| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"bhanwara" |
| Date: |
14 Jun 2004 04:28:15 PM |
| Object: |
All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
The major religions of the world may be divided into two
significant traditions:
Eastern Religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism.
Western Religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity.
A study of the fundamental values of these traditions indicates
BOTH are fundamentally atheistic. Here "atheism" is used
in the sense of disbelief in the deities of humanity.
The eastern traditions have, at core, a belief either
in "Brham" or "Shunyata". "Shunyata" is merely
"nothingness". "Brham" is close, as in "transcending
the moment" of nothingness. There is a lot of obfuscation
of these concepts for reasons clarified later, but that's
the essential truth of these religions.
The western traditions have a beleif in YHVH, also
variously known as Yahweh or Jehovah. These are merely
misleading names, used for similar purposes of obfucsation.
The actual name would be Y'hawwah.
"Hawwah" would be either "Eve" or "to be", whereas the Y' prefix
is apparently used to denote continuation. Some philosophers also
interpret YVHH as "the eternal". However, it appears
these meanings of YVHH are merely further obfuscations.
The obfuscation is VERY strong in the western tradition,
but is present in both traditions.
Consider the Eastern tradition. "Brham" was quickly related
to a particular group of people called "Brahmins". The
historical motivation for this was obvious -- to gain monetary
and other advantages at the expense of others by
misusing the term. The "Brahmins", once having gained
philosophical dominance, then maintained their dominance
by means of discouraging philosophical discussions of
Shunyata or Brham, by introducing a deity (old man
with flowing white beard) called Brahma, by using
a form of the word "Brahmin" with an almost identical
pronounciation to "Brham" but to denote the Brahmin
caste, and so on. From such corruptions arose the
caste system, various superstitions and evils.
Similar corruption occured in the Western tradition.
Consider the various exhortations in the Western
traditions for the followers to murder, rape and
exploit those in neighboring lands. No objective
or honest observer would consider these "holy"
in any sense of the word. So these evils must have
been introduced by viciously corrupt priests, and
must not been have a part of the original spirituality.
In light of this, the great emphasis on not saying
or using the name of YHVH takes on greater
significance. There must have been something in
the name that would have hurt the designs of the
corrupt priests, hence they had to forbid the use
of the name. The original pronounciation, and
therefore the original meaning, had to be forced
to be lost, in order for lesser designs to prevail.
There is only one meaning that can be ascribed
to "Hawwah" that can have such power. Nothing.
Void. Y'Hawwah could only mean "continued nothingness"
to have such power over corruption by priests
that they had to forbid others from using it.
In summary, BOTH major traditions do not ultimately
acknowledge either an old man with flowing beard
or clean shaven -- or some anthropomorphic abstraction
thereof. Instead, the traditions deal with
something else, the mystery of existence.
They acknowledge nothingness. They acknowledge
existence in nothingness.
Of necessity, further discussion here must get
somewhat paradoxical. Please see here my earlier
discussion on how light can propagate in vacuum.
While this is simple to understand for those
with a rudimentary knowledge of physics, in lack
of such simple understanding, priests of physics
were forced to invent deities of "fluid aether",
"invariant lightspeed" and so on.
Just as an electromagnetic wave can propagate
in vacuum by assuming positive and negative
values, the religious traditions hint to us
that existence consists of a "duality", perhaps
of positives and negatives out of nothing.
While an honest atheist would do well not to
accept even this without proof -- hopefully at this
point the diversion between atheism and
religion is much smaller, even minute. And there
is a bedrock morality to be perceived here.
The nature of our existence consists of
positives and negatives, with the sum
being zero. To put it simply, you can
take back only what you put in, and you cannot
avoid getting back what you put in. It's an
unavoidable reality. There is no "thou shalt
do this" here, there is merely fundamental
practical advice here. What you create, is
what you live.
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| User: "the wonderer" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
21 Jun 2004 04:27:56 PM |
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(bhanwara) wrote in message news:<50fd4c57.0406141328.7d743234@posting.google.com>...
Similar corruption occured in the Western tradition.
Consider the various exhortations in the Western
traditions for the followers to murder, rape and
exploit those in neighboring lands. No objective
or honest observer would consider these "holy"
in any sense of the word. So these evils must have
been introduced by viciously corrupt priests, and
must not been have a part of the original spirituality.
