User talk:Peter J. King/Laboratory: Difference between revisions

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--[[User:Peter J. King|Peter J. King]] <span style="background:black">&nbsp;[[User talk:Peter J. King|<font color="yellow"><b>Talk</b></font>]]&nbsp;</span> 17:17, 14 February 2007 (CST)
--[[User:Peter J. King|Peter J. King]] <span style="background:black">&nbsp;[[User talk:Peter J. King|<font color="yellow"><b>Talk</b></font>]]&nbsp;</span> 17:17, 14 February 2007 (CST)
==test==
The attitude to gods is normally positive (they are seen as, if not good or benevolent, then at least not bad or malevolent); a being thought of begatively would normally bot be accounted a god but a demon or some other superantural creature.  Nevertheless, few theistic religions whose beliefs involve personal gods have thought of them as being reliable or predictable, and so many religious practices have involved some form of bargaining.  This can take such forms as [petitionary prayer], praise, ceremonies of appeasement, and [[sacrifice]]..
This sort of activity is related to the common use of gods to explain important natural phenomena that affect human beings: natural events such as [[tsunami]]s, [[earthquake]]s, and [[volcanic eruption]]s; human conditions such as health and illness; regularities such as the seasons, animal migrations, and tidal flooding; celestial events such as the rising and setting of the sun and moon, eclipses, and comets.  (One of the most common types of such explanation is, of course, the very existence of the world and its contents, though this rarely lends itself to bargaining.)
Bargaining can also be designed to avert the unintentional causing of divine anger  and retribution, or to gain help in ensuring the success of one's activities.  This, and the other forms of bargaining, can also involve non-divine superantural entities such as [[saint]]s, [[bodhisattva]]s, and [[Animism|animistic]] spirits.
Gods can also be used to explain and to justify the social organisation of human beings. for example, the notion of the [[divine right of kings]] , or &ndash; more directly &ndash; the claim that a ruler is himself a god, that he is of divine descent, or that he is destined to become a god after his death.
Religious activities that do not involve bargaining include the giving of thanks or of praise, and the communal reinforcement of religious belief and commitments.
==Test two==
The term "'''god'''" has a very wide range of uses &mdash; so wide, indeed, that no single definition can hope to capture it.  Most native English speakers usually understand it to mean the [[Christian God|God]] of Christianity, but examples of entities going under the description "god" range from very specific to very abstract.  They include living human beings such as certain [[Roman Emperor]]s and [[Egyptian Pharaoah]]s, humanlike beings with superhuman powers such as the [[Ancient Greek pantheon|gods of the Ancient Greeks]], [[person]]al but [[Omnipotence|omnipotent]], [[Omniscience|omniscient]], [[Benevolence|benevolent]] creators such as the God of the [[Abrahamic religions]], and impersonal abstractions such as the [[Hinduism|Hindu]] concept of [[Brahman]].
As well as types of god, there are many different views on how many gods there are, and on what the believer's attitude to them should be; these range from the view that there is only one god to the view that there are many, and from the view that the god or gods in which one believes should be worshipped to the view that worship is irrelevant to god.
==Capitalisation and the word "god"==
Whether or not the term "god" is [[Upper case|capitalised]] has at times been the subject of debate; this is not merely a matter of typography, but of the r&ocirc;le of the term.  For many [[script]]s, including forms of [[Greek alphabet|Greek]], no distinction between upper and lower case is possible.  In scripts that do allow the distinction, such as [[Latin language|Latin]], terms such as "deus", "dominus", and "christus" were generally not capitalised until the mid-seventeenth century.<ref>In, for example, [http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/ljs/pagelevel/image.cfm?manid=ljs025&page=62&level=1 this early-fourteenth-century], "deus" is uncapitalised, as in the second column halfway down, with the blue paragraph mark, beginning "quicumque autem", and just before that "hoc enim deus" can be seen in lower case. Again, [http://uk.geocities.com/frege@btinternet.com/manuscripts/bonaventura/bonaii38.htm this] fifteenth-century  [[incunabulum]] of [[Bonaventura]], "Augustine" and "Boethius" are capitalised, but not "deus". In the photograph of a page from this undated, but probably mid-seventeenth-century [http://www.tertullian.org/editions/1493_benalius/f08v.jpg book] (from Roger Pearse's Tertullian website), the lower case is still in use.  See also [http://prodigi.bl.uk/TreasuresImages/Gutenberg/max/kl1/005.jpg "The Wife Bath's Tale"] (Caxton 1483) and the [http://prodigi.bl.uk/TreasuresImages/Caxton/max/Edn1/129.jpg Gutenberg Bible] (Gutenberg, fifteenth century).</ref>
