Not always a blasphemy [LWN.net]

Not always a blasphemy

Posted Apr 3, 2006 21:47 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091)
In reply to: blasphemy by xoddam
Parent article: My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Hi Jonathan,

Not necessarily. Not in all Christian countries or Christian churches is it a blasphemy to "take the name of God in vain", i.e. to mention God's name in an unwarranted situation. It does indeed appear in Exodus 20:7, but Exodus is full of odd commandments. E.g. Exodus 21:17 says: "And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death", something which few people would accept today. Or Exodus 22:18: "You shall not permit a sorceress to live."

Good Catholics routinely "take the name of God in vain", using holy names as interjections, and do not think it is a blasphemy. Eastern Orthodox practitioners as well. For example, 'Jesús' is a popular name in Spain as is 'Christos' in Greece. So don't take it as an offense: it's just a matter of different sensibilities and as a foreigner it's hard to get used to it.

to post comments

No ambiguity, therefore claiming ignorance is disingenuous.

Posted Apr 4, 2006 2:36 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] (3 responses)

I do not disagree about the degree of offence one ought to take at the
use of the name of Jesus -- I'm not at all religious myself, but I have
worked alongside people of most (I almost wrote 'all') religious
backgrounds and I'm well aware that it's common in Roman Catholic
tradition to swear in the name of Christ (and for Protestants to frown
severely in response).

On the other hand there is no ambiguity here. The first poster used a
religious name out of context and the second described it as blasphemy;
it is obvious what was referred to and I think it is disingenous, and
therefore rude in itself, for the first poster then to claim ignorance.

Blasphemy can be many things

Posted Apr 4, 2006 7:02 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

I'm not religious either, and I cannot speak for TwoTimeGrime, but for us with a Catholic background blasphemy does not mean "taking God's name in vain", but rather "assigning evil attributes to God" or sometimes "denying the existence of God". Catholic blasphemies consist of rich metaphors involving holy people, the Messiah or even God, which I will not reproduce here since they are seriously insulting.

I was genuinely surprised to see how seriously US protestants take offence at the sole mention of God's name as an interjection: there is a wide cultural gap here. It is true that e.g. the Wikipedia cleary states that this behavior can be considered blasphemy; but, you know, information is not knowledge. For me the key was to realize that there are euphemisms for God's names, which in Spanish are reserved for human waste and those blasphemies referred above.

No ambiguity, therefore claiming ignorance is disingenuous.

Posted Apr 9, 2006 2:32 UTC (Sun) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] (1 responses)

> On the other hand there is no ambiguity here. The first poster used a
> religious name out of context and the second described it as blasphemy;
> it is obvious what was referred to and I think it is disingenous, and
> therefore rude in itself, for the first poster then to claim ignorance.

Please don't be elitist. Not everyone knows all there is about every religion. I haven't had the opportunity to work alongside people of most religious backgrounds like you so I don't know as much about different religions.

I didn't know what part of my post he thought was blaspheming and so far he seems unwilling to respond and clarify for me. I didn't know that the saying I used was a religious saying and that it would offend. I thought it was just a saying since I hear it on TV shows and its used by friends who speak english. After reading this thread and googling I was able to figure out that "Jesus christ" was a central religious figure in christianity. Where I come from everyone is Buddist. I have lived in the USA, in San Francisco, for a few years but never looked into local religion. Even my country's religion isn't something I follow. I can't know everything.

You are a fortunate philosopher :-)

Posted Apr 10, 2006 1:17 UTC (Mon) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

> Please don't be elitist. Not everyone knows all there
> is about every religion.

Do forgive my presumption. And I thought I was being so
'culturally sensitive' :-/

> After reading this thread and googling I was able to
> figure out that "Jesus christ" was a central religious
> figure in christianity.

Errr... okay. I'm incredulous, but at least for the sake
of argument I will take your word for it that you didn't
already know. I suppose I was aware that *some* people
in the universe have never been touched by Christian
evangelism, nor had a need to learn the basics of Western
history, but it comes as a *big* surprise that someone
with such a solid technical education and good grasp of
colloquial English as yourself would have missed out, at
least on the historical aspect.

FWIW I think you're very fortunate, if extremely unusual :-)