Why God is an untenable concept

by Half banana 7 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Half banana
    Half banana

    Around three thousand two hundred years ago a tiny tribe of desert pastoralists were called Israelites for the first time. By assuming this name it acknowledged, as was the custom, the name of a god “El”.

    El was a chief sort of god and he had a fabled number of seventy sons including Yahweh. Yahweh would probably have been a wooden idol and from stone reliefs of the time we know he sat with his consort Ashera and was depicted with crescent shaped horns. I suggest from the relief and other evidence that these horns were those of the extinct giant ox called aurochs. They are shown as fitted to a band which was then attached to the idol’s head. In silhouette they look like the crescent of a new moon which indicated he was a moon god. Male Moon gods are much rarer than female but were found in Egypt,the Levant and also in India.

    Behold the first Jehovah an ox headed wooden idol!

    The Bible makes great theatre with its story of disobedient sons of Israel casting a golden bovine Jehovah in the myth of law making after the Exodus. This never happened as far as anyone knows but is a didactic tale to reinforce the development of hating all other gods and elevating the idea of an invisible divinity. The new idea on the block is not monotheism but monolatry or henotheism; the recognition that there are other gods but the worship of only one in particular.

    From this position eventually the Jewish God and his attributes, ever evolving, became adopted by the early Christ cults of the early centuries of the Common Era.

    My point is this: how could it be that a local tribal cult idol becomes the almighty creator god of the universe?

  • Witness My Fury
    Witness My Fury

    My god is better than your god? Anything deemed better in another gods mythology cant be allowed to stand so by accretion is adopted to the god of choice so over time that gods myth evolves. Plus, of course, the believers just make stuff up.

  • stan livedeath
    stan livedeath
    you have to be a bit careful saying stuff like that on here. some members still believe in all that god bollox.
  • prologos
    prologos

    untenable? from the French "tenir" - 'hang on to' -. If god is really a bull, you do not want to hang on too closely because of it's most voluminous product, that naturally follows: BS,-- the piles.

  • JamesThomas
    JamesThomas

    My point is this: how could it be that a local tribal cult idol becomes the almighty creator god of the universe?

    How can we have even the tiniest sense of the immense, mind-boggling complexity and beauty of life and universe, and yet unquestionably attribute it all to a diminutive and primitive tribal deity?

    The disconnect there is so great as to make one weep.

  • prologos
    prologos

    The creator of," the immense, mind-boggling complexity and beauty of life and universe," exclusively our father only ?

    like little boys bragging to bolster their egos.

  • fukitol
    fukitol

    A rather elaborate but not untrue explanation for why ancient superstitious fiction has taken such a hold as fact in the minds of billions of 'modern' human beings.

    I could summarise the Bible (real history blended with scary fables) in four simple words: priestcraft and pious fraud.

    priestcraft

    noun
    1. Priestcraft is the method that a priest uses, generally referring to a negative action.

      An example of priestcraft is a cruel method that a bad priest uses to scare the congregation.

      pious fraud

      A pious fraud is someone whose fraud is motivated by misguided religious zeal.

  • Half banana
    Half banana

    Once we distance ourselves from the Borg many of us look for a succinct description of the great hoax we lived under and I admit I’m in that category! Fukitol, you have arrived at a pretty good one there; a ”pious fraud by a priestcraft.”

    “Prologos , yes BS is most appropriate for a bovine idol...hadn’t thought of that!

    James T, indeed the immense “disconnect”.

    I would be most interested to hear any JW defend this indefensible chasm which exists between the partisan folk origins of Big J and the prevailing perception.

    My take on the implications is that it demonstrates the nature of the Biblical texts that they are merely the religio – political adulation of their divine mascot. Israel being a tiny province with a small population (don’t believe what the Bible boasts on this point) with limited natural resources, surrounded by very powerful neighbours. Their only escape was in the hope of their puny God defeating the more powerful Gods. The power of Egypt’s Gods were feared because the empire was so strong, the Gods of the weak tribes being regarded as impotent. Yahweh was a lesser God and hence the naive god competition in 1Kings 18. (Elijah, Jah and Baal)

    This did not prevent the underdogs from imagining some celestial victory in their favour and the hope beyond hope of rhetorical bluster is the basis for much of the Hebrew writings.

    But to believe it today and base your very life on it... is...like Jehovah... absurd.

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit