Why (or Why Not) is the Name of a Deity Important?

Hindus have many Gods and Goddesses. We choose our deity according to our own inclination.
We have the choice and no compulsion (that is why I am an strong atheist).

Sunstone said:

"God is not the name of god, but merely an opinion about him." -- anonymous Pythagorean philosopher.​

People get attached to names. We do it reflexively. It's an aspect of our nature. For instance, whether to call something "Siva","Yahweh", "Jehovah", "Allah", or "Vishnu" becomes of huge significance to us. More important to many of us than whether we ourselves have any personal experience of the thing we suppose our name refers to.

That's to say, it seems kind of funny to make a big deal about 'getting the name right' for something one doesn't have any experience of. "I do not know, based on my own experience of it, whether or not there is a tree in my friend John's yard. But I am certain there must be a tree, and I am further certain the tree is properly called, 'Elm'." Seems a bit like getting the cart in front of the horse.

Or perhaps is the name of the thing so very important to us precisely because we have no actual experience of it? After all, would I need to think of the tree in John's yard as "Elm" if I had any actual memories of it?

Assuming it exists, I seriously doubt the Weirdness cares for even one moment what you call it.

Of course, I'm probably wrong about all of that. I'm wrong about most things.

Comments?



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In Ancient Egypt the deities name is important because it allows a person to gain power over a deity using magic. It is told in one of the stories if Isis in which she couldn't gain power over Ra until she found out his name which nobody else knew.

It could be possible that later religions linked to Egyptian mythology or in surrounding areas modified this early use.

Sunstone said:

Assuming it exists, I seriously doubt the Weirdness cares for even one moment what you call it.

Of course, I'm probably wrong about all of that. I'm wrong about most things.

Comments?

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There are quite a few different opinions on the power and importance of names that come up in folklore and occultism.

One line of thinking is that spirits can be very touchy about mortals getting their name wrong. That might be because it actually hurts them as a portion of their essence is bound up in their name. Getting it wrong is therefore akin to cutting into somebody's flesh, it's a part of them and you're mutilating it. Alternatively it might be that they take offence at any slight, whether intentional or not. Getting somebody's name wrong can be a source of irritation and for an immortal spirit experiencing that from a human, it's like being insulted by a tapeworm.

Other people view it in exactly the opposite manner, that they might be irritated by somebody getting their name right. If we view a being's name as containing some of its power, then knowing and speaking that name grants one some measure of control over it. As such, the danger in getting a name wrong doesn't lie in offending the spirit but in rendering yourself unable to exercise power over it. This seems to be the more common trend in folklore* and has found its way into some stories we still tell today. Rumpelstiltskin is perhaps the most famous example of this belief in the power of names surviving into the modern age.

Finally, naming something might be a way to summon it to yourself or to give that being power. Boggarts (malicious imp or goblin like creatures) are one example of the latter belief. According to some traditions, giving a Boggart a name would make it uncontrollable. For an example of a name being a means to summon something ... well, there's one spirit that springs to mind. Fair warning to the superstitious, naming these spirits may put you at risk of them stealing your very soul:


Now not all of this necessarily applies to gods, though there are definitely some examples where it applies to beings that are unambiguously thought of as gods. However, there are also quite a few question marks around how many spirits of European folklore might have been viewed as deities prior to the rise of Christianity. The Tuatha Dé Danann are one such example of beings that came to be viewed as fairies but might originally have been considered gods. To further complicate things the words fairy, elf, goblin, spirit, demon and ghost all have a significant degree of overlap.**


I could waffle on and on about this and still not cover everything. Think of this as the CliffsNotes of the CliffsNotes. Hopefully though it should provide a little more context as to why the notion of names possessing power has seeped into the public consciousness.





*I'll say now that my knowledge is primarily on European folklore, particularly the folklore of the British Isles.
**It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine that "fairy" has become synonymous with sparkly little ballerinas.

tigger2 said:

If one believes the writings which he holds as sacred and the word of his God, then the importance, ...

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Correct. The name-of-god fetish is simply an expression of a deeply anthropomorphic biblical literalism.

Sunstone said:

"God is not the name of god, but merely an opinion about him." -- anonymous Pythagorean philosopher.​

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'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself. (2.2.38-49)

dybmh said:

"As a human being, you have been invested with the power and the purpose to act as a partner in creation. And as such, you are invested with the same extraordinary Divine power to speak your world into existence! You have the ability to create with your words; to start to bring into being what you truly want out of the infinite potential of your own soul. Just as the creation of the universe began with words and is sustained with words, so too every creative process. The words you use actually bring things to life." - The Kabbalah of Speech

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I have heard a popular singer making lyric.....

creation comes.....when you learn to say ….No

not sure where she got the idea....maybe Kabbalah

but it rang truth when I heard it

Sunstone said:

True. But the question is why do we get so attached to our names for deity? Why do we assume our names for them are in themselves meaningful?

