Whydo people type G-d instead of God?

Question

Is this a fear or a respect thing, or what are the origins of it? Does it say something in one of the Bibles about not referencing.... The Almighty directly?

I ask because I had another question and several people are saying "G-d" and I thought it was weird, because I don't think of......... The Almighty's name as a curse or in a bad way. Is there a religion that takes this more seriously the others or what? I think the people in my question before were Jews.

Answer 1

i think people should just say the whole freaken word. but people all around now are trying to censor anything relating to God out of the topic lately.

Answer 2

Most Jews believe that the name of God should not be written out, because if it is, it can be defaced or destroyed in some way.

If, for example, I printed out a question that included the word GOD in it, and then scribbled it out, it would be offensive to God, and the person who allowed this defacement to have occurred (the writer of the name of God) would have committed a sin, as well as the one who defaced it.

Answer 3

This page answers it very well. http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm

I'll copy paste only a portion, please go there to read more

Jews do not casually write any Name of God. This practice does not come from the commandment not to take the Lord's Name in vain, as many suppose. In Jewish thought, that commandment refers solely to oath-taking, and is a prohibition against swearing by God's Name falsely or frivolously (the word normally translated as "in vain" literally means "for falsehood").

Judaism does not prohibit writing the Name of God per se; it prohibits only erasing or defacing a Name of God. However, observant Jews avoid writing any Name of God casually because of the risk that the written Name might later be defaced, obliterated or destroyed accidentally or by one who does not know better.

The commandment not to erase or deface the name of God comes from Deut. 12:3. In that passage, the people are commanded that when they take over the promised land, they should destroy all things related to the idolatrous religions of that region, and should utterly destroy the names of the local deities. Immediately afterwards, we are commanded not to do the same to our God. From this, the rabbis inferred that we are commanded not to destroy any holy thing, and not to erase or deface a Name of God.

It is worth noting that this prohibition against erasing or defacing Names of God applies only to Names that are written in some kind of permanent form, and recent rabbinical decisions have held that writing on a computer is not a permanent form, thus it is not a violation to type God's Name into a computer and then backspace over it or cut and paste it, or copy and delete files with God's Name in them. However, once you print the document out, it becomes a permanent form. That is why observant Jews avoid writing a Name of God on web sites like this one or in newsgroup messages: because there is a risk that someone else will print it out and deface it.

Normally, we avoid writing the Name by substituting letters or syllables, for example, writing "G-d" instead of "God." In addition, the number 15, which would ordinarily be written in Hebrew as Yod-Hei (10-5), is normally written as Teit-Vav (9-6), because Yod-Hei is a Name. See Hebrew Alphabet for more information about using letters as numerals.

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Now I'll add something of my own related to a few comments below since many of the same Jews who do not write out God, also do not write out the name of ANY other deity, and relatedly, no title conferring the attributes of deity to a human.  I've seen such behavior mistakenly accused as being an atheist agenda, an agenda of hate or disrespect.  One such thing is to use the Christian abbreviation X for the word Christ.

X as an abbreviation for the word Christ, is of Christian origin.It was Christians who created the use of X to mean Christ. Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, he saw the Greek letters Chi and Rho intertwined. Chi is written as an 'X' and Rho is written as a 'P', but they are the first two letters of the Greek word Christ, meaning 'savior'. 'XP' is sometimes used to stand for Christ. Sometimes X is used alone. This is the case in the Chi (X) abbreviation for Christ in Xmas and in Xtian.. It is a bizarre and very recent change that some evangelicals appear to now try to make it out that anyone who uses it is doing something offensive? What about all those "Do not open until Xmas" cards that go on packages.. Christians made those. It isn't something that was done TO Christians.

When I was a child I recall seeing Do Not Open Until Xmas on all the Christmas presents under my Southern Baptist next door neighbor's Christmas tree.

They don't say Xmas as X -mas..they pronounce the X as Christ.

Most of the time when I've seen Jews write Jesus as Jebus or Jezus, it is religiously observant Orthodox Jews who refrain from writing out the name of any deity, either the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or the deity worshipped by any other religion. There are different reasons for each, but IMHO, those practices derive from ancient beliefs that invoking the name of a deity was also seeking to invoke it's power.

Jews are forbidden to invoke any other deity other than the God of Israel. Jesus is worshipped as a deity by millions of Christians, so they are observing the custom not to write his name exactly as known.. It may appear an odd thing, but it isn't always intended to insult.

Writing Xtian or Xian is so that they do not have to write out the title and since that use for X as Christians use it in Xmas is not something any outside group created, I find it absurd to consider Xian as an insult.

Some people may use Jebus to purposely insult. I do not believe that Orthodox frum Jews write it for that purpose.

Do Christians call the Jewish Bible the "Old Testament" with the purpose to offend? I don't think most of them even know that Tertullian, early in the third century CE named the Christian amended version of the Tanakh the "Old Testament" *specifically* to designate it as having been superceded and done away with in contrast to the "New", despite the assertion within it's texts well over a dozen times from Genesis forward that it is an eternal testament (covenant).

Sometimes not knowing history or the meanings or origins of things can allow people to mislead to create dissention.

In the instance of Xtian, it appears that a term created by Christians and adopted in use by some observant Jews so that they would NOT offend and also so that they do not invoke the name or assign a title of savior ( attribute of God alone) to a human and thus sin..has been somehow corrupted into us trying to X out Jesus!

Answer 4

Because we're part of a secret mafia and this is how we recognise each other.

Peace.

Answer 5

I always type God & do not know why.I am first time read from you.

Answer 6

I think it's more insulting to not use His name.  

Answer 7

It's a respect thing, since some orthodox believers see it to be so holy you shouldn't dishonor it by spelling it out on paper.