Deity Article

"It depends not on consciousness, but on being; not on thought, but on life; it depends on the individual's empirical development and manifestation of life, which in turn depends on the conditions existing in the world."

Main Entry:

ho·ly
Pronunciation:: \ˈhō-lē\
Function:: adjective
Inflected Form(s):: ho·li·er; ho·li·est
Etymology:: Middle English, from Old English hālig; akin to Old English hāl whole — more at whole
Date:: before 12th century

exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness divine <for the Lord our God is holy — Psalms 99:9(Authorized Version)> devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity <a holy temple> <holy prophets> a: having a divine quality <holy love> venerated as or as if sacred <holy scripture> <a holy relic> used as an intensive <this is a holy mess><he was a holy terror when he drank — Thomas Wolfe> ; often used in combination as a mild oath <holy smoke> — ho·li·ly

\-lə-lē\ adverb

Learn more about "holy" and related topics at Britannica.com Divinity and divine (sometimes 'the Divinity' or 'the Divine'), are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power, or its attributes or manifestations in the world. The root of the words is literally 'Godlike' (from the Latin 'Deus', cf. Dyaus, closely related to Greek 'Zeus' and Deva in Sanskrit), but the use varies significantly depending on which god is being discussed. For academic or professional uses of the terms, see Divinity (academic discipline), or Divine (Anglican)

There are three distinct usages of divinity and divine in religious discourse:

To refer to powers or forces that are universal, or transcend human capacities To refer to qualities of individuals who are considered to have some special access or relationship to the divine

Overlap occurs between these usages because deities or godlike entities are often identical with and/or identified by the powers and forces that are credited to them — in many cases a deity is merely a power or force personified — and these powers and forces may then be extended or granted to mortal individuals. For instance, throughout much of the Old Testament Yahweh is closely associated with storms and thunder: He is said to speak in thunder, and thunder is seen as a token of His anger. This power was then extended to prophets like Moses and Samuel, who caused thunderous storms to rain down on their enemies. Divinity in monotheistic faiths always carries connotations of goodness, beauty, beneficence, justice, and other positive, pro-social attributes. In these faiths there is an equivalent cohort of malefic supranormal beings and powers, such as demons, devils, afreet, etc., which are not conventionally referred to as divine; demonic is often used instead. Pan- and polytheistic faiths make no such distinction; gods and other beings of transcendent power often have complex, ignoble, or even irrational motivations for their acts. Note that while the terms demon and demonic are used in monotheistic faiths as antonyms to divine, they are in fact derived from the Greek word daimón (δαίμων), which itself translates as divinity. In monotheistic faiths, the word divinity is often used to refer to the single, supreme being central to that faith. Often the word takes the definite article and is capitalized — "the Divinity" — as though it were a proper name or definitive honorific. Thus Yahweh, Allah, and Jehovah are sometimes referred to as 'the Divinities' of their particular faiths. Divine — capitalized — may be used as an adjective to refer to the manifestations of such a Divinity or its powers: e.g. "basking in the Divine presence..." The terms divinity and divine — uncapitalized, and lacking the definite article — are sometimes used as to denote 'god(s) ^[1] or certain other beings and entities which fall short of godhood but lie outside the human realm. Holiness, or sanctity, is the state of being holy or sacred, that is, set apart for the worship or service of gods. It could also mean being set apart to pursue (or to already have achieved) a sacred state or goal, such as Nirvana. It is often ascribed to people, objects, times, or places. The French sociologist Emile Durkheim emphasized the social nature of religion, in contrast to other leading thinkers of his day such as William James, who emphasized individual experience. Based on studies of Indigenous Australians, Durkheim proposed that most central to religion was not deity but the distinction between sacred and profane: "religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden."^[1] In Durkheim's theory, the sacred represented the interests of the group, especially unity, which were embodied in sacred group symbols, totems. The profane, on the other hand, involved mundane individual concerns. Durkheim explicitly stated that the dichotomy sacred/profane was not equivalent to good/evil: the sacred could be good or evil, and the profane could be either as well.^[2]The German theologian Rudolf Otto, in The Idea of the Holy (originally in German, Das Heilige), defined the holy as an experience of something "wholly other," most famously mysterium tremendum et fascinans, a frightening and fascinating mystery.^[3] (He was following the tradition of Friedrich Schleiermacher, who defined religion as a feeling or experience rather than adherence to doctrine.) Otto claimed that this experience was unlike any other; the subject experienced the spirit (the numinous, in Otto's terminology) as overwhelming, sublime, truly real, while he or she was nothing. Mircea Eliade, among the most influential twentieth-century scholars of religion, adopted Durkheim's terminology, but Otto's idea. Eliade defined the sacred as "equivalent to a power, and in the last analysis, to reality."^[4] Like Otto, Eliade insisted that this experience was not reducible to any other experience: in other words, that the sacred is not a mere experience, such as a hallucination, but it really exists. Eliade's analysis of religion focused on the sacred, especially sacred time and sacred space, and very many comparative religion and religious studies scholars in the twentieth century followed him, though scholars such as Jonathan Z. Smith and Russell McCutcheon have challenged his theories. The word "sacred" descends from the Latin sacrum, which referred to the gods or anything in their power, and to sacer, priest; sanctum, set apart. Blasphemy is the disrespectful use of the name of one or more gods. It may include using sacred names as stress expletives without intention to pray or speak of sacred matters; it is also sometimes defined as language expressing disapproved beliefs, or disbelief. Sometimes blasphemy is used loosely to mean any profane language. In a broader sense, blasphemy is irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable. In this broader sense the term is used by Sir Francis Bacon in Advancement of Learning, when he speaks of "blasphemy against learning". Many cultures disapprove of speech or writing which defames the deity or deities of their established religions, and these restrictions have the force of law in some countries. From Middle English blasfemen, from Old French blasfemer, from Late Latin blasphemare, from Greek blasphemein, from blaptein, "to injure", and pheme, "reputation". Blasphemy, which was opposed to "euphemy" (see euphemism), and has also given "blame" from Old French blasmer. There has been a recent tendency in Western countries towards the repeal or reform of blasphemy laws, and these laws are only infrequently enforced where they exist. In those Western countries in which blasphemy laws still exist they have often been altered to include blasphemy regardless of religion^{[citation
needed]}.