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Debunking Christian Circular Arguments and Assumptions
Argument #
15: The
“Taking
the Lord’s name in vain = power" Argument.
Now this one
isn’t
so common,
but I’ve heard it a few times and it is a most peculiar
one. It tries to
use the way we swear and cuss in this country to provide validity to
Christianity, and basically goes like this:
“When
people are angry or frustrated, if they swear or take the name of the
Lord in
vain, they don’t say ‘Oh Buddha!’ or
‘Oh Mohammed!’ They say ‘Oh
Jesus!’
or ‘Jesus Christ!’ You know
why? It’s because there’s POWER in the
name of Jesus.”
Um, I can’t
even
believe I’m
addressing this argument, because it’s so silly that some of
you will even
think “Why bother?” But I will briefly
anyway. The obvious answer
to this argument is that our country’s culture and history
has in its tradition
Christian theism. Christianity has always been the main
dominating
religion in this country. Thus, it got into our language
culture, and
eventually somehow it became common practice to take the name of God or
Jesus
in vain when one is angry or frustrated. It’s not
like we sat down and
decided whose name to take in vain when we are angry. We do
it because
it’s part of our learned culture growing up in this country.
Take a look at
other
countries where Christianity is not the dominating religion for
instance, such
as
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