Genetically the human of the Old Testament are virtually identical to the
humans of the New Testament.? But their knowledge of God was a world
apart, just like ours is different from those alive when Jesus lived.? Most
dramatically those alive five thousand years ago did not know Jesus did they??
That alone makes a world of difference with respect to their knowledge of
God. But more to my point, the intuitive outlook of Old Testament men on
the nature of God was what I imagine to be fairly idiotic in terms of
anthropomorphizing God.?
The Old Testament Gods of Israel are all over the map of lower order human
emotions like vengeful, demanding, jealous etc.? That men of that time needed
a God that was thus disposed is fairly certain in my mind.? But that modern
humans need to see God as the Old Testament God is not at all certain.?
By the time Jesus began to set things a little straighter God was seen in
terms of much higher order emotions like forgiving and merciful etc.? While
God does not change, we do.? We evolve.? We grow ever smarter and ever
more intuitive of the miracle of creation and Creator and I am willfully evolving
the character of my faith and the nature of my understanding of God away
from the Old Testament Gods? in what I believe to be greater compliance to
how Jesus depicted the New Testament God.?
Taking it one more step, I see my own vision of God as something that
will be seen as laughably anthropomorphic to humans five thousand years
from now and I try to see God in THAT light.? What is my responsibility
to elevate God in my own eyes?? What is my responsibility to evolve
my appreciation for the transcendence of God beyond my current place
of inherent ignorance??
However I rationalize God will be wanting no matter what I do.? But how I
feel about God in my life is not so wanting.? So I let my feelings, my
faith, my instinct for God take a greater hand in my life.? I think a humble
man or woman who holds in their mind the notion that we can never
rationally envision God in adequate terms, can, in further pursuit of their
faith, feel God in our hearts in a way that shows to us our blindness.? I am
a big believer in the feelings, intuition, heart, and the Holy Spirit over the
context restricted "certainties" of the rational mind.?
As for worshiping a goat?? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure no one
worships the actual animal.? Maybe some kind of transcendent symbol that
is in the form of a goat, perhaps, or like the cows of the Hindus, worshiping
life in the form of the stable system of animal husbandry that sustained them
for centuries, but I don't think anyone actually worships the actual animals.?
Maybe they hold them in reverence, but, heck, I hold all of God's creation
in a real and constant reverence, particularly animals because they're
kinda like us before the Fall.?
But, as an imperfect sinner I am very reluctant to condemn anyone or
anything that is trying to worship.? Anyone who places an external deity
over their own volition is acknowledging God.? And God is God.? And anyone
who worships the God of Abraham is unambiguously worshiping the same
God I do.? Do I condemn them?? Not me.?
When books have been written in the name of God and people condemn
each other for believing in different books about the same God, I become
very leery of those who condemn the other book.? How can a human being
know the difference when they are raised to believe the Koran and with
love in their hearts and humility in their minds do everything they can
to adhere to its tenets??
I don't dare condemn anybody for false worship.? I'll condemn them for
corrupting worship or corrupting? the belief of others in pursuit of their own
designs, especially if they become physically coercive, but not for being
different from my own.? Not me.
If someone has the same faith as I do, however, I will feel much better
about trying to judge the relative merits of our rational translation (words)
of our faith because we are both much safer from corrupting each other in
the process because we are so close to the same belief to begin with.?
But I will not judge Wiccans among Christians, much less condemn them.?
-Mike (Friend of ASA)
-----Original Message-----
From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
To: mlucid@aol.com
Cc: gmurphy@raex.com; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:32 pm
Subject: Re: [asa] D'Souza vs. Hitchens - Surrending the debate
Evidently I have the wrong idea that every person mentioned in the Old
Testament was /Homo sapiens/. But I am at a loss to understand what species they
were. I have also held that all humans today belong to the same species. What am
I missing?
?
I have had some contact with a Wiccan, and with a person familiar with
witchcraft. Are you trying to tell me that the worship of the "Goat" is not
idolatry?
?
Additionally, to go back to Jim's reference to atheism, I contend that
religion does not have to consist of worship conducted in a special place
according to a manual. One's religion is determined by what one holds as
ultimate. Those who hold their reason and accomplishment as ultimate have a
religion just as surely as the one who bows to a carved deity. Those whose
ultimate is themselves are idolaters as surely as animists are. That the former
are civilized and the latter primitive does not change that, in one way or
another, they worship something other than the One who revealed himself to the
prophets and apostles.
Dave (ASA)
?
