**A charming, metaphorical tale.
**We seem to acquire spelling and written preferences similarly to the
process of absorbing rhythm, accent, and pronunciation in speech patterns
-- obviously from our immediate environment. Dictionaries may codify --
but our (early interactions and observances among) family and friends
undoubtedly provide the model for our communication bases.
TC,
On Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 11:28 PM, Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Aha, the Jewish years! Suffice it to say three thousand plus years is a
damn lot of tradition to have to carry around with you. Such a lot of
history and mystery and tears and fears to be adhered to -- such a lot of
tradition and petition and sedition -- just try to keep it all straight. I
don't know how you guys do it. Not many people are so patient. But, you
know, it is the Magic Kingdom that's a-coming, isn't it? Not some Broadway
show, for Chrissake. I've heard the Cantor calling: "How long, O Lord, how
long must we wait for the promised Kingdom to come and make us top Dog
again? When cometh the Magic Kingdom?" So many rules and regulations you
guys have that must be assiduously attended to. I tip my hat to you and
your long-suffering patience. I myself fell in line behind that Jewish guy
who knew how to turn water into wine. That's my kinda God. But he didn't
have a very long run at it. All that love stuff -- got him in trouble.
Love's one thing, eating's another. Love is good, love is fine as long as
it doesn't get in the way of making wine -- and money of course. Money and
wine. Most of his customers ran away when the cops showed up. They
accused him of running a business without a license and killed him. The
Better Business Bureau didn't mess around back then. But it wasn't all for
naught. Many vineyards opened up all trying to copy his fine wine. They
go by many names.
On Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 6:39 PM, Steven G. Cameron <stevecam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
**Many (too many) years of experience and growing up Jewish will have to
suffice........!!
TC,
On Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 7:06 PM, Mike Geary <
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"**Not "G_d" but rather "G-d" is preferred".
Alright! At last we're making some headway here. So, Steve, who is
preferring party? God? You? The MLA? (I haven't seen their style sheet
in quite some time). Or is it the Pope? Or
On Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 11:42 AM, Steven G. Cameron <
stevecam@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
**Not "G_d" but rather "G-d" is preferred.
TC,
/Steve Cameron
On Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 8:56 AM, Lawrence Helm <
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
David Myers used to do that. I can't bring anyone else to mind. I
think David was an Orthodox Jew. I used to know the purpose behind that
tradition but I can't bring that to mind either. It may have been harking
back to the idea that knowing a person's name and saying it meant that you
had power over him; so to presume to have power over God would be a
blasphemy.
Lawrence
On 7/22/2016 10:04 PM, Mike Geary wrote:
I don't know if anyone remembers back about 1998 or so on the old
Phil-Lit list, in some discussions about God, there were at least two (as
I
recall) contributors who referred to God by typing "G_d". I guess it was
the hole left by leaving out the "o" that made the typing of it holier. I
don't know. But it would cause me to wonder if they thought that God was
so sensitive that we humans could possibly ever hurt his feelings by
waging
religious wars,or, much less, just by typing out his full name? (Actually
I think his full name might be "God Almighty" or "God Damnit" or "Jesus
Fucking Christ" -- I've heard these versions and other such variations at
least as often as stand alone "God." What I mean to say is, like, you
know, come on, do they really think that God is such a sensitive soul?
Hell, he fire bombed Sodom and Gomorrah long before we ever got around to
Dresden and Tokyo. If you think that words or thoughts or even actions
even
can hurt him, well, I think that's a sacrilege. It certainly that
doesn't
speak well for his omnipotence and omniscience and. omnipresence. How
would he ever be able to do the Divine thing -- whatever that is -- if we
mere humans can cripple him up like a little kid crying in the corner
because he didn't get a piece of candy. I'm of the opinion that God
comes
away from such adorational rituals longing to hear some humans cursing and
shaking their fists at heaven and shouting: "Damn you! I'll get you yet!"
That would surely make him feel better about himself than some Jesus Freak
singing sweet hymns to him. We are his pet dogs, always going back to him
with our tails between our legs -- humbled, yes -- but pissing on his leg
none the less. "Vengeance is mine," sayeth we continually to ourselves.
We'll get him yet, yes. We'll use his Real Name, His Full Name We'll
shout it out: "AM, AM, AM, AM, "AM, AM, AM, AM "AM, AM, AM, AM "AM, AM,
AM, AM "AM, AM, AM, AM. God is a very sensitive dude-God. You've got to
be judicious in what you say -- and type! Oh dear. Maybe those who write
G_d are wiser that I am. Now I'm afraid to even think of _________.
On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 11:02 AM, Lawrence Helm <
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word
was God." I wonder what Chomsky and Berwick think about this. Of course
John lived a mere 2000 years ago more or less and any legends of the
beginning would have been old. But Genesis written much earlier is also
concerned about language. God's method of creation was to speak words.
Later in Exodus God speaks to Moses and tells him to go to the Egyptians
and rescue the Israelites. Moses asks God "if the people ask who sent
me,
what shall he answer?" "God said to Moses, 'I am who I am. This is what
you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
Was this emphasis upon "the word" as a means of creation and later
another name for Jesus faddish, that is, a popular word at the time and
nothing more, or did it have some deeper significance, some mythic
emphasis
that theologians can only speculate about? It was believed in those days
or in earlier days that to have person's name was to have power over him.
But faddish words have existed and continue to exist. Here is
something from pages 47 and 48 of Carl Becker's *The Heavenly City
of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers *(first given as a lecture
at Yale in 1931 and then published in 1932)*: *"If we would
discover the little backstairs' door that for any age serves as the
secret
entrance-way to knowledge, we will do well to look for certain
unobtrusive
words with uncertain meanings that are permitted to slip off the tongue
or
the pen without fear and without research; words which, having from
constant repetition lost their metaphorical significance, are
unconsciously
mistaken for objective realities. In the thirteenth century the key words
would no doubt be God, sin, grace, salvation, heaven, and the like; in
the
nineteenth century, matter, fact, matter-of-fact, evolution, progress; in
the twentieth century, relativity, process, adjustment, function,
complex.
In the eighteenth century the words without which no enlightened person
could reach a restful conclusion were nature, natural law, first cause,
reason, sentiment, humanity, perfectibility (these last three being
necessary only for the tender-minded, perhaps).
"In each age these magic words have their entrances and their exits.
And how unobtrusively they come in and go out! We should scarcely be
aware
either of their approach or their departure, except for a slight feeling
of
discomfort, a shy self-consciousness in the use of them. The word
'progress' has long been in good standing, but just now we are beginning
to
feel, in introducing it into the highest circles, the need of easing it
in
with quotation marks, that conventional apology that will save all our
faces. Words of more ancient lineage trouble us more. Did not president
Wilson, during the war, embarrass us not a little by appearing in public
on
such familiar terms with 'humanity,' by the frank avowal of his love for
'mankind'? As for God, sin, grace, salvation -- the introduction of
these
ghosts form the dead past we regard as inexcusable, so completely do
their
unfamiliar presences put us out of countenance, so effectively do they,
even under the most favorable circumstances, cramp our style."
Lawrence
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