Anti-swearing law

[Anne Gilbert]

Debbie:

What kind of a crock is this? One of you
making this allegation please document
these supposedly significant "differences"
for  the rest of us. Does any of you know
anything about these translations apart
from "seeing" them, or how they were made?
And what "other translations" might be
assumed not to be "literal" enough? The
KJV, the NIV, and the Jerusalem Bible
(ecumenical translation) are very different
in form but you can still easily recognize
all the commandments.

I'm sorry if I've offended you, but I stand by my statements.  In the first
place, there are differences in the kind of Bibles people use, and they are
tied(at least in part)to their religious beliefs.  Regardless of whether or
not the Ten Commandments are "the same" in each Bible, different
translations can subtly alter the way people *interpret* what they read.
And whether you like it or not, there *are* people "out there" attempting to
impose their religious ideas and beliefs on the rest of us.  The "swearing"
issue aside, I don't like this, and I feel I have the right to say so.

 And it is very telling that anybody would
think they could get away with such
egregious stereotypes as the one above
by Anne.

Sorry, Debbie, but the above is *not* a stereotype.  I've had these kinds of
religious "impositions" tried on me.  Personally.  And I resent it.

"Imagine" is definitely the
operative word there. I find it highly ironic
that anybody calmly taking for granted
that her audience will swallow her negative
stereotypes about people whose beliefs
are different from hers should in the same
breath talk about a "small group of people
'vocally' imposing *their* ideas of 'decency'
and 'morals' on everybody else, while the
rest of us 'just go along with it to avoid
argument'. How does this huge and laughable
myth, that the poor secular majority is being
oppressed by a handful of religious people, rather
than the reverse, survive???? Maybe in the U.S...

You mean it's the other way around?  Come on, Debbie, get real!  Despite my
harsh-seeming words here, I do not have any problem with "those whose
beliefs differ from mine"; I work every day with people of vastly differing
backgrounds and beliefs.  But the difference between those I work with and
the people you seem to think I'm negatively stereotyping is that *at the
very least* my fellow workers more or less agree to disagree on these
subject; the vocal minority I'm talking about  seem to think that only
*their* beliefs ---- about swearing, and a lot of other stuff ---- are the
only ones which should be "allowed" and they are willing to go out and say
so. As for the idea of the "religious" folk being "oppressed" by the
"secular", maybe you'd better read the First Amendment again.  Carefully.

I write this as a serious question about
American dialects.  In today's > setting,
how can "swearing" be defined in secular
terms?  Can the job be > done at all, or is
the essence of "swearing" intimately tied to
> religious belief?

This is a more sensible question.  Yes, I think in many ways, it is.

Yes, everything that is important to people is
intimately tied to religious belief. It's simply
a question of the definition of religion in such
a way that everyone is seen to have one.

I don't agree with this, but that's another story.

 So
it's not that the job of a secular definition "can't
be done at all," it's that it's not worth doing.

If we're seriously talking about dialects here, then maybe that's how it
should be defined, forget the "religious" stuff.  And please, no more
diatribes like the one I saw this morning in my e-mail.
Anne Gilbert