As long as the individual is humble and directs his/her prayer to the "most high GOD," there should not be any problem. It would be great to know beyond any question the PURE name of the supreme GOD of all things, thus we could develop a more human -secure relationship for our own personal security needs. But, perhaps, GOD hid his name on purpose for his creation to seek him out and research all things. Could this be a test for earthly mankind or another road leading to .....?
Does God mind being called the wrong name?
by Gill 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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JamesThomas
The mind gives things names that it may circumscribe and define, separate and confine them from everything else. This seems to work well in everyday practical circumstance; but would seem not to work at all when it comes to what has no beginning and no end.
j
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Abandoned
Since it is a well known fact that God's name is definitely NOT Jehovah, but this was a name only in 'operation' for the last few hundred years thanks to a Catholic Monk, doesn't the very jealous, bad tempered God of the OT mind being called, in effect, 'Fred' when his real name is 'George'.
I doubt the god of the OT gives two shakes about anything. He's probably already given himself a coronary. The god who created everything, on the other hand, has more important things to worry about then whether one tiny aspect of his creation is calling out a collection of vowels and consonants in his general direction.
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Hortensia
Does God mind being called the wrong name? Which god are you talking about? There are thousands of them, and a lot of them have a bigger constituency than Jehovah or whatever you call him/it.
I'm trying to remember the name of a nice science fiction story from quite a while ago about the names of god - about a monastery in Asia somewhere that put in a computer system to name all the names of god, in the belief that when all the names had been named, the solar system would go out like a light.
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FuzzyPaul
Strong's Exhastive Concordance of The Bible says in the Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary section #1942 : hav vah from (smudge in my copy) (in the sense of eagerly coveting and rushing upon; by impl. of falling); desire; also ruin:-calamity, iniquity, mischief, mischievious (thing), naughtiness, naughty, noisome, perverse thing, substance, very wickedness. AND, AND, AND #1943 hovah; another form for 1942; ruin:-mischief.
I think that the very sound of Je + hovah must be the utmost offense to him. Just like the YHVH being called the Tetragrammaton which means "four letter word" and "four letter word" as a slang term implies offensive words like "Hell", "Damn", "shit", "fuck", and so-on. It gets worse too I think. Devilish (slanderers) men did this and devilish men (Watchtower leaders) think it is OK. And who among them thinks the ALL KNOWING Governing body doesn't have a clue about "hovah". Most of the GB probably doesn't but someone at the HQ of the Je - hovah 's Witnesses must, MUST know this and they don't think it imporatant enough to change it. They parade about with the name and the sound is an abomination to HIM.
YHVH has vowels after each consonant. The pronunciation is closer to Yahvaho (sounds like Navaho) than Yahweh (V in YHVH isn't a "W" sound!) but even that gets to another point that I can't make here.
Check http://www.ifmj.org/articles/YHVH.htm for a rabbi's essay. He is in Tampa, FL.
Regards,
Paul
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Gill
Fuzzy Paul - I too think that it is more offensive to be called incorrectly by your supposed name than to be called by your title.
What more respectful name is there than 'God'? There isn't one.
This is why I think the WTBTS plumped for the name Jehovah. They use it as a 'brand name' in the same way as Pepsi, Coca cola etc. It's just a name to set them apart from the other business of religion.
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Terry
The people of the name; the people to whom the name was represented are also the same people who did not take the name in vain and respected it by NOT PRONOUNCING IT!
Even to this day you will see that reverent Jews write G*D instead of GOD and certainly never Jehovah.
The Watchtower Society spreads the lie that Jews were SUPERSTITIOUS about God's name and THAT is why they did not pronounce it.
It would never occur to Jehovah's Witnesses that that have vulgarized this name with over-familiarity and profaned it by connecting false prophetic dates to it.
Jehovah's Witnesses witness to the fact they treat their own representation of the Supreme Being like a buddy rather than a father or a deity.
How many people call their father by his given name?
Respect, reverence and worship actually have no place in the mindset of a people who deliberately continue to represent God by a name they NOW KNOW IS WRONGLY PRONOUNCED while simultaneously pretending to be the Truth.
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daystar
The question presumes certain human characteristics such a being would not, could not, be influenced by.
Just like with all things, names are placeholders for things, events, ideas, etc. When studied closely enough, one may discover that the relationship between a name and the item which we apply it to only retains any meaning within our own little minds.
Now, in a certain sense this can be quite powerful. However, it is a subjective power.
Any name any entity has, again, is merely symbolic of the actuality, or perhaps a perceived aspect of it. There can ultimately be no "wrong" name for "God" any more than there can be a "right" one.
I'll give you an example. When I call my father "dad", that symbolizes only what he is to me. When my sister calls my father "dad", she has a slightly different mapping for it. He is what he is to her, and is what he is to me, and those aren't necessarily exactly the same, though closer than, say, some unrelated person's "dad". So when I say "dad", the image and everything associated with it are different than when my sister calls that very same name, applying it to the very same person.
In effect, we are all, of necessity, idolators if only in our own minds, regarding absolutely anything and everything.
Does "God" mind? I'm sure "It" doesn't and couldn't possibly spend one iota of any measure of time we could possibly imagine concerned with this or any other little concern any one of us may have, ever.
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Terry
Any name any entity has, again, is merely symbolic of the actuality, or perhaps a perceived aspect of it.
For anyone or anything to exist it must have identity.
A name designates that identity exclusively. Otherwise, it is only the genus and not the differentia.
God is genus and Jehovah is differentia.
Further...for God to need a name implies that there are others of His kind.