can know as a certainty right now, that consciousness might just be what Jung and Freud call our Father Complex. From inside that state of mind, it is likely impossible to tell the difference. I think it was more of an outside cosmic consciousness because I know for a fact that telepathy is real due to having a witness and victim of my own telepathic abilities.
Not the miracle working type of God but I think it was what most have called God for want of a better word.
I do not state or speak of my apotheosis to aggrandize my own sense of self. I do not need to as Gnostic Christians like me already place ourselves above God in the sense that what we find, we set aside. We then raise the bar of excellence and seek an even better God.
Seeking God, God as defined as the best rules and laws to live by, is a never ending seeking.
We follow the older and wiser traditions of religions and not the idol worship that those modern religions have bec0me.
http://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2
Regards
DL
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Assuming that a deity really exists, and that the words, beliefs and doctrines of at least some of the theistic traditions succeed in referring to that deity, then the answer would be that deity.
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
A mental construct is a "thing".
A believer in one God will think that everyone following a different God are idol worshipers.
They obviously are.
To themselves they are not. This is a rather hypocritical position for all believers/idol worshipers.
Regards
DL
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
As they should be as they do blend.
The mind makes a mental construct of all physical things.
Regards
DL
Greatest I am
Valued Senior Member
Yet most traditions say that God or their deity cannot be known as he is unfathomable and unknowable and works in mysterious ways.
They then ream off all that they say they know and fathom of what cannot be known or fathomed.
Round and round we go and only the most gullible will not see the lies being invented to explain God.
Regards
DL