Both Uses of
blasphemy
in
The Screwtape Letters
- He can be taught to enjoy kneeling beside the grocer on Sunday just because he remembers that the grocer could not possibly understand the urbane and mocking world which he inhabited on Saturday evening; and contrariwise, to enjoy the bawdy and blasphemy over the coffee with these admirable friends all the more because he is aware of a "deeper", "spiritual" world within him which they cannot understand.†
Chpt 10blasphemy = disrespectful of something considered sacred
- A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man's damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke.
Chpt 11 *
Definition:
something said or done that is disrespectful of something considered sacred -- especially God or religion