[QUOTE=Noble Outlaw]just wanted to add somehting in here, for the benifit of the chrisitians in here who say the commandment says you can't say 'Jesus Christ!', etc. The Commandment actually says, "Thou shalt not use my name in vain' or some such in the dumbed down translation, but in the actual translation, this becomes considerably more specific. i forget exactly what the wording in, but basically it says that one should not use the lord's name in an oath and break it. that is what is actually meant by 'in vain', not as an exclamtion. if you were to swear on the bible, or swear by the lord on high, etc, and then break your oath or promise, that would be breaking the commandment. it doesn't really have naything to do with random explitives.

Oh, and btw, i got this from my religion class, which was taught by an ordained roman catholic priest. i'm not jsut pulling this out of my ***.

Secondly, in my opinion (no loner from the religion class, this is), when one says 'Jesus Christ!' or 'Oh God!" i consider it a prayer, at least if they're catholic. Like if something horrible happens, and they a person says "oh my god!" itsthe shorted version of something along the lines of "oh, god, don't let this be happening!", etc etc etc.[/QUOTE]


Was the priest an expert in early Christian history? Did he source from documents from several different time periods? Does it matter that I myself are an ordained priest? What about other scriptures stating that the mouth should not offend. I think that covers random explitive nicely.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Well it shouldn't considering that not everyone believes in God. Just something to keep in mind.

I say it all the time.[/QUOTE]


I don't say it. It offends me b/c i consider it to be disrespectful. And if someone is an athiest, it doesn't give them license to be disrespectful to someone else's faith like that.

I'm athiest and I say it all the time. ALL THE TIME.

It just rolls off the tongue...

Me too. I'm not religious or anything, and I never stop to think about what I mean when I say it, I just do.

Something I've always wanted to know (probably dumb question), what does the 'H' stand for in "Jesus H. Christ"?

I've always wondered if Jews take offence if someone exclaims "Holy Moses"



Hank.

Um, ReT, you really should research subjects like this before you go shooting your mouth off. The third commandment is a reference to the Ancient Near East (ANE) practice of swearing an oath by the name of a someone or something of a higher level of honour than yourself. Someone with a high level of personal honour could be trusted to be true to their word, but if you hadn't built up that much honour, you had to use someone else's when you took an oath. The logic being, if you broke that oath, it would bring dishonour upon the person whose name you swore upon as well as yourself, and obviously if you go around tarnishing someone's good name, they're going to be pissed at you and all manner of bad things might happen.

Basically, God didn't want the Israelites going around besmirching his honour by breaking oaths sworn on his name. In case you hadn't caught on, honour was very important in the ancient world. Their society was built upon it, very much more so than ours today.

With that in mind, using God's name (or anyone else's, for that matter) as an expletive would have been unthinkably worse than swearing a false oath on their name. If using God's name in a manipulative, lying way -- which still at least does lip-service to God's honour -- was bad, then using his name interchangeably with words referring to waste products or copulation would be far, far worse. It displays a total lack of respect of any sort, which of course some members of this board seem to take perverse pleasure in.

To sum it up: taking God's name in vain refers to swearing an oath by Gods name and honour with the intention of breaking that oath. Our modern habit of using God's name as a cuss word hadn't even been thought of back then, much less have any commandments against it. You may as well look for commandments about genetic engineering or cell phones as expletives.

...I'll go back to the ISB where I belong, now.

...

What about holy crap? Is that bad? 'Cause it's fun to say!

I usually say holy sh... but anyway.

But it seems unlikely that god exists etc. Nobody has seen any Jesus Christs around since except Thrawn (numbers). A good god should prove he exists every so often. I would if I was god.

The problem with religion in general is that people are too touchy about their faith. I'm a Jew. I constantly exclaim, "Jesus Christ!" when something is crazy or is in need of exclamation. Yet, I'm probably one of the most extreme reform Jews I know. I don't believe that Christ was a person of ANY importance at all, if he even existed. So to me, it's like yelling, "Joseph Crabtree(random name)!" as an exclamation.

However, I'm also a big fan of, "God Dammit!" and "F***** S********!", as well as "Sweet mother of God!".

Call me a blasphamer and take offence if you must, but if you do, you're a touchy little yuppy. Lighten up. Outdated principles and beliefs hold little reality in this time of science and fact. You can thank God for that.

"Holy freaking crap!" is a favorite of mine.

So you are saying using the Lord's name as an exclamation is OK? Using the Lord's name in vain is just limited to breaking of oaths? I don't think so. You interpret "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain." to meaning "don't make an oath with my name and then break it"?



Agreed.

[QUOTE=Chaz Ghostle]What about holy crap? Is that bad? 'Cause it's fun to say![/QUOTE]

lol! Yeah, holy cow too. :p Or is that offensive to Hindus?

I go to a Catholic School and use all f them. Jesus, Christ, Jesus Christ, God, Mother all Mercy, **** Hell, Holy S***, Holy C***, Sweet Jesus, Holy Father, and I'm a Jebus. favroites im a jebus but yeah we use them all

I have never heard, "I'm a Jebus," before.

All I have to say on this topic is that I'm ashamed that I am the first to post this picture, that depicts my feelings on this matter.

lol Simpson its Homer Jay Simpson's God

Yeah, but "I'm a Jebus" does not make any sense.

lol alot of things that come out of my school dont, student included. we should be banned :banned:

Even Christians are arguing whether it's disrespectful, ffs. And RN--how does saying "Jesus Christ" offend anyone?

