On Countdown tonight Olbermann asked a religous leader if it was, in fact, a common misunderstanding that the commandment which says, “Thou shalt not take thy Lord’s name in vain.” means you shouldn’t say, “God damn it!” and the like. What it really means is that you shouldn’t be claiming to speak on behalf of the Lord (i.e. “God showed up and told me that we should kill all these people over there because they’re Little Enders.”) The religious leader agreed with the second version. Given that Countdown is primarily an “edutainment” program and not a hard news show, I’m thinking that it might be wrong. I have to say that it makes a helluvalot more sense than the prohibition against swearing.
I missed the sermon that addressed this, but my minister summed it up for me by saying you shouldn’t say “God damn whatever” unless you really mean it.
This minister and a rabbi with whom he often discusses religious principles both see no problem with occasionally saying “oh God” as an interjection. I notice this in stark contrast to some people, including one who would say “my law” rather than “my lord.”
I always thought taking the Lord’s name in vain referred to swearing to God (to do something) and then breaking that vow. Seems to be more in keeping with the everyday notion of doing something in vain (e.g., to no avail). If this is not correct, I would like someone to explain to me why the phrase “in vain” seems to have a unique meaning in the context of the commandment.
The Hebrew word translated as “in vain” in Exodus 20:7 is shav which according to Strong’s means :
It’s translated variously in the KJV and the NAS as follows:
The Greek Septuagint uses the word mataios which is defined in Liddel and Scott as “vain, empty, idle.”
Thayer’s and Smith defines mataios as:
Strong’s cites every KJV translation as either “vain” or “vanity.”
I think a pretty good argument could be made that the 3rd Commandment means not use God’s name dishonestly. This would be bolstered by Leviticus 19:12 which says not to “swear by my name falsely.”
In short, I believe the Commandment is saying “Do not swear to God if you’re lying.” More broadly, it probably also could be read as simply not invoking the name of God in any deceptive way, so I think that anyone who falsely claims to have been spoken to by God is probably guilty of breaking the Commandment (unless they really believe it, I suppose).
I’m by no means an expert, but the usage of the term “in vain” could have to do with the maning of vanity. Essentially forbidding people from claiming divine inspiration in the futherance of their own stature. Just a guess though.
Oh, you mean like trying to win popular support by claiming that “God is on our side”? Aha.
Don’t know, but sometimes can’t help but wish the Lord would take Pat Robertson. 
Unless you really mean it? Like if I really wish god would send that guy who cut me off to hell, I can use it?
And thus, it is NOT taking the Lord’s name in vain to say “Goddamn Pat Robertson!!!”
I looked at this thread the other day, and thought that someone else would “rise to the occasion” … but nobody else has. This wasn’t what I’d planned to do with this time. :sigh:
Although very few non-religious (or non-Christian religious) are happy with Mr. Robertson, there are a number of devoutly religious Christians (certainly including myself) who have come to feel that he is becoming an ever more serious liability to Christianity, i.e., “the name of Christian”. When I hear his name come up in a news broadcast, I start wondering what’s he said/done now?
However much of a loose cannon many of us think he’s become, the Bible says it’s hazardous to make verbal condemnations. Jesus (and the apostles) had a lot to say about things that are hazardous for a human being to say. I offer an assortment of references, most from the translation titled The Message, as it seems to be the one that expresses the ideas involved here most clearly in modern English. Anyone is welcome, of course, to do their own comparison of different Bible translations. This one claims to offer the most different versions. I use eSword; it’s free, and easy to use, and offers a pretty good assortment of English translations (most are free, but some translations have charges paid direct to the copyright holders), as well as versions in a wide (and still growing) assortment of other languages.
And the following is just a little ways down the page:
Which one could easily interpret as having some relevance for Mr. Robertson.
Here’s another that has more to do with what some people in this thread have been trying to slide out from under: :rolleyes: :smack:
Now, when I looked up curse (e.g., God d*mn you) in thesaurus.com, the following were the first five words given: “anathema, ban, bane, blaspheming, blasphemy”
This next is from the CEV (Contemporary English Version) of the Bible, as I find it the plainest (following the same criteria as above):
I do think, in view of the evidence, that anyone who says “God d*mn (somebody, anybody)”, falls under the description given in that reference.
