Re: OT: God's loaded dice (was Re: semi-OT: Re: "defense of wilderness" (wasRe: lexicon))

On Mon, 9 Jun 2003 22:54:10 EDT J Y S Czhang <czhang23@...> writes:
> henotheism - belief & adoption of a particular god, while allowing
> that other
> gods exist - usually within a polytheistic belief system (i.e. some
> major popular forms of Hinduism)
> Hanuman Zhang (aka "Z")
-

My Biblical History professor preferred to use the term "monolatry"
instead of "henotheism", since "-latry" indicates 'worship of' (as in
'idolatry') and "-theism" usually 'belief in', so it's less ambiguous
this way.  Monolatrous belief systems hold by the idea of many
divinities, but they only have one worshipable one.
ObConlang/culture: Hmm... the Rokbeigalm seem to be pretty monolatrous...
although i don't know for sure; is it still monolatry if you don't
believe that the things you *aren't* worshipping are also divine?  Like,
the Rokbeigalm believe in Kabakh-a, their Creator God, who is the only
deity they have and pray to.  But aside form Kabakh-a, they believe that
the world is full of |ailzhm| "powers", which can be anything from
'sock-stealing gremlins' to the sun, to the force of gravity, to powerful
supernatural beings that could be considered 'gods' by other people.  So
a Rokbeigalmkidh would see nothing wrong with believing in the existence
of Athena, or Marduk, or Quetzocoatl or whoever in addition to Kabakh-a,
but would refuse to identify them as an |eilos|, 'deity'.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "Ba`al loves a heifer in the grazing land
  A young cow in the fields
  He lies with her seventy-seven times
  Yea, eighty-eight times
  So that she conceives
  And bears Math."
     ~ from the Cana`anite Myth of Ba`al, from Ugarit
       (so *that*'s where arithmetic comes from...)

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