Streen wrote: Not to cause an argument, BUT, Allah is a name, not a translation of the word "God". If it meant "God" it would translate as "Yahweh", not "Allah".
im not trying to cause an argument or to be mean
this is important: Allah is NOT a name, Allah is a translation of the word "god"
Yahweh IS a name, and it is NOT a translation of the word "god"
this kind of mistake is serious: it is equivalent to not understanding the multiplication and/or the addition signs in math
if someone told me that they had been studying math for twenty years but they didnt know the signs for multiplication and addition, and then went on to explain some set of beliefs about math that no one who teaches math anywhere in the world would recognize as being math, i would not consider them a scholar of math, but rather i would say that they have been making up their own ideas about what math is
and since their ideas are not even slightly informed by the established academic understanding of math, its almost certain that the individual has made up some thigns that are simply false
rather than reading the bible and asking "what do i think these stories mean?" or "what do these stories mean TO ME?," actual scholars- people who are genuinely serious about the study of scripture and make it an academic pursuit- begin with the question "what did these stories mean to the people who wrote them?"
if we make up our own interpretations for religious teachings without being even slightly informed of the meanings which were intended by the original authors, then we arent studying an ancient religion, we are inventing a modern one
there is a big difference between studying an existing set of ideas and generating a whole new set of ideas
it is absolutely impossible for a person to seriously study the abrahamic traditions and make the mistake that you made - that yahweh was the tribal name of the ancient hebrews for their war-god/sky-god is something you learn like the first day that you begin to study with people who actually know the history of the bible or torah or koran and the beliefs if the peoples who contributed to these works
you cannot possibly go 20 years with the misconception that you expressed here unless you are doing something SERIOUSLY wrong
this is not an attack on you; this is an invitation for you to step up your game and recognize where you need to improve your understanding
