Does Harlod Kushner believe in God?

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wynn

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Harold Kushner, the best-selling rabbi whose solution to the problem of theodicy is "God is good, but powerless":

Does Harlod Kushner believe in God?
Can it be said that someone who believes that "God is good, but powerless" actually believes in God?
 
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Signal said:
Harold Kushner, the best-selling rabbi whose solution to the problem of theodicy is "God is good, but powerless":

Does Harlod Kushner believe in God?
Can it be said that someone who believes that "God is good, but powerless" actually believes in God?
Click to expand...


He is a professional he is neutral he is for money and no for vocation
 
There was a trend mentioned in the news today, which was that in America (and who knows where else) that God and religion are now becoming whatever people want them to be.

Well, that's how it's been all along, although limited to a few hundred notions, but now it seems it is diversifying much more.
 
Signal said:
Harold Kushner, the best-selling rabbi whose solution to the problem of theodicy is "God is good, but powerless":

Does Harlod Kushner believe in God?
Can it be said that someone who believes that "God is good, but powerless" actually believes in God?
Click to expand...

Sure, why not? We would only encounter difficulties if we kind of pre-define the word 'God' to include the the idea of omnipotence.

I believe that there's a tradition in Jewish Kabbalism that God has been... damaged... by creation somehow. His primordial unity has been broken and he's become separated from his 'Shechinah' (immanence, imagined as female, interestingly). Human beings are imagined as sparks of divinity blasted into spiritual darkness by the forces of creation. This kind of theology imagines Jewish ritual practice as a process of repair ('tikkun') in which mankind helps God recover his lost oneness. Medieval Judaism derived doctrines of free-will and explanations of the possibility of evil from these ideas. I think that some of it probably derives from ancient gnosticism.

So while Kushner's idea of divine helplessness is alien to Christian (and Muslim) ears, there's probably Jewish precedent for it.
 
Signal said:
Harold Kushner, the best-selling rabbi whose solution to the problem of theodicy is "God is good, but powerless":

Does Harlod Kushner believe in God?
Can it be said that someone who believes that "God is good, but powerless" actually believes in God?
Click to expand...

He believes in a "god".

But not the God of Abraham.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days
 
Yazata said:
I believe that there's a tradition in Jewish Kabbalism that God has been... damaged... by creation somehow. His primordial unity has been broken and he's become separated from his 'Shechinah' (immanence, imagined as female, interestingly). Human beings are imagined as sparks of divinity blasted into spiritual darkness by the forces of creation. This kind of theology imagines Jewish ritual practice as a process of repair ('tikkun') in which mankind helps God recover his lost oneness. Medieval Judaism derived doctrines of free-will and explanations of the possibility of evil from these ideas. I think that some of it probably derives from ancient gnosticism.
Click to expand...

God is just as screwed up as us??
the phrase 'created in his image' has a whole new meaning..:D
 
Yazata said:
Sure, why not?
Click to expand...

Then even I should be said to believe in God, and Richard Dawkins too!!
And you too!


With no set criteria for what a person should actually believe about God in order to be considered a believer, pretty much anyone who has any kind of stance on God, is a believer in God.
 
SciWriter said:
There was a trend mentioned in the news today, which was that in America (and who knows where else) that God and religion are now becoming whatever people want them to be.

Well, that's how it's been all along, although limited to a few hundred notions, but now it seems it is diversifying much more.
Click to expand...

That is interesting . The Protestant moment was all about a personal relationship with Jesus you know . O.K. think about this ? When the fore fathers created the United States they wanted to be inclusive of all Men . The thing is they didn't consider all men men . Even a Roman Catholic was not much of a man. Woman was not even worthy of slave levels of Black man ( Clarification, I am not talking about your wife, daughter and friends kind of relationship)
Possibility is what I mean.
Could you abuse your wife more or as much as your slave ?
That is the question I ask my self .
Your dog? Did the Man of the Times in 1776 treat his dog better than his Slave , wife , or children .
Who were they talking about when they said " All Men Created Equal "
Could it have been a narrow view of what they them selves considered Man worthy ?

Now jump forward in time to the evolution of the phrase " Created Equal " Has a new feel to it . Different connotations. More inclusive .

to include all peoples young and old

O.K. I seem to have wondered off into the forest , Sorry
Super Trollls do that

The Event : Gutenberg Bible , The Printing Press.
Now the secret words of the church become available to all people . To what end ? Your living it . Do you see the progression ? Even the fore fathers could not be fully experience because of the mind sets of the day . Do we continue to fine tune the goal ? Not that the goal is god , but liberty in its place . The right to have a personal god
 
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Yazata said:
I believe that there's a tradition in Jewish Kabbalism that God has... become separated from his 'Shechinah' (immanence, imagined as female, interestingly).
Click to expand...

It just struck me how similar that Kabbalistic idea of a male God manifested by a female Shekhinah (immanence) is to the Hindu Tantric idea of a male Shiva manifesting through his female Shakti (powers).

Interesting parallel religious evolution there, I guess.

Maybe it was more than that. Hindu Tantrism arose towards the end of the first millenium CE, in the centuries preceeding the Muslim invasions of north India. And then this kind of Jewish Kabbalism appeared in the high medieval Muslim world a few hundred years later. The Muslims doubtless knew about Hindu Shaktism, and they doubtless rejected it with great distaste. But the Jews in their midst might have picked up on it...

The style is totally different though. The Kabbalistic Shekhinah is pale and chaste compared to the striking imagery surrounding the Hindu Kali. (Who may be derived from an earlier non-Vedic east Indian goddess whose cult was folded into Hinduism, I'm guessing.)
 
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Ha. How can one believe in a powerless God. If God had no power then I would be God.
 
I am willing to entertain the thought of God having less power than we make it out to be..but think about it..how much power would God need..
ok, maybe he would need quite a bit to start the whole thing, but once it got going how much actual power would he need?

i would think he wouldn't need much..maybe just enough to blow a particle to create a butterfly effect as needed..maybe just enough to whisper in our ear..
but i wouldn't think he would need much more than that..
 
NMSquirrel said:
I am willing to entertain the thought of God having less power than we make it out to be..but think about it..how much power would God need..
ok, maybe he would need quite a bit to start the whole thing, but once it got going how much actual power would he need?

i would think he wouldn't need much..maybe just enough to blow a particle to create a butterfly effect as needed..maybe just enough to whisper in our ear..
but i wouldn't think he would need much more than that..
Click to expand...

How much power would one need to stop a giant snowball running downhill?
Surely more than stopping a snowflake.

The idea that God "set the Universe in motion and now the Universe does its thing, not directly needing God anymore" is an example of snowball thinking - with the implicit dread that there is noone who could stop the snowball.
 
Ophiolite said:
Yes, unless you insist upon a personal, opionated, highly restrictive, unfounded definition of God.
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Then, if we are to go with a more open definition of what makes for "belief in God," we all believe in God! We're all theists! :eek: :eek:
 
Signal said:
How much power would one need to stop a giant snowball running downhill?
Surely more than stopping a snowflake.

The idea that God "set the Universe in motion and now the Universe does its thing, not directly needing God anymore" is an example of snowball thinking - with the implicit dread that there is noone who could stop the snowball.
Click to expand...

why would he want to stop a snowball?

is this a 'God doesn't exist because he did not do X" argument?
(now who is defining who/what god is?:p)
 
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