In light of this, the great emphasis on not saying
or using the name of YHVH takes on greater
significance. There must have been something in
the name that would have hurt the designs of the
corrupt priests, hence they had to forbid the use
of the name. The original pronounciation, and
therefore the original meaning, had to be forced
to be lost, in order for lesser designs to prevail.
There is only one meaning that can be ascribed
to "Hawwah" that can have such power. Nothing.
Void. Y'Hawwah could only mean "continued nothingness"
to have such power over corruption by priests
that they had to forbid others from using it.
i don't think you've really supported the idea tha hawwah means
"nothing" here. or did i miss it? the idea that yhwh means
"continuing to be" would be more in line with God's use of "I AM" to
describe Himself to Moses. if His name means "nothing" or "void",
wouldn't He have more likely said "I AIN'T"? anyway, i think it's
probably a waste of time to personify nothingness. just leave it as
"nothing" and move on...
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| User: "bhanwara" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
22 Jun 2004 03:26:11 PM |
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(the wonderer) wrote in message news:<5b4cddc8.0406211327.1ed818be@posting.google.com>...
i don't think you've really supported the idea tha hawwah means
"nothing" here. or did i miss it? the idea that yhwh means
It's a conjecture, primarily based upon
1) an apparently strong drift in the meanings of the
word "hawwah",
2) the strong injunction against using the name YWHW -- and
the fact that such an injunction would benefit nobody if YHWH
meant something innocuous like "the eternal", "male-female",
"source of life" or some such mildness. These meanings are
simply not powerful enough.
A tradition of YHVH as emptiness, nothing, or as you eloquently
put it "I AINT", would be mostly a tradition of intellegent
skepticism. Such traditions of extreme honesty are very
powerful, take a lot of suppressing, and even then they
produce much good, as Buddhism has shown.
But there can be a priestly class that thinks it benefits
from suppressing such intellectual honesty. (Mistakenly,
as can be seen from the examples of the Brahmins of India
who brought down a good civilization, or the similar
misleaders of the Jewish people who brought about
much suffering.)
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| User: "Patricia Heil" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
14 Jun 2004 06:12:14 PM |
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Another Internet dweeb who can't make his point without rewriting the
dictionary.
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| User: "bhanwara" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
16 Jun 2004 05:11:59 AM |
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"Patricia Heil" <pjayheil@erols.com> wrote in message news:<40ce30ce$0$3029$61fed72c@news.rcn.com>...
Another Internet dweeb who can't make his point without rewriting the
dictionary.
I appreciate criticism, but I wish you were more specific.
This is not very useful criticism. But I will try to
guess your meaning and answer based upon that guess.
Of course, a big point of the article is the suggestion that
in the Western tradition, a particular dictionary rewriting
occurred in the past. But other than that, the article
doesn't rewrite any dictionaries.
Since you have not been specific, and are presumably not
commenting upon the Sanskrit, I can only assume you know
some modern Hebrew but are perhaps not aware that there
is a language progression here involving Aramaic and
ancient Hebrew.
As per the sources I consulted, the word drift can be
seen as follows:
Early Hebrew: ???
Aramaic: Hawwah = To Be
Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew: Hawwah = Eve
Modern Interpretation: Hawwah = Rib/Desire/Serpent
There appears much debate over the modern meaning. However,
the modern interpretation is necessarily not the most
relevant. I did not consider the earlier meaning of "Eve"
in doubt, because it can be verified from the Quoran (which
would use the word in usage by Medina Jews around the 6th-7th
century.)
Such strong drifts should not occur in very significant
words. Comparable drifts have not occurred in modern
derivatives of Sanskrit.
Together with the strong inhibitions about using
the name (because of which NOBODY can now assert
to knowing the correct traditional pronounciation, and
since pronounciation was very significant in meanings
of Hebrew words, the meaning was lost as it would
have been clear to those who made the prohibition
that it would be), it is clear that the drift was
directed and intentional, and was in a direction
_away_ from something. That was the assumption
used here.
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| User: "ken quirici" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
21 Jun 2004 12:21:28 PM |
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(bhanwara) wrote in message news:<50fd4c57.0406160211.644f85ab@posting.google.com>...
As per the sources I consulted, the word drift can be
seen as follows:
Early Hebrew: ???
Aramaic: Hawwah = To Be
Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew: Hawwah = Eve
Modern Interpretation: Hawwah = Rib/Desire/Serpent
I apologize for not responding to your response to my response to the above.
Because I don't think you DID respond directly to my point, which I will try
to restate since it's kind of slippery - maybe you didn't respond directly because
I wasn't clear, etc.
