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Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!dave
From: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: God's gender and name
Message-ID: <2920@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-Dec-83 00:26:44 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.2920
Posted: Sun Dec 11 00:26:44 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Dec-83 03:14:47 EST
References: <662@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Organization: The Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 33

	From: david@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Norris)
	   Dave Sherman:
	
	> Judaism tends to view G-d as male, but in fact G-d is of course
	> neither male or female.
	
		1) What?  No supporting arguments?  Surely you don't expect anybody
		   to take this at face value.  What makes you believe this?
	
		2) Why do you (and others) use the name G-d, instead of God?

1. Male-ness and female-ness are physical characteristics which
pertain to humans and animals. By definition, G-d is totally
outside the human-animal realm. Conventional physical definitions
of gender can hardly be appropriate.

2. The word G-d is a translation of a Hebrew word which is considered
holy and, when written, should not be destroyed. Even though this is
just a translation, many people still feel that the English form should
not be written in a contect where it is known it will be destroyed. Since
some people on Usenet read news on hardcopy terminals and/or by sending
it to a line printer, writing the word out in full will almost certainly
cause it to be destroyed.

Last summer I consulted an Orthodox rabbi on this point and posted
an article to the net which summarized the rules regarding digital
storage and transmission of holy words in the context of Usenet. If
anyone's interested I can mail you the summary, or repost it to the net.

Dave Sherman
Toronto
-- 
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