Yahweh = Tao

TruthSeeker

TruthSeeker

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There's a deep connection between the Tao from the Tao Te Ching and the God from the Bible. Both are "the nameless". Here's the comparison...

The first two quotes are very similar in nature, and the last one gives the meaning of the Bible's God name...


Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1
"The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The name is the mother of the ten thousand things.

Send your desires away and you will see the mystery.
Be filled with desire and you will see only the manifestation.

As these two come forth they differ in name.
Yet at their source they are the same.
This source is called a mystery.

Darkness within darkness, the gateway to all mystery."

http://www.thebigview.com/tao-te-ching/chapter01.html


"John 1
The Eternal Word
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend[a] it."
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=50


As far as the last quote goes, I don't have it because the internet is filled with crap. But somewhere in Exodus, Moses asks God what His name is and He says "Yahweh". In other words, God tells Moses that He has no name. He's the nameless. (And, supposedly, people should even "be put to death" for calling Him Yahweh because His name is NOT Yahweh, Yahweh is rather a representation of His namelessness.)

Interesting, uh?
 
In some sense, there are similarities, but there are extremely significant differences. Tao is inherent in all things, God is seen as a separate entity. Through the inherent quality of Tao, things grow from their own nature. With God, he creates from without. So, the difference is between growing and designing.
 
spidergoat said:
In some sense, there are similarities, but there are extremely significant differences. Tao is inherent in all things, God is seen as a separate entity.
Click to expand...
Who said God is a separate entity? The church? Like they know anything? :rolleyes:

God says He is within us and everywhere. Is that " inherent in all things"?

Through the inherent quality of Tao, things grow from their own nature. With God, he creates from without. So, the difference is between growing and designing.
Click to expand...
As I said, God is not separate from everything.



... that is not to say there are no differences. But thanks to the churches, the concept of God has been incredibly distorted over centuries...
 
Those are just different perspecives. The Tao is also part of nature. So everything that happens in nature is the "work" of the Tao. The difference is that Taoism stress that "work" is natural, effortless.
 
The Christian God isn't part of nature. God is the creator of nature, and seperate. God is present in all things, but he also has a SEPERATE aspect which the Tao lacks.
 
TruthSeeker said:
So the Tao is not within us? And the Tao didn't create nature?
Click to expand...

Actually I think it was Nature that created the Tao and the Christian God.
The main difference between them is that the Christian God version comes complete with a face that the people could take their personal problems too. Sort of the for runner of modern day psychologist and support groups.
 
Identical simply because both are ineffible?
You will need a lot more than that.

From my understanding, Tao and "soul" are pretty much the same thing, not Tao and God.

According to many I have read, Tao, can pretty much be translated to "breath" (as can "soul" in the Bible).
It is the energy elemental.

Tao, Soul and Prana are all very similar concepts.

God, in the Judeo-Christian concept, has intention - that starkly sets it apart from the other notions.
 
one_raven said:
God, in the Judeo-Christian concept, has intention - that starkly sets it apart from the other notions.
Click to expand...

I have to agree.

Imagine a Taoist text where the Tao bans homosexuality, or comes up with a list of rules of behavior, or gets pissed off when 'he' is not listened or worshipped above other gods, or destroys certain groups of people to protect his chosen ones

and so on.

One could play mind games and twist these (behaviors and attitudes) into the Tao, but I doubt the intent of the writers of the OT were in line with these mind games.
 
one_raven said:
God, in the Judeo-Christian concept, has intention - that starkly sets it apart from the other notions.
Click to expand...
And that's precisely the misconception. God clearly stated "I am". If He just "is", He doesn't have intention in the sense of action. He flows like the Tao flows. Think about it. You are talking about an incomensurable being, which permeates everything, knows everything and "makes things happen". Tao is the same. The difficulty here lies of the definition of action, intention and wu wei. Tao "does" wu wei. So does God. That's just implicit in the Bible, while it is very explicit in Taosim. Both Tao and God signifies the natural course of nature. Both were conceived to explain life and natural occurances.
 
Grantywanty said:
I have to agree.

Imagine a Taoist text where the Tao bans homosexuality, or comes up with a list of rules of behavior, or gets pissed off when 'he' is not listened or worshipped above other gods, or destroys certain groups of people to protect his chosen ones

and so on.
Click to expand...
Do you really think Leviticus is a good account for a supposedly loving and wise "God"? Think about it. God asks Moses to come up the mountain. He gives Moses 10 commandments. 10 commandments. By the time you get to the NT, there are THOUSANDS of laws. Jesus once walked to the temples and started overturning everything and said to the pharissees that they are hypocrates, because God had given them 10 commandments and there were now thousands. I can't remember the scriptures, unfortunately. I found a few interesting ones though...



Matthew 23:23
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Matthew 23:25
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Mark 11:18
The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.


Oh well... :shrug:
 
TruthSeeker said:
There's a deep connection between the Tao from the Tao Te Ching and the God from the Bible. Both are "the nameless". Here's the comparison...

The first two quotes are very similar in nature, and the last one gives the meaning of the Bible's God name...


Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1
"The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The name is the mother of the ten thousand things.

Send your desires away and you will see the mystery.
Be filled with desire and you will see only the manifestation.

As these two come forth they differ in name.
Yet at their source they are the same.
This source is called a mystery.

