Boss told me off for exclaiming Jesus Christ

[GloMum]

The other day my boss told me off for exclaiming Jesus Christ when I was surprised during a work meeting. Boss told me it’s rude towards people from different religions and asked me if I’d done my DEI training. I have, and I enjoy friendships with colleagues from varied backgrounds. I feel really stressed now in case I slip again, and embarrassed I should be told off.

YABU - This is an inappropriate exclamation at work
YANBU - It’s just an exclamation and you shouldn’t be told off for that.

Perhaps you should. As a Christian if someone is using the name of the God you love, revere and submit to as a swear word, you shouldn’t be indifferent to that

Personally, I am deeply offended by 'Oh my gosh'.
So dreadful.

Do you speak for all Christians?

Ha that's so true my nan is Maltese she says 'Madonna' when she's stressed out about something or angry. I like the way she says it with her strong accent

Right- offensive if you are Christian doing it. It is 10 commandment so it is a law of the people following the religion. If someone doesn’t follow that religion why is it offensive? They are not bound by those rules and I can’t see how hearing someone say it would affect your personal relationship with your god.

The point is that it's not your belief or lack of belief that makes something blasphemous. It's the insult to the relevant God/religion and the offence that brings to people of that religion. So whether you believe in their God or not makes no difference to whether something is blasphemous.

In other words, the existence if the concept of blasphemy does not depend on the belief of the person saying the blasphemous thing.

So saying "blasphemy doesn't exist for me" is nonsense.

There is a commandment in the Old Testament (you know, the one a lot of Christians pretend they don't believe in) about taking the lords name in vain.

Of course, Jesus didn't exists in Old Testament times, so wasn't "the Lord" then, That's be rather backfilled.

Also, I'm a little vague about the phrase "in vain". I personally suspect it meant you shouldn't use the name of the Lord as a means to convey sincerity (i.e. you shouldn't say "I swear by God that is true"). However given I don't claim any expertise whatsoever - it's not like I am the Archbishop of Canterbury - I'm not going to press the idea.

Unfortunately it seems the line is getting blurred between blasphemy and criticism of a religion/religious practice.
The latter can be increasingly problematic as adherents can and do call such criticism offensive. And as we have seen in previous posts here, if someone says they find a statement or piece of writing about their religion offensive, then offensive it must be.
Which is reductive to the point of ridicule.

This thread's a bloody congregation of Little Miss Perfects.

I don't know. Don't you have another cheek ?

Heck is where people who don't believe in Gosh go to.

Hi, this is an honest question - why do so many of you put a sign of equality between my exclamation and swearing at the workplace? I understand why and how my exclamation might be offensive but I wouldn’t say it’s the same as using cynicisms.

For context, the expression didn’t contain any negative connotation - just surprise one of our teammates is leaving the company.

I think the point is they should be bound by those rules. Or else they aren't real people ....

Careful now...

Right you have explained why it would be offensive for someone else who is a Christian to use the terms but not for someone who is a non- believer.

how does it affect you if you hear someone say these words if they themselves don’t believe in the religion? What specifically is offensive? How does it affect your personal relationship with god?

Other countries and languages have their own versions of ‘oh my god!’, used as an exclamation, that reflect their own religious heritages.

As the wonderful and eloquent Sir Terry Pratchett said,

“When you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, ‘Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!’ or ‘Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept of a crutch!”

If only religions were about peoples personal relationship with God. Maybe we'd head a lot less about them then.

You can blame the "Good News" for that. If I were to be really snarky I would suggest that was sneaked into the gospels by someone who really hoped it would piss enough people off to ensure the new fangled Jewish cult didn't survive.

I would be offended by that and maybe practice better self control whilst at work? It is not very professional.

If someone called your mum an arsehole would that piss you off??

Not appropriate in a meeting, I wouldn’t think ‘oh my gos’ or damn etc appropriate in a meeting either. A meeting is formal and so language should be professional. I wouldn’t think a big deal if said generally in the office though, so if your laptop wouldn’t switch on and you said it for example.

I'm an atheist and say "Jesus Christ" on occasion, but agree with your boss. It is a form of swearing and Christians may well be upset by it. It's not appropriate in a work setting.
Depends what the telling off was. If it was a simple "Don't say that in the office please" then YABU, if it was made to be a massive deal, then you'd have a point.

No why would it? Why would I police their opinion of my mum.

Interesting! So it was a “Jesus Christ, hooray!” not a “Jesus fucking Christ, not again”? I wonder if that changes people’s views. I think I assumed negative as I’d use “oh my God!” for positive news and “Jesus wept” for negative stuff.

It's a topsy turvey world when an atheist is read as an expert on Christianity ...

(Admittedly I have read the Bible.)