What Makes Cussing Bad

The categories:

    All curse words fall into three subjects.

1. Religion
2. Sex
3. Bodily excretion

What is fundamentally wrong with cussing if the words are just a combination of sounds?

    Cussing is not the mere combination of sounds. No one swears who says the words "habitual," "sofa cushion," or "country," even though those words spoken aloud contain cuss words within them, phonemically. So, it really is the intent and denotation of the word that makes it a curse.

How do curse words come about?

    Parents don't want their children speaking of sensitive subjects, the peak of which are the three aforementioned. When parents forbid specific words, the crossing of that line becomes all the more taboo in comparison with other words of the same category deemed less offensive. When this specific prohibition becomes more general and common across a culture rather than just within a family, it reaches a societal homeostasis, and the word reaches an official "bad word" status. I would argue that that is where it enters the lexicon's moral landscape.

Is cussing immoral?

    Yes. The reason this is confusing is because swear words are a moral issue that is actually societally determined. Most moral matters are not. Society could attempt to normalize murder or adultery and codify it into law as acceptable, but because morality is not subjective, we will always intrinsically know they are wrong, unless we abuse our consciences to numbness. It should be noted, however, that that does not make curse words fall into the category of subjective morality merely because they are societally determined. Though anyone might say, "I don't accept that this is wrong," there is a universal recognition within that society that there was a line transgressed, and the individual in question cannot avoid the knowledge that they have transgressed it. Even if placed in a foreign society where no one understood your language, when you cuss, you know you're doing it. And that takes the slightest iota of a toll on the conscience directing one's inward decency.

    Because swearing is societally determined, there are some words that used to be cuss words which are no longer (like crap), there are some that did not use to be cuss words which now are (like calling someone an a**, which used to refer to the animal, but now that it refers to the posterior, it has entered the third category of the three above), and there are some words which are cuss words depending on your region (bloody is a curse in Britain but not America).

    Society is that which has acknowledged certain words as profanities, and that is what makes those words depraved. The truth is in the term: "bad" words. I have asked my students before, "Are bad words bad?" To my shock, they said, "No." I think we've reached a place where the majority of society has imbibed this same delusion to give themselves license to engage in it.

Claim: Cussing doesn't matter.

    Most people today try to act as though cussing doesn't matter. Even the moralist advocates of today often cuss in their talks, from philosophers to conservative pundits to religious leaders. Every example we have before us cusses with regularity, from parents to principals to the president of the United States. But it seems clear that they know it does matter because there is still an effort made to limit children's usage of cussing. Why would there be any objectionability if this were not an issue of morality? Is there a time appointed for this kind of language - namely, adulthood? There is no defensible way to purport that cussing becomes moral at a certain level of maturity. Indeed, I have found to the contrary that stunted maturity correlates with increased bad language.

Claim: Using bad language doesn't hurt anyone.

    My contention is that foul language is not bad for the society, merely. It is bad for the individual. It has a deleterious effect on the psyche. Just as someone can bring their lungs imperceptibly closer to cancer with one cigarette, so can someone bring their probity imperceptibly closer to its end with one curse word. When someone cusses, they send a signal to their subconscious that does the slightest damage to one's scruples. This is a moral act. It is not measurable in the scientific world. That is why people don't believe there is any harm in it. Yet, over a period of time, the effects are clear. How many decent people are known for interspersing profanities between every other word? There is almost an inverse relationship between cussing and decency. Propriety has been flouted in favor of masquerading the expletives as expressions of raw sincerity or "being real." We've seen this in the case of several consecutive presidents now.

What are you so afraid will happen if we cuss?

    The effects of cussing are not immediate. Most think they can continue to use such language and aren't being transformed by it. But that is because it is a slow, imperceptible transformation. That is how all rot works, but this one species of rot is the one being given a pass in our society. The end state of a serial cusser is a lower iteration of their potential self, in integrity. And I believe this extends even to the realm of intelligence. Cussing uses a different circuit board in the brain than language. It is a guttural utterance that zoologists have mapped out in animals as communicating stress or fear. So, for us to use it, we tap into our animal side. Surely the pursuit of decency is to grow in sophistication and civility to the point where we do not tap into our base and animal instincts. That is why we don't condone the practices of pillaging and rape as animals sometimes do.

What do you propose society should do about swear words - make them illegal?

    There should never be a law to prohibit cussing. The right to free speech is much more important. There should be a groundswell movement from the populace that says they don't want profanity to be baked into the culture. Horizontal societal influence is how an ethos is changed, not vertical heteronomic legislation.

Quotes:

    George Washington felt that his army had no right to expect help from heaven if the troops continued to use foul language. He said of cussing, "It is a vice so mean and low without any temptation that every man of sense and character detests and despises it."

