Yeah, there are a whole slew of religious curse phrases -- "oh my God", "mother of God", "for God's sake", "for heaven's sake". Or even exotic variants like, "sweet mother of mercy".
I find it interesting that they are generally used to express awe, surprise, or to invoke a sense of gravity or urgency -- opposed to other swear words which generally seek to disgust, communicate an offensive attitude, or invoke taboo to draw attention through shock. The religious oaths seem to me more like the oaths of fantasy ("By Turin's beard!", "I swear upon the sword of my father", "In Vela's name") than the language of shock and offense ("scurvy maggots", "Why don't you go stick your foo in a bar and then baz it?")
I'd speculate that they're referencing the strong emotions religious people actually feel -- the awe and gravity of the sacred, a cry for help in a moment of fear, not the offensive force of blasphemy. The amplification is always toward the sacred ("sweet Mary, Jesus, and all the saints") or the silly ("Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick"), never toward the offensive. "Jesus" amplifies to "Jesus Christ" or "holy Jesus", never to something like "Jesus' stinkin' piss".
I find it interesting that they are generally used to express awe, surprise, or to invoke a sense of gravity or urgency -- opposed to other swear words which generally seek to disgust, communicate an offensive attitude, or invoke taboo to draw attention through shock. The religious oaths seem to me more like the oaths of fantasy ("By Turin's beard!", "I swear upon the sword of my father", "In Vela's name") than the language of shock and offense ("scurvy maggots", "Why don't you go stick your foo in a bar and then baz it?")
I'd speculate that they're referencing the strong emotions religious people actually feel -- the awe and gravity of the sacred, a cry for help in a moment of fear, not the offensive force of blasphemy. The amplification is always toward the sacred ("sweet Mary, Jesus, and all the saints") or the silly ("Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick"), never toward the offensive. "Jesus" amplifies to "Jesus Christ" or "holy Jesus", never to something like "Jesus' stinkin' piss".