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This isn't actually a point about how we feel about deities - it's a point about how we feel about names.

If I name my dog Spot, and you call him Fido, I'm obviously going to object to that. And if you respond by saying "why does it matter what his name is?" I'm probably not going to believe that to be a very reasonable question.

Names matter. Names directly identify who or what we're referring to, which is to say that they point to the identity of the thing - or, perhaps more accurately, what the identity of the thing is to us.

YHWH, the name of the God of Israel, means "I am who am" or "He who exists" - which signifies that their God is existence itself, or the ground of all Being. To ask why the name matters is effectively to ask why it matters who their god is - and I think we'd both agree that's a question that doesn't need answering. It's self-evident: who your god is determines virtually every decision you make in your entire life. And we all have gods - even though some of us don't like to admit it. So, not only does the name of your god point to it's identity, but because what you worship points to your identity, then the name of your god points also to your own identity.

Every thing has to have a name, otherwise you cannot talk about it or think about it. If you cannot say it, you cannot think it. Even the Nameless is a name.

Sunstone said:

"God is not the name of god, but merely an opinion about him." -- anonymous Pythagorean philosopher.​

People get attached to names. We do it reflexively. It's an aspect of our nature. For instance, whether to call something "Siva","Yahweh", "Jehovah", "Allah", or "Vishnu" becomes of huge significance to us. More important to many of us than whether we ourselves have any personal experience of the thing we suppose our name refers to.

That's to say, it seems kind of funny to make a big deal about 'getting the name right' for something one doesn't have any experience of. "I do not know, based on my own experience of it, whether or not there is a tree in my friend John's yard. But I am certain there must be a tree, and I am further certain the tree is properly called, 'Elm'." Seems a bit like getting the cart in front of the horse.

Or perhaps is the name of the thing so very important to us precisely because we have no actual experience of it? After all, would I need to think of the tree in John's yard as "Elm" if I had any actual memories of it?

Assuming it exists, I seriously doubt the Weirdness cares for even one moment what you call it.

Of course, I'm probably wrong about all of that. I'm wrong about most things.

Comments?



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Names and Gods have an intense relationship. Individuals associated significantly with a God often experience a name change and uttering the name of a God can have power in some context.

It is, I think, the case that our fragile sense of existence and our wimpy degree of agency is equally significant and ambivalent and our own personal names, unique-ish as they are, seem to carry the same incongruous balance of power and fragility.

I think that God is a mirror image of our own inner fragile existence and is occasionally experienced as a great and saving force. Just a name but one pregnant with meaning in the deepest way.

The name of Jesus Christ is very important because there is no other name given by which anyone may be saved ....
Acts 4:1-12

The Jews, Christians, and Muslims end their prayers with the word 'Amen' ('Amin' in Islam).
It is theorized that the word 'Amen' was brought out of Egypt by the enslaved Hebrew people. Amen as being derived from the Egyptian god Amun, which can also be spelled as Amen.
Amun was the king of the gods, being the hidden transcendental deity. Amun could be combined with other attributes in order to form different concepts. For example, Amun + Ra = Amun-Ra
'Amun' sounds like the Christian interpretation of 'God the Father' while 'Ra' sounds like the conceptualization of the Sun, or 'Son'. Amun (Father) + Ra (Sun/Son). Amun-Ra is nearly synonymous with Christianity's Father-Son.
Isis (Mother) + Ra (Sun/Son) + El (Father)= Israel

Sunstone said:

"God is not the name of god, but merely an opinion about him." -- anonymous Pythagorean philosopher.​

People get attached to names. We do it reflexively. It's an aspect of our nature. For instance, whether to call something "Siva","Yahweh", "Jehovah", "Allah", or "Vishnu" becomes of huge significance to us. More important to many of us than whether we ourselves have any personal experience of the thing we suppose our name refers to.

Comments?

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Giving something a name makes it personal, relatable. People name their cars, their guns, their computers. And it is mostly the theists that have a need to name their god. Note that deists and pantheists usually don't have a name for their god. They don't make it personal.

Agnostisch said:

The Jews, Christians, and Muslims end their prayers with the word 'Amen' ('Amin' in Islam).
It is theorized that the word 'Amen' was brought out of Egypt by the enslaved Hebrew people. Amen as being derived from the Egyptian god Amun, which can also be spelled as Amen.

