God Is a Problem

[Hockeycowboy]

With respect, that cannot be true can it? Otherwise why did Jesus (reportedly) completely reject the religious tradition of the Jews?

You’re right that Jesus rejected their tradition (Matthew 15:6-9).He told the Pharisees: “So you have made the word of God invalid because of your tradition.” (Read vs.1-5)

But he said he came “to fulfill“ the Law. Not to abolish it. — Matthew 5:17

Can you really be worshipping the same "God" if one version forbids you to use the name and the other encourages it?

Certainly He is the One!

Just a different way of worshipping. But read what David and other Bible writers said about His Name. (Here, we can clearly see a tradition veering away from what was part of the original way to worship Yahweh):

Isaiah 25:1 (Byington)…
“O Jehovah, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name;..”

Psalm 145:21 (Byington)…
“My mouth shall speak the praise of Jehovah; And let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever.”

Joel 2:32(Byington)…
“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as Jehovah hath said, and among the remnant those whom Jehovah doth call.”

Proverbs 18:10 (ASV)….
“The name of Jehovah is a strong tower; The righteous runneth into it, and is safe.”


I could go on & on. The Divine Name in the Hebrew Scriptures (the OT**) is found over 6800 times!

We claim, as do the Jews, that the Hebrew Scriptures are Yahweh’s words. (Using humans to write them down.) If He didn’t want His Name spoken, He wouldn’t have had it put in so much! Or as Joel 2:32 & Proverbs 18:10 indicate, how important it was to use it! — Malachi 3:16(Pe****a Holy Bible)…
“These things the worshipers of LORD JEHOVAH have spoken, each man with his neighbor, and LORD JEHOVAH listened and he heard and he wrote them in a scroll of memorial before him for his worshipers and for those who praise his name”


We’ll follow the example of David, Isaiah, & the others; and ignore the tradition.
But it is the same God.

Have a good day, my cousin.




**= JW’s prefer not to say “Old Testament”, because saying “Old” makes it sound obsolete. We do not support such a claim, nor want to give any credibility to the idea.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Now you only have to convince the other ~3 billion believers to accept that you got it right and they got it wrong and the OP argument about difference between the believers is refuted.

We’re working’ on it.
Lol.

More on this, later.

(Didn’t Jesus himself say that “few find it”? — Matthew 7:14)

Have a good one.

 

[siti]

Just a different way of worshipping.

Judaism never accepted the notion that God could have a son...still less a human one...before, during and after the emergence of Christianity such an idea would have been heretical to Judaism. That is not merely a different way of worshipping...it is entirely incompatible concept of deity.

That's why the claim that Jesus was God's son was so shocking...a Jew claiming to be God's son...there was nothing that could have confronted their notion of deity more profoundly than that. They could barely get their theological heads around it.

And I haven't even got to the trinity yet...do JWs worship the same God as their mainstream Christian counterparts? From the JW perspective, is the trinitarian apostasy really just another way of worshipping the same and "only true" God? (John 17:3)

I don't think so...I see at least three distinct and mutually exclusive concepts of God in the respective traditions of Judaism, mainstream Christianity and Christian unitarianism such as that of JWs. And we are still talking only about the Gods of Biblical traditions.

Are Muslims also worshipping the same God in a different way...

What about the God of the Ba'hai faith with its "manifestations" - they would really like to hear that you think they're worshipping the same God in different way - but I reckon theirs is yet another manifestly different concept of deity than any of the traditions they have attempted to syncretize...

Etc.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Well, I'm certainly seeing why this term 'God' is a troublesome one. But I already knew that. This thread is further proof.

If nothing else, it's a trigger word.

I can probably count on two hands (maybe one) the posts in this 10-page thread that are actually on topic.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Oh yes.

I think that "reality" and "nature" are at least tentatively more self-sustaining as concepts go than "god" or "deity" could ever be.

Reality and nature do not require observers and can be meaningfuly investigated and researched precisely because they are not human creations.

That is in sharp contrast to gods, deities and similar concepts, because those require worshippers, believers and/or theologians of some sort to exist in any practical form.

They require conscious observers, in order to be meaningfully investigated.

 

[ElishaElijah]

I thought that was "money"?

Or the love of money

 

[ElishaElijah]

No, not the being, deity, concept, or whatever you call God, but the name itself, especially in interfaith discourse or when speaking to the non-religious.

