The name of god

[Hughsie]

Can anyone explain to me the names of god? I've heard him referred to as Yahweh and Jehovah, I'm assuming they're interchangeable and don't have specific purposes? Also, are there any other names I should be aware of?

[Mystic]

The name of God in a sense exists within all of us. It's paradox concept we have. First humans believe they need direction. They believe in praise. And praise can be great or exalted or just praise. It can be extremely beautiful from our perception. It can be sweet.

Naturally, we have a concept of praise. God's name is suppose to be what we see most praiseworthy of what we deem priaseworthy. The only problem is that it's unearned praise. It's paradoxical concept we have.

I think personally, humans are hardwired to believe at least that God is possible in the sense that ultimately most greatest being that exists eternally is possible.

In other words, that a perfect being is possible. But perfection is not possible logically.

We naturally worship perfection even though it cannot possibly exist. We label it perfect and humans naturally love perfection.

There would be no harm in it except that people in history came and lead their people in their own concept of perfection, that was not so perfect.

So you have Allah torturing all disbelievers for example. You have Yahweh jealous over other gods. You have Jesus sacrificing himself to save people from justice except if you don't believe, no matter how good you are, the believers will make it to paradise while you will put in the lake of fire and not be given eternal life but a void of existence of complete misery.

---

I would also say that believing in this being is the most "worthy", gives fuel life to moral actions of humans.

It's quite different to live to please yourself or other human beings, then to live to please the most worthy being to be pleased. In other words, self praise, praise of others, is nothing in comparison, to praise you feel you earned from the Creator.

Perhaps at a point of history, even before we were sophisticated human but slowly learning logic and language, the minds that naturally believed in God, survived more. Perhaps the belief in a higher purpose motivated us early on. Perhaps humans then became hardwised to accept the "Perfect Being" and a purpose set by a Creator.

Perhaps the need to create a fantasy world and live by it, was required before, for our survival or that simply, it worked, and it got passed on in our nature.

[Kirbmarc]

I'm assuming they're interchangeable and don't have specific purposes?

They're actually the same name with different vowels. The Bible was written in Ancient Hebrew, and there are no vowels in written Ancient Hebrew (actually, there are a few signs for the vowels, but they were added in more recenttimes). So what we know is that the name of god in the Bible was JHVH, JHWH or YHWH according to the different translitterations from Hebrew.

The Jews believed that name of god to be sacred and usually refused the pronounce it (they still do, as far as I know). So we don't know much about the vowels of the name of god.

How did the writers of the Bible pronounce this name? Hard to tell, since they've been dead for more than two thousand years. So people added vowels according to their studies and personal preferences.

Yaweh is YHWH plus A and E, and it's the choice that most people make (including the modern Jews). This is because ancient Greek writers who wrote about the Hebrew culture, like Theodoret of Cyrus (no relation to Cyrus the Virus ) or Clement of Alexandria translitterated YHWH as "jabe".

Jehovah is JHVH plus E, O and A. Some bibles written in Medieval times show the signs for the vowels E, O and A between the consonants JHVH. So the translitteration Jehovah (or Yehovah) became popular in the Middle Ages. The King James version of the Bible used it and that's why it is still in use in the English language, even though most Bible scholars reject it.

As for other names of god, there's so many of them that I could write a book about them (some people have). The English god is probably related the Germanic verb *[i]gheu[/i, which means "to invoked", so god should mean "the one that we invoke".

[Darkstar]

Depends on which god you are talking about. Old religions usully had proper names for all of their gods (Posiedon, Thor, etc.) but the Abrahamic ones have a tendancy to call their god just 'god'. They typically capitalize god and he or him, etc. when refering to god. The proper name of the Judeo-Christian god is either Yahweh, or less commonly Jehovah. The Islamic god is called Allah.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

Some of the different names of God in the OT were actually likely different gods reflecting polytheism in early Hebrew culture.

[Edwardo Piet]

[...]perfection is not possible logically.

Or maybe flaws are not possible logically?

Try this argument on for size: Objective perfection is the absence of objective flaws. It is not meaning itself, but rather an absence of the negative objective meaning of flaws. It is objective flawlessness. Since there is no objective flawlessness because there is no objective meaning in the world whatsoever, objective perfection's presence therefore exists due to an absence of objective flawlessness.

The problem is of course that perfection should probably mean more than just flawlessness. Perfect is often defined as "flawless" but a better definition is probably "absolutely good".

[Mystic]

[...]perfection is not possible logically.

Or maybe flaws are not possible logically?

Try this argument on for size: Objective perfection is the absence of objective flaws. It is not meaning itself, but rather an absence of the negative objective meaning of flaws. It is objective flawlessness. Since there are no objective flaws because there is no objective meaning in the world whatsoever, objective perfection therefore 'exists' as an absence of objective flaws.

Perfection is used in that sense. And in this sense, objective perfection does exist, for example, scoring 100% on a test, is a perfect result.

Perfection in that sense is rationally possible, so it is how we define it. I was using it more in the sense of "Greatest possible being" .

In the case of eternal being, it can be perfect in the sense it has no flaws, but it can't be perfect in the sense it's the greatest possible being.

[Tino]

Some of the different names of God in the OT were actually likely different gods reflecting polytheism in early Hebrew culture.

Yes, what TEGH said.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

Some of the different names of God in the OT were actually likely different gods reflecting polytheism in early Hebrew culture.

Yes, what TEGH said.

Yes, what Tino said.

[KichigaiNeko]

Which "god" are we talking about?? Only the Abrahamic one??