One of Ray Comfort’s followers using some of his apologetics, along with a cheesy card trick.
Alright, pet peeve. I’ll make this quick.
Writing “OMG” is not taking the Lord’s name in vain.
First off, “God” is not a name. God is a description or a title. The god of the Hebrews gives his name to Moses through the burning bush.
Second, taking the lord’s name in vain – or making “wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God” (NRSV) – does not mean simply using the name YHWH or the title of God.
All ancient cultures used the names of their gods in promises, oaths and contracts. An ancient Israelite might make an oath, invoking Yahweh to watch over him and make sure he fulfilled his promise.
Sometimes it meant placing God as the judge over an agreement, such as between the Jacob and Laban in Genesis 31:41 – “The Lord watch between you and me, when we are absent one from the other.” In other words, Jacob is reminding his scheming uncle that their god is watching over them and will know if Laban breaks the agreement. (Given Jacob’s track record as a trickster, this seems a bit hypocritical.)
One way or another, making an oath that you did not intend to keep would be a wrongful use of the name of God. So the commandment is basically a warning not to make false oaths. It might also be stretched to mean not breaking your promises.
And I’m sorry, but this has been recognized by every serious religious authority I’ve ever met. If Comfort and Crew don’t know, it doesn’t speak well of them.
It must depend what type of fundgelical circle you move in. Growing up I was definitely taught that just saying “god” or “Jesus” as an exclamation was Teh Evil. It was compared to using God’s name as a swear word.
How about, chocolate covered jesus fcuking h christ onna stick?
I shall adopt it immediately, for use in situations where “SATAN!” just isn’t enough.
They actually sell those at Easter time.
The way I see it, saying “Oh my god” or “thank god” or “I swear to god” has transcended the realm of religion and those phrases are now figures of speech. They are interjections, nothing more. However, I’m coming from the NE US, so maybe things are different elsewhere.
Wow. His amazing trick and explanation can instantly turn bored kids in to bored kids who will nod in a very non-committal way in order to make him leave. The power of Jesus!
My pet peeve is that these idiots are still doing this same let-me-ask-you-a-question-have-you-ever-told-a-white-lie-have-you-ever-stolen-a-paper-clip schtick like they’ve just produced the trump card that defeats all arguments. It’s an insulting, patronizing and silly argument that minimizes so-called sin, if anything.
Good point. If masturbation or sex before marriage, or, god forbid (d’oh!), sodomy are sins just like telling a white lie is a sin, well… eh, I’m not so bothered about sin. Who feels guilty about a white lie? It’s kind of why they think it is a white lie to begin with. And the idea that lying is sin no matter what is horrendously naive. If you lie to save a group of people from being murdered just because they were born a particular race or sexuality, is Jesus really going to be upset? Is that a sin?
i accidently said “jesus” outloud when i was five. someone reminded me that “the lord will not hold them guiltless who taketh his name in vain”… i was terrified of hell for weeks afterwards. couldn’t ask anyone if i would go to hell for it either, i was too embarrassed to ask. :(
i’m curious what he thinks about the other set of ten commandments…
I say “Jesus Christ!” as a swear too…
Problem is I am an ex-hindu so I only do so because other people say it. The weird thing is because I use it, my parents do too. Hinduism doesn’t have blasphemy laws like that. You routinely say god’s name for things…
At 1:05, they suddenly changed up the editing style, which seemed to give extra (creepy) emphasis to the lust question. That was weird.
Well, why do we capitalize “God”? We obviously use it as a proper name. What I was taught–and taught–was that the commandment meant that we were to make no reference to God that was “vain,” i.e., void of the proper reverence.
I don’t capitalize the word ‘god’ unless it’s at the beginning of a sentence. A, because I have no reverence, and B, because it brings “the” God, the Christian one that’s long been presumed in the US as the only one, the only real one. They have no reverence for other gods, the gods of ancient Greek and Roman mythologies (and barely regard any other cultures’ mythologies), nor, say, any pagan believers’ god or gods or goddesses that currently exist and are currently believed in. They consider it his name because he’s the only one, well, I don’t have to think so. It’s not blasphemous when I do it, since I know nothing’s going to happen to me – I only use the word ‘god’ in discussions and to curse, but I’m more of a “JFC” kind of person. I tend to capitalize Jesus in writing as that’s his name, even if I believe he’s probably fictional. Maybe they call him God with a capital G like they would call him “Chief” if he was the chief, so it’s not really his name, but a title they refer to him as if it were his name. But I don’t.
I actually sometimes rewrite sentences to not have ‘god’ at the beginning of a sentence for that exact reason.
