Why I use "Yahweh" when talking about the Judeo-Christian god

[Triple Zero]

Still, I prefer to avoid engaging believers in discussions that they're not really psychologically equipped to deal with or comprehend. I much prefer to just laugh at them with anyone else who has the intellectual capacity to get the joke.

Christianity is a viral form of retardeness. It's maybe not completely incurable but who the fuck am I, the Marie Curie of philosophy? Fuck no, I'm much more a Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks - I'd much rather laugh at them than try to cure the stupid bastards

True, I prefer to poke fun at them over trying to convert them as well*.

That's why I like this "cheat code" realization of using the name of their god Yahweh. It's the name of their god, after all. But it also puts their god to the same scrutiny as any other thing that can be named.

Using the term "the Christian God" has a similar effect, but I think saying Yahweh is stronger (anyone got an idea why?)


I remember playing around with the name "Yahweh" years ago, and I thought it was funny, it tickled something. But it took until this thread to realize that it might be a very powerful "memetic weapon" indeed.



* nearly impossible to do, anyway. In the rare instances that it does happen, it's a process that takes years, and they gotta do it themselves. They need to be in a situation where their current belief doesn't work anymore, some kind of discomfort, disappointment perhaps. Something profound must happen or be realized. Right then, at that moment they'll jump at anything to fill that vacuum, like maniacal zealot sharks, be it atheism, Discordianism, environmentalism, international politics, conspiracy theories, whatever. I suppose a lot of fun can be had by appearing at the right moment with the right kind of reading material
(BTW, "that moment"--I just pretty much described Chapel Perilous again, didn't I? Heh, "it becomes more apparent, the harder I look" )

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

* nearly impossible to do, anyway. In the rare instances that it does happen, it's a process that takes years, and they gotta do it themselves. They need to be in a situation where their current belief doesn't work anymore, some kind of discomfort, disappointment perhaps. Something profound must happen or be realized. Right then, at that moment they'll jump at anything to fill that vacuum, like maniacal zealot sharks, be it atheism, Discordianism, environmentalism, international politics, conspiracy theories, whatever. I suppose a lot of fun can be had by appearing at the right moment with the right kind of reading material
(BTW, "that moment"--I just pretty much described Chapel Perilous again, didn't I? Heh, "it becomes more apparent, the harder I look" )

Theoretically, it should be easy, then, since they say that ANYTHING a xtain asks in Jesus' name gets done.

"An then the preacher laid hands on him and said "BE THOU HEALED IN THE NAME-O-JESUS!" And my brother threw his crutches away."


"And did he walk?"

"No, he fell on his ass...he's crippled, y'know." 

[Triple Zero]

Relevant: http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

[Don Coyote]

Relevant: http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

Facebooked.

I will probably get disowned.

[Laughin Jude]

Relevant: http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

This is awesome.

What we find is that whenever we create a unambiguous situation like this and look at the results of prayer, prayer never works. God never "answers prayers" if there is no possibility of coincidence.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Why is Jehova a "mistranslation" of Yahweh?

Hebrew doesn't has vowels, so they just wrote YHVH (they actually wrote it backwards, even). And the vowels are in between, to anybody's guess, and I bet each Hebrew dialect would fill them in slightly different.

Sometimes I also say Yod-He-Vau-He, if they need it spelled out for them.

And what about the other names of God, like Eheieh or Elohim? There's seven, ten or seventy-two of them, apparently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism

---

BTW reading that article, Laughing Jude, I think you hit the nail on the motherfucking head as to the reason why a lot those beliefs FORBADE SPEAKING THE NAME OF GOD

Check the wikipedia article

they weren't allowed to say the name, so the priests mumbled YHVH as it was written

they weren't allowed to say the name so judaists say "adonai" instead.

they weren't allowed to say the name so that when they filled in the vowels, they used the vowels of "adonai", to remind people to say "adonai" instead (that's your mistranslation bit, I belief).

It makes a lot of sense, as a strong memetic weapon against different belief systems.

Not being allowed to say Yahweh's name automatically puts it separate from anything else to compare it with, since you cannot compare something that won't be named.



As an aside, funny how that's exactly the opposite of washing powder commercials comparing the superior Name Brand to the unnamed "Brand X".

This!

Another thing I can't resist pointing out to any faithfool who makes the mistake of engaging me on the subject is that roughly half of the original names of god were female (with one or two even being considered hermaphroditic)

What the cannibal zombie cult did was to build misogyny in, from the ground up, by replacing all these aspects or personalities with one man and, lets face it, that is explicitly what the christian god is - a man. He's not even really a god, as such, he's the fucking Homer Simpson of theology.

Still, I prefer to avoid engaging believers in discussions that they're not really psychologically equipped to deal with or comprehend. I much prefer to just laugh at them with anyone else who has the intellectual capacity to get the joke.