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Theorized by whom? Wikipedia: Amen notes only:


I would prefer a consensus of philologists (if available) to the conjecture of "some theosophists".

@Sunstone



"The name of the game, is the game of the name"
Here she is

Sunstone said:

For instance, whether to call something "Siva","Yahweh", "Jehovah", "Allah", or "Vishnu" becomes of huge significance to us.

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Why do you assume that Shiva and Vishnu refer to the same being? They don't.

… it seems kind of funny to make a big deal about 'getting the name right' for something one doesn't have any experience of.

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Why do you assume that those who pray all have no experience?

Of course, I'm probably wrong about all of that.

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Er, yes. For example, when you approach a group of people and want to address one of them, do you use their name, or do you just point and say "Hey, you"? Do you get my point?

Sunstone said:

True. But the question is why do we get so attached to our names for deity? Why do we assume our names for them are in themselves meaningful?

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In the Bible, they are hundreds, if not thousands of references to the Name of the Almighty. Isaiah 42:8 reads

" I am Yahweh, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise unto graven images."

Names mean something, and they especially do to Yahweh. Even in the Bible, one could tell the character of people by their names, like Nabal. Unfortunately, we have in our English translations texts mostly substituted the Name with the title L-O-R-D in capital letters. But why should a name mean so much anyway. Names mean a lot. If you were living in say Medieval England and you received a letter and it was sealed with the seal of the King, you would know that this letter were indeed important. If you were on death row and your executioners received a letter signed in the kings name for a reprieve, that name would hold power to enforce that reprieve. Names therefore hold power. How much power then do you think is behind the Name of the one and only true Elohim, Creator and Sustainer of the Universe?

Yahweh has a glorious name, also abbreviated as Yah as in HalleluYah. It's also a name which means eternity. When Moses was confronted by Yahweh at the Burning Bush, Moses asks for His Name in Exodus 3:13. It's only natural for us to want to know the Name of the one we serve. How can we hope to have a personal experience with Yahweh unless we call upon His Name? If Yahweh hadn't revealed His Name in the Bible, that would be a different matter, but He has. Would you get married to the woman you love, if you hadn't gotten to know their name first?

Let's look at this from a different angle. Most people believe they know what the name of the Messiah was right? He has a name, and few people have the issue of using his name, but what about Yahweh's? Yahweh is greater than the Messiah (John 10:29), so shouldn't we call upon His Name if we want Him to save us? How many people were saved in the Bible by calling on LORD? No, they called on the Name of Yahweh. To some religions, I'm sure the name is of small importance, but in the Bible the Name Yahweh is of great importance.

This scripture is taken from Psalm 72:17-19:
"His name shall endure for ever;
His name shall be continued as long as the sun:
And men shall be blessed in him;
All nations shall call him happy.

18 Blessed be Yahweh Elohim, the Elohim of Israel,
Who only doeth wondrous things:
19 And blessed be his glorious name for ever;
And let the whole earth be filled with his glory.
Amen, and Amen."

It clearly says His Name shall be continued forever (the Hebrew word olam means "to time out of mind") It shall be continued so long as there is a universe. He has a Name. It's a glorious Name and He expects His people to honour it, to sing praises to His name and to pray by it. If I were not using the Name I suspect I wouldn't have half as much faith and respect to Yahweh as I do today.

Sunstone said:

"God is not the name of god, but merely an opinion about him." -- anonymous Pythagorean philosopher.​

People get attached to names. We do it reflexively. It's an aspect of our nature. For instance, whether to call something "Siva","Yahweh", "Jehovah", "Allah", or "Vishnu" becomes of huge significance to us. More important to many of us than whether we ourselves have any personal experience of the thing we suppose our name refers to.

That's to say, it seems kind of funny to make a big deal about 'getting the name right' for something one doesn't have any experience of. "I do not know, based on my own experience of it, whether or not there is a tree in my friend John's yard. But I am certain there must be a tree, and I am further certain the tree is properly called, 'Elm'." Seems a bit like getting the cart in front of the horse.

Or perhaps is the name of the thing so very important to us precisely because we have no actual experience of it? After all, would I need to think of the tree in John's yard as "Elm" if I had any actual memories of it?

Assuming it exists, I seriously doubt the Weirdness cares for even one moment what you call it.

Of course, I'm probably wrong about all of that. I'm wrong about most things.

Comments?



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It would seem to me a practical consideration of sorts, a tendency and need for humans to want to categorize and classify.

For those things that we humans did not create, as we do not know the true nature or name of those things (like a tree, for instance) then we have to make one up.