Is the Holy Ghost really an eagle and not a dove?

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pgd
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01 Aug 2010, 10:35 pm

How strong is the Biblical evidence that the Holy Ghost is a dove and not an eagle?

How strong is the Biblical evidence that the Holy Ghost is really a carrier pigeon and not a dove?

If the Holy Ghost turned out to be a parrot from South America, would your faith be shaken so you would stop going to Church?

If the Holy Ghost turned out to be invisible, would your faith be shaken so you would stop going to Church?

---

The God of Judaism (believed to be invisible)

The God of the New Testament/Christianity (believed to be Jesus Christ and a helper known as the Holy Ghost - a dove).

Jesus Christ is believed to have been visible but the Holy Ghost was invisible.

Other



Sand
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02 Aug 2010, 1:05 am

pgd wrote:
How strong is the Biblical evidence that the Holy Ghost is a dove and not an eagle?

How strong is the Biblical evidence that the Holy Ghost is really a carrier pigeon and not a dove?

If the Holy Ghost turned out to be a parrot from South America, would your faith be shaken so you would stop going to Church?

If the Holy Ghost turned out to be invisible, would your faith be shaken so you would stop going to Church?

---

The God of Judaism (believed to be invisible)

The God of the New Testament/Christianity (believed to be Jesus Christ and a helper known as the Holy Ghost - a dove).

Jesus Christ is believed to have been visible but the Holy Ghost was invisible.

Other


Do you have any doubts about your sanity?



DeaconBlues
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02 Aug 2010, 1:31 am

The Bible says that the Holy Spirit appeared to Jesus in the form of a dove when He was baptised. It does not say that the Holy Spirit was a dove.

By way of comparison: Movies are (or at least were) shown by shining a bright light through a celluloid film, which reeled past at a speed sufficient to give the illusion of movement. Your question is equivalent to watching a screening of Titanic, then asking if a beam of light is Leonardo diCaprio or Kate Winslet. The correct answer would be both, neither, and none of the above - the bright light, when projected through the film, would cause the appearance of the actors. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is neither dove, nor eagle, nor macaw, nor blue-footed booby - although at need I would imagine it could appear in any of those forms.

Oh, and the God of the New Testament is the God of the Torah - with some new information based on humans' changed understanding of the world. Jesus is supposed to have been the Son of God, cast into a human form so that nobody could say that He had no idea what it was like to be human - He was human, for something like 33 years, before being tortured to death.

I confess, I have trouble grasping the concept of a unitary God Who is, at the same moment, trinary - I think I understand it best when I think of each one as a separate aspect of the same Deity. (And, of course, that leaves open the concept that perhaps other gods in other cultures are other aspects of Him as well - "In My Father's house are many mansions," and all that...)


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Sand
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02 Aug 2010, 1:50 am

DeaconBlues wrote:
The Bible says that the Holy Spirit appeared to Jesus in the form of a dove when He was baptised. It does not say that the Holy Spirit was a dove.

By way of comparison: Movies are (or at least were) shown by shining a bright light through a celluloid film, which reeled past at a speed sufficient to give the illusion of movement. Your question is equivalent to watching a screening of Titanic, then asking if a beam of light is Leonardo diCaprio or Kate Winslet. The correct answer would be both, neither, and none of the above - the bright light, when projected through the film, would cause the appearance of the actors. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is neither dove, nor eagle, nor macaw, nor blue-footed booby - although at need I would imagine it could appear in any of those forms.

Oh, and the God of the New Testament is the God of the Torah - with some new information based on humans' changed understanding of the world. Jesus is supposed to have been the Son of God, cast into a human form so that nobody could say that He had no idea what it was like to be human - He was human, for something like 33 years, before being tortured to death.

I confess, I have trouble grasping the concept of a unitary God Who is, at the same moment, trinary - I think I understand it best when I think of each one as a separate aspect of the same Deity. (And, of course, that leaves open the concept that perhaps other gods in other cultures are other aspects of Him as well - "In My Father's house are many mansions," and all that...)


And that works backwards as well. The Christian God definitely has aspects of Loki.



DeaconBlues
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02 Aug 2010, 10:37 am

Sand wrote:
DeaconBlues wrote:
The Bible says that the Holy Spirit appeared to Jesus in the form of a dove when He was baptised. It does not say that the Holy Spirit was a dove.

By way of comparison: Movies are (or at least were) shown by shining a bright light through a celluloid film, which reeled past at a speed sufficient to give the illusion of movement. Your question is equivalent to watching a screening of Titanic, then asking if a beam of light is Leonardo diCaprio or Kate Winslet. The correct answer would be both, neither, and none of the above - the bright light, when projected through the film, would cause the appearance of the actors. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is neither dove, nor eagle, nor macaw, nor blue-footed booby - although at need I would imagine it could appear in any of those forms.

Oh, and the God of the New Testament is the God of the Torah - with some new information based on humans' changed understanding of the world. Jesus is supposed to have been the Son of God, cast into a human form so that nobody could say that He had no idea what it was like to be human - He was human, for something like 33 years, before being tortured to death.

I confess, I have trouble grasping the concept of a unitary God Who is, at the same moment, trinary - I think I understand it best when I think of each one as a separate aspect of the same Deity. (And, of course, that leaves open the concept that perhaps other gods in other cultures are other aspects of Him as well - "In My Father's house are many mansions," and all that...)


And that works backwards as well. The Christian God definitely has aspects of Loki.