On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:07:55 -0400 mlucid@aol.com writes:
Yahweh?? Man, Yahweh ain't
the God I have in my heart or my mind. I'm faith-bound
to the belief that
I do not worship a vengeful God.?
You know, the Bible is, to me (among a
billion other things) a story of the evolution
of? our ability to
understand God.? Not the evolution of God, mind you, but our ability
to comprehend God.
Is the God of the old Testament the God of the
New Testament?? Of course.? Are
the humans of the old Testament
the humans of the New Testament??? No way.?
And Hindus
and Wiccans?? I don't think that we are allowed to pass judgment on
Hindus and Wiccans with respect to idolatry.? That'll be done outside
our ministrations.?
We should stick far more closely to passing
judgment upon ourselves with respect
to what is and is not idolatry, even
one to the other among us, in here, sure.
-Mike (Friend of
ASA)
-----Original Message-----
From: George Murphy
<gmurphy@raex.com>
To: Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net>; ASA
<asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 6:28 pm
Subject: Re: [asa]
D'Souza vs. Hitchens - Surrending the debate
This is not the way scripture speaks.? The
1st Commandment is not about some abstract "God" to whom people they can
ascribe any characteristics & actions they please but about YHWH, the God
of Israel.? This would be clearer if there were not the unfortunate
practice of quoting it apart from introduction to the decalogue. "I am YHWH
your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
slavery; you shall have no other gods before me."? I.e., God is
defined by what God does.? & in the NT this God isfurther identified
as the One revealed in the cross & resurrection of Jesus.?
?
You seem to assume that "names" of God are more
or less arbitrary labels which people give to the concept of God.? Many
are but the Bible speaks of YHWH as God's own self-designation, as in Exodus
3:13-15.? &?Matthew 28:19 in the same way can be regarded
as?the self-designation as "Father, Son and Holy Spirit"?of the God
revealed in Christ.
?
With all that I am not saying -
??? (a) that we have to address
God always by?correct names, or
??? (b) that?knowledge of
these names distinguishes good people from bad.? The fundamental sin that
we are all guilty of to some extent is idolatry, violation of the 1st
commandment - the point again that Paul is making in Romans 1.?
Christians can have idolatrous Christian images?- e.g., the KKK's flaming
cross.? But this does not make Hindus, Wiccans &c any less
idolators.? It seems to me that OTOH you are?making the common
mistake of using "idolatry" for only the crassest forms of that sin &
defining the more serious away.??The serious ones are what
God?spoke of to Ezekiel, "Son of man, these people have taken their idols
into their hearts," & what Calvin meant when he said that the human
imagination is a factory of idols.?
?
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net>
To: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 2:15
PM
Subject: Re: [asa] D'Souza vs. Hitchens -
Surrending the debate
> epistemologically
> Sender: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
>
Precedence: bulk
>
> Well, there's no question that we will
differ on this point. However, my
> sense is that the the reality of the
divine creator is neither defined
> by a name nor by the particular
model one might use for?
> conceptualization.
>
>
With respect to name, Creator God is who he is. "God" is just our
>
particular name for a supreme creative being who probably needs no
name
> at all [the Bible seeming to commend existence, "I am", rather
than?
> title].
> Nearly every human being recognizes the
existence of such a supreme
> being who is responsible for creation, and
responsible for their
> existence in specific. They have a variety of
names for that being,
> understandably embodied in their own language.
We call Him (Her, It)
> "God", but we use many other names as well
(apparently numbering about
> 100 for the Abrahamic traditions, though
mostly differing in language
> specifics). Many of these we share with
Judaism, and we are not troubled
> by expressions like G-d or (the
somewhat distorted) Jehovah, or probably
> even "hashem" if its use is
understood.? However, we would lose some
> fellow travellers
(though not all, particularly among missionaries!), if
> we were to use
a name from another Abrahamic tradition like "Allah".
> And yet these
are all conveniences of address for the same Abrahamic
> God. Noteably,
the choice among them does not change the Creator in?
> any
way.
>
> Though perhaps a little harder to accept at the outset,
by extension it
> would seem that the name assigned to the divine one
would have
> essentially nothing to do with who God is in reality, or
with the
> legitimacy of the quest of the seeker who uses any
particular
> (presumeably reverential) name. Our Scripture puts it this
way, "...for
> he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that
he is a rewarder
> of them that diligently seek him."? It does not
say that we must come
> using the correct name.
>
> The
model used for conceptualizing God is a somewhat different matter.