Darkness within darkness, the gateway to all mystery."

http://www.thebigview.com/tao-te-ching/chapter01.html


"John 1
The Eternal Word
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend[a] it."
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 1&version=50


As far as the last quote goes, I don't have it because the internet is filled with crap. But somewhere in Exodus, Moses asks God what His name is and He says "Yahweh". In other words, God tells Moses that He has no name. He's the nameless. (And, supposedly, people should even "be put to death" for calling Him Yahweh because His name is NOT Yahweh, Yahweh is rather a representation of His namelessness.)

Interesting, uh?
Click to expand...

Intresting...but in error.
Yah weh or Jehovah, has a meaning just as all names from the Hebrews had litteral meaning.

Michael=one who is like God
Mo′ses= [Drawn Out [that is, saved out of water]].
Jesus=Jehovah is salvation
Josiah=May Jehovah Heal; Jehovah Has Healed].
John=[English equivalent of Jehohanan, meaning “Jehovah Has Shown Favor; Jehovah Has Been Gracious”].
Job[Object of Hostility].
Jer·e·mi′ah= [possibly, Jehovah Exalts; or, Jehovah Loosens [likely from the womb]].

You can see the trend. The prevelance names with the strong "JAH" sound indicate likely that Jehovah is likely the closess propper pronouciation of the divine name.

The devine name itself. The Tetra grammaton (meaning four letters) Yah weh in the best english figurings means, litteraly "He who causes to become"

translation here is "He becomes what ever is necessary to fulfill his purpose"

Scholars differ on the pronouciation of the divine name. Some say it is likely it is Jesus name that we are miss pronoucing graving due the sheer amount of names that are pronouced as "Jehovah" with a strong "Jah" as well as this being the short form of "Jehovah" as seen in the word hallelujah

Nameless the God of the bible is not. Not only does his name have a meaning but it also occurs more than 7,000 times in both Testaments.
 
I must admit I do not know the connection between Jehovah and Yahweh, which makes it much difficult for me to discuss this subject of differing names. However, from what I've read, the names "Jehovah" and "Yahweh" means the same. My gut feeling says that "Jehovah" is the Hebrew version (sounds very Hebrew to me) while "Yahweh" is the Aramaic version. This subject is particularly difficult because they were not allowed to pronouce the "name" of God. Since they relied on word of mouth for centuries, the actual real "name" of God is, obviously, nothing more then a mystery. Also, it is likely that they actually WROTE the name of God in stone at some point in order to communicate, however, if you know Hebrew, you will know that in Hebrew, the vowels are traditionally not written. In other words- there are no vowels. So the name of God was likely written with all its consonants, but devoid of vowels, in which case the actual name of God could not be properly communicated.

Did I lose you there? :D
 
TruthSeeker said:
Do you really think Leviticus is a good account for a supposedly loving and wise "God"?
Click to expand...

So you are discounting an entire book of the Torah - perhaps the most significant book of The Law, the one which defines the entire Jewish way of life and set of rules - because it does not fit with the idea you have "a gut feeling" about?
That's convenient.

Perhaps it is your understanding of "I am that I am" that is flawed, rather than the Torah.
 
TruthSeeker said:
He gives Moses 10 commandments. 10 commandments. By the time you get to the NT, there are THOUSANDS of laws.
Click to expand...
Try reading it in context.
The Tanakh was written as a history of a people.
The Laws (and history of those laws) are depicted in the Torah.
The Ten Commandments is part of that history.
The Ten Commandments, however, is not the whole of Mosaic Law.
Those "thousands" of laws were given to Moses by God within his lifetime (within the 40 years of wandering the desert, in fact) - LONG before the New Testament.

TruthSeeker said:
Jesus once walked to the temples and started overturning everything and said to the pharissees that they are hypocrates, because God had given them 10 commandments and there were now thousands. I can't remember the scriptures, unfortunately. I found a few interesting ones though...
Click to expand...
Wrong.
It had nothing to do at all with the "thousands" of laws.
Read the passage...
NIV Matthew 21:12 Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'"

You can't simply pick two words (two words whose meaning have been hotly debated for centuries), take them completely out of context to come up with your own meaning for them and use them to overturn the rest of the book they were written in.
The whole point of the Torah is that God is our leader, father and judge - God most certainly has intention in the Jewish view - and they get that view from the Tanakh - which they wrote themselves.

You couldn't be more wrong in your assessment.
You need to revisit your interpretation of "I am that I am" if if renders the entirety of the book it is written in completely false.
It makes no sense.
 
TruthSeeker said:
And the Tao didn't create nature?
Click to expand...

No it didn't.
Your understanding of the Tao is about as lacking of your understanding of Judaism.

You tend to take little bits and pieces and run with them, thinking you have found truth - the same thing you accuse theists of - now THAT is interesting.
You can't fully understand the parts without understanding the whole.
 
one_raven said:
From my understanding, Tao and "soul" are pretty much the same thing, not Tao and God.

According to many I have read, Tao, can pretty much be translated to "breath" (as can "soul" in the Bible).
It is the energy elemental.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that I agree with this assertion. From what I have read Tao is more often interpreted as meaning: "Path" or "Way".

I'm certain that Tao and Soul are not synonymous. It is not often that one can see the word soul used to describe physical actions. (i.e. The soul raises or lowers/takes or gives etc. [The distinction being that this could be used to describe the metaphysical but not the physical]).

Tao as I comprehend it is an acknowledgement of our very real, although insubstantial, link with creation as a whole. The nature of which, it is futile to even attempt to quantify. You have to accept it for what it is - good or bad - and "go with the flow"...
 
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