Chacham's Journal: Rant: On a fortune i just saw here.

So much to rant about. The fortune i see right now for solidus full-stop is "God must have loved calories, she made so many of them."

G-d is either "He" or "it", not "she". Although "it" would be pushing it. It is accepted practice to call the inanimate "she", such as a car, boat, plane, computer, etc. The animate, however (when gender is unknown) is "he". That's why most people call babies or animals of unknown gender "he". It is also the rule in gender-specific languages. Since G-d is animate, especially if reffered to with a capital "G", the rule would be "He". To say "She" is just to make waves, such as this JE.

The worst part is the lowercase "s" in "she". Either don't capitalize the "G", or capitalize the "s". But to lowercase the "s" after capitalizing the "G", as was done, is a comment, not just a word.

It doesn't look like i can turn it off either. :(

Sheesh

[Planesdragon]

G-d is either "He" or "[I]t", not "[S]he". ... The animate, however (when gender is unknown) is "he". That's why most people call babies or animals of unknown gender "he". It is also the rule in gender-specific languages. Since G-d is animate, especially if reffered to with a capital "G", the rule would be "He". To say "She" is just to make waves, such as this JE.

Calling God "She" is a perfectly acceptable practice--just so long as you don't try and argue that the "correct" form is feminine. The Almight

Re:Sheesh

[SiliconJesus]

1: "God" is the proper English name of the Almighty. It was a long strange trip from "Jehovah" to "God", but that's how the translated it into English. As such, even without special rules "God" should always be capitalized.

2: You're 100% correct; a reference to the Almighty should always be capitalized, as a grammatical rule. While it could be acceptable to extend this rule to any infinite being (such as a pagan uberdeity, or the hindi trans-deity, or the Christian Satan), it is improper to ignore it.

T

Re:Sheesh

[Planesdragon]

The word god is the concept of a higher being that is all knowing and or powerful, but the word God presumes the Judeo-Christian god, as a proper noun.

"god" implies a higher being, not just those that are all-knowing or all-powerful. "an entity to which worship is directed" is as good a definition for "god" as any.

Using 'he' or 'she' or 'it' is no different than anyone else in a grammatical context, but people who are believers, tend to try to give it more weight as the bible has done in its capitiliza

Re:Sheesh

[FroMan]

...the Christian Satan), it...

As a note, I do not think Satan would be considered "deity," as he also is a creation of God along with the other angels and demons. Satan is capitalized simpley because it is the proper, as in English terms, name of the head of the rebellion of the angels. So, while Satan is divine in the sense that angels are divine and of hte spiritual world, he is not divine in the sense of God.

Re:Sheesh

[Planesdragon]

I do not think Satan would be considered "deity,"

Neither do I. But, as Satan is an amalgram of every biblical malign spirit, it may be appropriate to dub him as "infinite."

(And, of course, being created by Omnipotence does not mean that you can't be infinite--the universe, for example, might be infinite, and yet it was still created by Omnipotence.)

i second

[SolemnDragon]

I knew a woman once- a woman who made no other outward show of contradiction with her roman catholic upbringing- who would send cards to people, you know , the standard 'God has you in his grace' stuff that gets sent for occasions all the time. And she'd get a pen and make the word female- 'Her' or 'She.' It was actually kind of beautiful, the way she went about it. (this has been Just a note from way out in the field...)

Re:Sheesh

[superyooser]

Wikipedia has a thorough entry on God and gender [wikipedia.org]. It points out that there is a distinction between lingustic gender and sexual gender. Using feminine words for God in English is controversial, because English doesn't have linguistic gender. All non-neuter language is naturally interpreted to have sexual implications.

"God" is the proper English name of the Almighty. It was a long strange trip from "Jehovah" to "God", but that's how the translated it into English.

I disagree that "God" is a proper name fo

Re:Sheesh

[Planesdragon]

Using feminine words for God in English is controversial, because English doesn't have linguistic gender.

No, it's controversial because Anglo cultures have a great deal of sexist inertia. Christ was a man, as were almost all of the biblical authors (or scribes, if you will), and all of the aknowledged prophets and disciples.

If we did have linquistic gender, it would be controversial because it would be wrong. But, as we don't, "She" is every bit as appropriate as "He" when describing a person of indete

Re:Sheesh

[superyooser]

If we did have linquistic gender, it would be controversial because it would be wrong.

Have you ever studied a language with linguistic gender? In French, the word for book is masculine (le livre). The word for library is feminine (la bibliotheque). It doesn't make any sense to me, but you can't say that it's "wrong," because it's not implying anything sexual about the objects themselves. As far as I can tell, gender is just a meaningless attribute that the language attaches to words.

"God" has more weigh

Re:Sheesh

[Planesdragon]

In French, the word for book is masculine (le livre). The word for library is feminine (la bibliotheque). It doesn't make any sense to me, but you can't say that it's "wrong,"

You misunderstood.

In French, it's simply wrong to, for example, call a book feminine (la livre). If English had linquistic gender, the 'gender' of God would be likewise fixed.

But "God" is not our god's name

Well, that's because his "true name" is lost to the far reaches of time. But "God" is a proper name that we use to refer t

Re:Sheesh

[superyooser]

I know that "Allah" is the word used for God in Arabic language Judeo-Christian Bibles, so I can agree that both words can be used to refer to the LORD. But Allah and the LORD in reality are two distinct entities.

Mohammad noted the direct paralellel between Allan and the Judeo-Christian "God the Father"

No, I'd say those lines are just a little bit skewed. :-) Like this X , in my view. For instance, why would God tell people not to make friends with His chosen people?

"O you who believe! Do not take th

Re:Sheesh

[Planesdragon]

For instance, why would God tell people not to make friends with His chosen people?

You mean you can't think of ANY reasons?

What if He needed a second, seperate 'chosen people' so it'd be God's People v. God's People for the fate of the world, so He wins both ways? (1). What if the contemporary Christians and Jews had fallen from God's grace? (2) What if God wanted to send a multi-part message that could only be expressed by three major religions? (3) What if the Koran was misinterpreted, by Mohammad's

Re:Sheesh

[superyooser]

I don't know why you can't see what I so clearly can. I'm not even going to try to continue this discussion, except for one point.

As opposed to being represented by a corpse?

I assume you mean Jesus' body on a crucifix. That represents an act - a snapshot in time; not our Savior who is alive presently and has been since the third day after His Passion. For the very fact that Christ bodily rose from the dead and lives today, Protestants prefer to use the Cross by itself as the symbol of the faith.

Re:Sheesh

[Planesdragon]

I don't know why you can't see what I so clearly can.

Please, don't.

You are committing an error of pride; your conclucions are not necessarily the correct ones, and even if you ARE correct, that does not mean that those who disagree with you are incorrect, or deficient in any way.

Or to put it another way: you're not seeing clearly. You're deciding that what you believe is true, and deciding not to see what else there could be. (This may or may not be a bad thing; God may very well want you to remain ig