Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Jesus' resurrection Message-ID: Date: 8 Nov 90 03:21:09 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 30 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , sandrock@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Mark T. Sandrock) writes: > And I say that words about GOD are sacred. I say that GOD is the most sacred > word that we have been given! Whoever debases the name, debases the concept! > This is the reason we were given the Second Commandment. Taking the LORD's > name in vain is a "sin" which can be committed by anyone! Hang on a minute. "God" isn't His name. The English word "god" is used for all sorts of false gods (Brahma, the Celestial Emperor, Pan, Thunor, Tane, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Sulis, ...) and was used for false gods long before my Anglo-Saxon ancestors ever heard about the real one. It goes back to the Indo-European root "gheu-" "to call, invoke" and originally meant "that which is invoked". (Did you know that "giddy" goes back to a word meaning "possessed"? We speak a fascinating language.) This applies in many languages. Hashem is commonly referred to in Maaori as "Te Atua", which can also mean "ghost". If you want his _name_, that's YHWH. If I _have_ to pronounce that, I pronounce it "Adonai". (:-) But surely taking the Lord's name in vain refers to something much worse than swearing by something one doesn't understand. Surely claiming to be a Christian but denying the Lordship of Christ is one way of taking the Lord's name in vain? Surely claiming to be a Christian but setting your own judgement against His and calling good what He has called evil is taking the Lord's name in vain? Surely persecuting anyone, no matter how false their beliefs, in the name of our Lord is taking his name in vain? In short, isn't that commandment a dreadful warning to _religious_ people like us, not something we can safely refer to "them"? -- The problem about real life is that moving one's knight to QB3 may always be replied to with a lob across the net. --Alasdair Macintyre.