DLH
Theoretical Skeptic
Think wife, or husband. That lady is a wife. She's my wife, not your wife. Husband. Son. Daughter. Uncle. Et cetera. God in upper case is a sort of stylistic definite article. To Christians in occidental culture God is a reference to Jehovah, even though many don't know that. Whereas gods with the lower case signifies the existence, literal or figurative, of "lesser gods." Lesser gods to the Christians. (1 Corinthians 8:5-6)
1 Corinthians 8:5-6 "For even though there are those who are called "gods," whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many "gods" and many "lords," there is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and we through him."
The early Jews and Christians, who penned the Bible, were henotheistic. Meaning they worshipped one god but acknowledge the existence, literal or figurative, of other gods. To them a god could be anything. (Philippians 3:18,19)
Philippians 3:18,19 "For there are many, I used to mention them often but now I mention them also with weeping, who are walking as the enemies of the torture stake of the Christ, and their finish is destruction, and their god is their belly, and their glory consists in their shame, and they have their minds upon things on the earth."
A god can be a worthless and/or inanimate object. Natural rather than supernatural. (Isaiah 2:20)
Isaiah 2:20 "In that day the earthling man will throw his worthless gods of silver and his valueless gods of gold that they had made for him to bow before to the shrewmice and to the bats."
The reason for that is anything representing something that is an idol becomes the god itself. People worship something by bowing down and venerating, saluting, if you will, the representation of the god as the god itself. Think of the flag that represents a country, or a ring that represents a religious or political leader. A crown. In Daniel's day in Babylon, it was a pole. Just a simple pole and what that represented. But idols like the Christian cross, the American flag, the Chaldean pole, take on a sort of life of their own as a deity. (Deuteronomy 12:3; Daniel 3:1-10)
Deuteronomy 12:3 "And you must pull down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars, and you should burn their sacred poles in the fire and cut down the graven images of their gods, and you must destroy their names from that place."
The danger of an idol god like the American flag, is that the representation consumes. For example, true Christians don't worship the American flag. They don't salute it and consequently they won't go off to war, even killing other Christian brothers to defend some ideological fixation with freedom, democracy, country. The early Jews and Christians wouldn't fall into that trap, which is why those valueless gods were so potentially harmful in a spiritual sense.
Jehovah isn't just some magic old man in the sky who represents good and evil or is jealous for no reason. The Jews practicing idol worship threatened Jehovah's intention of providing a messiah (savior) for humanity. So that they could live forever upon earth without sin, sickness, disease, suffering and death.
So, the slavery, the murder of women and children, even babies, though unfortunate, wasn't Jehovah's priority. The babies would grow into idol worshiping threats to the spirituality of the Jews, and as is now the case, the nationalistic Christians.
To the Jews, those idols often represented sex, the sex organ, and thus fertility. The Christian cross, for example, is a Roman phallic symbol. In Japan, Shintoism started out as rituals held at festivals during the planting and harvesting seasons. They had what they called "8 million gods" and these gods (Kami) were interchangeable. Merely representations of the hope for a bountiful harvest. When Buddhism arrived, probably about the sixth century, the royal family commissioned the writing of the Kojiki and the Nihongi. They didn't present these sacred texts as divinely inspired, or as true. They were legends. Mythological stories of gods, both mortal and supernatural, which instilled in the youth a very powerful national force, superior in their eyes until the kami kazis (spirit of the gods) failed them miserably in World War II and Shintoism was decimated. It became superstitious priests for hire to bless supermarkets and places of business. Even though the people would reject the spiritual aspect of it as a force to take over the world, it still permeates every aspect of their society, often without them even knowing it.
That's why I will often refer to atheists who say it's meaningless nonsense as idiots. If they educate themselves and become informed "atheists" they would be far better off.
Zeus is a good example of the application of God and gods, existing literally or figuratively.
"The ancient Greek word for god is theos, from the Proto-Hellenic reconstruction of *tʰehós; Theos can be a god, God, a ruler, and when in the feminine, a goddess. It's a thematicization of the Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁s which comes from a root meaning "to do, or put, to place" A thematicization is where a thematic vowel is inserted on the root or stem of the word to make it undergo a productive vocalic inflection.
A cognate is a word having the same linguistic derivation as another, from the same original word or root. For example, the English is, German ist, Latin est are from the Indo-European esti. Theos is a cognate with the Phrygian δεως (deōs, "to the gods"), Old Armenian դիք (dikʿ, "pagan gods") and Latin fēriae ("festival days"), fānum ("temple") and fēstus ("festive"). Though the Latin deus appears similar it is actually a cognate of Zeus, meaning "sky, heaven, sky god," which was applied to Zeus specifically, to other gods, and to emperors of Rome.
Words translated as god are associated with the use of pagan worship because that is how the words were used prior to Christianity; festivals, temples, pagan gods, sacrifice, libation, pouring, invocation, prayer and sky are meanings associated with worship. God is just a word, not a name. In the Classical Latin the polytheistic Romans didn't use the regularly constructed singular form of deus (*dee) because they addressed their gods individually by name. It was only in the Late Latin after Rome's conversion to monotheistic Christianity where God was used as a name, though it was never meant to be used in that way. The writers of the Bible were neither mono or polytheistic, they were henotheistic. They worshiped one supreme god but acknowledged that lesser gods existed as the examples above show."
