God...not G-d

[grumple]

In light of the many perversions and jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke, it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking. Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayton asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (regarding the attacks on Sept. 11). Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?" In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school ... the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued (there's a big difference between disciplining, touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.). And we said OK. Then someone said, let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't even have to tell their parents. And we said OK. Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they're going to do it anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said OK

Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn't matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good.

Then someone said let's print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said OK. And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet. And we said OK, they're entitled to free speech.

Then the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. Let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it's just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in!

[Hatteras]

Again, I sometimes forget what a myriad of personalities we must deal with here at FR. Thank you for proving another point, h_ll_n_h_ndc_rt.

[safisoft]

Considering his name is JHVH, or IHVH depending on the script used, your little "G-d" tag is nothing more than pretension

Where to start? Wisdom often chases after disrespect, or apparently in this case, simple education would suffice. Maybe a Google search should precede some posts.

Considering that ancient Jewish Scribes, whenever they would write the Name of God, would first wash before writing, it is entirely appropriate for some modern believers to at least treat the writing of any form of His name with some respect. Mocking those people and that practice here in FreeRepublic is a sad thing indeed.

First, the people who would not type out the full word "God" - would neither type out the Tetragrammaton, so their consistancy should not be called into question. Also, the letter "J" does NOT exist in Hebrew so there is no such thing as "some scripts" containing the letters "JHVH". Neithter is the "Word" "Jehovah" not found in any Hebrew Scriptures - it is an English INVENTION, which came from a basic misunderstanding of the same concept of spelling out "God".

Jews do not say the sacred name of God when they read Scripture, instead they pronounce in the Hebrew ADONAI (LORD). In a King James Version of the Bible, this tradition is continued: Whenever you see an upper case LORD, it is in fact a substitute for the Tetragrammaton.

The early Masoretes (Jewish scribes following the Council of Yamnia in 90 CE) placed vowel pointers into the scrolls they produced. Modern Bibles use the Masoretic text for their "Old Testament" texts. Whenever the Masorete scribes wrote the Tetragrammaton, they inserted the vowel pointings for the word Adonai (Lord) to indicate that the reader should pronounce this word in place of trying to pronouce what was considered to holy to pronounce (i.e. the Tetragrammaton). Early English translators (King James Version, more correctly known as the "Authorized Version") read this in Masorete texts and then included the word "Jehovah" (or "Jahovah") in 4 places of their English version where a simple substitution of the word LORD would not make grammatical sense. In so doing, they were not completely ignorant, but were in fact recognizing the insufficient knowledge of the word "Yod-Hay-Vav-Hay" to accurately render it to the English. This is born out in the fact that the OTHER 6,515 times the Tetragrammaton is found in the Masorete text of the "Old Testament" they did NOT substitute the manufactured word "Jehovah". It is unfortunate that they took it upon themselves to render the word "Jehovah" in the 4 places that they did, because the result was several hundred years of "Christians" believing that God's name is pronounced "Jehovah". Modern "Christians", upon learning of the error of the word "Jehovah" seem content to substitute the word "Yahweh", which is just another attempt to fill in where the Hebrew does not. There is no Hebrew word or name, "Yahweh". The 6,519 times the Biblia Hebraica (a Masorete version of Hebrew text) renders the Tetragrammaton, it is spelled yod-hay-vav-hay and has the vowel pointings of a sheva (very short "eh" sound) under the yod and a patach ("ah" sound) under the vav.

The more conservative religious Jews use the word "Adonai" in place of God's name, or use the word "Hashem" (i.e. "The Name"). This modern "Christian" nation utters the phrase "My God" with such casualness and frequency that concept of "taking in vain" has taken on monstrous proportions. The irony is that the posted article is in fact completely in line with the Jewish practice of treating the Name of God with reverence... and the title of the post treats such reverence with typical American flipancy.

[Dead Corpse]

I'm aware of all of that. In fact, BECAUSE of the real nature of the Tetragrammaton, the pretension involved in the shortening of the general noun "God" is made all the more poignant. Akin to ritually re-purifing yourself after every passage of gas.

