Posted by Siamang on: 09.17.2007 /
Sunday Night’s Emmy Awards broadcast had Sally Field beeped for using the words “God” and “damn” together.
It led me to wonder… why exactly is the phrase a naughty word?
I mean, we can say the word “God” whenever we want. And TV is replete with the word “damn”. In fact, “damn” isn’t that bad a word, on the list of bad words. It can be used in a title of a beloved musical, “Damn Yankees”. It raised eyebrows in 1939 when Clark Gable uttered it, but we’ve come a long way since then, and even he didn’t get bleeped. Fox (who aired and bleeped Sally Field) has a TV show called “The Best Damn Sports Show Ever.”
So seperately, “God” and “damn” are okay.
But if you put the two together… what happens? Magically, it’s a MUCH WORSE WORD!
It’s not like the MEANING even changes, does it? It’s not like some dirty words where they have a homonym that’s innoccous like with “ass”. It’s the same word.
I mean, any time you use “damn” isn’t it assumed that it’s God doing the damning? Who else damns something?
My wife asked me, “why is it supposed to be bad?” I answered that it was against the Ten Commandments.
And that’s the final irony: saying “God damn” is one of the things that will get you damned!
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Comment by: Eliza
1 09/17/07 9:38 PM | Comment Link |Heck, they should have done her a favor and bleeped out all the “UMMM”s, instead of leaving those in then cutting her off just when she started SAYING something again!
‘Spos the White House had its finger on the cut off button? In this clip, not only was “-d damn” cut off (we heard the first sound of it) but so was anything else she said about the war!
Comment by: Eliza
2 09/17/07 9:44 PM | Comment Link |no surprise, some others think it might have been her antiwar statement rather than her language that prompted the bleep. And, apparently “goddamn” isn’t on the FCC’s list of verboden words (since 2004, or clarified in 2004, see link in the link above).
Comment by: Star Sightings » Blog Archive » Why Was Sally Field Censored?
3 09/18/07 2:02 AM | Comment Link |[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFox (who aired and bleeped Sally Field) has a TV show called “The Best Damn Sports Show Ever.” So seperately, “God” and “damn” are okay. But if you put the two together… what happens? Magically, it’sa MUCH WORSE WORD! … [...]
Comment by: Stephan
4 09/18/07 6:59 AM | Comment Link |I think it was more an itchy trigger finger than a subversive plot. When all you have is a 7 second delay you don’t have time to check the rule book to see what words or phrases are forbidden. It’s an instinctive reaction, and whoever they had on the button erred on the side of caution. I can’t say I totally blame them.
Comment by: Mike O
5 09/18/07 7:11 AM | Comment Link |Culture?
You’re an atheist. If your daughter said any of the three combinations, what would be your gut internal response? I don’t mean your well-thought-out “right” answer to the bloggers, I mean you and her are playing Barbies and she drops a g-d-bomb on you. What’s your initial reacton?
No big deal? You shouldn’t say that? I’m gonna wash your mouth out?
I don’t know why g-d is worse than g- or d- used independently. You said you thought it was from the 10 commandments, and it is … “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” but it’s not the “damn” part of it that I think the commandment is speaking about, it’s the “God” part.
Being raised in a Christian home, I was raised that it’s wrong to say “God” as an exclamation. Like, “Oh, my God, can you believe what he did?” I actually equate that with g-d. It’s how I was raised.
IMO, the commandment to not take the Lord’s name in vain doesn’t mean “don’t use cuss words” at all. It means, well, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.
Comment by: Siamang
6 09/18/07 9:26 AM | Comment Link |I teach my daughter not to say “Oh my God” for fear of her offending people. I wouldn’t even want her to say “damn”. I teach her to say “darn”.
But television says LOTS of things that I think are far worse than “oh my God” or “God damn”. They say “slut,” “whore”… and I can go on and on.
Stephan, I’ll buy “itchy trigger finger”.
One more thought: SHOULDN’T God damn war anyhow? I mean, of all the things we should think of for God to damn, war really should be top on that list.
Comment by: Stephan
7 09/18/07 9:58 AM | Comment Link |Amen, brother, AMEN!!!
Comment by: Laura M.
8 09/18/07 10:47 PM | Comment Link |Like Siamang said, damn is equivelant to G-d damn, since the God part is undeniably meant, but just not spoken. One is no worse than the other.
I don’t think any atheist parent would view their young child using the phrase G-d damn as any worse than saying just ‘damn’ alone, there’s no earthly reason for us to.
To my mind a person saying ‘damn’ is usually still taking the Lord’s name in vain since they’re asking God to ‘damn’ someone or something ‘in vain’ as likely they don’t actually want God to do that?
And the English word ‘God’ isn’t actually the Lord’s name anyway, is it? It’s just a set of sounds we use so that others can understand what we mean.
Comment by: Stephan
9 09/19/07 6:37 AM | Comment Link |I just finished reading “Time for Truth” by Os Guiness, and he says this in one chapter:
You may not agree with everything he says, but I thought it was relevant considering the topic here.
Comment by: Siamang
10 09/19/07 9:39 AM | Comment Link |I’d point out what is obvious to me, but not neccesarily the author of that passage: Just because we humans may desire an absolute Good doesn’t mean that a supernatural being exists that fits that description.
I (obviously) differ from the idea that in the face of evil, atheism means nothing. On the contrary…
If it is theism that commands someone to fly an airplane into a building, bomb a clinic, or threaten an author or a cartoonist with death for words or drawings, then atheism is the very correct absolute instinctive and intuitive condemnation of that evil.
What better check on the power of that evil than to say “begone charlatan”? Taking away the power is much better than condemning it with your (allegedly) even more awesome (yet sadly) similarly invisible power who reserves (conveniently) his punishment for after it’ll do humanity any good at all.
Comment by: Siamang
11 09/19/07 9:43 AM | Comment Link |Laura wrote
My earthly reason is illustrated perfectly by your quote. You bleeped yourself! Why? An earthly reason… the desire to get along!
I don’t want my daughter saying damn in public. But I know how much more the GD affects people, so if it’s between those two… well… community standards rule.
Comment by: Stephan
12 09/19/07 12:27 PM | Comment Link |I expected dissent, so this is no surprise. I am curious, though, Siamang, what yardstick you use to call flying an airplane into a building “evil”? If there is no ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, what do we have left?
I ask because, to those who flew those airplanes into those buildings, what they were doing was “good”. If good and evil have radically different definitions in different cultures, what defense does an atheist have to say one is better than the other?
By the way, if you think we should take this conversation over to the long disused discussion board, I would be more than happy to do that.
Comment by: Siamang
13 09/19/07 1:11 PM | Comment Link |HEY! Good idea!
Comment by: Jim Henderson
14 09/24/07 9:47 AM | Comment Link |I agree with Mike. taking the Lords name in vain is not cussing it is more akin to saying one thing (I am a follower of Jesus) and doing another (I think everyone who disagrees with me is going to hell or is stupid)
If cussing pisses God off then most Cs will end up in hell anyway because the vast majority of them swear in private.
Sorry for going off on this- I didnt event watch the video but if all she said was somethign about this G-d war then I think God is on her side