Not enough evidence sir

[ApologiaSophia]

From what I recall many of the polytheistic deities don’t demand worship. They may be seen as having some function (god of fertility, god of fortune, so on) and thus there would be an inventive to make one of them happy for personal reasons. As a human you would not need to gain super powers to get people to worship you. If you had some inventive that was strong enough (either a reward or a threat) you could get some group to worship you. Walk into a room with a gun, demand the people in the room worship you, and some will comply for as long as you can maintain the threat. If you have enough money to hand out and promise to give it to whoever pleases you the most and some will worship you.

So I conjecture that if one encountered the Greek pantheon and the pantheon offered threats and/or rewards that one might be motivated to worship.

True, but that might depend on how you define worship. At least as a Christian, I believe true worship is a matter of the heart. You can go through motions of adoration and still not adore the object. But I totally agree with you. My ultimate point was to show how god and God are not the same thing. It’s not just because one has a lowercase g and the other one has an uppercase G. To think of god and God as the same thing is an equivocation. One is transcendent, the other not. So to make any sort of argument that goes along the lines of “You should not believe in God for the same reason you don’t believe in gods” is flawed.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

True, but that might depend on how you define worship.

Many things in the philosophy forum are dependent on you define terms.

At least as a Christian, I believe true worship is a matter of the heart. You can go through motions of adoration and still not adore the object.

And if some one doesn’t have the feelings that usually motivate adornment then I’m not sure there’s not much that could be done about it. Some will continue to follow the motions. Others will take a more honest course of actions.

Though it is possible for some one to engage in string adoration without the presence of punishment and reward too. First example that comes to mind is how some people react to celebrities or some artifact with which the celebrity had some interaction. They are a far cry from the Olympian gods but still something that may meet your definition of “worship.”

But I totally agree with you. My ultimate point was to show how god and God are not the same thing. It’s not just because one has a lowercase g and the other one has an uppercase G. To think of god and God as the same thing is an equivocation. One is transcendent, the other not. So to make any sort of argument that goes along the lines of “You should not believe in God for the same reason you don’t believe in gods” is flawed.

From the outside looking in it seems that every god is different, just like all the others (to use a modified form of an old saying). Living in the western world I usually see people using “God” as a synonym for Yahweh. But with most of my coworkers and other associates now days being from eastern nations I’ve found that Yahweh isn’t the only referent for “God”.

I’ll have to find it, but there was a court case in the United States in which it was investigated whether or not the use of the word “God” on some public document was a violation of the First Amendment establishment clause. In the final ruling it was decided that the use of the word “God” was not a violation because by itself it doesn’t refer to any specific deity and that each person using it could decide to what it refers.

I prefer to avoid these ambiguities and just use the proper name Yahweh. To the best of my knowledge the name and its variants are only part of two families on religion, and one of those families of religion has been dead for a long time. So there’s not much room to confuse it for something else.

Looking in older versions of the old testament while “Yahweh” is used there in many places the term used is “Ēl” which more or less means the same thing as "God."Though it was also used to refer to more than just Yahweh. It could be used to refer to Baal or one of the other deities.

 

[ApologiaSophia]

From the outside looking in it seems that every god is different, just like all the others (to use a modified form of an old saying). Living in the western world I usually see people using “God” as a synonym for Yahweh. But with most of my coworkers and other associates now days being from eastern nations I’ve found that Yahweh isn’t the only referent for “God”.

I’ll have to find it, but there was a court case in the United States in which it was investigated whether or not the use of the word “God” on some public document was a violation of the First Amendment establishment clause. In the final ruling it was decided that the use of the word “God” was not a violation because by itself it doesn’t refer to any specific deity and that each person using it could decide to what it refers.

I prefer to avoid these ambiguities and just use the proper name Yahweh. To the best of my knowledge the name and its variants are only part of two families on religion, and one of those families of religion has been dead for a long time. So there’s not much room to confuse it for something else.

Looking in older versions of the old testament while “Yahweh” is used there in many places the term used is “Ēl” which more or less means the same thing as "God."Though it was also used to refer to more than just Yahweh. It could be used to refer to Baal or one of the other deities.

I would also totally agree with this statement. However, as far as I know, any monotheistic religion or spirituality (even if that religion or spirituality be pantheistic) believe this God to be some sort of cosmic or transcendent being or consciousness. Either the cosmos is dependent on God, or the cosmos and God are eternally one, but I have never head of God being dependent on the cosmos for existence. I will even grant that there are probably some who would make this claim and believe such a statement, but the vast majority are referring to the latter two.

Concerning YHWH, it is the Hebrew name for God, but is a root that is supposed to come from the Exodus where God said “I Am.” Even the name “I Am” is supposed to be revelation in itself and is more concerned with the nature of God than His actual “name” per say. El in Hebrew, as you said, is a word that means something like “god.” It usually designates some kind of power. Angels for example are elohim, but the Hebrew concept of “Angel” is far different from the Hebrew concept of “God.” When we really get into the Hebrew this whole topic can become very fascinating. Like why does elohim sometimes refer to God though it is in the plural? Like elohim created (bara being a verb in the singular second person). But God is also referred to as El Elyon (God Most High. Not, this was a Canaanite deity for the head of their pantheon, but the Bible is trying to make a statement that YHWH is truely the Most High power, or God). In any case, I’m beginning to ramble, so I’ll get to the point x_X. As I believe I’ve said before, the belief in God (being a conscious, transcendent being) can be argued through reason alone. It is not until you attribute something to God that it becomes a matter of faith of some sort.