Anyway, the chart you have above seems to me to clearly imply the following:
there is a word in Aramaic, Hawwah, that means 'To Be'.
there is a word in Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew, Hawwah, that means 'Eve'.
there is a word in some modern language (which is?), Hawwah, that means
'Rib/Desire/Serpent'.
Is this what you meant the chart to convey? If it is, we can proceed on to
discuss the rightmost column, the 'meanings'. If not, could you please be
a little more specific as to what the chart is intended to convey?
Thanks.
Ken Quirici
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| User: "Bennett Standeven" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
21 Jun 2004 08:23:30 PM |
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(ken quirici) wrote in message news:<eeca902a.0406210921.4d7518d0@posting.google.com>...
there is a word in Aramaic, Hawwah, that means 'To Be'.
there is a word in Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew, Hawwah, that means 'Eve'.
Actually, the word means "to live"; "Eve" (who was called Hawwah in
the original Hebrew) was named that because "she was the mother of all
that live" (Gen. 3:20).
there is a word in some modern language (which is?), Hawwah, that means
'Rib/Desire/Serpent'.
Presumably Modern Hebrew; I don't actually know any of these
languages, though.
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| User: "bhanwara" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
21 Jun 2004 06:58:12 PM |
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(ken quirici) wrote in message news:<eeca902a.0406210921.4d7518d0@posting.google.com>...
bhanwaram@netscape.net (bhanwara) wrote in message news:<50fd4c57.0406160211.644f85ab@posting.google.com>...
As per the sources I consulted, the word drift can be
seen as follows:
Early Hebrew: ???
Aramaic: Hawwah = To Be
Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew: Hawwah = Eve
Modern Interpretation: Hawwah = Rib/Desire/Serpent
I apologize for not responding to your response to my response to the above.
Because I don't think you DID respond directly to my point, which I will try
to restate since it's kind of slippery - maybe you didn't respond directly because
I wasn't clear, etc.
Anyway, the chart you have above seems to me to clearly imply the following:
there is a word in Aramaic, Hawwah, that means 'To Be'.
there is a word in Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew, Hawwah, that means 'Eve'.
there is a word in some modern language (which is?), Hawwah, that means
'Rib/Desire/Serpent'.
Is this what you meant the chart to convey? If it is, we can proceed on to
discuss the rightmost column, the 'meanings'. If not, could you please be
a little more specific as to what the chart is intended to convey?
Yes, but keep in mind that "modern interpretation" also would
refer to various attempts at "interpretations" of the ancient
words. Such interpretations apparently occur a lot in the
context of the re-creation of Hebrew, but don't have to be limited
to that.
I have to admit I din't (and don't) see what your particular
point was, and I thought I had given my answers to the 3
specific questions you asked.
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| User: "ken quirici" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
16 Jun 2004 04:11:03 PM |
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(bhanwara) wrote in message news:<50fd4c57.0406160211.644f85ab@posting.google.com>...
There's much to discuss, but I'll narrow down to just this:
As per the sources I consulted, the word drift can be
seen as follows:
Early Hebrew: ???
Aramaic: Hawwah = To Be
Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew: Hawwah = Eve
Modern Interpretation: Hawwah = Rib/Desire/Serpent
I can't really follow this diagram.
1. You have three instances of 'Hawwah'. Are you referring to three different
words (one in Aramaic, one in Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew, and one in some
modern language), which have the 'meanings' to the right of the respective
'=', and are all pronounced as indicated by 'Hawwah'? That is, all
pronounced 'hah-wah'? Please specify what that modern language is - presumably
Hebrew. I would assume the possibility of different words pronounced the
same is miniscule.
2. As to the 'meanings' to the right, 'To Be', is clear, the verb 'To Be'.
But why is the Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew Hawwah given a 'meaning' of 'Eve'?
What is the meaning of this word 'Eve'? You imply it's not the same as the
biblical Eve, which is what I take to be 'Rib/Desire/Serpent'.
3. I have seen 'Hawwah' (not sure what language) interpreted as 'mother of
life' = mother of human race, which is not a big leap from 'life', IMHO.
And if the Ancient Hebrew meaning of 'EVE' is just the biblical EVE, there's
actually not much of a drift here.
Anyway, any clarification would be appreciated. I hope my questions are
clear enuf to actually HAVE answers.
Thanks.
Ken Quirici
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| User: "bhanwara" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
21 Jun 2004 04:49:38 AM |
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(ken quirici) wrote in message news:<eeca902a.0406160807.cd0fa56@posting.google.com>...