[bondserv]

Of course, when God was back in the schools, plenty of terrible things happened then as well.

Do you lock the door on your house now?

Do you leave the keys to your car in the ignition?

Does our daughters think that abortion is unacceptable, and those who have participated in having one (The boyfirend, girlfriend and parents of both) should be thought of in a bad light?

Do our children believe that homosexuality is a behavior that will lead to a life of suffering and pain?

Did 3 friends hack their friend to death to get his $500.00?

Chaos has ensued since we have told our children there are no societal standards, keep your standards personal, taboo is for Mr. Magoo. Hitler will happen to the United States just as it happened to the God dishonoring Germany of the 1930's.

Evil slips through the cracks of the society if Godly vigilance is not continuously maintained.

[Celantro]

>It's a sign of respect.

That's right. Jews do this all the time. They feel the name of God is too awesome to say or even spell.

[Rodney King]

Thats a good point. Thanks. I knew that the article was appealing.

[adam_az]

Isn't the practice one of leaving out vowels, in order to not spell the name out completely?

Seems to me I remember that JHVH is the accepted way for denoting the word "Jehovah" in Hebrew.

You've seen it written that way because biblical Hebrew contains no vowels.

[PatrioticAmerican]

I guess some people think they are fooling God when they write "G_d". It seems that is the most disrespectful of all acts, thinking they can fool God. He knows what they are thinking.

They should be proud to say "God". Instead, they cowar that somehow taking his name in vain is the reason to type "G_d". Of course, these people haven't clue what taking a name in vain means. They think it is a literal expression of the word "God".

[AnalogReigns]

I never saw this practice (of writing "G-d") until quite recently, and only on the Internet. Growing up as a frequent reader of a broad range of political, religious, and philosophic literature, it was something I never encountered among authors of any faith. My guess is that it's something "new age."

While its not new age...the practice of using the G-d spelling, in real life, is really only an Orthodox Jewish practice...all explained well in various posts above. That some Christians and others would adopt this legalism is beyond me--especially in light that as someone pointed out above, God is just a term for deity, and when capitalized, assumes the monotheistic Deity, namely the "I AM" of Moses quote(and Jesus' claim as well...). I wonder what such persons do in languages that don't have vowels in their word for God, like ours does?

While of course I respect the right to practice this tradition, to me its best left to others... as its like the tradition of not pressing elevator buttons on the Sabbath, seems like something that won't allow one's elevator to make it all the way to the top....

[E Rocc]

Chaos has ensued since we have told our children there are no societal standards, keep your standards personal, taboo is for Mr. Magoo.

The problem today is not a lack of teaching religion, it is a lack of teaching personal responsibility for one's own actions. This stopped being taught in the late eighties to early 90s, when "PC" kicked in.

A smaller part of the problem is the effort by "cultural conservatives" to enforce standards that a large part of the population has rejected, by equating them to standards that any government must maintain to keep order, but a much smaller part of the population would like to reject.

Personal violence and theft are not equivalent to pre-marital sex, drug use, or "naughty" entertainment. Those who would claim that they are actually hurt the cause of re-instating personal responsibility as a basic and universal premise in our nation.

-Eric

[adam_az]

I never saw this practice (of writing "G-d") until quite recently, and only on the Internet. Growing up as a frequent reader of a broad range of political, religious, and philosophic literature, it was something I never encountered among authors of any faith. My guess is that it's something "new age."

Only if you call following a 3000 or so year old tradition "new age..."

[grumple]

This was the response I guess I was looking for. I revere God and am proud to spell out His name. Although I have been properly educated on the variations and reason for spelling it certain ways, the G-d variation to me seemed that there was just an aversion (as if someone might be offended) by spelling it God. The article identifies how God has been taken out of many walks of life, and initially it looked to me as if some were just taking the "o" out of God, much like the purposeful misspelling of cuss words.

It's offensive to me what God has become in the eyes and minds of many. And to type G-d as some sort of respect while ignoring the absence of Him in many other ways seems...well...un-Godly...

He's in my life, and I don't believe a particular spelling of His name implies respect or disrespect. That is measured in one's individual reverence. Cowering behind the modern culture of today while waiting for His return, is moreso disrespectful.

[grumple]

I must say I agree with your premise

[bondserv]

Until we begin agreeing, as a nation, what the standard is, you will have a hard time selling personal responsibility.

This country was founded on the principles and morals of the Christian Bible. If anyone wants to question that part of American Culture they need to find a country where the President doesn't take his oath of office on the Christian Bible.

Until we declare from the rooftops, this is a Christian society based on scriptural principles, if you want to live in our nation abide by these standards. What do we think the Constitution and our Declaration of Independence are all about anyway?

There is no command in the Constitution or any of my statements to become a Christian, but the founders knew that Christian standards are better than any other for an organized society.

[bondserv]

If a Christian moves to a Muslim led nation, they are forced to live by muslim principles.

The difference with America is that we will not command the person to become a Christian.

[Dave Elias]

(Here goes my first post - I hope I don't make any enemies!)

In some ways you're all correct.

The ancient Hebrew name for God is a four letter word spelled YHWH. The absence of vowels is confused by some as being a sign of deference. In ancient Hebrew (and Modern Hebrew to a certain extent, although vowel sounds are now indicated with marks) this is not the case, the deletion of vowels is standard syntax. So there is nothing intrinsically special about a word written without vowels. In most cases the correct pronounciation of this word without vowels would have been obvious to those reading it.
For example try interpretting "FR RPBLC". Obvious isn't it? In most cases in Ancient Hebrew it would be even easier to infer a word, since words wouldn't normally be as long as "Republic" or have a double vowel sound ending the word like "Free".

Now comes the fun part. You see in the 22 letter Ancient hebrew alphabet there were four letters that could be pronounced with a consonent sound or a vowel sound (for a modern equivalent think of the letter Y. This can sound as a consonent as in 'Yell' or as a vowel, as in 'Try'). Repectively these were aleph, hey, waw and yud.

See the problem yet? The word YHWH is written entirely using three of these dual use letters. We therefore do not know whether we are supposed to insert vowel sounds when pronouncing or use the vowel form of the three letters, or a combination of the two. What we have as written is unpronouncable word.

It is unlikely this was out of design, because the word was too holy, but in my opinion it is kind of nice it worked out thus.

There are clues as to how it was pronounced which have lingered into modern usage, principally in words such as 'Halleluia' (praise to god) which indicates the first part of YHWH was pronounced 'Yah' or more likely 'Yahoo' if you include the W. It is anyones guess as to the last H, maybe it was silent? What is clear though is that the word was clearly spoken at one point.

The deletion of the 'O' in God is I guess an attempt to acknowledge the enigmatic pronounciation of this word in a language with a different structure.

Regardless of the relatively mundane reason behind the practice, this shouldn't detract from the meaning of the ritual. In fact, knowing as most jewish scholars would, this background, makes it quite a gesture of faith, since they are consciously choosing to treat God with deference in references to him.

[Catspaw]

Cowering behind the modern culture of today while waiting for His return, is moreso disrespectful.

Surely you don't mean that Orthodox Jews are "disrespectful" for "cowering being the modern culture while waiting for His return," because they spell "God" "G-d," do you? Or do you?

[ChadGore]

What do Ted and Hillary think?

[Catspaw]

The difference with America is that we will not command the person to become a Christian.

That's a good thing, given there was already a well-established Jewish community in Rhode Island in 1759.

http://www.tourosynagogue.org/AbtHistory.html

[William Terrell]

All these references have to do with the opinions of man, not the anouncements of God.

So, you think God will punish those who write His whole name? A Jewish friend of mine complaints that rabinical law exhorts Jews to open both ends of a can to avoid making a vessel. Do you reckon these two things are equivalent?

I afraid to say that just because a Rabbi (or a Priest, or a Mullah, or a Shamin, or a Minister) cames to a conclusion, it has nothing to do with what God wants. While these holy people may be truely following their sincere beliefs of what is the proper way to worship God, I don't think God has verified any of it.