God versus G-d

In Judaism, the spelling of "g-d" is widely practiced because God/god (however you want to refer to it) is sacred and should not be used in vain, erased, or defaced. Also, it is disrespectful to throw something away that has God/god written on it, so in order to avoid that, the word is not written in its entirety…and papers containing “god” must be disposed of or handled in a particular way that I am not completely clear on.

Here's my thing: words are meaningless. Words have absolutely no value--they are socially constructed representations...what has value is the concept or notion ascribed to the word in question. That said, writing g-d or god or God is all the same because each image, each chunk, each pattern, each strand, all represents the same idea, the same concept. My mind goes back to geometry and the transitive property of equality: g-d=God=god=any spelling in any other language.

Even if you believe god created life, god certainly did not create our alphabet or our language. The difference between an "o" and an "-" is nothing, because the alphabet is a relative and varying function. It is grammatically, culturally and linguistically relevant, but universally pointless.

Also, “God” is not a name—it is a title. The actual name of god (that I believe was revealed to Moses in the book of Exodus) is four consonants. Since ancient Hebrew lacks vowels, the pronunciation is unknown. Therefore, the name “Jehovah”, (as in Jehovah’s Witnesses) is not scripturally or historically accurate, (unless by sheer luck Charles Taze Russell hit the target, but we’ll never know). I have stumbled off-topic, but since God/god is a title, and not a name, you are not defaming the Lord’s name. So even though “god” is a culturally invented term, the “genuine” name as delivered by god himself to Moses is unknown, and cannot be tarnished in and of itself. But it can be tarnished through a representation of the thing itself--different method, same end result.

What's my point? If you are concerned about disrespecting god, the title, or actual being itself, or using references in vain, then it is equally abused by using a “-“or an "o." Therefore, if you believe that writing "God" is not okay, then "G-d" is not a sound alternative.

I suppose there could be some room for argument whether or not you capitalize the "g", because that would indicate a proper noun, or just a regular noun, so that can be construed as respect...but it is still semantics.

Pictorally, symbollicaly, in Swedish or Japanese, Times New Roman or Wing Dings, each variation represents and equals the same entity (I mean within a particular viewpoint), so a variance in physical presentation doesn't mean shit. If it really is an issue of disrespect, don't write god/God/G-d/g-d at all—they all represent the same thing. Am I repeating myself?

P.S. I failed to mention in my intro that I am interested in religion. Although it would make for wonderful gender-related conversation why God is refered to as male via pronouns such as "he, him, his" both in scripture, historically, and presently. Why is the heavenly creator, the divine and all-powerful who is not of this world, considered male--a body of this world? But I suppose if you believe in the Virgin Mary, God must have a physical or spiritual dong...