I'm sorry...  but I just argued with what was told to me... 

AS for praying for some reward...  is that why you pray?

See your point but think you are arguing oranges and lemons there H.

Grendel wrote on Nov 15^th, 2008 at 10:38am:

Doesn't a person become a saint through some type of official process in the church? I don't think we have the equivalent.

EDIT: Oops I get it, you're talking about the abbreviation, not actual Sainthood... sorry

Good poiint helian, although I'm sure most of our resident Christians will tell us they don't believe in Saints anymore so it's irrelevant.

Not to mention Dr, Mr, Mrs, UN, NATO, USA, UNESCO, UNRWA, CSIRO and all the other millions of abbreviations in common written usage and some even in verbal usage.

As has been pointed out, writing is a form of abbreviation, an alphabet is just a series of characters that enable us to encode higher/broader concepts into a symbolic form. In reality those symbols/characters have no meaning at all, other than the fact other human beings recognise them and their ascribed meanings. So since you've all been told what "pbuh" represents, you can now decode it in your mind everytime you read it, to represent "Peace be upon him", which you unconciously already decode everytime you read it anyway to represent the sounds we associate with those 17 characters.

Whether you represented the number Nine like this: 9

or like this: 1001

In the end it's the same concept represented, but by different symbols. One way takes up 1/4 the space and probably intellect to decipher, so that's why we humans use it everyday instead of the other.

Quote:


That's probably because Christianity and Judaism have very little respect for God's prophets. Even in the Bible, they are slandered and maligned.

So not surprising that you'd not see a need to invoke peace and blessings upon hearing their belessed names.

If the english word 'poobah' came to mean 'peace be upon him' then you could say that instead, right?

Quote:


Isn't it also tedious to say it?

Quote:


Not exactly, it is a conversion to a different form. If someone says CSIRO, then that is an abbreviation. Going from saying it to writing it adds complexity.

Quote:


An alphabet encodes sounds, not concepts. By themselves those sounds have no meaning (except for maybe 'I'). It is when you string them together to represent a word that has meaning that they can start to represent concepts. So I don't really see the difference between using the abbreviation in writing and using it in sound. We don't have any funny rules that you can write CSIRO but you have to pronounce it fully.

Quote:


The symbols represent sounds, not meanings.

Quote:


Not all of us have. It took me a while to figure it out. I had to ask I think. There are plenty of guests and 'drive by' members who would have no idea what you are on about. It reminds me of people who use text style writing on forums (eg l8 for late). When you get kids on forums doing that sort of thing, they usually get criticised for it.

Quote:


When I read CSIRO, I decode it into five letters, not five words. I don't even know what the five words are any more. I don't see that as disrespectful to the scientists who work there.