Incidentally, there is yet another interpretation of "taking the Lord's name in vain"[1] to mean "to speak as if you have the authority of God."
Some people seem to believe that certain words, by their nature, have different power than other words of equivalent meaning. So you see this sanctimonious abolition of "cursing", where it's okay to say "darn" instead of "damn" and "butt" instead of "ass" and "I am displeased" instead of "this is fucking bullshit".
So this notion of "taking the Lord's name in vain" must mean something else. A little study of context tells us that many shamans and prophets and priests of various religions would "invoke" the name of their god when making decrees to lend authority to their statements.
Which doesn't work if you're trying to prove out the legitimacy of God. Whomever wrote The Bible understood some things about logic[2]. He knew that appeal to authority was a logical fallacy, and thus much of the judeochristian system is predicated on the personal relationship between man and God and the dangers of overtrusting Church leadership. "The devil will quote scripture to you."
And intent matters. If you say "it's a pleasure to meet you" with your jaw and fists clenched, you probably don't really mean it, and are basically telling a lie. A poor lie, but a lie nonetheless. Does saying "gosh darnit" really make a difference to an omnipotent and omniscient being such as God? I think He would know that you meant, "God fucking dammit all to burning hell in a whore's handbasket"[3].
Because one must understand the reasoning behind God's laws. It doesn't matter if you literally pushed the knife into a man's heart or just arranged for it to happen that someone else kill the man, you killed the man. To follow the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law is duplicitous, dishonest. This sort of behavior is held up throughout the Bible as that of the "Gentiles", the non-Jews who mince the Lord's law.
So this is where the prohibition against "taking the Lord's name in vain" comes in. It's about "do not deign to speak for God." And with that understanding, it becomes clear that it is the people who say, "you shouldn't say Goddammit, it's offensive to God" are the ones who are committing said sin in the first place.
So yeah, fuck em.[4]
[1] If you don't already, for a moment, assume the existence of the judeochristian God, if only to allow for me an easier writing job. It is not meant as an assumption that you believe in such things.
[2] emphasis on some.
[3] for example.
[4] okay, you may revert to your regularly schedule religion now.
I was under the impression that this was considered the proper interpretation by theologians. The common interpretation was the same type of common wisdom as the belief that "god helps those who help themselves" is in the bible. This seemed obvious when I was a child and cared about these things anyway.
But goddamn, I had never put together the fact that 'it is the people who say, "you shouldn't say Goddammit, it's offensive to God" are the ones who are committing said sin in the first place'. That's an excellent observation, thank you. The rest of it's well explained as well.
Yep. And it's the interpretation preferred by a lot of us non-theologian-but-believing-and-thinking Christians too. Alas, not the vocal ones who get on TV. I find it more 'offensive' that politicians invoke God's name to promote nationalism and wars that if someone says 'goddamn' or 'oh my God' or whatever. (Don't even get me started on that evil bullshit from the "Westborro Baptist" cult - that is extremely offensive to me as a Christian. That is /seriously/ using God's name in vain.)
I was somewhat under the impression that a lot of the insane over-zealous legalism of 'modern' protestant Christianity was at least somewhat since the Victorian era. A lot of European countries (not the UK) have a much more realistic approach to 'cusswords' and 'swearwords' and so on.
Looking at many past theologians (Martin Luther, for obvious instance), you find that there was much less of an insistence of 'clean' language. We live in a dirty, messed up, stinking world. Sometimes it's appropriate to use words that reflect that. What we're called to do is help to make that world less filthy, and help heal the broken people. The words we use, although not irrelevant, are certainly of much less importance that contemporary religion seems to think.
The bible itself has a couple of instances of 'foul' language, actually. English translations normally tone it down for their audiences... Which is kind of ironic, since most of it was written originally for non-priggish earthy real people, who spoke in street language, not in high class ecclestiatical nonsense (the New Testement is in Koine (common) greek, not in formal classical Greek.).
Ok, but even in that interpretation, saying "god damn it" is "god should send that thing to hell", which doesn't seem like it should be said lightly, and, um, treads close to speaking for him.
Saying it lightly clearly means you don't really mean it. You're not literally trying to convince someone that God is going to damn them. As I said, I would think a supposedly omniscient God would know the difference.
Some people seem to believe that certain words, by their nature, have different power than other words of equivalent meaning. So you see this sanctimonious abolition of "cursing", where it's okay to say "darn" instead of "damn" and "butt" instead of "ass" and "I am displeased" instead of "this is fucking bullshit".
So this notion of "taking the Lord's name in vain" must mean something else. A little study of context tells us that many shamans and prophets and priests of various religions would "invoke" the name of their god when making decrees to lend authority to their statements.
Which doesn't work if you're trying to prove out the legitimacy of God. Whomever wrote The Bible understood some things about logic[2]. He knew that appeal to authority was a logical fallacy, and thus much of the judeochristian system is predicated on the personal relationship between man and God and the dangers of overtrusting Church leadership. "The devil will quote scripture to you."
And intent matters. If you say "it's a pleasure to meet you" with your jaw and fists clenched, you probably don't really mean it, and are basically telling a lie. A poor lie, but a lie nonetheless. Does saying "gosh darnit" really make a difference to an omnipotent and omniscient being such as God? I think He would know that you meant, "God fucking dammit all to burning hell in a whore's handbasket"[3].
Because one must understand the reasoning behind God's laws. It doesn't matter if you literally pushed the knife into a man's heart or just arranged for it to happen that someone else kill the man, you killed the man. To follow the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law is duplicitous, dishonest. This sort of behavior is held up throughout the Bible as that of the "Gentiles", the non-Jews who mince the Lord's law.
So this is where the prohibition against "taking the Lord's name in vain" comes in. It's about "do not deign to speak for God." And with that understanding, it becomes clear that it is the people who say, "you shouldn't say Goddammit, it's offensive to God" are the ones who are committing said sin in the first place.
So yeah, fuck em.[4]
[1] If you don't already, for a moment, assume the existence of the judeochristian God, if only to allow for me an easier writing job. It is not meant as an assumption that you believe in such things.
[2] emphasis on some.
[3] for example.
[4] okay, you may revert to your regularly schedule religion now.