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From: marty@ism780c.UUCP (Marty Smith)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: More Figs!
Message-ID: <3648@ism780c.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Sep-86 14:21:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780c.3648
Posted: Wed Sep 24 14:21:10 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 03:13:43 EDT
References: <5385@decwrl.DEC.COM> <3590@ism780c.UUCP> <2567@watdcsu.UUCP>
Reply-To: marty@ism780c.UUCP (Marty Smith)
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica, CA
Lines: 51
Xref: linus talk.religion.misc:287 net.religion.christian:4763

Organization:

In article <2567@watdcsu.UUCP> magore@watdcsu.UUCP (M.A.Gore - ICR) writes:
>In article <3590@ism780c.UUCP> marty@ism780c.UUCP (Marty Smith) writes:
>>In article <5385@decwrl.DEC.COM> arndt@lymph.dec.com writes:
>>>It has also occured to me since I posted the piece on Jesus cursing the
>>>fig tree...
	       [Ken's comments about cursing deleted]

>>Ken, in all seriosity I hold the opposite view here.  Use of the curse "God
>>damm it" is actually the Christian thing to do...
	       [My comments on cursing being Christian deleted]

About which, Mike quotes from the Bible to discredit my comments:

>	Exodus 20:7 (NIV) " You shall not misuse the name of the Lord
>		your God, For the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who
>		misuses his name"...
This makes sense.  But my claim was that using the curse "God damn it!" is
an acknowledment of God's existence, omnipotence, and omniscience.  It is
therefore not a misuse of His name.  A misuse of his name would be the
statement "There is no God," which is not useful as a curse unless one
wishes to curse God.

>	1 Corinthians 12:3 (NIV) "Therefore I tell you that no one
>		who is speaking by the Spirit of God says,"Jesus be
>		cursed"...
Does "...speaking by the Spirit of God..." mean that God is speaking through
this person?  If so, again it makes sense, for why would God curse himself?

>	And about (Lev 20:9 , Proverbs 20:20, Matthew 15:7)
>	which gives some level to what a curse is.... Ex. NOT
>	something we should do lightly...
Why do Christians who believe cursing is wrong believe it is something done
lightly?  This is nonsense.  Cursing is *not* done lightly.  The purpose of
a curse is to vent one's spleen, to release one's pent-up emotion on some
problem.  An alternative purpose is to offend a person who can be offended
by the use of certain words, but that's not cursing; that's bad manners.

None of these three quotes adds weight to the argument against cursing is
Christian.

[More of my claim that cursing is Christian deleted]

>	Perhaps He would be omni-upset also? So are you God to say how
>he should feel? This is more obvious though: How can someone really respect
>something that they take lightly...etc.  Taking words lightly as with
>'light' thinking can cause much harm....

The important question is:  Who is doing the light thinking, the person who
uses words to express how he feels, or the person who is offended by words?

					Marty Smith