On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 12:38 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 12/8/2016 3:31 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 6:47 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 12/8/2016 3:29 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>> >>>> On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 7:26 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 12/5/2016 1:31 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 3:38 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 12/4/2016 10:45 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 6:03 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> and by doing so you drag in a lot of baggage. There was a group of >>>>>>> atheists in the Dallas area which for a time formed a church and >>>>>>> claimed >>>>>>> to >>>>>>> be a religion for tax purposes. They defined "God" to be whatever >>>>>>> was >>>>>>> good >>>>>>> in the world. The IRS disallowed their claim. >>>>>> >>>>>> I assume that evoking the American IRS as a a scholarly authority on >>>>>> such a matter is a joke, right? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> But they are as good an authority as any. Unlike theologians they have >>>>> to >>>>> make decisions that have real consequences - not just mix word salad. >>>> >>>> But this is not a discussion about theology, it's a discussion about >>>> the historical and cultural variations of concepts of god -- it falls >>>> under anthropology and history. >>> >>> >>> OK, tell me about a historical or cultural variation in which "god" >>> doesn't >>> not refer to a person/agent. >> >> Anything pantheistic. Taoism, several gnostic cults, certain native >> Americans I think, sufi mysticism, certain denominations of modern >> judaism... Ah and the force in Star Wars. > > > But they don't use the word "god". It's an abuse of language it say that > "god" means "whatever one's religion worships". Paul Tillich tried that > maneuver in the '60s. He said "god" meant whatever one valued most: money, > fame, power,... If you cut a word lose from common usage then, as the > Caterpillar said to Alice, you can make it mean anything you want.
So you are saying that "god" is reserved for judaic-christian style deities. Given that those were invented in the Middle East, and that they didn't speak English there at the time, how did the anglo-saxon term merge with the judaic-christian tradition? Telmo. > Brent > “People are more unwilling to give up the word ‘God’ than to give up the > idea for which the word has hitherto stood” > --- Bertrand Russell > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
