Quote:
Originally Posted by stone hands
anecdote time, I'm 31 and the only time i have ever been to church is when i slept over at a friends house on a saturday when i was a kid and went with their family. the extent of my parents' religiosity was telling me to not say the lords name in vain if i said god damn until was probably like 12 years old. my wife was the same way
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The is a constant pet-peeve of mine that drives me crazy.
Saying "God," "Jesus," "Christ," "Lord," in an expletive manner is not in breach of the third commandment. "Taking the name of YHWH in vain" is precisely that. It's using the revealed name of the tribal god of ancient Israel callously or out of an appropriate sacral context. So, in other words, NO ONE for thousands of years has ever been guilty of this silly infraction.
The extension of this rule to include other denominators has always been ridiculous, and completely detracts from the spirit of the rule, which served to once emphasize the numinous quality of the name of Israel's god.