I've seen "God" (note the capitalization rendering the word a proper noun) used to describe everything from a personal deity, to a creator, to an underlying substratum for reality, to existence itself, and many things between. Yet people use the word even when their religion or culture has another name for it.

An example off the top of my head is Ramakrishna apparently referring to Nirguna Brahman as "God" in The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Of course, what he means is understood by Vedantins and probably most Hindus, but the meaning of the term is likely lost on people outside of this subset.

What does "God" refer to in your religion or culture?

Do you agree that use of the term is problematic outside of your own religion or culture? If not, how do you reconcile the differences? If so, what do you think can be done to communicate what is being referred to in interfaith dialogue or conversations with the non-religious?

My view on this is :
People have been abused by people claiming to be God’s representatives, been part of churches who taught rules and regulations, a perverted view of God and Demonic.
We’ve traded a healthy fear and reverence for God for pleasure and entertainment, been deceived and left us empty and lost.
When people encounter the One True God Jesus Christ, experience His love, mercy, forgiveness, healing, grace and freedom from the things that entangled and harmed them, even a way to release the people who abused them and walk in freedom with a real relationship with their Creator then God is no longer a trigger word associated with anger and hatred but reverence, love, a hope and a future.

 

[LuisDantas]

But you do define them both implicitly when you discuss them with your own particular view of them in mind. And that's exactly what people who are happy to discuss the concept of God do (whether they are believers or not). Nobody would attempt to force you into defining what you mean by "reality" or suggest that unless you can provide a definition that everyone can agree on, there is no point even discussing the subject.

And yet here you still are posting what - maybe a dozen posts - in a discussion in which you personally have used no less than three neologisms (namely, apatheist, ignostic and igtheist) to describe your lack of knowledge and lack of interest in a concept that you believe to be "considerably less than useless"!

I guess I just don't believe that there is any substance whatsoever to gods that does not come from the adherents directly, while reality and nature are entirely independent of the very existence of adherents.

Perhaps more to the point, there is a lot of neglected responsibility that comes along with god-concepts.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I guess I just don't believe that there is any substance whatsoever to gods that does not come from the adherents directly, while reality and nature are entirely independent of the very existence of adherents.

Perhaps more to the point, there is a lot of neglected responsibility that comes along with god-concepts.

But since there is no way of demonstrating that reality and nature exist independently of your perception of them, that remains merely your belief based on unverifiable axioms..

 

[siti]

If nothing else, it's a trigger word.

I can probably count on two hands (maybe one) the posts in this 10-page thread that are actually on topic.

Geez...there was a topic? Well discussing a topic is a bit like riding a moncycle for me...I try my best stay on but I know I'm gonna fall off sooner or later. Anyways in the OP you asked...

No, not the being, deity, concept, or whatever...

What does "God" refer to in your religion or culture?

...what do you think can be done to communicate what is being referred to in interfaith dialogue or conversations with the non-religious?

I'm not sure how anyone could answer either of those two questions without talking about "the being, deity, concept..." etc they are referring to when they use the term...but pressing on regardless...

What do I think can be done to communicate what is being referred to...etc?

Not much I don't suppose. If you define it sufficiently to be meaningful you'll make it too narrow to be acceptable to the uninitiated and if you broaden the definition it'll soon become too vague to facilitate meaningful dialogue about what you are referring to when you use the word. Replacing "God" with another term wouldn't help...you'd still have the same issue. And either way, there will be those who find a thousand different ways to indicate their lack of interest in the topic and those who will trap the unwary into endless discourses on the minutiae of their own ideas about what "God" refers to...

Going back to the first question...I don't have a religion and as expat Brit in a predominantly religious part of the world I am a cultural misfit...

... I do know what I mean when I use the term God...

...but I don't see how that helps anyone else...if they really want to know they could always ask...and I'll happily tell them ...then they'll say "oh" and continue the rest of their life as if I'd never explained it to them.

I'm really more interested in what other people mean when they say God and testing the validity of those ideas...for my own benefit...not theirs.

 

[LuisDantas]

They require conscious observers, in order to be meaningfully investigated.

But not to meaningfully _exist_.

 

[LuisDantas]

But since there is no way of demonstrating that reality and nature exist independently of your perception of them, that remains merely your belief based on unverifiable axioms..

How would you know that?

In any case, I don't see how that would be relevant in any way, shape or form.

