From a completely neutral (as in, not even atheist–someone with no bias looking for a religion) point of view, frankly this is just pretty lame and sad. It’d be like several comic book artists trying to get you to read their product line at a convention and one of them makes a pitch of ‘my protagonist has ALL of the superpowers ever and beats up all of their other protagonists–in fact those guys don’t even have superpowers, only my guy does, and he’s even more badass then them’. Even if you look past that and see that there’s a great comic book behind that central premise, it’s just plain embarrassing and puerile.
How did this happen? What’s wrong with having a God that’s A) not omnipotent and B) more importantly, doesn’t deny the existence of everyone else’s deities?
The God depicted in the bible is clearly not omnipotent. He has to rest after creating the universe and asks questions and can be rebuffed by iron chariots of all things.
That’s not to say he isn’t the most powerful being, you can be the most powerful thing in the universe without being omnipotent.
I would say that people like attributing omnipotence to him because they’re childish and it was probably like the pre-Crisis Superman power creep. With followers falling over themselves to glorify Him, it wouldn’t take long for omnipotence to stick.
I’m not really groking this question. It’s like if I say that I live in Virginia and you ask me what’s wrong with living in North Carolina. Nothing is wrong with living in North Carolina, but I still live in Virginia.
That’s how Judaism went for the first four thousand years, but somewhere along the line (Maimonides, I guess), Other People’s Gods got dropped from the roster. Note that the “God of Abraham” or the “God of Moses” or the “God of the Israelites” was called just that: God of ______, not God of Everything and There are None Other, Neener-Neener.
shrug
There are still some Jews who believe that there are other lesser gods…I don’t know about Christians, but most certainly not Muslims.
I think there’s a difference between ‘there is only one supernatural deity’ and ‘there is only one supernatural deity that counts’. I think monotheism falls under both categories; no?
“God”/Elohim is just a generic word. The second commandment is that you shall have no other gods before me - that kind of implies that having another god was a possibility. The first is a very firm reminder that God (or this particular one) brought the Israelites out of Egypt (presumably to follow him til the end of time). “I am the Lord your God” suggests imho that God is speaking directly to a certain set of people.
I don’t believe that the Bible is the end-all/be-all of its derived faiths. The Abrahamic Religion is OLD and to me what’s more important than what’s the canon is peoples’ interpretation of it–this includes hundreds of years of culture and religious doctrine and arguments made since then. Thus even if the Bible says that there are other Gods and God isn’t omnipotent, the fact remains that to (non-Jews at least if CitizenPained is to be believed) the vast majority of God’s worshippers he’s the only God AND he’s all-powerful to boot.
There’s a difference between omnipotence and omniscience, which I think is what Lobohan is trying to say. I could argue that God is the most powerful, but that even He has limits.
First of all, it’s unlikely (though possible) that Judaism existed for 4.000 years before Maimonides. Second, the Torah from Genesis 1:1 onwards makes clear that the Jewish God is the supreme God, creator and sovereign over the world, and able to overpower anyone or thing in the world. Early Judaism may have believed in other beings we call “gods” but did not address them with the same title as they addressed their God.
That said, if Lago wants an non-omnipotent God who shares the universe with numerous other equals he could always try Mormonism.
Is it that hard to believe that someone could believe that gods exist but they don’t know WHICH gods do–so they’re polling other believers to find which one works for them? For example, if I was a Bronze Age goat herder that traveled forwards in time thousands of years and people said to me ‘Baal who?’ and I learned only a couple of deities from my time period are even named it’s not likely that I would immediately switch to atheism even if my religion was effectively dead. At the very least I’d see what’s what before abandoning faith altogether.
That was what I meant by the question. I’m saying that to someone who was receptive to the idea of a supernatural entity but not sure which one is ‘real’ would find the description of God from a Christian or Muslim as trite and embarrassing after listening to several others. And it’d be markedly less so if they went ‘yes, there is a God and he’s a totally badass war god and does a lot of awe-inspiring things; read our book and find out’.
Okay, so Rambam was born in the 1100s, so it’s fair to say that Judaism had been going on (according to our tradition) for a few thousand years by then. If you follow the formula of the Hebrew calendar, the modern world is at least 5771 years old, so if Rambam was born in the Hebrew year 4895, that means God had a relationship with those would become Israelites/Israelites/Jews for at least four thousand years already.
If you figure that Abraham was about 2-3,000 BCE, I’m really only off by a little.
The Torah does make clear that HaShem is the Supreme God and ruler of the Universe, but it does not mean that other gods don’t have power. Example: Kings rule their lands, but governors still carry out law, or inhabitants still commit crimes, or whatever. The way that God is addressed in the Torah is much like one would address or describe a King (or possibly a Pharaoh, since Abraham’s -and Moses’ - closest greatest nation-neighbor would’ve been ancient Egypt).
In short, yes, there were other gods in Judaism - they were just verboten.
I’ve seen these arguments on SDMB before. I think for me, I just…don’t…care enough to define my ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ atheism much more than a ‘meh’. I most certainly wouldn’t put myself in the category of Dio, who makes a point to rally against God. I’m not the type of __-ist that is uncomfortable theists, though, so I think I usually get taken for a theist.
I talk of God much like I talk about other human concepts. It’s like a conversation about literature or democracy or love or math.
edit: I guess you could say I believe that God exists because the world functions as though He does. Therefore, the matter of him actually existing (e.g., a truth) is completely irrelevant. This is how I can talk about God and what He would think if he were inclined to have human thoughts.
The world functions as if there was a particular type of God? I don’t see it that way, but I don’t want to get further off-topic. So now you’re a theist?
Well, from a logical standpoint, there can’t be two omnipotent beings. If either is limited in relation to the other, then that one (or both) is not omnipotent. If you’re going to posit an omnipotent being, then of necessity it must be a unique one.
