[Peace-discuss] Bellicose rhetoric???

[C. G. Estabrook]

(I mis-cited the second reference.)

The point is the meaning of the "image of God." Along with the first commandment
-- no gods --  and its elaboration ("You shall not make for yourself an idol,
whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them
or worship them...) they explain McCabe's summary, "...you are to have no image
of God because the only image of God is [humanity]."

Gen 1:26f. =
     "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our
likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the
earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.'  So God
created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and
female he created them."

Mt 22:19ff. =
     "'Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. Then
he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The
emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that
are the emperor’s [= have the emperor's image], and to God the things that are
God’s [= have God's image].’ When they heard this, they were amazed; and they
left him and went away."


John W. wrote:
> ... All right.  Your point?  By citing Matthew, I KNOW you're not 
> disrespecting me by impugning my knowledge of Scripture.  The Genesis 
> scripture is, of course, before the Fall.  Whether you take the Fall as 
> literal or as metaphor, Adam and Eve exercised their FREEDOM to disobey God, 
> and there were the promised consequences.  Many things changed after the 
> Fall, not least of which was man's position in the universe. But even before 
> the Fall, while man had dominion over the rest of the earth, God had dominion
>  over man.  So your point is....?
> 
> John W. wrote:
> 
> A very interesting perspective.  I think I agree with most of it, but words 
> have a way of being extremely elusive.  The final clause, "...you are to have
>  no image of God because the only image of God is man" can be interpreted in
>  more than one way, and most of the ways in which it's been interpreted by
> man throughout the centuries have led to unmitigated disaster.  It's just as
> bad having man narcissistically worshiping himself as it is to have him 
> worshiping the divinities supposedly indwelling mountains and trees.
> 
> By the same token, Freedom is not the deity, but merely one characteristic of
>  the deity.  It's interesting to me how even people who devote their lives to
>  a study of the Bible tend to emphasize one aspect of God and ignore others.
>  The God I know is male and female, Yin and Yang.  He is longsuffering and 
> merciful, but He is also a God of justice, a consuming fire.  He gives us 
> freedom but requires our obedience.  In other words, the freedom He gives us
>  is the choice of whether or not to obey Him, with attendance consequences 
> either way.
> 
> And on and on.  I definitely agree, though, that God is not a place or a 
> figurine.  As quickly as we get comfortable, He drives those of us who serve
>  Him out into the wilderness....
> 
> Now I suppose that EVERYONE on this list will think I'm full of it.  :-)
> 
> Joe Sixpack
> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 4:35 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu 
> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu 
> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu>>> wrote:
> 
> That's true if we gloss "invented" in its original sense, = find, discover 
> (Latin in- 'upon' + venire 'come').
> 
> 
> Ah, "income".  So this is the origin of the Prosperity Gospel? Hahahaha!
> 
> 
> 
> A passage from my ghostly father (i.e., theological mentor):
> 
> "Yahweh is the God of freedom and there are to be no other gods. 'The 
> prohibition of "other gods" is the basic demand made of Israel'. The 
> important thing is not just to be religious, to worship something somehow. 
> The important thing is to find, or be found by, the right God and to reject 
> and struggle against the others. The worship of any other god is a form of 
> slavery; to pay homage to the forces of nature, to the spirit of a particular
>  place, to a nation or race or to anything that is too powerful for you to 
> understand or control is to submit to slavery and degradation. The Old 
> Testament religion begins by saying to such gods 'I do not believe and I will
>  not serve.' The only true God is the God of freedom. The other gods make you
>  feel at home in a place, they have to do with the quiet cycle of the 
> seasons, with the familiar mountains and the county you grew up in and love; 
> with them you know where you are. But the harsh God of freedom calls you out 
> of all this into a desert where all the old familiar landmarks are gone, 
> where you cannot rely on the safe workings of nature, on spring-time and 
> harvest, where you must wander over the wilderness waiting for what God will
>  bring. This God of freedom will allow you none of the comforts of religion. 
> Not only does he tear you away from the old traditional shrines and temples 
> of your native place, but he will not even allow you to worship him in the 
> old way. You are forbidden to make an image of him by which you might wield 
> numinous power, you are forbidden to invoke his name in magical rites. You 
> must deny the other gods and you must not treat Yahweh as a god, as a power 
> you could use against your enemies or to help you to succeed in life. Yahweh
>  is not a god, there are no gods, they are all delusions and slavery. You are
>  not to try to comprehend God within the conventions and symbols of your time
>  and place; you are to have no image of God because the only image of God is 
> man." --Herbert McCabe OP, "Law Love, and Language" (1968), pp. 118f.
> 
> 
> Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> 
> I guess what Carl is saying is that humankind displayed morality long before 
> they invented God. My tho'ts precisely. --Jenifer
> 
> --- On *Mon, 11/10/08, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote
> 
> God is not a necessary component of morality for the simple reason that God 
> -- the answer (which we do not know) to the question, "Why is there anything
>  instead of nothing?" -- is not a component of anything.
> 
> God is not a thing in the universe -- we can't point to something in the 
> universe as the reason for the existence of the universe -- and God and the 
> universe don't add up to two. (Two of what would that be?  Two things?  But 
> God is not thing in the universe, etc.)
> 
> Morality is a component of human nature (for the existence of which God of 
> course is the reason, as for everything), as grammar is a component of 
> language. Just as an intelligent visitor from Mars would think that all 
> humans were speaking one language with regional variations, so human ethics 
> might be regarded as the rules (or grammar) for humans' being together -- 
> with some interesting regional variations... (That's what makes horse racing,
>  or at least philosophical argument -- and literature.)
> 
> Well over a thousand years of Christian philosophical reflection took it as a
>  commonplace that the Decalogue is not a set of rules imposed from outside, 
> as it were, that might have been different, but rather rational conclusions 
> from reflection on what it is to be human.  (They did think it was a little 
> hard to derive the 3rd/4th Commandment -- there are different numbering 
> systems -- this way.)
> 
> Christian theologians thought that, although ethics could be descried 
> rationally, that took effort (and time) -- hence all that literature -- and 
> so God generously provided in the Ten Commandments as it were an operating 
> manual ("documentation," we would say) for being human.
> 
> More on this from me (quoting others), if you want, at "The Subversive 
> Commandments," <http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook03292005.html>. --CGE
> 
> 
> John W. wrote:
> 
> ... I'd be more interested in hearing one or both of you Bible
> 
> scholars explain to Jenifer why God is a necessary component of morality.  Or
>  conversely, how one can be moral without a belief in God.