Christianity is a viral form of retardeness. It's maybe not completely incurable but who the fuck am I, the Marie Curie of philosophy? Fuck no, I'm much more a Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks - I'd much rather laugh at them than try to cure the stupid bastards

Excellent points! I am swinging more and more toward referring to the Christian God as Yahweh, although not in front of my Jewish best friend (out of respect).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Relevant: http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

UNNNNG  the problem I have with that site is summed up in the opening statements:

Is God real, or is he imaginary? It is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself.

If God is real and if God inspired the Bible, then we should worship God as the Bible demands. We should certainly post the Ten Commandments in our courthouses and shopping centers, put "In God We Trust" on the money and pray in our schools. We should focus our society on God and his infallible Word because our everlasting souls hang in the balance.

On the other hand, if God is imaginary, then religion is a complete illusion.

It completely discounts the option "If God is real, then is that evidence that all the other Gods are real, as is indicated in the Bible? In that case, how do I choose which God to worship?"

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also, that's why I hate Atheists.

[Laughin Jude]

Why is Jehova a "mistranslation" of Yahweh?

"Jehovah" being a mistranslation was just my understanding from way back when I went to school for this shit. That was a decade ago, though, so I could be wrong. But if memory serves, it's similar to how "Jesus" is incorrect; the name used in the original text is "Yeshua," which translates to "Joshua." AFAIK, "Jehova" and "Jesus" are just ancient fuck-ups by scribes translating the bible into new languages that have survived due to tradition.

UNNNNG  the problem I have with that site is summed up in the opening statements:

And you're right, that is one big problem with that site now that I look at it again: it falls into the capital G "God" trap in the first sentence. That last sentence even more or less hands the battle to the Christians by conflating Yahweh with all gods.

Yahwehdammit.  

[Freeky]

Can't YHVH, if we're replacain the V with a W, mean "Yeah, What-evs."?

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yeah, Vat eVaH.
New York Yiddish accent? Almost works. 

[Telarus]

From my understanding, Jehova comes from interlacing the vowel sounds from "adonai" within the consonants of YHWH translated into greek (JHVH). Something like that.


Here's a mind-fuck to bring up to the next faithfool you speak with (thanks for that term).


- YHWH is obviously not a trinity, because in kabalistic values, Y = Father, H = Mother, W = Son, H = Daughter... Which is why you have the feminine Names of God... This also lines up with certain interesting things on the tree of life, and the 4 suits of Tarot.

- The two female aspects were hidden under the term "holy spirit" and the veneration of Mary as a Saint.

Have fun with those.

[hirley0]

U WarShip with the ELectron Just Like eveyone else so get on with iT

Relevant: http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

UNNNNG  the problem I have with that site is summed up in the opening statements:

Is God real, or is he imaginary? It is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself.

If God is real and if God inspired the Bible, then we should worship God as the Bible demands. We should certainly post the Ten Commandments in our courthouses and shopping centers, put "In God We Trust" on the money and pray in our schools. We should focus our society on God and his infallible Word because our everlasting souls hang in the balance.

On the other hand, if God is imaginary, then religion is a complete illusion.

It completely discounts the option "If God is real, then is that evidence that all the other Gods are real, as is indicated in the Bible? In that case, how do I choose which God to worship?"

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

From my understanding, Jehova comes from interlacing the vowel sounds from "adonai" within the consonants of YHWH translated into greek (JHVH). Something like that.


Here's a mind-fuck to bring up to the next faithfool you speak with (thanks for that term).


- YHWH is obviously not a trinity, because in kabalistic values, Y = Father, H = Mother, W = Son, H = Daughter... Which is why you have the feminine Names of God... This also lines up with certain interesting things on the tree of life, and the 4 suits of Tarot.

- The two female aspects were hidden under the term "holy spirit" and the veneration of Mary as a Saint.

Have fun with those.

This is the correct motorcycle. We have no idea which vowels should be involved, nor can we know for sure how the consonants were pronounced. Yahweh is an acceptable translation, Jehohav is an acceptable English translation (akin to Ya'kov = James or Jacob in English and Diego in Spanish).

[Jenne]

I think I made this point to my mother decades ago, when being taught in Sunday School and Wednesday night Bible study about the many  names of "God" in the Christian dogma (back then I knew it as "faith").  It's always amazing how few answers those who have purportedly "studied" the Bible actually have for this kind of thing.  But since the book itself has gone through so many translations over the centuries, there's just very little that is known amongst those who DON'T go to seminary what the nomeclature has gone through over the millenia.

I remember being taught that the Jews couldn't say YHVH's name because it was so holy according to the OT, but that Christ himself in ripping that veil when he died for our sins made not only access to him easier but also access to God the Father as well.  So being a Gentile, I was afforded VIP access since I accepted Christ as my savior, etc.

It is interesting what is considered "sacred" when it comes to "names" and how they translate into English for believers.  You know that when Muslims speak of "Allah" in English they sometimes translate it to "God"?  They don't always use "Allah."  Which is also why "Allah-hu-akbar" translates into NOT "Allah is great" but instead "God is great."

...anyway, great thread, great points, as everyone's already said.