How should Atheists swear?
One cannot understand English without having a basic knowledge of Christianity; so pervasive is that religion on our culture. Christianity's hold on European civilization has been totalitarian.
I am in favour of a secularization of North America that is so profound that when people swear they do not use religious references.
How many Atheists, when they have an orgasm exclaim "god!" What spoils the mood more: when you say it or when your partner says it?
And why do we use "fuck" as a swear-word. The Atheist comic George Carlin often wondered, why does a word describing the act of procreation merit being turned into a pejorative?
Towards an Atheist Newspeak.
A reason why Christianity dominates the English language and culture is because the theists imposed habits of thinking, altered the meanings of words to suit their world-view and made it as difficult as possible for anyone to think outside the box they built for us. The successful struggle against these efforts is called "The Enlightenment."
Secularists have ended the domination of Christianity - people now enjoy freedom of thought, at least in most countries. The time is overdue for us Atheists to take English over - to make it more likely that people will think secular thoughts and less likely to entertain obscurantist ideas.
Here are two ways we can do this :
1) stop using words that have religious or mystical meanings. The objective is that the words will die out from lack of use;
2) Co-opt the words. change their meaning permanently so that whenever someone uses a given word it can only have a secular interpretation.
In his novel 1984, George Orwell described how a totalitarian government used language to condition people's thinking.
That language can be shaped, controlled and purposively modified is not only an idea that totalitarians can implement- it is a fact that should be appreciated by anyone desiring liberty. We Atheists are partisans in a culture war and the English language is a battlefield we must control.
I therefore submit the following list as an example of words and expressions we should use in place of the current obscurantist terms:
This seems like such a good idea someone must have already proposed it. If you can find out who please let me know. As you can tell by these first four examples, I could use some assistance.
My god - my word
bless you - you are so good looking (Seinfeld)
Jesus! - Darwin!
holy shit - blue screen!
Dave Mann
Tags: 1984, Orwell, Swear, english, language, orgasm, swearing
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by SteveInCO on -
That was Dennet describing how glad he was he survived some medical emergency, at the 2007 AAI conference. Now whether that's where it originated is another question.
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Permalink Reply by Albert Samuel on -
I've been trying to stop swearing religious idioms for a long time now. I can tell you that it's a hard thing to to, growing up in a religious family and how these things are ingrained in our language so culturally. It's pretty hard to stop, and I keep slipping back into it. Even jokingly trying to say things like "SCIENCE DAMN YOU!" or whatever.
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Permalink Reply by TDM on -
i like to say " chees & rice " instead of jesus christ ... and if you know me personally you will not offend me by saying anything if i sneeze, if you do not know me and say bless you i will say, with no smile or emotion," please don't say that again " and that usually works.. but yea, i do not need to be blessed when i sneeze or any time else...
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Permalink Reply by Jim Minion on -
Since my feelings are that religion has been a cruse on humanity why would I not use religious term when swearing.
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Permalink Reply by Emmalene Aubrey on -
You rock. XD LMAO!
What I like, and people always give me shit for it is:
"Why in God's green hell"
"Hot as heaven"
"Dear Gods"
"Oh my" (about the only tame one)
and on and on and, you get the picture. It's fun when words have no meanings. O_o
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Permalink Reply by Walter Maki on -
I'm trying to curb my profanity but when I get really stressed I get quite vocal. Not to be confused with being very angry in which I go silent and is very effective for those who know me.
Even after my mental transformation I still fall back on "goddammit" in order to pass the blame of my mistake.
Most of the time in stressful situations I use very gutteral language like "motherfucker" or "mutha fucking son of a bitch"
On the less extreme I use the phrase "dumbass" from the 70's show (yes I like the Red Foreman character)
and something from a funny movie called "Johnny Dangerously" I like the quote "Dem Farging Bastages" from a character who wasn't very good at the Enlgish language.
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Permalink Reply by Jim Minion on
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I do find it very interesting when I call people "Commie Bastards". People are truly offend, I find it hilarious.
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Permalink Reply by Chris H on -
I too have wondered how to go about making non-christian exclamations, not just during sex either, but anytime I feel any sort of surge of any emotion, love, hate, anger, fear, for what ever reason large, small, good, bad or indifferent; I usually resort to "Jesus!" or "OMG" or "OMFG" etc. Using Jesus bothers me a little bit less as at least he was an actual person once. The same cannot be said for God. I like the idea you have about replacing "Jesus" with "Darwin" on such occasions. We should have more suggestions like these. Maybe someone here should start an atheist newspeak for exclamatory expressions board or something. Thanks for posting this I enjoyed reading it.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Dean Barnes on -
As a professional linguist, I have to disagree with the statement "one cannot understand English without a basic knowledge of Christianity". That's a rather unsupportable assertion. Sure, there is much in English with what seems to be Christian origins. It's probably more accurate to say, English as we know it would be different without the influence of Christianity. It would also be different without the influence of just about every language - ancient and modern - that has ever existed. It is also accurate to say Christianity would have no language at all without Latin, Greek, Arabic, French, etc. and the many cultures from which it has borrowed or stolen. Let's remember that Christianity didn't invent the language it uses. It also didn't invent much of its own content. Borrowing and making one's own is a long tradition far outdating Christianity.
At any rate, I believe it quite possible and common for persons to speak English with little to no reference to Christianity. Sometimes, I go months without doing so.
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Permalink Reply by Dave Mann on -
I appreciate your professional input. Should I re-write this proposal I will take your comment into consideration.
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Permalink Reply by IEatDinosaurMeat on -
In the ROK they don't say anything when you sneeze... Sorta drove me crazy for a bit cause I'm not used to such silence after a sneeze.
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Permalink Reply by Francis Deighan on -
Bull, Crap, Shit, Fuck, and horsehockey... D'oh!
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