dfsiemensjr@juno.com wrote:
>
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 21:00:48 +0000 glenn morton <mortongr@flash.net>
> writes:
> > At 01:07 PM 2/11/00 -0700, dfsiemensjr@juno.com wrote:
> > >As for the Ona, they may have lost the concept of a transcendent
> > power
> > >and a destiny beyond this life, but they had a mountain god who had
> > to be
> > >placated by what they didn't do, nature spirits of some sort,
> > shamans who
> > >could control matters by some power beyond that possessed by the
> > common
> > >run. These are all elements of religion, though of a very
> > degenerate
> > >kind.
> >
> > I would point out that the respect for the mountain was not the
> > respect for
> > a god but for a fellow being. Bridges pointed that out elsewhere in
> > his book
> > glenn
> >
> I may grant that the mountain is "a fellow being." But on what level?
> Were the Ona individuals able to control the rains and winds? It seems to
> me that the Olympian gods were just a step higher, essentially merely
> human beings writ larger. Zeus had a thunderbolt where warriors had
> spears--a bigger bang because, in Hephaestus, he had a better smith. The
> heroes were half way to the gods, but were either human or half-breeds.
> Remember that gods and men were at the mercy of the Fates.
Whether or not the object of one's trust is "a fellow being" or not
isn't really the issue. Cf. Luther's Large Catechism on the 1st Commandment:
"What does it mean to have a god? Or what is God? Answer: A god means that
from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress,
so that to have a God is is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the heart;
as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and
an idol. ... _That now, I say, upon which you set your heart and put your trust is
properly your god_." [Emphasis added. Note - the difference in capitalization of God
and god doesn't exist in the German in which all nouns are capitalized.]
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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