Is cursing or using cuss words sinful?
Is it the actual word that is sinful?
Or is the use of the word sinful?
If any word is used in a negative way, does it become a cuss word?
If a cuss word is used as a way to describe something or a situation, is it always still a cuss word?
Are these words condemned for cultural reasons or for biblical and scriptural reasons?
If a person is a follower of Christ who speaks positively all the time about all people, and yet drops a few four letter words within their speech, are they actually sinning?
Lastly, and most simply, scripturally is there anything actually condemning the use of cuss words in all forms?
To understand swearing, it helps to understand magic; what it is and what it does.
Magic is an attempt to manipulate nature, the deity or those around us by the use of incantation and ritual. It relies heavily on the use of words which are taboo to the general population, but allowed to a select few. These magic words are believed to be invested with power above and beyond the normal power of normal words. Swear words are taboo words.
Taboo/swear words have magical power
if and only if we believe in magic. So this begs the question; is Christianity a faith which believes in magic, and invests some words with power above and beyond the normal power of normal words, or not?
The answer is, many more modern variants of our faith do, indeed, use prayer in a magical way. They use incantations in order to attempt to manipulate the deity, and the world and people around them. All of this is pagan behaviour. It is magical, and it is forbidden to Christians, ironically enough. All that nonsense about, 'claiming the promises' is attempted magic; nothing more, nothing less. I don't care what colour it is, I don't care if it is quoting Scripture, using magic in this way and pretending it is prayer is not Christian behaviour.
Christian prayer is focussed on finding the will of God, and following it, not on coercing the deity to do what we want, in the way we want, because we have used the appropriate magic words and therefore
he has no choice.
So, how does this relate to swear words? They are also magical. There is no such thing as a word with power above other words, and there is no such thing as an offensive or swear word. All such taboos are cultural in origin, and have everything to do with social mores, rather than the words themselves. And, as I tell my daughter, there are times when only a swear word will do.
It is not a bad thing for us to have conventions, such as that of this board, of not using taboo words. But this is for the sake of civility, not because those words are actually powerful or can do anything at all. It is not a sin to use taboo words, although it may be impolite, depending on the situation. It is not a sin for a Christian to sometimes use taboo words.
Socially taboo words can change over time. What is fine for one generation is not for the next, and vice versa. Many of our current taboo words were perfectly socially acceptable to our ancestors; some others were not. The taboo status is not a property of the word itself, but of the society we live in.
What matters in our faith is the heart, and whether we treat one another as Christ would want us to. Nothing else.
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