Talk:God/Archive 5

message: Hinduism, along w most eastern religions, is inclusivist. They believe that everyone is born into their proper position, (due to karma) and should do what they are made to do (their dharma). That means a average Hindu thinks a Catholic is doing what he is supposed to in his catholic rituals, and a Sikh, Muslim, Jew is doing what he is ment to do, etc.. There is an exclusive nature preferring "true" religions, presumably making exception for Satanism/atheism or false cults to be improper. That said, an insightful phrase is "all paths lead to God", suggesting that even those on evil or improper paths will eventually find God in later reincarnations. Hindu is not the proper name BTW, the proper name is Sanatana Dharma, which translates roughly as "eternal righteousness with no beginning and no end". Everyone is Sanatana Dharma, because everyone is part of existence, and therefore an aspect of Brahma (at least in Brahman Hinduism, Hinduism is diverse philosophically). I don't agree that the "exclusivist"/"inclusivist" dichotomy is unhelpful, but  its not clean cut. Judaism is an exception for example, in that they feel they are "Chosen", but don't prefer others to convert, and generally think a well behaved goyim will reach some sort of heaven. Sam [Spade] 03:37, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Re:[[Talk:God#.22inclusivistic_religions.22...really.3F]]

message: The image from the Sistine chapel that this article uses was vandalized. I tried to revert it, but the results do not seem to be satisfactory. I am posting this here hoping that someone with more experience dealing with the reversion of images can take care of it. ~ Kalki 17:20, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
:I just made a copy and uploaded it. If you deem it better, switch the links on the article. You can see it here:  --</b>metta,  The Sunborn ☸ 23:21, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  image vandalized 

message: I noticed that monoteistic god has been tacked to the end of this article. I find that to be somewhat awkward, because the header of the article mentions only the Supreme monotheistic version. We need to either eliminate the Western POV, or expand the deity page. (ClockworkTroll 22:27, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: whats with this "western" comment? How is that applicable? I am ok w you taking the polytheistic part over to another page tho, it has no place here, I agree. Sam [Spade] 22:19, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Perhaps "Western" is not the best word to use. I have some ideas to talk to you about; I'll continue this on your talk page. ClockworkTroll 22:27, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved, btw. Sam [Spade] 22:27, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it is useful to have a separate deity article for polytheistic gods, because these would overload this article. But this article at least needs a section about the emergence of monotheism. The concept of "God" is clearly secondary to the concept of "gods" and only really came into fashion in hellenism. Strictly speaking, hebrew YHWH doesn't belong on this page, as he was not a monotheistic God in the Old Testament, he only forbade adoration of other gods, without denying their existence. I'm not saying this to troll this page, just to point out that a section about the relations to polytheistic frameworks is required. dab 10:20, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Polytheistic concept of god

message: Some people have posited that perhaps God is really an intelligence that at some point in the past become sufficiently advanced that it aggregated itself to the very fabric of the cosmos. In this view, this god-intelligence now looks over the Earth. 
Furthermore, there are also wilder, although not considered unreasonable, beliefs that God is another type of organism.  There has in fact been a group of individuals found who believe God is truly a pink monkey (pinkomists).  A small group of individuals who speak their own dialect in the Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico have also chosen to worship the sagebrushes which they consider the fruit of life.
:I find these portions dubious, and even if they were some how cited, I think they'd find a better home elsewhere. Also I a very suspicious as to the reality of these claims. Sam [Spade] 22:23, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: yeah, I googled the pink monkey one after I wikified it. All it turned up a tripod site other than a mirror of us. The sage one is much more believable see: Salvia divinorum. --</b>metta,  The Sunborn ☸ 00:00, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: OK< I'll move the sage part to Deity. Sam [Spade] 00:39, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  section moved to talk 

message: How can the inclusion of a scripture reference make a paragraph POV?  This makes no sense to me, unless you believe that all of scripture has a POV problem.  KeyStroke 22:15, 2004 Oct 14 (UTC)
:As long as it says that this is one possible view and not the only view (as I feel it did), the scripture should be fine. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 23:16, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Scripture reference makes it POV ?? 

message: The link "What is God?" leads right back to the God article.  Was there once a separate page, which is now gone?
:There apparently was such an article some time ago (), but it was changed to a redirect to God.  It can always be re-written though, if you or someone is up to it. Whosyourjudas (talk) 02:33, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing link? 

message: Although I understand that it is conventional for English speakers to refer to God as "He" (which, I believe, tends to be capitalised), I do not think that such a pronoun should be used when referring to God generally. It is acceptable when discussing the God of the three chief monotheistic religions, for example, but in a general sense, it should be, I believe, avoided. Hence my changes to the article. -- Emsworth 20:03, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Gender

message: How can all that content be removed, and not considered vanalism??? KeyStroke 06:30, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)
:when it was redundant.  For example, Emsworth removed a section "proofs of the existence of god" but that's okay, since he left a second section on the same topic (then renamed it).  More explanation and analysis of the change might help... Mozzerati 08:21, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)
::I believe we are in a process of weeding out a lot of redundant stuff about fictional characters at the moment in any case. Sjc 11:44, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: it was not only redundant but an exact duplicate of sections that already existed - Emsworth's changes were cleanup, with some copyediting too.  --16:43, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: We just lost a boat-load of content

message: There were some inaccuracies in the etymology section. It is misleading to say that the *germanic* god is "equivalent" to theos, deus: the meaning of the word in pre-christian times is not exactly known, but it was made equivalent by the bible translators. The meanings "possession", "inspiration" for *ghutom were completely off the mark. "possession" doesn't even nearly mean the same thing as "inspiration", and I don't know what PIE root they might refer to. The controversy surrounds a root for calling -> "invocation" vs. a root for pouring -> "libation". The word may also go back to a contamination of these two roots (they are not very clearly separated in Sanskrit, either, because in ritual, pouring always goes together with invoking, of course). dab 10:27, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: etymology