It used to be the case that curse and blaspheme were widely accepted as synonyms, and profanity is still widely recognized as a synonym for both. Further, if you look up blasphemy, curse is a commonly given definition. I checked several online dictionaries (dictionary.com, Webster Rosetta edition, Cambridge - both Advanced Learners & American Language, and finally went to alphadictionary.com, just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything) When I got to American Heritage,
Hmmmmm. Do you think maybe both Mr. Robertson and those who think what he’s doing is worse than cursing are kinda in the same spot? Maybe about like the people Jesus talked about in the parable about the mote (or beam) in the eye? :eek:
I ain’t a-gonna say who I think has the mote, and who has the beam. I think I’ll leave that to the Almighty. It’s safer that way. 
tygerbryght, I see what your saying but I’m not sure how it applies to the OP. Certainly the bible says plenty about not talking bad about people and condemning them. There’s certainly many examples of Pat Robertson’s (and just about any right wing mouthpiece) being hypocritical and/or making comments that contradicts the spirit of Jesus’ teachings.
However all the things you quoted don’t seem to apply to what the meaning of the commandment in question is. To say Jesus would not be happy with Pat is one thing, but the question is if doing so violates the commandment specifically.
I’m not certain if it does. I’m not his judge, but I wouldn’t want to be in Pat Robertson’s shoes. To go further than that would mean I’m judging him, and I do try not to judge others. I am certain about the issue of cursing, and if anyone asks me about cursing, I’ll tell them. I don’t think I’ve ever volunteered to such a person that what they’re doing is contrary to my understanding of the Bible. If the issue hadn’t come up, I doubt I’d have said anything about it now. I don’t believe in “preaching” uninvited.
That, by the way, comes just before the parable about the mote vs. beam in the eye.
Well, that’s the real trick isn’t it, Having gone to Catholic school for so many years, I was taught a particular interpretation that exclamations of “God, Damn IT!” is that you are specifically commanding him (not asking, not praying, but demanding/commanding)… just as a mystic or would to some random demon or spirit, to be controlled. Random cursing (I’m sure one could argue, from that point of view), doesn’t necessarily imply THAT, even though the actual words are there… I was encouraged to use alternate random words to lick the curse of it, just in case “God chose to take notice” :).
IMHO, what Robertson did with his extreme/extreme “We are on God’s side and God is on our side!” statements, almost borders on what a slimey lawyer might do – slither between the cracks with the wording. I think the guy is a (place any prefixing word)-tard, of course. His claiming that someone else’s demise is “God’s will” has been done by every single fundamantalist religion in the history of the world (as all of you well-know). [I can’t remember who] Someone on the DOPE recently equated what he said with things certain Muslim fundamentalists have said – I have no doubt, so he’s no better!
Now, if he got on the airwaves and made a “CALL TO ACTION, TO GOD”, to destroy someone, or to do something Pat wanted, ah, now there is where I believe the border would be crossed – and I think he’s done THAT on occasion for sillier things.
I wonder sometimes where to draw the line between Pat Robertson being a damn fool and Pat Robertson being a false prophet. I sincerely believe he has crossed that line, and I don’t think he is coming back. We are not supposed to follow guys like that. Even if I’m wrong, and he is merely a damn fool, I advise against following him.
Not be a pedant but we’re in GQ here, not GD. The OP is asking a question, not debating if Robertson is a heathen or not.
What is the supposed correct interpretation of the commandment in question?
I was tought that you should not use the words ‘God’, ‘Jesus’, ‘Lord’, ‘Christ’, … as what linguists call a ‘meaningless intensifier’. Use them when you talk about religion/faith only. That is what the commandment means.
It is certainly even more severe if you use God’s name with a lie, but lying alone is a sin (8th commandment), so it seems unlikely to me that this is the only meaning.
Personally, I try to follow the rule, but I know I break it sometimes, and I am sure I break it more often than I notice. I do not get excited about this.
I do, however, object to the omnipresence of the phrase ‘Oh my God!’ in some peoples’ everyday talking, and I sincerely object to ‘Oh my f**king God!’
I was taught that the commandment referred to saying things like “Oh my God.”
But when I first heard the interpretation that the commandment meant not using the name of God to do or advocate evil… that made much more sense to me. Unlike the other, that’s a sin that is serious and harmful, and that’s worthy of putting among the Big Ten.
So I lean toward the second interpretation.
It’s the same thing; saying ‘God Damn ’ assumes (if you actually mean what you’re saying) you have some kind of license to assign the things upon which God will exert Damnation; this isn’t really any different from saying that God told you that we should kill the little enders.
Of course if God actually did already decide damn something, or actually did tell you that we should go to war against the little enders, and he asked you to announce it, then there’s no vanity at all. If that’s what really happened.
I thought God’s name was Jehovah or Elohim, I didn’t know that’ God’ was the name of God, just what people refer to as an object of worship.
Monavis
Well, insofar as words are what they mean, there may not be all that much difference; is the term ‘apple’ a description, or a name?
God goes by many names, including God. Al’lah, for example, translates as “the God.” I don’t think you can wiggle around the commandment by saying the Almighty or the Man Upstairs. Those are among God’s Names.