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What Does it Mean to Take God’s Name in Vain — 13 Comments

  1. That’s a damn good post man!

    Just one thing I would add, although saying God damn is not blasphemey, it’s not a very smart thing to do if you believe God listens to prayers. Thankfully God doesn’t actually damn peoples thumbs or doors when they slam them in the door and say “God Damn it!”

    You represented the informed Christian view pretty well, and I think that most Christians would agree.

    I would even go so far as to say that some Christians, including myself would find some simularities in their own beliefs as with your Diest view. I heard one Theologian say “Every theology is blasphemy, every picture of God is inadequete” We really can’t know what God is like, on our own understanding, we will always fall short of his Glory. So to say you Understand God, or to make a claim that God is this way and not that way, that is beyond what he has told us, is wrong.

    Since I am a Christian, I believe the Bible is his word, so the things he says about himself in it are true. But, I really should not draw my own conclusions beyond that.

    • Aaron, sadly MOST Christians are not informed and you know that man, and no they would not agree.

      As to “Just one thing I would add, although saying God damn is not blasphemey, it’s not a very smart thing to do if you believe God listens to prayers” well I don’t not in delivery mode anyway. The statement of God Damn is just a fanciful as God Bless.

      God Is but God doesn’t grant wished positive or negative.

    • Oh and let me add, the Bible isn’t what God says about himself it is what man says about God and even if Christians are 100% right about that, it is at BEST what GOD told a man and what that man remembered, told another man, then another man was told and wrote it.

      The phrase “purple monkey dishwasher” springs to mind for me when people claim the Bible is “Gods word”. Frankly the entire old testament is largely totally hosed up simply by translating Hebrew to English and read by people who don’t know Hebrew. The same could be said to a lesser degree about Greek in the new testament.

      “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he shall not depart from it”

      Problem, the verb train in this proverb is the SAME VERB used to describe the action a mid wife uses to clear the throat of a new born baby at the time of birth so it can breath. We simply don’t have a single word for that, we can’t understand that one line, let along the entire bible.

      If God did put his own word in print, I doubt such problems would exist.

  2. One more thing, I forgot to mention that there are some things that most American Christians hold to be almost sacred, that are actually taking God’s name in vain.

    1. The pledge of allegiance, includes God’s name to pledge yourself to something other than God, the State.

    2. “In God We Trust” on our money which bears the image of men.

    3. Demanding that everyone says Merry Christmas, instead of Happy Holidays, even people who don’t believe in God.

  3. Another aspect of this is that in ancient religions, to know the name of a god was to have some control over it. It was believed, in many of these religions, that invoking the name of a god was to summon it and to be able to get it to do one’s will, at least to some extent.

    YHWH is interesting in this regards because he refuses to tell Moses what his name is. He doesn’t want Moses thinking that Moses will have any power over him. So he simply tells Moses, “I am that I am.”

    Juxtapose this over and against Jesus who tells his disciples to do things in and ask things in his name. Most Christians end their prayers with, “…in Jesus’ name, amen.” They don’t realize that they are trying to invoke the power of their god to do their bidding. Then again, this is what Jesus seemed to teach. One of the reasons that I left Christianity, but not the only reason, is I found that this “formula” just didn’t work. Asking or pleading for something in the name of Jesus didn’t get me anything, even though my requests were often good-natured and laudable. I was never able to get his ear. He was probably too busy getting people parking places at WalMart and helping quarterbacks make touchdowns. 🙂

  4. No. It means don’t use God’s name unless your talking to him. In vain means useless. If you cook a huge dinner for 20 guests and they all canceled, then you cooked in vain. Useless. Never call God’s name uselessly.

  5. The Hebrew word that is translated as “in vain” in Exodus 20:7 is laš·šāw. This word means emptiness useless or vanity. Words have meaning in any language. To say that a meaning in one language cannot be stated accurately in another language is not correct. While some words or phrases may not have a direct translation to a similar length word of phase the idea that is being conveyed certainly can be passed along. In the context of this conversation God with a capital G is accepted to be the God of the bible. When you say you believe in God yet do not believe in the Word then you contradict yourself. This seems to be the reason the work “Deist” is used. The higher power you believe in is not the God of the bible. If that were so then you would accept the Word. Are there some flaws in translations? Certainly. But these flaws can be learned about and corrected with study. Or we can just throw up our hands and say it just doesn’t matter. My main point with all of this is that if you want to believe in a God other than the one we read about in the bible then you should use another name to avoid confusion and insult.

  6. Pingback:G-d Damn It!: Jewish, Christian, and Legal Perspectives – בין דין לדין

  7. Thinking more deeply and closer to the Hebrew is that God does not want us to “put on” or claim his name lightly as we are to be His disciples and therefore a reflection of Him. Not claiming to be Christian as we wallow in sin.

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