One advantage of being married to someone Jewish (besides not having to worry about doing my own taxes) is that I have access to different ideas than I was exposed to growing up. I grew up Catholic surrounded by Protestants (I’m not sure which made me go atheist, to be honest) and I married a Jew. If I can find a Muslim best friend, I will have a complete set of monotheists.
So anyway, one of those Jewish ideas came my way today when I found out that the term “sodomite” has nothing to do with Sodom.
The word “sodomite” as used in the KJV of the Bible is never used in reference to Sodom, but rather to a fertility cult that has male prostitutes. The word translated as “sodomite” is transliterated from Hebrew as “qadesh.”
In other words, the way the Old Testament is actually written in Hebrew, “sodomite” or “one from Sodom” is not a reference to homosexuality. This was a later attribution, one which begins to appear around the time of Jesus. It enters general Jewish philosophy about a century before Jesus. “Sodomite” ends up in Christian translations because translators see little problem centuries later of using a commonplace term (sodomite) where it contextually doesn’t belong.
When the Jewish people became subjugated to Greek rule under Philip of Macedon in the 4th century BCE, and subsequently while under the rule of Rome beginning in the 1st century BCE, the practice of institutionalized pederasty traveled through the Greek speaking world. This met heavy resistance among the Jews, and Jewish philosophers of this time begin to conflate Sodom with homosexuality (Judaism is, afterall, against homosexuality).
Before this time, writings attributed to Moses and Ezekiel stressed the crimes of Sodom to be inhospitality, greed, gluttony, and general excess… though never a mention of homosexuality.
Hmm… what organized group is openly inhospitable to outsiders, and who encourage greed, gluttony, and general excess in the name of economic consumption…
I guess what I’m trying to say is, Republicans are basically all sodomites.
[Written in response to Pat Robertson’s remarks on gay marriage.]
Hey Ginx, long time no see! Saw your comment on Thesauros so I decided to pass by...
ReplyDeleteYou might be interested to learn something, you said: If I can find a Muslim best friend, I will have a complete set of monotheists.
...but, contrary to what we learn in school or can read online, Hindus are actually just as monotheists as Christians.
I've been going out with a Hindu for more than a year now and I got to learn a thing or two obviously. They have this principle that all gods actually flow from/to one god, the essence, like rivers flowing to the sea, God with a big 'G' if you want.
When you think about it, this means that they see God exactly the same way Christians do with their Son, Father and Holy Spirit... If Christians are monotheists with such weird 3-person but 1-God, then Hindus have to be considered monotheists as well!
Cheers
Maybe, though I would classify that as Henotheism. Every religion has a supreme being that lords over everything. Only a monotheism denies the very existence of all gods but one.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I had not heard about Henotheism before.
ReplyDeleteHowever, after reading the description, I feel like modern Hindus are more like modern Christians, in that they don't believe there are others gods, there is literally just 1, but in different forms.
Precise example, I visited the house my girlfriend grew up in last January, in India. Her mom placed a picture of Jesus on one of the shelf. I was surprised obviously, and my girlfriend explained that for them Jesus was yet another incarnation of God. It's not just another possible god they don't follow, it is literally an incarnation of the one God that spawned everything.
At the same time, it's true that monotheism as expressed in Islam or Christianity is seeing anything but their god as false and non-existent. Perhaps some more modern terms should be coined, something like inclusive monotheism versus exclusive, lol.
Actually, it seems that Monism is pretty much what I was trying to describe...
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism
... and it's actually mentioned on the Monotheism page.
In Hinduism, views are broad and range from monism, through pantheism and panentheism (alternatively called monistic theism by some scholars) to monotheism. Hinduism cannot be said to be polytheistic, as all great Hindu religious leaders have repeatedly stressed that God is one and his forms are many, the ways to communicate with him are many and focusing or concentrating on the icon is one of those ways.
I would simplify things and just consolidate all of the categories into "fiction." If they want something more specific, they can go with "myth."
ReplyDeleteI guess it comes down to your definition of "god," since the Hindu word (I think some form of the word "deva") is, to me, a god. Monotheism doesn't see God as being expressed in other gods (that would be syncretism)). Worshiping Jesus or YHWH does not make one a monotheist; plenty of pagans have worshiped the god of the Hebrews (the supposed "God") alongside others.
Ahh, monism. I might even go so far as to call it pantheism, if they view all of creation as encompassed by the divine.
ReplyDeleteThen you have your catholic buddies. Sure, they worship Jesus, Yahweh, and the Ghost (3 gods?). But what of the saints and virgin mothers? They pray to them, right? Aren't they demigods?
ReplyDeleteSeems pantheistic to me. I think Hugo is on to something.