Religion is nuts

[Stephen Thomas]

Smeg

I read once that nuns and Jewish women don't get cervical cancer.

[The Good Michael]

The question I have always wanted to ask someone (and frankly I don't have the guts) is why on earth they think the Bible was written by god. And not to sound proprietary or anything, but if Jews started this whole thing, and WE don't think it was written by G-d, why do they think it was? I don't understand that.

they think that it was inspired by God, and therefore men were writing exactly, word for word, as dictated by the holy spirit, (who doesn't appear in the Old Testament) what God wanted them to write; even the parts you cited that prove that the Jews (and the first Christians who were Jews) believed in more than one God, but kept worship just to the one... at least later on.

Mike

[The Good Michael]

I read once that nuns and Jewish women don't get cervical cancer.

I think that was Jewish nuns who don't get cervical cancer.

Mike

[Errata]

I think that was Jewish nuns who don't get cervical cancer.

Mike

That's a statement I think I can agree with

[Errata]

they think that it was inspired by God, and therefore men were writing exactly, word for word, as dictated by the holy spirit, (who doesn't appear in the Old Testament) what God wanted them to write; even the parts you cited that prove that the Jews (and the first Christians who were Jews) believed in more than one God, but kept worship just to the one... at least later on.

Mike

If we didn't acknowledge the existence of other gods, what on EARTH is the point of the commandment "Thou shalt worship no other gods before me"? Do they think it's like some weird test? A typo? And it says "For I the Lord your god am a jealous god...". It's not really fuzzy wording there. If the god of Abraham was the only god, I'm pretty sure he had it in him to say "I am the only god. Despite what others may tell you, it's just me. There are no others."

It's why I have a little statue of Ganesha on my desk. I don't pray to him, but if he wants to remove some obstacles for me, I am all for it. I respect a god who takes care of the little things.

We really did only ever worship the one, but a lot of people think we worshiped the god of Abraham and Ba'al at the same time. It's just a language thing. The Phoenicians had a nameless god, so they called him Ba'al, which means "Lord". We had a nameless god, also often referred to as Ba'al, because it meant "Lord". The Phoenician Ba'al was a fertility oriented sort, while the Hebrew one was all-purpose. Not that we didn't steal some traditions and props, but there was never really polytheism there.

Although we totally have a goddess that a lot of people have conveniently forgotten.

[Robert]

I must say, I had always taken that to mean, don't worship other gods even though they don't exist.

Maybe I'm being sexist here, but the Hebrew Old Testament god seems to me to display several feminine traits.

[Errata]

I must say, I had always taken that to mean, don't worship other gods even though they don't exist.

Maybe I'm being sexist here, but the Hebrew Old Testament god seems to me to display several feminine traits.

pissy and vengeful? yeah, no argument here.

[Robert]

Well, jealous and with a need to be loved, anyway.

[The Good Michael]

I must say, I had always taken that to mean, don't worship other gods even though they don't exist.

Well, until Moses received the laws, the Jews had all sorts of non-monotheistic beliefs. They were originally just another tribe speaking the same language and having the same superstitions as other tribes, that included paying homage to all gods as they wandered or traded in regions where those gods were in vogue. It wasn't until quite a bit later that they were cowed into monotheism, and why not when they had arcane weapons given to them by the ONE God in order to slaughter the enemy.

Mike

[Wickerman]

If we didn't acknowledge the existence of other gods, what on EARTH is the point of the commandment "Thou shalt worship no other gods before me"? Do they think it's like some weird test? A typo? And it says "For I the Lord your god am a jealous god...". It's not really fuzzy wording there. If the god of Abraham was the only god, I'm pretty sure he had it in him to say "I am the only god. Despite what others may tell you, it's just me. There are no others."

Absolutely, what is more, small remnants of Canaanite idols have been unearthed in a number of cultic sites throughout Israel.

We really did only ever worship the one, but a lot of people think we worshiped the god of Abraham and Ba'al at the same time. It's just a language thing. The Phoenicians had a nameless god, so they called him Ba'al, which means "Lord". We had a nameless god, also often referred to as Ba'al, because it meant "Lord". The Phoenician Ba'al was a fertility oriented sort, while the Hebrew one was all-purpose. Not that we didn't steal some traditions and props, but there was never really polytheism there.

And the Egyptian God Amun was also understood to be everywhere & invisible, with a number of attributes that make some scholars think Amun was the inspiration for YHWH.

Although we totally have a goddess that a lot of people have conveniently forgotten.

You mean Asherah? - there is an inscription found at Kuntillet Ajrud which mentions "Yahweh and his Asherah", assumed to be his consort.

Regards, Jon S.

[Errata]

You mean Asherah? - there is an inscription found at Kuntillet Ajrud which mentions "Yahweh and his Asherah", assumed to be his consort.

Regards, Jon S.

Maybe. But it's also another lingual hiccup. An asherah is both a goddess and a pole inscribed with prayers. And sometimes a small household altar. But it is also a title "Queen of the Heavens". This why when you come up with a mythology its important to keep your eye on the long haul, cause 2000 years later, everything to do with your religion is called by one of like, 9 words.

Actually our goddess got rewritten into the "holy spirit of the Jews" thing. Shekinah, the "feminine principal" of Jehovah, the spirit of creativity, joy, generation, kind of a Mother Earth figure. Someone not Jewish would refer to her as Jehovah's Asherah, but it's a bit inaccurate as she isn't associated with anything celestial. Purely earthly. And she was never a consort. Just a lesser deity.

But her presence in the religion alters a few things. Like the story of the Garden of Eden. According to the old stories in which she appears, the Garden of Eden was a test that mankind passed. Without her it became a story where mankind failed. Of course we also know when Judaism became an irritatingly paternalistic patriarchal religion, the problem is we don't have any documents from before that time.

[Wickerman]

Maybe. But it's also another lingual hiccup. An asherah is both a goddess and a pole inscribed with prayers. And sometimes a small household altar. But it is also a title "Queen of the Heavens".

Asherah (as you know) appears in the Hebrew Bible a number of times but only as a result of studying cuneiform tablets from Ugarit are we now able to see Asherah as both a goddess and a wooden cult object. Though interestingly in several cases these wooden objects are described as carved. And in keeping with other religious carved totems, often carved to represent the human figure. As Asherah is female then the recent interpretation is that the wooden cult object was not an unfeatured pole but actually carved in the feminine form, as a goddess.

http://www.wwuheiser.com/Freedman.pdf

http://www.matrifocus.com/LAM04/spotlight.htm

http://www.ts.mu.edu/content/48/48.2/48.2.6.pdf

Best Wishes, Jon S.

[Errata]

Asherah (as you know) appears in the Hebrew Bible a number of times but only as a result of studying cuneiform tablets from Ugarit are we now able to see Asherah as both a goddess and a wooden cult object. Though interestingly in several cases these wooden objects are described as carved. And in keeping with other religious carved totems, often carved to represent the human figure. As Asherah is female then the recent interpretation is that the wooden cult object was not an unfeatured pole but actually carved in the feminine form, as a goddess.

The cults of Ba'al, Asherah, Molech, and Ishtar probably have more influence on Judaic law than the god of Abraham.

We have a whole lot of don'ts, and most of those are an aim to separate our worship practices from the above mentioned cults. Our dos are much less in number, and most of those set up the religion as a separate entity, and became the foundations of our priorities, beliefs, and goals.

Like eels. We can't eat them because they were a phallic symbol in the cult of Ishtar. I mean, we can't eat predators because it's not a good idea healthwise. But eels, that's all about potential idolatry.