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.
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