What's in The Name?

When my wife -- my girlfriend at the time -- and I were involved in the 92nd Street Y's Derekh Torah class, a 30-week class designed for (mostly) interfaith couples to explore Judaism together, one week the Rabbi teaching the class gave us a list of names by which, well, You-Know-Who, is referred to in the Torah, in speech, and elsewhere.  The list was long, a lot longer than I would have guessed, and the discussion we had was really spirited.  Different names spoke to different people for different reasons.  (My favorite was HaMakom.)

Having spent the last several weeks perusing the Jewish blogosphere, though, I'm a bit unsure as to how I should handle "The Name."  I don't want to offend, but I don't want to violate my own beliefs either.  It seems to me that You-Know-Who is almost always mentioned by certain names but not others.  HaShem comes to mind.  Frankly, I dislike using the term.  I understand some of the reasons why it's used, but it seems silly.  Not as silly as using the ridiculous locution G-dash-d, but pretty close.  I understand the point point of respecting The Name, in the sense that names and reputation are connected.  But in a very fundamental sense, the name is not the thing, and particularly so in the case of You-Know-Who.  We may be created in You-Know-Who's image, but as I understand it, HaShem (!) is entirely beyond our ability to comprehend much less describe.  So why the fetish with the words?  Especially given all the different names that are used in various sources, what's the point?

It seems to me that not using the G-word, A-word, or the Whatever Words One Isn't Supposed to Use is simply a way to distinguish or differentiate one's self from the less religious. 

I have a couple of friends who are becoming more religious.  One is kind of BT, the other not so much, but still, he's becoming more observant.  Both of them recently started saying HaShem all the time in place of the G-word.  For some reason I find this highly annoying.  God is God is Adonai, is YHVH...what's the difference?  In Islam, Allah is Allah.  Sure, there are 99 other words used sometimes to refer to Allah, but the word itself -- Allah -- means God.  Everywhere you go, it's al-hamdu lillah -- All praise to God!  No batting around the bush.

Relatedly, the folks at jewfaq.org say that the prohibition against writing God's name is because it might accidentally get defaced.  To wit,

The commandment not to erase or deface the name of God comes from Deut. 12:3. In that passage, the people are commanded that when they take over the promised land, they should destroy all things related to the idolatrous religions of that region, and should utterly destroy the names of the local deities. Immediately afterwards, we are commanded not to do the same to our God. From this, the rabbis inferred that we are commanded not to destroy any holy thing, and not to erase or deface a Name of God.

It is worth noting that this prohibition against erasing or defacing Names of God applies only to Names that are written in some kind of permanent form, and recent rabbinical decisions have held that writing on a computer is not a permanent form, thus it is not a violation to type God's Name into a computer and then backspace over it or cut and paste it, or copy and delete files with God's Name in them. However, once you print the document out, it becomes a permanent form. That is why observant Jews avoid writing a Name of God on web sites like this one or in newsgroup messages: because there is a risk that someone else will print it out and deface it.

This is pure silliness if you ask me.  The Torah tells us that things relating to other gods should be destroyed because they are idolatrous, and then the Rabbis turn around and constitute the name of God as an idol -- as a thing that can't be mistreated, mis-said, thrown away or so on.  Devarim 12:4-5 -- the following verses -- say "Do not worship the LORD your God in like manner, but look only to the site that the LORD your God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitaiton, to establish his name there.  There you are to go..."

What does any of this have to do with not saying God's name?!?