Profanity and Humor

I was not raised in a particularly Christian (or other monotheistic belief) home. I wasn't a believer in G-d for the majority of my life. I have been known to curse like a sailor on occasion. I also enjoy bawdy humor - depending. In other words, something that is sexual for the sake of being sexual, I am very unlikely to like that. But there is a lot of humor that could charitably be called rude humor that I nevertheless find hilarious. I have a sort of peculiar taste in that sort of thing, not everything that comedians dish out these days I find funny. Probably most of it I do not find funny.

There is also a special case for profanity that I will bring up shortly.

When I measure that against the archetype of the pious individual, well typically and historically and culturally that kind of person would not approve at all. The pious person who curses like a sailor is not an idea that sits well. For the Christians, we have James who was surely the very procrustean bed of all dour pious serious people, speaking very pointedly about the topic. Here's what we think of: these people do not curse. In a sense I envy that.

But I am not a Christian, and as is my wont I went directly to the Tanakh where I found... virtually nothing about it. There is the commandment about taking the Lord's name in vain, which I think has nothing to do with what you say when you stub your toe in the night and everything to do with what you say when you are overtly trying to represent G-d's will to other people. When a preacher tries to say that G-d wants you to give him money for a new Lexus, he is breaking the commandment. When I stub my toe in the night, I am not.

Now obviously that might be taken as unintentional cursing. What about intentional cursing? Well, G-d is depicted in the Tanakh as a passionate G-d, and in that respect I could be called a true child of His. I am passionate. We live in a world of environmental collapse, of the glorification of sexual immorality, of decadence, of abortion. Actual communism becoming popular in America. Words sometimes fail to convey the degree of dismay that I might feel, looking at the fuckery that surrounds me.

Notice what I did right there? I could have said evil, or ignorance, or sin, and those words would have just slid right down your ears with nary a bump. The words ignorance and evil are not truly offensive anymore. I drop the F-bomb though, and your ears prick up at least a little bit. But what I am talking about is wickedness, is ignorance. THAT is the fuckery I am actually talking about.

If the greatest witness against using curse words is James in the New Testament (which again isn't scripture for me, but is for a lot of people,) then the best witness for them is in there too. I am not talking about Jesus, who could curse up a blue streak. Arguably Jesus did far worse than just utter an expletive now and again. For people who believe Jesus is part of the godhead or something, when he tells you "go to hell," he means you are literally going to hell. ;) Like when he cursed the fig tree, the tree died. He cursed that tree to death.

If people croaked every time I said a curse word, I can promise you I would choose my words much more carefully. ;)

No, the witness I want to call is John the Baptist. John the Baptist kicked asses with his words. He extracted the sin from your body with his verbal boot being planted in your anus. Metaphorically speaking. ;) Now unfortunately we don't know a huge amount of detail about John's life, but as he is commonly portrayed it is impossible to imagine John meeting his executioners meekly. He damned them at the top of his voice, just as he did all along. He cussed them up a blue streak.

Now, it is not that every time I use a cuss word, I am doing it in righteous indignation. When you cuss as often as me, it can't be that. And it is not that I think that cursing is becoming or attractive because it is not.

However, there are cases where cursing is not only acceptable but virtually mandatory. If you are talking about people murdering their own sons and daughters in abortuaries, if you are not cursing, you are not mad enough. You are not as offended as you should be.

If you are talking about Stateolatry and communism IN AMERICA and you are not cursing, you are not offended enough. 

If you are talking about the normalization of sexual immorality, and the sexualization and leftist indoctrination of children by such things as Drag Queen Story Hour, and you are not cursing, you are nothing but cowed weak sauce. You are compromising with them merely by your lack of outrage about something that should be outrageous.

"I like my babies quartered and braised in barbecue sauce, how about you?"

"Well I really believe, it is my personal opinion, that killing and eating babies is wrong."

"Shut up bigot!"

NO.

You speak about such things in the tone of voice that is just barely lower than the tone of voice you would have if you had a pitchfork in your right hand, a torch in your left, and a barrel of boiling tar at your side. Let us remember that people like King Josiah and Elijah did not reason with such people. They killed them and scattered their bones on their pagan altars.

Look at the Doom 2016 intro to get an idea of what that attitude is.

RIP AND TEAR, UNTIL IT IS DONE.


That's the attitude. The Tanakh does not recommend dialogue with evil. It recommends destroying it. It says to contain the cancer, destroy it, expunge it utterly with violence from the midst of the people.

However, we do live in a different world now. We live in a civil secular society. The state of ignorance we are dealing with is such, that there is honestly no point to that any more. The cancer has become the body, we are now the invading cells that live barely at the tolerance of the cancerous whole. But we should speak at least as if we know how wrong this is!