1 Corinthians 8:5-6 "For even though there are those who are called "gods," whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many "gods" and many "lords," there is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and we through him."
The early Jews and Christians, who penned the Bible, were henotheistic. Meaning they worshipped one god but acknowledge the existence, literal or figurative, of other gods. To them a god could be anything. (Philippians 3:18,19)
Philippians 3:18,19 "For there are many, I used to mention them often but now I mention them also with weeping, who are walking as the enemies of the torture stake of the Christ, and their finish is destruction, and their god is their belly, and their glory consists in their shame, and they have their minds upon things on the earth."
A god can be a worthless and/or inanimate object. Natural rather than supernatural. (Isaiah 2:20)
Isaiah 2:20 "In that day the earthling man will throw his worthless gods of silver and his valueless gods of gold that they had made for him to bow before to the shrewmice and to the bats."
The reason for that is anything representing something that is an idol becomes the god itself. People worship something by bowing down and venerating, saluting, if you will, the representation of the god as the god itself. Think of the flag that represents a country, or a ring that represents a religious or political leader. A crown. In Daniel's day in Babylon, it was a pole. Just a simple pole and what that represented. But idols like the Christian cross, the American flag, the Chaldean pole, take on a sort of life of their own as a deity. (Deuteronomy 12:3; Daniel 3:1-10)
Deuteronomy 12:3 "And you must pull down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars, and you should burn their sacred poles in the fire and cut down the graven images of their gods, and you must destroy their names from that place."
The danger of an idol god like the American flag, is that the representation consumes. For example, true Christians don't worship the American flag. They don't salute it and consequently they won't go off to war, even killing other Christian brothers to defend some ideological fixation with freedom, democracy, country. The early Jews and Christians wouldn't fall into that trap, which is why those valueless gods were so potentially harmful in a spiritual sense.
Jehovah isn't just some magic old man in the sky who represents good and evil or is jealous for no reason. The Jews practicing idol worship threatened Jehovah's intention of providing a messiah (savior) for humanity. So that they could live forever upon earth without sin, sickness, disease, suffering and death.
So, the slavery, the murder of women and children, even babies, though unfortunate, wasn't Jehovah's priority. The babies would grow into idol worshiping threats to the spirituality of the Jews, and as is now the case, the nationalistic Christians.
To the Jews, those idols often represented sex, the sex organ, and thus fertility. The Christian cross, for example, is a Roman phallic symbol. In Japan, Shintoism started out as rituals held at festivals during the planting and harvesting seasons. They had what they called "8 million gods" and these gods (Kami) were interchangeable. Merely representations of the hope for a bountiful harvest. When Buddhism arrived, probably about the sixth century, the royal family commissioned the writing of the Kojiki and the Nihongi. They didn't present these sacred texts as divinely inspired, or as true. They were legends. Mythological stories of gods, both mortal and supernatural, which instilled in the youth a very powerful national force, superior in their eyes until the kami kazis (spirit of the gods) failed them miserably in World War II and Shintoism was decimated. It became superstitious priests for hire to bless supermarkets and places of business. Even though the people would reject the spiritual aspect of it as a force to take over the world, it still permeates every aspect of their society, often without them even knowing it.
That's why I will often refer to atheists who say it's meaningless nonsense as idiots. If they educate themselves and become informed "atheists" they would be far better off.
Zeus is a good example of the application of God and gods, existing literally or figuratively.
"The ancient Greek word for god is theos, from the Proto-Hellenic reconstruction of *tʰehós; Theos can be a god, God, a ruler, and when in the feminine, a goddess. It's a thematicization of the Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁s which comes from a root meaning "to do, or put, to place" A thematicization is where a thematic vowel is inserted on the root or stem of the word to make it undergo a productive vocalic inflection.
A cognate is a word having the same linguistic derivation as another, from the same original word or root. For example, the English is, German ist, Latin est are from the Indo-European esti. Theos is a cognate with the Phrygian δεως (deōs, "to the gods"), Old Armenian դիք (dikʿ, "pagan gods") and Latin fēriae ("festival days"), fānum ("temple") and fēstus ("festive"). Though the Latin deus appears similar it is actually a cognate of Zeus, meaning "sky, heaven, sky god," which was applied to Zeus specifically, to other gods, and to emperors of Rome.
Words translated as god are associated with the use of pagan worship because that is how the words were used prior to Christianity; festivals, temples, pagan gods, sacrifice, libation, pouring, invocation, prayer and sky are meanings associated with worship. God is just a word, not a name. In the Classical Latin the polytheistic Romans didn't use the regularly constructed singular form of deus (*dee) because they addressed their gods individually by name. It was only in the Late Latin after Rome's conversion to monotheistic Christianity where God was used as a name, though it was never meant to be used in that way. The writers of the Bible were neither mono or polytheistic, they were henotheistic. They worshiped one supreme god but acknowledged that lesser gods existed as the examples above show."