Quote:
|
You see, Christians refrain from saying it because of the 4th commandment in the Bible in Exodus in the Ten Commandments, saying that we should not use God's name in vain.
|
You do realise that is not what the 4th commandment actually means, do you not? The 4th commandment refers solely to using God's name for your own (generally negative) purposes, such as swearing an Oath in the name of God to make it sound sincere, when you in actual truth have no intention of upholding the Oath.
Using God's name as a profanity, no more breaks the 4th commandment than using your dog's name as a profanity.
As for its meaning, it means exactly the same thing as when the Chinese say tian-na (directly translated: oh my heavens), you are using a word which was traditionally emotionally charged to show the shock, surprise or extremeness of a situation. Originally, you probably did this in situations such as soldiers screaming to god before they got their heads blown off by mortar fire, but as time went by - as with all phrases - the meaning got diluted and became usable in less and less extreme situations as the word God became less important and peoples' lives/perspectives changed.