WHAT DOES THE WORD 'RELIGION' MEAN, TO ME? WHEN I SAY, "I AM RELIGIOUS" WHAT AM I TELLING YOU?
=================================SOCRATUS, YOU TELL ME:
There are many meanings of the word 'Religion’.
What is Religion, for me?
Book, A Journey through the land of Israel,
By Pinchas Saden. Pages 132-133
To be religious, in my terms, means to understand that
life is a parable of which God is the meaning – that is,
to live life as a struggle to make contact with the divine.
...
In whatever we live and do – in our happiness, our suffering, our love, our hate, our passions, our thoughts – we must live and do it not just for itself, but as a parable, as a question, as a war. As work. As worship.
What is man? Man is the question. God is the answer.
If the answer were available here, in this life, the question would be unnecessary. The painful tension between the two gives life its energy.’
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/ * In Hebrew the word for ‘ Worship’ avoda, is the same as the word for ‘ work’. Translator./
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Socratus, does this mean that, in Hebrew, 'work' is the same as worship? BTW, how well do you speak Hebrew.
Perhaps you are saying that 'work' and 'worship'ought to be one and the same. Are you?
WHAT,for me, RELIGION IS NOT
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Religion, for me? First of all, here is what I think, feel, and believe religion is
NOT. Religion is
not a physical thing. It cannot be counted, weighed and measured in a science laboratory.
In this sense, the word 'religion' has a lot in common with faith, hope, love, grace, the way you feel about yourself and your family, and the like--all of which can be summed up in two words:
1.G0D (imminent Being, in you and me) and
2.GOD (transcendent Being, in which we live, move, and have our beings as individuals).
Interestingly, the ancient Hebrews--the ancestors of many of us--had two words for what we call 'God'. Whoever wrote Genesis, used two words for 'God': ELOHIM (the power) and YAHWEH (I am who I am and choose to be).
Linguists tell us that, in the very first verse of the Bible, we have what is known as a "majestic plural".
In Genesis 1, 'God' is called ELOHIM--The 'IM' simply makes ELOH into a plural. That is, it pluralizes it. This serves the same purpose as the 's' in English. It also makes it like what we call a proper noun--the King, not just a king. Pluralizing in Hebrew, gives the noun status.
THE CHALLENGE OF TRANSLATION
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Use your imagination here : How on earth did our ancients ancestors--the ancient Greeks, Romans, Anglo Saxons, Franks, Scandinavians, Russians, Slavs, Persians, Chinese, Japanese ... you name it ... How did they ever get meanings across from one culture to another?
Scientists!!! We need your help. Is there such a s thing as a science of translation?
