NecronLord wrote:An interesting thing to observe is the way, as people have become more powerful, their expectations of godlyness have increased.
Look at Apophis in Stargate. He's ageless, hundreds of times older than any man, stronger than mortal men, can come back from death, can revive the dead and heal the sick, throw a man across a square with a wave of his hand... He's presented as a false god.
But the common, non-creation, gods of most mythologies are basically that. Hell, at least Apophis could deal with a contingent of iron chariots when he makes war. Put him in a Death Glider, and let rip.
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Hence, when you try and say that this guy is omnipotent, the source material really does contradict you quite heavily. In esscence, the only solid critera that can be applied to almost all mythological gods is that someone worshipped them.
A point I have considered on a number of occations; technically, the snakeheads were quite right to call themselves "gods" in that they were objects of worship. Of course, that was more of a self-fullfilling claim, but what then exactly is a "god", anyway?
Why
should a "god" have superhuman strength and all that crap, anyhow? Observe a modern diety worshipped by millions of people:
Linka.
The Kumari of Nepal is a "real" goddess, in that she is a actual individual who is worshipped and whose existance is objectively verifyable, and she is a little girl. (Of course, the existance of Taleju, who the little girl is supposed to be a vessel for is rather less verifyable, but meh).
NecronLord wrote:Jehovah's abilities really are not that impressive in the Bible. He creates the world, a flat affair with a solid firmament, surrounded by water, nothing like as grand and impressive as the real one, and some of the people in it. And that's about it. Even the flood is merely a matter of opening the sluices between the upper waters and the world below, and let them pour in.
After that, he spends his time getting out-wrestled by Moses and defeated by iron chariots. Occasionally he manages to send a plague.
To get quite technical, he doesn't even create the world; he merely brings it into some semblance of order (though apparently he does fill it with life):
The Book of Genesis wrote:1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
So: YHWH = terraformer.
PS: Nitpick - it was Jacob he got out-wrestled by, not Moses.
-- Asuka