1. You have three instances of 'Hawwah'. Are you referring to three different
words (one in Aramaic, one in Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew, and one in some
modern language), which have the 'meanings' to the right of the respective
'=', and are all pronounced as indicated by 'Hawwah'? That is, all
pronounced 'hah-wah'? Please specify what that modern language is - presumably
Hebrew. I would assume the possibility of different words pronounced the
same is miniscule.
The "modern interpretation" would be by people interested
in such things, primarily Hebrew speakers/scholars I presume.
2. As to the 'meanings' to the right, 'To Be', is clear, the verb 'To Be'.
But why is the Ancient (Rabbinic) Hebrew Hawwah given a 'meaning' of 'Eve'?
What is the meaning of this word 'Eve'? You imply it's not the same as the
biblical Eve, which is what I take to be 'Rib/Desire/Serpent'.
No, I didn't imply it's not the same as biblical Eve!
3. I have seen 'Hawwah' (not sure what language) interpreted as 'mother of
life' = mother of human race, which is not a big leap from 'life', IMHO.
And if the Ancient Hebrew meaning of 'EVE' is just the biblical EVE, there's
actually not much of a drift here.
Well, a woman is not "to be", and a woman is not a serpent, or a rib,
or desire. Clearly, mythology associates them together, and so they
may be "seen as" the same. Which is part of the issue. By making
connections in the listener's minds, the words are seen as the same,
and then they can slowly drift to entirely different meanings.
The drift away from YHWH is strong enough that at the time of the
beginnings of Islam, the traditions passed over did not even include
YHWH as such but Allah (Presumably Arabicized "Eloi/Elohim".)
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| User: "TCS" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
14 Jun 2004 06:25:25 PM |
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On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 19:12:14 -0400, Patricia Heil <pjayheil@erols.com> wrote:
Another Internet dweeb who can't make his point without rewriting the
dictionary.
Anybody in particular, or are you in the habbit of starting conversations
in the middle and out of context?
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| User: "Susan Cohen" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
15 Jun 2004 12:14:03 AM |
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"TCS" <The-Central-Scrutinizer@p.o.b.o.x.com> wrote in message
news:slrnccscv5.e4f.The-Central-Scrutinizer@linux.client.comcast.net...
On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 19:12:14 -0400, Patricia Heil <pjayheil@erols.com>
wrote:
Another Internet dweeb who can't make his point without rewriting the
dictionary.
Anybody in particular, or are you in the habbit of starting conversations
in the middle and out of context?
She was answering someone, but snipped his post - most likely because it
disgusted her.
Susan
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| User: "Steve Mading" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
15 Jun 2004 02:59:57 PM |
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In talk.atheism TCS <The-Central-Scrutinizer@p.o.b.o.x.com> wrote:
: On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 19:12:14 -0400, Patricia Heil <pjayheil@erols.com> wrote:
:>Another Internet dweeb who can't make his point without rewriting the
:>dictionary.
:
: Anybody in particular, or are you in the habbit of starting conversations
: in the middle and out of context?
Either get a threaded newsreader, or read the subject line and manually
trace it to the post she was replying to.
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| User: "duke" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
16 Jun 2004 05:32:41 AM |
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On 14 Jun 2004 14:28:15 -0700, (bhanwara) wrote:
Similar corruption occured in the Western tradition.
Consider the various exhortations in the Western
traditions for the followers to murder, rape and
exploit those in neighboring lands. No objective
or honest observer would consider these "holy"
in any sense of the word. So these evils must have
been introduced by viciously corrupt priests, and
must not been have a part of the original spirituality.
And thus the Christian new commandment "to love one another as God loves you" takes final
hold.
John 13:34.
duke
*****
I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear
it now. When he comes, the Holy Spirit will declare
to you the things that are coming. John 16:12-15.
*****
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| User: "Puck Greenman" |
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| Title: Re: All religions considered fundamentally atheistic |
16 Jun 2004 07:56:42 AM |
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On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 05:32:41 -0500, duke <duckgumbo32@cox.net> wrote:
And thus the Christian new commandment "to love one another as God loves you" takes final
hold.
But we do Earl, we torture and kill each other, right, left, and
centre, and for no more reason than that they wont obey us.
Just like god does.
Puck Greenman
#162
BAAWA Knight.
Blesed is the self righteous xtian,
for his is the sure and certain knowledge
that no matter what load of tripe he
comes out with:
God told him to say it.
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