dinitz@uicsl.UUCP (09/16/83)
#N:uicsl:8600014:000:2571 uicsl!dinitz Sep 15 16:02:00 1983 On Swearing By Names of Deities (Some historical notes and conjectures) This custom goes back a long way and seems likely to grow out of the function deities perform for a culture. In the ancient Near East deities were used by people in the dominant culture for (at least) the following reasons: They were appealed to as explanations for phenomena that were otherwise incomprehensible; and appeals were addressed to them in order to control such phenomena on behalf of the supplicant. These were not limited to natural phenomena (e.g. rain), nor even to the results of controlling natural phenomena for beneficial purposes (e.g. a good harvest, numerous progeny, etc.), but the set was extensible to things like success in business ventures, battles, and the like. From there it is a short step to invoking a deity to back one up in a fistfight, dispute, or situation where one's word is doubted. Ancient Near Eastern texts contain numerous attestations of formulas invoking various dieties as collateral (so to speak). "If I do not fulfill this promise...may Yam slit my throat." "Should even one word if this oath fail...may Ashtart close up my womb." "...all this I swear by the grace of Baal"[That is: if I am lying, may Baal never answer my requests again.] This type of formula still exists today: "With God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again." -- Scarlet O'Hara "If any of this ain't true just as I told you, I hope to get run over by a streetcar [the deity here is Fate] -- Bugs Bunny Apparently, the non-fulfillment of such oaths became so prevalent that the Hebrew culture found it necessary to explicitly prohibit the violation of such a sworn obligation. Hence the commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." The use of deities' names as expletives, I would guess is related to the explanatory uses of deities, and to their alleged power to deliver a supplicant from distress. "Save us, Anat, from this earthquake!" [Ancient Middle Eastern goddess common to several religions] "Jesus Christ [save me]!" "Ram, save us!" [Hindu god] Note the extension of this practice in Catholicism to the names of various Saints. I would speculate that avowed atheists who swear by the name of some deity, or use it as an expletive, have probably just picked up the linguistic habit from the society in which they live. The same goes for members of a religious minority group who use the name of a deity from some other religion. I hope that answers the intended question in a scholarly fashion, with a minimum of flames.