That doesn't excuse probably most of the cursing I do. Like I say, I'm a passionate guy. But sometimes cursing is not just acceptable but virtually obligatory.

Sacred vs Desecrated

A lot of Christian churches (and probably synagogues too, and other places) have been infected with a sort of cartesian dualism. Souls matter, Matter doesn't matter. We care about people. The stuff they use, not so much.

Indeed this is not notably different from the philosophy of postmodernism, in which they might if you twist their arm say that people matter, but they have no basis for saying that. More likely, they will say their own people matter, to them. Not a lot else does.

Part of this is part and parcel with having a heavily mercantile nation. Everything is a commodity for sale. People too, ultimately. You can at least say that in this commercial paradigm, things do have value: cash value. When you buy a roll of paper towels, gratitude is irrelevant. You paid for it, although you did not give that tree life nor create it's marvelous design.

A world in which "stuff," the created world, does not matter is eventually a world in which nothing matters. It is a desecrated world.

All of this is a roundabout way of starting to talk about what kind of worldview a person of G-d should have. The worldview of a child of G-d should be that EVERYTHING matters. Everything is a gift from G-d to you. Use that gift WISELY, use it carefully.

Lets do a thought experiment. Read this paragraph and then close your eyes and imagine it. You are being led to your execution. Your arms are tied up, there are shackles on your legs, there is no possibility of escape. But your execution is to happen in a very large if slightly wild and disused garden. So as you are being led slowly (there are shackles on your feet) through this garden, you see everything in it. Flowers and birds, and bumblebees stumbling from flower to flower like drunken pandas. You see a fountain in the garden, with fresh clean water bubbling over it. You see the stones in the pathway, each a slightly different hue. You see the black rich soil. You see the blue sky overhead with just a few wisps of cloud. You see a robin feeding its young. As you walk towards the guillotine, you see the faces of the few people who will be attending your death, and suddenly the expressions of their faces speak volumes about their inner state. Anger. Mournfulness. Dull dutifulness of a soldier who has seen death and no longer cares. Haughty judgement. Pity. Grief.

Now close your eyes and imagine it.

Are not all the little things of this world precious to you, now that you will be leaving the world? What would you not give to go back to that fountain and sit by it awhile, and watch the birds? You would give anything to go back there, but all the money in the world will not return you to that place of life. Even the expressions of the people, even the people who are about to preside over your death, you see them in a new light. If only you had seen all this before, but now your life is to be over.

"In time of trouble, why should I fear
the encompassing evil of those who

would supplant me -

men who trust in their riches

who glory in their great wealth?
Ah, it cannot redeem a man
or pay his ransom to G-d,
the price of life is too high;
and so one ceases to be, forever.

Shall he live eternally and never

see the grave?
For one sees that the wise die,

that the foolish and ignorant both perish,

leaving their wealth to others.

The grave is their eternal home,
the dwelling place of all generations

of those once famous on earth.
Man does not abide in honor,

he is like the beasts that perish.

Such is the fate of those who are
self-confident, the end of those
pleased with their own talk.

Sheeplike they head for Sheol,

with Death as their shepherd
The upright shall rule over them at

daybreak, and their form shall

waste away in Sheol till its

nobility be gone.

But G-d will redeem my life from the clutches

of Sheol, for He will take me."

~Psalm 49:6-16

The attitude of a child of G-d should be that EVERYTHING is a gift from G-d. EVERYTHING. Indeed you could not draw your next breath unless He willed it. Thus, everything in this world is precious. There is nothing trivial. Thus, you should use every gift of G-d with care, AS precious. Use it wisely and be thankful for it.

While only G-d is holy, everything is sacred in the sense that it is a gift from G-d and only G-d could give it. To desecrate what G-d has given is the ultimate ingratitude.

The attitude of the modern world is, we take stuff from the natural world and turn it into products and then sell them. Whether in a truer perception of need anyone really NEEDS what we make is irrelevant, and if we make too much of that product then the only issue is that we have excess inventory. Which is perceived as bad business, but not as a sin. But it IS a sin.

Too many people have no comprehension of the difference between need and want. To destroy the gift that G-d has given you, the natural world, for desire and not true need is a sin. This unfortunately is what the modern world is built on, desire, overconsumption. It is therefore desirable if possible to absent yourself from that world.

Only destroy for true need. Be thankful for what G-d has given you, because no one else can create a world. Be thankful for your life, because no one else can give it to you, and no one else can ever give it back once lost. No amount of money will give you life, and no amount of money can create a world and a universe.

Give thanks to G-d, and use wisely His Creation.