There was intense debate over whether "god" was a [[Proper noun|proper]] or a [[common noun]] in medi&aelig;val times.  Some theologians denied that it was a proper noun, because a true proper noun has direct reference, like a [[demonstrative]], and they thought such direct reference would bring the one who grasped it into such intimate union with god that he would die.
Although modern usage has tended to adopt the capitalisation of the word when it is used to refer to the god, or God, of the monotheistic (and especially the Abrahamic) religions, retaining the uncapitalised form for other uses, this is not universal.  The uncapitalised form is still used by those (especially non-believers) who hold that "god" is not a proper noun, and that the use of the capital is therefore purely a mark of reverence.  Nonetheless, many non-believers use the capitalized form simply as a common linguistic convention.
==Varieties of belief==
===Monotheism===
The [[Monotheism|monotheist]] believes that only one god exists. There are, of course, different monotheistic religions with differing approaches to the nature of this one god.  The [[Abrahamic religion]]s involve what is perhaps the best-known variety of monotheism. The adherents of the three main Abrahamic religions &ndash; modern [[Judaism]], [[Christianity]], and [[Islam]] &ndash; typically believe that their God is the [[transcendent cause]] of our universe (i.e., that it is distinct from the universe), that it is a [[personal god]], and that it is worthy of [[worship]].
====Deism====
"[[Deism]]" is a term that arose within, and is most often applied to, a variety of Christianity, but in fact could be used to describe varieties of other religions.  The history of the term is very varied, but since the eighteenth century it has been used to refer to the view that, once the creator god had brought the universe into existence, it ceased to be involved any further &mdash; thus god does not intervene in human affairs, and notions of [[revelation]], [[miracle]]s, etc., are rejected.  Deists typically, therefore, insist on the centrality of [[natural theology]].
====Pantheism====
[[Pantheism]] is the view that the whole world is god and god is the whole world; the totality of existence forms a unity, which is divine.  [[Panentheism]] is a variant of pantheism according to which the world is part of god, but god is more than the world.  Pantheists rarely if ever see god as a person, and a frequent complaint made against the view is that there is no more than a linguistic distinction between it and atheism.
The Hindu notion of Brahman lies somewhere between standard theistic monotheism and pantheism.
===Polytheism===
The [[Polytheism|polytheist]] believes in, ''and worships'', more than one god (see [[#Henotheism|henotheism]]).  Most religions seem to have their origins in polytheism; early human beings saw the world as full of gods who were either like human beings but more powerful, or who were (usually anthropomorphised) animals, celestial objects, or other natural phenomena.  These gods usually pre-existed human beings, and were often associated with [[creation myth]]s.  Many religions have retained their polytheistic position, including [[Shinto]], [[Vodoun]], and some varieties of [[Hinduism]].
Some critics of Christianity, especially Jewish and Muslim critics, have argued that the Christian doctrine of the [[Christian Trinity|Trinity]] is in fact more-or-less disguised polytheism, and some Christian thinkers have agreed with such a view (see, for example, [[Arianism]]).
===Henotheism and kathenotheism===
Henotheism involves the belief in many gods, but the worship of only one.  The one god that is worshipped might be seen as having a special attachment to or responsibility for one's own nation, race, or tribe (as was the case in early [[Judaism]], or as being thought to be more powerful or important than the others (the latter is often called "monolatry").<ref>Some [[Christian sect]]s take this view of the Trinity, holding that only the father should be worshipped, not [[Jesus]] or the holy spirit.</ref>
Henotheism may involve the belief in various numbers of gods; when two gods are believed in it is called "ditheism".  [[Zoroastrianism]] and [[Manichaeism]] are examples of this. [[#Monotheism|Monotheism]] is the limiting case of henotheism.