Prehaps calling him out for the wrong reasons?

Some people consider it to be disrespectful, Yoshi. They don't need a reason. If that's the way they feel, that's the way they feel.

I never argued people thought it was disrespectful. But saying Jesus Christ does not insult anything. Maybe you should read the guy's post and figure out what I was saying, kthx.

I don't say "Jesus Christ" often. I usually use far worse language. But if I do, I really don't care if it offends someone. I'm the one going to Hell, not you. Get over it.

Um, no, actually what I said was that using God's name as an exclamation is in fact not OK, but rather is unthinkably worse than taking an oath on his name that you don't mean to keep, by Ancient Near East standards, anyway.

Seriously, dude. If you want to be a serious student of the Bible, you have to learn at least a little bit about the cultures of the people who wrote it.

The key word in this passage is "take". In Hebrew that's nasa, a root word meaning "to lift", with a variety of figurative senses including: accept, advance, arise, bear, extol, hold up, magnify, regard, respect, stir up, take, wear, yield. A more literal translation might be "You shall not lift up the name of YHWH your God in vain," or "You shall not extol the name of YHWH your God in vain." That's what you would be doing when you swear an oath by his name: extoling it as a source of honour that you could use as a guarantee that you would keep your word.

Add to that the fact that the practice of using God's name as an exclamation did not arise until well into the Christian era, and that the Hebrews were afraid to speak the name YHWH aloud at all, much less in a derogatory way, it seems somewhat unlikely that the third commandment is about casual exclamations.

As for whether or not it's disrespectful, as some other people seem to be arguing that it's not: if you were on trial in a courtroom, and you used the judge's name as a cuss word, would you be charged with contempt of court? I can guarantee you, if the judge heard you, you would at least get a warning. Some of you guys have a difficult time understanding the concept of "respect", and I can understand that, given the culture we live in. However, you should at least be aware that some people still do actually care about stuff like that, even if you don't share the sentiment.

[QUOTE=Kieran Horn]I don't say "Jesus Christ" often. I usually use far worse language. But if I do, I really don't care if it offends someone. I'm the one going to Hell, not you. Get over it.[/QUOTE]

Truer words have ne'er been spoken.

And some of us don't even see a judge there at all. Let us deal with the consequences of our actions and the others can deal with the consequences of their own actions. I will not just give "respect" when it's people trying to use PCness to make others do what they want them to do.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]I never argued people thought it was disrespectful. But saying Jesus Christ does not insult anything. Maybe you should read the guy's post and figure out what I was saying, kthx.[/QUOTE]

You asked:

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]how does saying "Jesus Christ" offend anyone?[/quote]

I answered:



What are you having trouble understanding? You've pushed me to the point where I can only assume you argue for the sake of argument.

Yecti is a Jew.

/points

God you really are dense. Read the post I replied too--I meant how does it offend anyone as per God or Jesus or any other holy figure of their past. Saying their name does not offend them. I know it offends people in the modern day and I could care less. And if I'm just arguing for the sake of argument, why the hell did you start it.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]God you really are dense.[/quote]
Better than a bunch of hot air.


Damn! An opportunity to brush up on my mind-reading skills; gone forever!


I see you are more skilled in the art of mind-reading than myself.


I think you meant 'couldn't care less', but seeing has how I'm not very skilled in the mind-reading arts, I'll just have to go with what you said and assume you do, in fact, care about offending people on some level.



Let's see. Oh, that's right, because I was pissed off that, for some reason, you felt the need to argue with something I said (nothing new there) that is about as fundamental and factual as 1 + 1 = 2.

People don't really use "Jesus Christ" or "God" specifically in the place of excrement-related swear words. Often used in a bad situation yes, but it's usually a way of exclaiming. Which is easier to say - "!" or "Jesus!", try it with me. I'm struggling with the first one, the second one is easy.

Now if you're specifically using the names in a derogatory fashion, you're a nasty bad person. But let's be clear on this, if there is an all-knowing God, he knows exactly what you're thinking and what you're refraining from saying so quit wimping about and just say it, if he's offended by it he would already have been offended by you thinking about it.

I've stated it at least one time before that final post. No need to mind read.


Yes, because dead people are easily offended. Forgot.


Couldn't. It's a very common grammatical mistake. One of the very few I make (often).



You've carried this along just as well as I have, and you're just as much of a hypocrite for accusing me of doing it as I am for accusing you of doing it.

My god; Yoshi made a post and I don't even feel compelled to reply. This is a first.

wth. Is this arguement really needed here? Why, just why? Please don't derail this, I like the interesting reponses people are saying.

Hmm...

omf

Jesus Christ!

"Taking the Lord's name in vain" refers to the name 'Yahweh', you should never say that name (oops). The purpose of the words 'God' and 'The Lord' is precisely to avoid using 'Yahweh', so whenever you say 'oh my god' you are not taking the Lord's name in vain because you're avoiding 'Yahweh'. If we were saying 'oh my yahweh', then it might be something different.

And it is also to prevent the Lord from being used for political purposes, like the Egyptian Gods, but considering the last 1500 years of history, this one has pretty much failed. It would still apply to small scale things, branding things as 'Christian' when they quite clearly aren't. This is fairly obviously far more important than people using 'oh my god' as an exclamation. Unfortunately for Christianity, people are too stupid to actually recognise genuine threats to their religion as a whole ('Christianity' being used for things that aren't), and instead get totally uppety about a word.

You didn't even spell the name right. :p

That's just how it's pronounced.