The fact of the matter is that gods/deities only exist as concepts because they have (various, often very unlike) roles in human activities - even if what are IMO fringe movements want to invert the relationship and have the cart (god-concepts) push the horse (religion and pseudo-religion).

Without some sort of sentient beings to propose the existence of gods, you have no substance whatsoever for the ideas that go by that name.

It is, and has always been, a human duty to tell what use we have for those labels. And far more often than not we pretend otherwise.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Geez...there was a topic? Well discussing a topic is a bit like riding a moncycle for me...I try my best stay on but I know I'm gonna fall off sooner or later. Anyways in the OP you asked...

Yes, believe it or not. And agreed. Most threads will wander off on tangents, but this one went sideways right out of the gate with people reading the title, ignoring the OP, and just stating what their problem was with God and US presidents.

I'm not sure how anyone could either of those two questions without talking about "the being, deity, concept..." etc they are referring to when they use the term...but pressing on regardless...

Of course. But people went on to do that without regard for what the OP asked.

What do I think can be done to communicate what is being referred to...etc?

Going back to the first question...I don't have a religion and as expat Brit in a predominantly religious part of the world I am a cultural misfit...

... I do know what I mean when I use the term God...

...but I don't see how that helps anyone else...if they really want to know they could always ask...and I'll happily tell them ...then they'll say "oh" and continue the rest of their life as if I'd never explained it to them.

I find myself doing just that. In a discussion about God with someone else, I make no assumptions about what they are referring to; I will definitely ask.

And more often than not, it's Yahweh/Jehovah/Elohim/Hashem...even with atheists. But other religions will use the term "God" (not "god") for something entirely different.

 

[RestlessSoul]

But not to meaningfully _exist_.

How would you know that?

 

[Vinayaka]

If nothing else, it's a trigger word.

I can probably count on two hands (maybe one) the posts in this 10-page thread that are actually on topic.

I think 'trigger' is accurate. Aum Namasivaya

 

[Starise]

The OP was about the word 'God' and how it is troublesome because it means so many things to so many people.

Yes I get that, but thanks just the same.

 

[LuisDantas]

How would you know that?

It is inherent to the concepts.

 

[Starise]

What does "God" refer to in your religion or culture?

Omnipotent creator of all that is.

 

[siti]

And more often than not, it's Yahweh/Jehovah/Elohim/Hashem...even with atheists. But other religions will use the term "God" (not "god") for something entirely different.

Yes indeed! Then there is also the more philosophical (less religious) "God" - "ground of being", "ultimate reality"...that kind of thing...which is really more of a placeholder for the as yet unknown answer to the biggest "why?" question of all - why is there anything at all?

Can I stay on topic by clarifying that "my culture" is held by a very small minority (of just one and even he's not sure about it)? If so then when we in my culture say "God", we don't mean any of those things (I may sometime post a new thread that explains what I mean by "God" but that's definitely not the point of this one)...all of which probably means there is absolutely no point whatsoever in discussing the matter of "God" with me...and yet we continue...

..."twas six blind man of Hindustan..."

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Judaism never accepted the notion that God could have a son...still less a human one...before, during and after the emergence of Christianity such an idea would have been heretical to Judaism.

Where did you come up with that?
More “traditional” Judaism, maybe…
But the Israelites considered the angels as “sons of God”.
You can read it for yourself at Job 1:6, Job 2:1, & Job 38:7, written by Moses.

According to Wikipedia…
Sons of God - Wikipedia …
in the “Hebrew Bible….
All of the earliest sources [of Genesis 6:2] interpret the "sons of God" as angels. From the third century BCE onwards, references are found in the Enochic literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls (the Genesis Apocryphon, the Damascus Document, 4Q180), Jubilees, the Testament of Reuben, 2 Baruch, Josephus, and the book of Jude (compare with 2 Peter 2). This is also the meaning of the only two identical occurrences of bene ha elohim in the Hebrew Bible (Job 1:6 and 2:1), and of the most closely related expressions (refer to the list above). In the Septuagint, the interpretive reading "angels" is found in Codex Alexandrinus, one of four main witnesses to the Greek text.”


Ancient Jews even believed Adam, given life by Yahweh, was God’s son.

Modern Judaism has too many schisms (traditions?); there’s no consensus. So I’ll stick with the older, less corrupted view.