Kathenotheism is a version of henotheism in which many gods are believed in and one worshipped, but which god is worshipped varies according to the time or place rather than remaining the same across the believer's lifetime.
==Varieties of god==
The main notion of god in the monotheistic religions is that of an [[Infinity|infinite]], [[Omnipotence|omnipotent]], [[Omnsicience|omniscient]], [[Benevolence|benevolent]], and [[Transcendence|transcendent]] creator of the world.  Exactly what these qualities are, however, is open to much debate: for example, infinity might be taken to imply an [[Eternity|eternal]] god (that is, one that exists outside time) or a [[Sempiternity|sempiternal]] god (that is, one that exists in time, but which has no beginning or end). There is also room for much disagreement concerning, for example, whether this god is a person, whether and to what extent it is involved with the world, and so on. Indeed, some believers hold that the god of Christianity and Judaism is limited in its qualities, and even that it is imperfect.  For example, [[process theology]] argues that god is "dipolar", having two aspects &mdash; one transcendent, but the other in the world, undergoing suffering and change.
The gods of non-monotheistic religions cannot be infinite (as any two infinite beings would limit each other, which is a contradiction), but in other respects there is room for even more variety.  Many gods are more-or-less exaggerated versions of naturally existing objects; these are most often human beings or other animals (or mixtures of the two), but thay can also be inanimate, or even phenomena such as fire, mountains, wind, or stars.
==Attitudes and worship==
The attitude to gods is normally positive (they are seen as, if not good or benevolent, then at least not bad or malevolent); a being thought of begatively would normally bot be accounted a god but a demon or some other superantural creature.  Nevertheless, few theistic religions whose beliefs involve personal gods have thought of them as being reliable or predictable, and so many religious practices have involved some form of bargaining.  This can take such forms as [petitionary prayer], praise, ceremonies of appeasement, and [[sacrifice]]..
This sort of activity is related to the common use of gods to explain important natural phenomena that affect human beings: natural events such as [[tsunami]]s, [[earthquake]]s, and [[volcanic eruption]]s; human conditions such as health and illness; regularities such as the seasons, animal migrations, and tidal flooding; celestial events such as the rising and setting of the sun and moon, eclipses, and comets.  (One of the most common types of such explanation is, of course, the very existence of the world and its contents, though this rarely lends itself to bargaining.)
Bargaining can also be designed to avert the unintentional causing of divine anger  and retribution, or to gain help in ensuring the success of one's activities.  This, and the other forms of bargaining, can also involve non-divine superantural entities such as [[saint]]s, [[bodhisattva]]s, and [[Animism|animistic]] spirits.
Gods can also be used to explain and to justify the social organisation of human beings. for example, the notion of the [[divine right of kings]] , or &ndash; more directly &ndash; the claim that a ruler is himself a god, that he is of divine descent, or that he is destined to become a god after his death.
Religious activities that do not involve bargaining include the giving of thanks or of praise, and the communal reinforcement of religious belief and commitments.
==Notes==
<references/>
==References==
*Gerard J. Hughes ''The Nature of God''.  London: Routledge, 1995. ISBN 0-415-12075-6
*Peter J. King "Gods", in H. James Birx [ed.] ''Encyclopedia of Anthropology'' Volume 3.  Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2006. ISBN 0-7619-3029-9
*Michael P. Levine ''Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Concept of Deity''. London: Routledge, 1994.  ISBN 0-415-07064-3
*Thomas V. Morris [ed.] ''The Concept of God''.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.  ISBN 0-19-875076-5
*H.P. Owen ''Concepts of Deity''. London: Macmillan, 1971
[[Category:Philosophy Workgroup]]
[[Category:Religion Workgroup]]
[[Category:CZ Live]]

Revision as of 12:24, 23 March 2007

--Peter J. King (Talk) 17:08, 14 February 2007 (CST)

--Peter J. King (Talk) 17:09, 14 February 2007 (CST)

--Peter J. King  Talk  17:17, 14 February 2007 (CST)

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