Also of Odin All-Father, and (when giving instructions to the Hebrews in Canaan) Thor as well. For that matter, while the scale differs, are the sacrifices of Jesus and Tyr different in kind? Jesus let Himself be nailed up until He died, to save human souls; Tyr let the Fenris Wolf bite his hand off while the other Aesir chained it up, to save the world.

Being a Trickster isn't always seen as bad, either - Coyote was a trickster god, but also largely responsible for the creation of the world in Hopi and Navajo folklore...


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pgd
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02 Aug 2010, 11:12 am

DeaconBlues wrote (in part): The Bible says that the Holy Spirit appeared to Jesus in the form of a dove when He was baptised. It does not say that the Holy Spirit was a dove...

I confess, I have trouble grasping the concept of a unitary God Who is, at the same moment, trinary - I think I understand it best when I think of each one as a separate aspect of the same Deity. (And, of course, that leaves open the concept that perhaps other gods in other cultures are other aspects of Him as well - "In My Father's house are many mansions," and all that...)

---

Deacon - Oh, the clear conflict/clash between the idea of 1 God (Non-profit Judaism: The Lord Our God is One) vs Christianity (which, depending upon the non-profit denomination, will say God is 2 - the Judaism God and Jesus Christ or God is 3 - the Judaism God, Jesus Christ, and a helper known as the Holy Ghost dove).

Some persons have said that God is time/God is a symbol of sorts of time as in the Past, the Present, and the Future.

The idea that there is 1 God, then all of a sudden there is a second God years later - Jesus Christ - and then a third God - the Holy Ghost dove years later - and they are all identical - to me is a very foggy, fuzzy, and muddy idea.

This idea of 1 vs 2 vs 3 Gods is pretty close to asking the straightforward (nonsense) question:

Can God create a boulder so heavy he can't lift it?

Some non-profit denomination/non-profit religion is fibbing (maybe almost all non-profit religions in a way - however, if the non-profit religions view themselves as being in the non-profit religious/theatrical/opera-like entertainment business, then it might be entertainment, not fibbing) it seems to me since there is a lack of agreement between the non-profit denominations/the non-profit religions/the non-profit faiths as to how to define God - God(s) etc.

http://www.beliefnet.net

http://www.bibles.net/

http://www.sacred-texts.com/

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St. Ned Flanders

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Flanders

- pgd



ruveyn
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02 Aug 2010, 12:05 pm

what Holy Ghost?

ruveyn



Celoneth
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02 Aug 2010, 5:06 pm

Everyone knows that the Holy Ghost like God and Jesus are blonde and blue-eyed.. which would make it.. Tweety Bird!
What I want to know is, what would happen if the Holy Ghost met the Ghostbusters?



DeaconBlues
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02 Aug 2010, 5:12 pm

ruveyn wrote:
what Holy Ghost?

ruveyn

That would be the Holy Spirit, which came in the form of a dove to tell Jesus that He was basically God incarnate, and that He had three years to preach in before His body would be painfully destroyed, then later descended in a more abstract way upon a gathering of the Apostles to bring them the gift of tongues (as described in the Book of Acts).

That, of course, brings up one of my serious gripes with charismatic Christianity - the gift of tongues was not described as the ability to babble in some meaningless "holy tongue" while rolling around on the floor, it was the ability to speak and have everyone present hear the words in their own native language (like using the universal translator on Star Trek). You pull that trick off during your holy-roller meetings, you'll get my attention...


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DeaconBlues
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02 Aug 2010, 5:13 pm

Celoneth wrote:
Everyone knows that the Holy Ghost like God and Jesus are blonde and blue-eyed.. which would make it.. Tweety Bird!
What I want to know is, what would happen if the Holy Ghost met the Ghostbusters?

So Satan is Sylvester? And what divine role is played by Bugs Bunny?


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NeantHumain
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02 Aug 2010, 7:28 pm

I'm no Christian, but I doubt even most Christians literally believe their Holy Spirit is a dove; they traditionally symbolically represent it as that (among other things like a tongue of fire).



PunkyKat
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02 Aug 2010, 7:34 pm

The "bird" used to represent the Holly Ghost is just there to represent it and give it a physical form in art because the Holly Ghost or Holly Spirt has no physical form.


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Sand
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02 Aug 2010, 7:40 pm

PunkyKat wrote:
The "bird" used to represent the Holly Ghost is just there to represent it and give it a physical form in art because the Holly Ghost or Holly Spirt has no physical form.


The Holly Ghost is obviously a Christmas spirit and it favors kissing.



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02 Aug 2010, 9:50 pm

Sand wrote:
PunkyKat wrote:
The "bird" used to represent the Holly Ghost is just there to represent it and give it a physical form in art because the Holly Ghost or Holly Spirt has no physical form.


The Holly Ghost is obviously a Christmas spirit and it favors kissing.


I assume you are an athiest.


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Sand
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02 Aug 2010, 11:13 pm

PunkyKat wrote:
Sand wrote:
PunkyKat wrote:
The "bird" used to represent the Holly Ghost is just there to represent it and give it a physical form in art because the Holly Ghost or Holly Spirt has no physical form.


The Holly Ghost is obviously a Christmas spirit and it favors kissing.


I assume you are an athiest.


As with most things, you are wrong. I am an atheist.



DeaconBlues
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02 Aug 2010, 11:48 pm

No, Punky, Sand merely knows the difference between "Holy" and "Holly"... :)


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