The word "god" should not be capitalized...

[Cris]

Since the Judeo/Christian god is alegedly the only god then we should assume that gender has no meaning. In which case such a god is not a he or a she but an it.

 

[Godless]

Since the Judeo/Christian god is alegedly the only god then we should assume that gender has no meaning. In which case such a god is not a he or a she but an it.

That's quite correct Chris. The only defenition of the christian god is "it" for it has no identity, no body, no physical existence. Is told to us "it" is unadentifiable, unknown, yet the promoters of this god, surely speak as if they had a clue of what "it" is and what "it" wants.

Godless

 

[marv]

The only useful purpose in capitalizing "god" is to pre-empt the term.

 

[SnakeLord]

Good call. I have always written it as god, and that's how it should be.

 

[freckles]

Essays and tutor preference

On the whiteboard the tutor writes "God" but then writes "goddess". I'm just finishing an essay about the possibility of an afterlife, and I expect I'll have red marks each time I've written "god". It annoys me because I class all the deities humans have believed in, and ones we still do, in the same category, without giving preference to the current idea of the single creator. It particularly upsets my sexism radar when "He" is used alongside "God" every time! I'll just wait and see if the tutor's preference is evident on the marked paper. As usual it is a matter of adjusting to what each tutor expects of you.

 

[Prince_James]

THOU

SHALT

NOT

COMMITETH

THREAD

NECROMANCY

Thus sayeth the PRINCE.

 

[freckles]

ooops

oops I did it again...
...but not everyone is experienced in using online forums.
Thanks for the aggressive welcome Prince, consider my wrist slapped!:bugeye:

 

[Cyperium]

...because "god" is generic.

You and I can look at an oak tree, and interpret it in only one fashion. That's true with everything within range of our senses. The idea of a "god" is a concept not within the range of our senses, but only within our belief systems. Therefore "god" must be interpreted by everyone who believes in a "god".

Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship different interpretations of "god". Even denominations and sects within those groups interpret "god" differently. That, in and of itself, must be taken as proof that "god" is a generic term.

Since "god" must be generic by logical inference, it stands that "god" must also be an invention of man conforming to a particular set of standards within a user selected belief system.

Therefore, "God" does not exist. There is only some "god", by whatever name it's called; Yahweh, Jehovah or Allah, or whatever, as imagined by those who choose to believe in one.

Comments?

We believe that God is the "ultimate god" in such a way that it would be meaningless to describe Him as anything other than God, as all others become meaningless compared to Him, with that in mind and the fact that we believe it to be so, we use God as a singular definite word and not a general that can be applied to many.

It's simply a way of saying "THE God". As we believe Him to be the only living God.

Belief is what matters, what we believe to be, is what characterises our usage of the language that describes it.

 

[Cris]

It is simply unfortunate that Christians named their god God.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Yahweh is a manner to distinguish the Israelite god from others. Jehovah is a manner to distinguish the Christian god from the Jewish god from which it sprang.

Jehovah is simply the Latin phonetic spelling of the same name. In Latin, when used as consonants, J is pronounced like Y and V is pronounced like W. Yahweh is a fairly modern spelling, W is a rather recent addition to the standardized Roman alphabet and Y was not used as a consonant in olden days.

As for the vowels, remember that Hebrew is written in consonants only, except in language textbooks and in liturgical writing for people who can't actually speak the language fluently. There's no ambiguity because vowels are practically non-phonemic. It's really written in the Hebrew letters equivalent to YHVH.

There's some big deal about how you're not supposed to say YHWH's name out loud so they deliberately changed the vowels to make it not really his name, wink wink.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

If you check my postings, I usually refer to her as "the goddess."

In your faces, patriarchal evangelical monotheistic spawn of Abraham.

 

[lightgigantic]

There are numerous primary defintions of words for god

- the absolute truth
- infallible
- one to whom no one is equal or greater
- the possessor of all opulences
- the supreme controller
- beyond the dualities of material existence
- beyond the purview of empiricism

etc etc

You could call god "Harold" if you want - the important issue is whether Harold fulfills the functional criteria for god

 

[Prince_James]

Freckles:

A pleasure. But no, welcome to the forums. Just please do not bring up threads that ended months (or worse: years) ago.

It is my pet peeve and generally annoys us all. As most conversations that are six months ago are truly dead and buried.

Anyway, on topic of the the discussion:

God is both a proper and a common noun in the English language. As a proper name, it refers to the Christian deity as so named in the English language (as opposed to in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew) and as a common noun it is a word for a male deity.

 

[Taken2Extremes]

...because "god" is generic.

You and I can look at an oak tree, and interpret it in only one fashion. That's true with everything within range of our senses. The idea of a "god" is a concept not within the range of our senses, but only within our belief systems. Therefore "god" must be interpreted by everyone who believes in a "god".

Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship different interpretations of "god". Even denominations and sects within those groups interpret "god" differently. That, in and of itself, must be taken as proof that "god" is a generic term.

Since "god" must be generic by logical inference, it stands that "god" must also be an invention of man conforming to a particular set of standards within a user selected belief system.

Therefore, "God" does not exist. There is only some "god", by whatever name it's called; Yahweh, Jehovah or Allah, or whatever, as imagined by those who choose to believe in one.

Comments?

:bugeye: Hmmmmmmm range of our senses? Well Ive never felt led to interpret gravity, time, space, friction....etc etc etc Is energy a generic term..I guess by this definition it would be but it can encompass many different forms we tend to give specific names to...names we made up, usually after the guy who quantified it. Im not a physics major so someone jump in here and run with this ball....you know where it's going.