swearing God's name in vain, should it be banned from public schools? Options

[Cam]

True. I guess I forgot to mention that a ban on the phrase would be a silly, unenforceable waste of time.

[Arsenic&OldLace]

Umm..no, saying that should definitely not be banned.

For one thing, saying, "Oh my god," nowadays has become so common in people's vocabulary that it has no meaning. It's not like the person is purposely trying to offend someone.

I'm tired of having to apologize everytime I "use the Lord's name in vain" to my friends just because they have such innocent ears.

Banning those types of words would open up a whole other can of worms, if you ask me. The school banning that would definitely be showing favoritism to the Christian religions..

Besides, people who are Christian will just have to deal with it. Really..as long as there are other people around, they're going to have to put up with hearing it, I would think. They can't waste their time getting offended about something as insignificant as that.

What's not to stop the school from banning other phrases, such as, "School sucks?" or something harmless that a person might be joking about? Someone could accidentaly let it slip..what are they going to do about it?

<3 Francesca

[*mona lisa*]

Get real -- that is one weak argument.  I can guarantee that 99.98% of the time, especially in the States where the term has been spawned, stamped, and coined for usage, the phrase 'Oh, my God' does not deal with a figure in any other major religion or polytheistic belief.

Why not? I believe in a polytheistic religion, but there is one God that I worship the most. When I say "Oh, my God", I know that I am not referring to Christianity. I am referring to my own religion. I am referring to the God I most believe in. Not Jesus. Seriously now, it has lost it's meaning. People could care less as to which religion poeple refer to when they say "Oh my God".

[XoJennaoX]

I use to live next door to a family of mennonites. They strictly believe it is offensive to say "holy cow" because they believe nothing else can be holy other than God. They went to public school. Now should we also ban all "holy" words? Or is that okay because they are only a minority, and we can argue the phrase "Oh My God" as being more offensive. You really can't measure offensiveness unless you are in the other person's shoes. So my point is it is impossible to keep everyone happy and everyone's beliefs protected fairly, especially in public schools in such a religously diverse country. Also, it is realistically impossible to ban one of the most commonly used phrases among teenagers.

[teeners4]

i dono i used to say it a lot cause when you're a preteen it just comes. but then my best friend was catholic. and well i didnt wanna offend her. of course she wasnt offended but i thought about it and it seemed pretty rude to me

so sometimes well i still say it if im realli excited but i changed to "OMGOSH!!!" haha

[*iNyCxShoRT*]

I don't think it's really offensive, your swearing to YOUR god. Not exactly to the God. You might have a different god then others, or no God at all. Look at it that way.

[Spirited Away]

Alright, does anyone have anything different to say or another line of argument to use? If not, I'll be closing this down. Too many repeats already.

[surfhottieoffcoa...]

it wouldn't hurt

[Spirited Away]

it wouldn't hurt

What wouldn't?

closed. if anyone has anything relevant to add to the discussion without repeating what everyone else already said, let a moderator know, and he/she will open this back up.