Re: virus: Holy Shit! Lawmakers Say Yes to Ten Commandments...

Tim Rhodes (proftim@speakeasy.org)
Sat, 19 Jun 1999 00:15:56 -0700

Zombie Cow writes:

>> 3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; ...
>
>BTW, While we're at it, just what is the name of God?

In the case in question it was YHWH (which later became YAHWEH and then Jehovah). It was a symbol without a spoken equivalent. ("The Lord" was substituted for it when a text was read aloud.) Which is a nice trick really. By excluding the name from verbal use it can never fall prey to memetic change or corruption by other competing memeplexes.

There really is a quite good (memetic) reason why we're still dealing with this memeplex and its effects some 4000 or so years after it was first introduced. Which answers Eric's question,

>What kind of a person believes in a god without a name?

Obviously the kind of person with a better intuitive understanding of what makes for a hardy, lasting meme than most anyone here.

-Prof. Tim