One of the 10 commandments, if I remember correctly, is:
Thou shalt not take the lord’s name in vain.
As a kid, I was told this means don’t say things like
“Jesus Christ!” and “God damn it!” when frustrated.
But is that really what the commandment is meant to mean?
And if so, is that because people started doing this
before that part of the bible was written, and they wanted
to stamp it out? (I know they wouldn’t have said “Jesus
Christ!” before the Old Testament was written, but I am
asking if they said things like “God damn it!” or perhaps
“By Zeus!”) It seems odd that such an expression would
evolve to express frustration. (I would never think to say
it if I hadn’t heard it so many times before.) Is there
any evidence the commandment is the CAUSE of the
expressions?
If that is not the correct interpretation of the
commandment, then what is? And also the question about
whether it might have caused the expressions still applies.
In my Reform Jewish indoctrination, I was taught that they meant it to mean that one should not lie under oath. That is, never say, “I swear to god that x is true,” when you know x not to be true.
A couple years ago I heard good old Dr. Laura on the radio give her interpretation of this commandment.
She said it meant that you don’t do something (bad) and blame or use the lord or your religion as a reason for your actions. You wouldn’t fire-bomb a foreign-owned store for example and say that the bible says it’s the right thing to do - or you wouldn’t kill or make war with a person or people from a differing culture or religion and use the excuse of your god telling you (in some way or form) that said group is wrong or evil and must be smitten. There seems to be many examples of this kind of “taking the Lord’s name in vain” in the middle-east, where there always seems to be some kind of religious violence happening. Using “the Lord” as an excuse for bad behavior when it really isn’t endorsed by him seems to be the idea.
It apparently has nothing to do with yelling “God Dammit!” when you hit your thumb with a hammer.
I’d say that taking the Lord’s name in vain would be when someone is always praising God with their lips and cursing God with their deeds.
Someone getting a little ticked off and saying “God damn it!!!” is not nearly as troublesome as someone who wears a facade of piety and yells, “Jesus, Jesus, Pu-Raise tha Lawd Gawd Almighty!!! blah blah blah, etc.” while supporting injustice.
This looks like it will turn into an IMHO thread or, more likely, a Great Debate, and was written such that it was probably more or less intended that way from the start. But, we might as well get the Official Interpretations on the record at the start, especially since this is General Questions (for the moment, anyway).
This explanation of the Jewish view of the commandment is probably not as authoritative (in an institutional sense), but seems to have been repeated by several sources:
Note that Catholics and Lutherans consider the prohibition against taking the name of God in vain to be the Second Commandment; Jews and most Protestants consider it to be the Third Commandment.
Actually I did not mean this as an IMHO thread. I was
wondering about historical details regarding the commandment
and the sayings.
Really it would help if someone can give the origins of
phrases like “God damn it!” and “Jesus Christ!”, etc. I am
really interested in any connection between these phrases
and the commandment. I suspect one caused the other, and
I would like to know which one caused which, or if neither,
how the sayings originated.
It seems from these posts the sayings did not cause the
commandment. But we are only part of the way to the full
answer…