    My grandfather was from a more verbally decent era. He always told me, "Profanity is a weak mind expressing itself forcibly."

What Heaven Is Not (An Editorial)

As this is my first editorial, it is principally opinion - not dogmatic assertion.

This is my best description of heaven:

• You can do everything, which means two things:
1. Everything is allowed.
2. You have unlimited power.
• The color spectrum is infinite.
• You can explore worlds, realities and times.
• The bliss of peaceful silence perpetually (and impossibly) coexists with the most beautiful music God could invent: music and silence at the same time, inextricable and ubiquitous.
• You can create objects, animals (even former pets), adventures, or lower dimensions and worlds, including earth if you want to recreate it for memories' sake.
• Everyone knows everything there ever was, is, or will be to know.
• The atmosphere is so clear and refreshing, the earth's fresh air would seem like a latrine by comparison.
• You can talk and spend time with everyone individually at the same time, including God.
• Nature is so gorgeously otherworldly, you can be entranced by one scintilla of it for an interminable amount of time.
• You are everywhere at once.
• Artworks are interdimensional.
• Humans are spirits, and everyone's soul feels the highest intimacy equally with each other (Mark 12:25).

    And I suspect the reason God didn't say any of these things explicitly is because they are so far inferior in desirability versus what is actually there that it is insulting to compare them.

     I've been very surprised to find such universal misunderstanding of what heaven must be throughout the entirety of my life. In high school, a friend tried to persuade me of the advantages of hell, asking, "Would you rather play a harp on a cloud forever or be at a giant party where all your friends are?" The misconceptions baked into the question are multitudinous enough to formulate a book of its own. But now that I'm decades into adulthood, even people that believe in heaven and see it as more than sitting on a cloud seem to imagine it in incorrect terms. These are things I'd like to set straight.

    1. Time does not go on forever.

    There is a difference between time forever moving and time never moving. The incorrect notion of eternal time is even in Christian hymns: "When we've been there ten thousand years..." There is no thousand years (Revelation 10:6). Time is absorbed into eternity. There is no progression. Although I believe we can cause things to be in heaven, I do not believe there is cause and effect, as we understand it.

    2. You are not limited in what you can do.

    There are no rules. You have perfect liberty. And you will have powers to do beyond what you can now think. The irony of trying to wrap our mind around this truth and timelessness is that though time is perfectly still and unmoving, our potential activities are not zero but infinity. We can do anything always without limitations. The reason I believe we will be able to create is because we can already create here on earth, to a certain extent - but being in a spiritual realm, there would be no boundaries around our creations. Imagine the kinds of otherworldly places a billionaire can create here on earth using their vast wealth. Is anyone in heaven less powerful than the most monetarily empowered man on earth?

• Some may contend we are limited in what we can do: we can't sin. Response: we will have no desire for sin; it won't be an option; it won't exist in that dimension. Therefore, we can do whatever we want.

    3. There is plenty of room (John 14:2) but no space.

    I've often heard the incorrect assertion that there will be a long line to talk to Jesus. This imagines a three-dimensional heaven. If heaven is another existence, and God lives there, it is not part of this dimension. Space doesn't work the same way. And with time out of play, everyone can commune even individually, simultaneously. There is no conflict of time or space because neither exists.

    4. We will remember everything about our entire life and can look into the realm of earth.

    Many times, I have heard Christians claim that no one in heaven can look down to earth because that would cause them sadness, of which there is none in heaven. While it's true that there is no sadness in heaven, it's not true that looking at sad things would cause sadness. It is the capacity for sorrow that is removed, not the view into humanity. The Bible's claim is that we shall know even as we are known (1 Corinthians 13:12). How are we known? Completely. So we will know completely - we will know everything. We'll know the history and future of the entire universe and all there is to know about God's realm also.

    5. There is no language as we understand it.

    There is no vocal apparatus nor air molecules to convey sound waves in heaven. Those are necessary elements for our dimension. On earth, we already communicate without words to someone in heaven. Why would we need language once we get there? Unlike earth where prayer bridges the gap between dimensions, every being there in communication will be heavenly, so the "language" will even go beyond the transcendentalism of prayer.

    6. We will instantly know who everyone is.

    When Peter was on the Mount of Transfiguration, he had never seen a photo of Moses or Elijah before. Yet, he knew who they were. He was in a heavenly atmosphere.

    7. Your body is a spirit.

      I used to wonder: if I see my grandfather in heaven will he look like an old man as I knew him or will he resemble his youth? When I grew older, I thought perhaps everyone sees them as they wish to see them. It was not until adulthood that I realized spirits do not have shape. It is the spirit we will see with our spiritual eyes and recognize instantaneously. You have no physical body as you understand it - heaven is where the spiritual is the physical. There are no boundaries. You, as a spirit, are in all places at once.

