getting Finder to show my Unix files whose names begin with a dot

I am not comfortable with the two statements listed in the linked-to article:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

What are these two statements doing?

What I really meant was is there a switch or preference in Finder which I can temporarily set on to tell it to list files whose names begin with a dot (so I can back them up), and then turn off, so that my system returns to the default of not showing files whose names begin with a dot?

So, now I can tell Finder to list Unix files whose names begin with a dot, e.g., .login, .logout, .tcshrc, etc. However, when I select (i.e., highlight) them, either one-at-time or as a group (via the "command" key), and then single right-click a highlighted item, the drop-down list does not give me a copy option (which it does do with files whose names do not begin with a dot). This is obviously !@#$%^&*()_+-= MAC-OS-X/Darwin/Unix telling me that I should not be able to copy "hidden" files. But the only reason I care about getting Finder to list files whose names begin with a dot (specifically, the ones I've already mentioned) is so that I can make back-up copies of them whenever I change them. Is there any non-kludgey way to force !@#$%^&*()_+-= MAC-OS-X/Darwin/Unix to copy files whose names begin with a dot? Or, do I have to resort to some !@#$%^&*()_+-= kludge such as copying .login to a file named dot_login, and then backing-up dot_login? Unbelievable!!!