OH G-D

     I got completely distracted from a blog entry I was reading when I came upon this sentence: "Man, in Judaism's view, was created by G-d here on earth."

      I was completely taken out of my reading. Look, I understand that it is considered a violation to use the Lord's name in vain. I really do. My question is how does using a hyphen in place of the letter O make it so that you have not used the Lord's name in vain? It's what you meant. The letter P is next to the O on the keyboard. If you saw I had typed Gpd instead of God, you would know what I had meant so again, how is blasphemy avoided through the use of a hyphen?

      Later in the blog, the writer uses "Creator". So why not always use that euphemism? A quintessential example of using the letter of the law to violate its spirit, no?
      It reminds me of the Hasidic Jews in our area. They're not supposed to do work on the Sabbath so there will be elevators on autopilot automatically stopping at every floor on the Sabbath so they don't have to push a button. Pushing the button apparently violates the Sabbath law, but benefiting from the electricity anyway apparently does not. I mean, if you set a timer before the Sabbath to turn on a light during the Sabbath, didn't you just violate the law anyway? It was certainly your intent. If you invite a non-Jew over (who's in the know by the way) just so that he can comment about how cold/hot it is in your home and ask if he can turn on the heat/air conditioner (so therefore you did not technically violate any Sabbath rules), how did you not violate the spirit of the law again? Also, if it would be sinful to do such work, how is it not sinful to get someone else to commit the sin on your behalf?

      There are more examples like this and I don't mean to harp on Judaism, it's not my intent to have had them singled out. I'm more aware of their examples than that of other cultures'. My favorite example was a Christian sect which believed that since Baptism cleansed you of your sins...started you anew if you will...that it would be in their practitioners' best interests to be Baptized near the end of life so that one may die free of sin and thus get into Heaven. I guess that means you could live however hedonistically you wished just so long as you were careful not to get killed or die before a priest could Baptize you.
       Like I said, I just don't get it. Apparently you can out-lawyer God. Who knew?