--Blasphemy is one of those words that a lot of people use (perhaps most often in jest with a stern tone of voice mocking someone who might use it seriously), but still have trouble defining with any degree of precision.
--In general, blasphemy is dishonoring God with language, thereby denying Him His justly deserved reputation as God the Perfect Being. Blasphemy is anti-God slander when spoken or anti-God libel when printed.
--Since God not only is the giver of language but even the embodiment of language (“The Word was with God and the Word was God,” John 1), such a violation of language is particularly acute. Moreover, since one of the key unique attributes God shares with man is the capacity for language, turning this common glory mechanism into a form of debasement is a true perversion. We should be bringing honor and prestige and weight to God with His gift of language, and not the opposite.
--And that’s the point of the Third Commandment: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Precisely because God is the greatest Good in the universe, and our language is a fundamental way in which we express this to Him and about Him to others, misuse of language in this way is contrary to the very purpose of our lives and all of Creation.
--That’s why blasphemy is such a serious crime.
--And understanding the seriousness of blasphemy, we have to be very careful that we don’t trivialize it in the way we define it, for instance by saying that minor inadvertent profanities are full-fledged examples of it.
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