    8. Your unique human personality is preserved in your soul forever.

    There are no character flaws anymore in heaven, but just as angels have individual names, your core essence is what makes you particularly special. Only sin is eradicated in heaven - the soul is preserved. And your personality is contained in your soul. Everyone's mutual love, just as on earth, will be rooted in your unique individuality.

    Heaven is an extension of God, and we know from what he put in humans that within God is the exploratory, the adventurous, the artful, the beautiful, and the creative. Heaven must be that way, and we must be agents of those attributes. And if there is any other chimerical fantasy that I have imagined which is unsupported by scripture, it is supported by this scripture: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." 1 Corinthians 2:9.

• There is nothing too wildly imaginative to describe heaven. There is no description that could be more vibrant, more sublime, or more difficult to believe than the real place which was conceived by the mind of God.

    If I could imagine a better heaven than God, why would I worship him? Christians today seem to imagine the entirety of heaven to be unidimensional, no more complicated than praising God on streets of gold, the sea of glass, and the gates of pearl (which will no doubt be the most rewarding, honorific, and pleasurable thing we will want to do in heaven); yet it doesn't seem to excite many people of today, as if it weren't imaginative enough. As soon as I imagine something that excites me about heaven, one of two things must be true:

1. That will be in heaven.
2. Something will be in its place that is so far superior and specifically tailored to me, I would mock my own self to think that I ever wanted the other.

    The three most fundamental things to remember about heaven that we seem never to be told are:

1. In heaven we are not less; we are more.
2. Concerning realness, the spiritual is to the physical as consciousness is to a dream, even though in the dream, it seems vice versa.
3. Heaven is not the highest thing we can imagine. It is the highest thing God can imagine. It is not a place that stretches what we can believe. It is a place that stretches what God can believe.

The Man and the Donkey

     We haven't much of a story to tell, being just a man and a donkey, but one thing's for sure: he, being a dumb animal, needs some looking after. It's no wonder his species has become the symbol of brute foolishness to us. I've had him for 25 years, and there are times when I wonder if he's learned anything in all that time.

    I remember once that we had to go to town to get food for the week, and the creek had overflowed into the form of a river that we were obliged to ford. I was ready to go across, but he was so fearful of being swept away by the water - as if I would let that happen. I tried to pull him towards the river, but he dug his heels in and refused to move. I tried shouting, but nothing I did could induce him to change his mind. I was so frustrated. I know they're the apotheosis of stubbornness, and our kind insult each other by calling each other members of their kind, but this was just silly. How does he expect to eat if he gets so narrow-sighted that he can't think beyond what's right in front of him? But that's the way with them - reason plays little role in their actions; just instinct and impulse. That's why I wish he'd just follow me a little easier sometimes. One of us has to think a little farther ahead, and clearly it's not the one who lets fear or whatever other animalistic whim pops into his consciousness decide what course of action he's going to take. Anyway, I sat down with him for a time, and when I thought I'd given him long enough, I walked calmly into the river, the rope pulling him almost incidentally behind me, and this time, he followed. He must have had some confidence instilled in him when I led by example.

    All my frustrations working with him notwithstanding, I have to admit that living with him has endeared him and indeed his whole kind to me. Dispositionally, I'm not really drawn to any of the species of our biodiverse world but my own, of course. But there are some glimpses of goodness I see in him. He doesn't always outwardly emote like we do, but I read a certain tenderness in his base personality. It seems to incline him towards loyalty. Like if he were taken from me and had to work with another - I'm certain he would feel reluctant and unfulfilled with their connection, having already forged a rapport between donkey and human with me. And that gives me a certain fondness for him.

    Plus, there's a hardiness about him. We've been through some rough seasons together. But he never seemed like he was ready to call it quits, ultimately - even when food was scant and our work was hardscrabble. He persevered. And once we'd get through what we needed to, and things were good again, he would always seem insouciant and content, as if the hard times were never there.

    That has taught me one thing about his kind that inspires me that maybe our kind can be that way: he is stronger and can withstand more adversity from life than even he himself has ever realized in his lifetime. He has an aplomb, a poised wherewithal in his intrinsic nature that he always returns to after his moments of obdurate panic, which shows an incomparable fortitude that is I think ineffable, given his brutish weaknesses.

    I truly must admit, as dumb a beast as he can be, as stereotypically stubborn as he always is, as incapable of reasoning beyond his immediate feral drives, he really has some admirable qualities that fill me with awe. And now I think well of his entire kind because of it.

    But what do I know?

    I'm just a donkey.