The 3rd Commandment

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7)

I have invested a fair amount of time thinking about this commandment (specially after LS drew my attention to the fact that I was taking God’s name in vain, when commenting one of his intellectual delicatessens) and I would like to invite you to ponder upon this unusual topic…
It is not uncommon to hear that God’s name is not to be taken lightly nor to be written if we know that there is the slightest chance of it being deleted or burned (N.B: any text or book containing God’s name is to be buried).
And now there are two pertinent questions that I would like to share with you:

In this context, what does “in vain” mean exactly?
It means “without due reverence, honour or respect”; but if one uses expressions such as “oh, my God!” “Oh, Lord!” “Oh, my sweet Lord!” with respect, honour or reverence (i.e. if one wishes God to partake in his actions, emotions, thoughts and words; if having conscience of God’s presence is vital to one’s endurance, patience) then calling for Him should not be considered taking His name in vain.
On the other hand if ones makes use of the afore mentioned expressions just for the sake of exclamation; thus depleting God’s name of Its sanctity, awe and high regard; if one feels no deep love for Him nor acknowledges His authority, then perhaps His name is utterly being taken in vain.
In these examples, unless we know the person well (and I hold a theory that we never know people that well) there is no way to predict the intention behind his/her words, therefore it is up to God to judge if they are taking His name in vain or not.
There is, though, a sound example (one that people can actually judge) of taking the Lord’s name in vain: when you know that a person is lying, you hold proof of his deceit and lie, yet this individual has the nerve to say “I swear by God that I am being truthful!”…

Why the need to constantly utter God’s name?
For those who believe in Him it could be said that they seek comfort, support, strength, well-being, and sense of belonging, of being on the right track…
For those who believe in Him and purposelessly speak His name it could be upheld that they ignore the depth of the 3rd commandment and thus are in deep need of immediate spiritual and intellectual guidance.
For those who claim to not believe in Him, it could be stated that their Id recognises its Source and so it keeps reminding their Super Ego of His existence, notwithstanding their Ego refuses to accept the Truth. And since they decided to refuse the Existence, the Authority of God and still keep taking His name in vain, they won’t be able to escape punishment (be it either under the form of direct misfortune or through the cycle of re-birth, until they become fully cognisant of God’s Omnipresence, Omniscience and Omnipotence).

Before invoking His sacred name, and presence, people should be absolutely certain of the reasons that lead them to execute such invocation.