> We
all have a variety of understandings (even among Christians who
> belong
to one of some 30,000 identifiable denominations) about the exact
>
nature and character of the transcendant being that is assigned our
name
> "God". No two of these understandings are exactly alike in
detail,
> sometimes differing in very significant detail. But if truth
be told,
> even when we speak of "one God", we really don't know with
certainty
> whether it/he/she is just a single entity, or whether this
numbering
> thing even makes any sense with respect to the transcendant
nature of?
> God.
>
> In most of our Christian
traditions, we are taught to have a problem
> with people groups making
painted or wood or clay or stone images of
> what they think God might
look like. The images are idols and those who
> reverence them are
idolaters. We in our traditions prefer to stay with
> mental models, not
physical ones - but they are models nonetheless
> whether physical or
mental. If they are the "other guy's" models, we are
> inclined to call
them "idols". If they are ours, we call them "icons" or
> "art".
>
> But with perhaps rare exceptions, those objects of pigment or wood
or
> clay or stone are not the deities themselves, but representations.
So
> are our "icons" and "art".
>
> And that is true of our
mental models as well. They too - even the best
> or most
acceptable-to-us mental models - are essentially inferior
>
representations, sharing extreme shortfall with respect to the reality
>
of transcendent God (continuing to use our more familiar appellation).
>
> Most people groups throughout the world have in common an
understanding
> that they specifically are a people that were created in
special
> preferred relationship and favor with that supreme
being.
> At least some people groups understand that that supreme being
has also
> given them a special task in the world (usually in the nature
of
> conquerer or ambassador).
> Most people groups have an
understanding that they must do something(s)
> to stay in favor (avoid
getting out of favor) with that supreme being.
>
> But at the end
of the day, none of the specifics of these understandings
> have any
effect whatsoever on who/what that supreme being is in reality,
> the
one whom they seek.
>
> All of these people groups and
individuals within them work the same
> essential spiritual problem,
namely how to conceptualize, relate to and
> communicate with the
transcendant being who is the Creator (to use
> another name as an
example).
>
> I think we can reasonably presume that most are
also sincere, whatever
> degree of devotion they might manifest. But
there is nothing in the
> preceeding distillation of essentials that
says they are seeking
> different supreme beings.
>
> What
IS different (in some cases, clearly very different) is the human
> side
of the equation, the name(s), nature, story and history,? holy
>
writings, traditions, understanding of purpose, and practices.
>
> Since every conceptualization of God varies down to a
specific
> individual, it is pretty clear that no human understanding of
a
> transcendant being and his/her/its nature and intent can be complete
or
> wholly accurate, even though those? purported 30,000
identifiable
> Christian denominations (alone) are doing their best to
do so.? But in a
> broader view, so are the rest of the folks. It
seems to be our need for
> uniqueness (collective and individual ego, if
you will) that underlies
> the dismissive characterizing of other
religions as seeking (idolizing)
> something other than the true supreme
being (God, in our language). But
> each of those other people groups is
equally quick to affirm that their
> quest is for the "one true God",
just as ours.
>
> A major difficulty in our time (and probably in
all times) is - at the
> core - how people act in the context of their
version of the quest (or
> an all too common perversion of it).
>
But that STILL has nothing to do with the reality of the supreme being
>
(God as we call "him"), or his position as the "one true God".
>
> The crux of the matter is that there is nothing that would? say
that the
> prayers of anyone intending to reach the "one true God" are
somehow
> deflected by what someone else might think or understand or
say about
> them or their prayers. We understand that to be a "direct
line". Again,
> from Hebrews: "...for he that cometh to God must believe
that he is, and
> that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
him."? The name "God"
> in the passage is our name (and a
translation at that), not in any
> measure the full reality, but
intended to point to that divine reality.
>
> In this discussion,
I had no intent at all to dismiss the specific
> tenets of Christianity.
What I speak of is the universal yearning for
> understanding and
relationship with the Creator. In that light, it seems
> to me
unnecessarily dismissive and alienating to categorize those who
> seek
the Creator with names and models different than ours as
>
"idolaters".? The apostle Paul evidently understood that. Such
>
dismissive characterization and labelling does nothing constructive to
>
"...draw all men unto ... [Him]"
>
> P.S. In the extreme case of
one who understands that the physical world
> is all there is, the label
is atheist, not idolater.
>
> Or so it seemeth to me
>
> Blessings - JimA
>
>
>
>
> To
unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
>
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>
Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail!
?
________________________________________________________________________
Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - http://mail.aol.com
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Nov 1 13:14:03 2007
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Thu Nov 01 2007 - 13:14:03 EDT