What’s so amazing about this tactic is that so many (all?) of the filmed people submissively agree that they are evil people. Are they that easily beaten into submission by these lame arguments? Has anyone ever seen a filmed encounter where they find a christian-turned-atheist who can actually argue back, instead of mumbling agreement like a zombie, to everything the witnesser says?
For all we know there were dozens who told him to buzz off, politely or less so, for implying they’re bad people. But through the magic of film editing, we’ll never know one way or the other. Most people are too polite to do more than entertain the crazy person for the moment and let them be on their way.
Notice how they could only find these 3 cases to use in their video. How many rational or intellectual arguments (or just drunk fratboys flipping them off) did they encounter on a college campus before editing the footage down to just these 3.
I bet they couldn’t use any footage from philosophy or literature majors. And forget anyone from the hard sciences!
You know what would be good is if someone agreed to be filmed only if they could also have one of their friends filming also, and put it on youtube. If anyone out there ever gets an opportunity to talk to one of these aholes, get it on recording.
You may also notice that they show no footage of any of these people actually falling to their knees confessing their sins and asking jeebus into their heart. So basically they managed to find 3 people that were polite enough not to give them the finger or demolish their stupid little arguments but none that was actually swayed by what was suppose to be the killer blow to the heathens.
I had wondered how many people wouldn’t play along with his question and answer drill. I know I wouldn’t have. Of course those don’t make the cut.
Rabbis often teach that it means to not do evil in god’s name. Such as murder, theft collection of huge some of money from the huddled masses – that’s right, I’m looking at you 700 Club!
I have always taken it as not to use religious names for things that weren’t serious. Like if you are dying or in great pain, you can call out “God, oh god!!” while if you have just got a paper cut, or someone cuts you off in traffic, you are supposed to measure that as “not serious enough.” They are called “swear words” too! Sometimes even called “oaths”. I am not positive but I seem to remember when HBO (cable movie channel) was born, there might be a description in the cable guide that a movie contained “oaths,” to describe (moderate to heavy) use of the S, F, or A words, or “light oaths,” like damn or dammit. It seems like the lighter ones are more related to belief, and the heavier ones are scatological and/or sexual.
There is also not just the reverence to god, but the ability to control anger in ordinary situations, and people are still on about this. Curse words are just words, but they are strong language for a reason. Some people still hold to the effect you don’t just blurt them out any time you feel like it, not especially around children or your fragile grandmother, but to use sparingly on the occasions that really merit it. I hadn’t really thought of it like that, regarding children. We knew all the nasty words when we were kids, I never personally had my mouth washed out with soap but I was hit once for it, which is not really teaching kids anything about holding their anger and when such words are to be used – they’re just for grown-ups. How do grown-ups grow up to know when they should be used then? I have gone away from the topic of the peeve, but I think the meaning of “in vain” has grown to cover instances where the reckless use of a word to call god’s attention would not be acceptable, which, if I believed in god, I would agree with. Getting punished by your parents for saying curse words (of religious source or no) seems kind of a lot worse than saying a word, but words do have power, and you should mean them, I guess.
Also, as the guy in the video points out, people do think they’re all good people. The rules are a little stupid and arbitrary, but the whole premise of religion, especially Christianity, is that you can be a jerk and still get into heaven. Most people either feel guilty all the time, or reason out that god is ok with whatever they do, and find a church that’s in agreement with them.
What else bothered me about this video?
Who has control? I had been given the idea that if you take Jesus into your heart, really, you will be naturally piloted to make fewer or no errors against god. You’re a sinner, but taking Jesus means your whole being is taken over and you have power through Jesus to leave your bad habits behind you. I’ve been told that’s how it works, and the whole question of morality coming from god also speaks to this – that we are moral at all comes from god in us, making our choices good ones all the time.
However, that is not the case. Where do people get the idea to be immoral (at least according to their rules)? The devil. So we are under control from something else, when we say “goddammit!” I mean, how many times have I said that – just today? What they are saying is that they are not really taking Jesus. I think the bullcrap about this religion would be to take a look around, and if god was real, would it be this difficult to be a good person 100% of the time? Even if you’re really strict and say ‘no cursing, lying, or stealing,’ not even once, not even a very little bit, not even when you were young. Or else you’re going to hell. Everyone’s answer is “satan” and “they’re not a true Christian,” while it remains blatantly obvious that we’re just animals, relatively intelligent animals with social communities, language, and customs, and we learn to live customarily to the local norms, mostly in the normal range for our species, and because we’re more intelligent than other animals, accommodate the passage of time and technology with adapting our customs and norms.
the problem with atheists is that they are too damn religious.
Fail troll is fail. :P
Was that an attempt at humour?
You’d think someone who has a problem with people being too religious would maybe complain about religious people instead of irreligious people.