First off, something of a new year’s resolution: One of the fallacies I recently wrote copy for in The Orange Catholic Necronomicon is “By ‘God’ everyone means the same deity.” Originally identified as YHWH (the God of Judaism, or at least the Greek equivalent Theos was in the Septuagint), the term “God” has gained the annoying feature that it can be used to refer the chief or unique deity of almost any religion. This makes it easy to gloss over very real differences between YHWH, the Christian Trinity (or just the First Person thereof), Allah, the Mormon Godhead (or just the First Person thereof), Ahura Mazda, Brahman, Vishnu, Shiva, Kali, the God of Aristotle, etc. The result makes it easy to misapply attributes (or lack thereof) of one deity to another or slip into unfounded syncretic notions. I am therefore endeavoring to avoid using “God” as a proper name in order to sidestep these problems. (YHWH, help me.)
Side note for the confused by my choice of a Divine name: “YHWH” is a transliteration of a Divine name whose pronunciation was kept secret sufficiently that it was lost, not an acronym. I am starting to use it in English due to it being the most familiar way to refer to the God of Judaism without resorting to mistransliterations. It should be pronounced “HashShem” rather than spelled.
Fake news: Popeye was overjoyed to learn that canned spinach does not entail risk of E. coli contamination.
Today’s news and commentary:
- “Israel: Foreign reporters' vehicles may be used by terrorists”
- “Germ Free Wireless Laser Mouse” (This is a bad idea. It will only breed tougher microbes. Those of you refuse to believe in evolution, YHWH scoffs at your refusal and sends us microbes more resistant to our methods of killing them.)
- “Danger man”
- “Ichthyosaur Fossils Found Under Campus Ping-Pong Table”
- “Devil Wears Striped Pants”
- “Bin Laden Sick?”
- “Israel admitted to Interpol Europe”
- “Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Trained Muslim Terrorists, Blames Jews For 9/11”
- “Egypt bans French, German papers for comments on Islam”
- “Yemen opposition rejects results of vote”
- “Court rules against Hamas lawmakers”
Aaron
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