So Johnny's colorful comment got me thinking about cursing.
Some thoughts--feel free to disagree (warning: this post will contain curse words, so if reading them puts you into some kind of blind rage you might want to skip this)
I don't think that words by themselves are inherently bad. It's the motives behind them that make them so. Look at a knife. It is not harmful in and of itself. In fact it can be used for all sorts of things--cutting carrots, whittling wood. But it can also be used to stab someone in the face. See, it all depends on who's holding it, Charles Manson or Whittles McJones.
So take a word like fuck. I could walk up to some old lady who I know is absolutely revolted by cursing and say "fuck you." This would obviously be horrible...in fact it might be like something approaching pure evil. Because in this case I am using this powerful word, fuck, to hurt someone. Now let's say I approach a good friend, whom I know curses, and I'm so happy to see him that I say, "I fuckin love you!" To me it seems almost insane to call any word in that sentence sinful. I'm using this powerful word to convey to a friend how much I care about him. It's all about motive. And in looking at it in this way, some pretty normal words can suddenly seem horrific.
What if someone struggles with their self-image and I call them fat or ugly? What if I call a mentally handicapped person an idiot? These words can pierce like arrows, just like fuck or asshole.
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