Bless you
So say you’re a Fundamentalist, and you sneeze, and a Muslim says “bless you”.
Do you..I dunno, lose points or something? Does the baby jesus vomit? Do you get scored for a venial sin? Lose a small amount of God’s grace to the competing team?
June 29th, 2006 12:29
Bah! Surely the Mohammedian would be punished for his blaspehmy in calling down the blessings o’ the Lord! The cur!
June 29th, 2006 15:18
only 69 virgins for you, heathen.
June 29th, 2006 15:59
You know, that’s one aspect of so-called polite manners that I’d like to see done away with. We don’t say “bless you” when people cough, belch, yawn, fart, spasm, blink, come (okay, well maybe sometimes then) or any other involuntary function, so what’s so special about sneezing?
Or course I used to say it growing up, as I was taught, but once I read about the origins and actually gave it some thought, I decided that a) it’s just another silly superstition that we can dispense with (like not having a floor 13 in tall buildings), and b) as an atheist it would be somewhat hypocritical.
So now when someone sneezes around me and I don’t say “bless you”, I always wonder if they’re thinking “what an unmannered prick”, as if I didn’t say “please” or “thank you”. And when somebody says it to me, I don’t know if I’m supposed to thank them or what, so I just feel awkward and don’t say anything. But I’m pretty sure “Thanks, but I don’t believe in God, so it’s wasted on me” would probably be even worse.
June 29th, 2006 16:10
If it helps you any: I generally say “gesundheit”.
And really, if you’re gonna get overtly pissed about this, might as well agree with people that Halloween is a satanic holiday.
June 29th, 2006 16:25
You say “thank you” in Yiddish and it all balances out.
June 29th, 2006 18:19
I’m with spinn on “gesundheit”. Mostly because I gree that it seems particularly disingenuous for someone who’s essentially atheist to be wishing God’s blessings on others. Might as well tell people with problems that I’ll be praying for them while I’m at it, or go around performing circumcisions and baptisms.
Gawain: You could always go with “You’re SOOOOOOOO good-lookin’!” Sneeze-wishing is just another one of those arbitrary traditions that has become embedded, for whatever reason, in our society. I’m not sure if anyone who would make character judgments about you depending on whether or not you blessed them after they sneezed is necessarily someone you’d really want to spend too much time with, anyway.
June 30th, 2006 00:39
Well, don’t mistake my verbosity for anger, or my minor social discomfort for a major stress factor. It’s just something I would be very happy if we could all just stop doing now, “gesundheit” included, and felt like holding forth on (not having a blog of my own). But thanks for the helpful responses.
June 30th, 2006 02:19
Gawain: With regards to only saying something for sneezes, a couple of my friends occasionally say “Good cough, you,” which I like not only for the analogy to “God bless you” but also because of the vaguely ridiculous congratulatory element. Good cough, you! A++ WOULD DO BUSINESS AGAIN
I don’t see anything wrong with wishing someone health (in a secular way, in my case) after sneezing or coughing, since, y’know, those are things you often do when you’re getting sick. Other involuntary bodily functions happen so often, and in perfectly healthy people, that I feel like it’s not really worth calling attention to them. I mean, just *try* and count the number of times you’ve been in an elevator and someone came on your face.
June 30th, 2006 04:43
See, that’s just the short-sightedness of you atheist-types.
When I say “Bless you,” it means **I** bless you, goddammit! ;)
(BTW, I’m not an atheist or an agnostic. I’m really more of a “don’t care” individual) :)
And, don’t let Jack Pendley say “bless you” to Mohammed — we’d hate to lose him.
June 30th, 2006 09:11
Yeah, I’m solidly on the “it’s stupid to say anything” side. It is. It can be pleasantly stupid or benignly stupid but, ultimately, it’s stupid.
June 30th, 2006 11:20
Wow. I don’t know what I would say if one of my friends said “Good cough, you,” to me (but I’m still snickering at the eBay ref). I think I’d just blink at them, then get up and walk away for a little bit.
June 30th, 2006 13:13
I think if a fundie is blessed by a non-Christian, it means the fundie is still unblessed and must find a proper baptized Christian to bless them before the evil phlegm spirits get in and possess their body.
June 30th, 2006 16:49
Yeah, they really ought to have a true Christian toss them into the chilliest river they can find. And, of course, leave their wet clothes on so the blessings are sure to soak in.
July 4th, 2006 11:53
Pan: “(BTW, I’m not an atheist or an agnostic. I’m really more of a “don’t care” individual) :)”
Merriam-Webster: “agnostic (ag-’näs-tik): one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god”
Not to be a dick, now, just being informative.
July 4th, 2006 13:10
where the river boat…
I was waiting for this kind of posts ……
July 4th, 2006 13:59
So, yeah, spambots found me. I deleted one before this last one…but look at the link. I can’t figure out the point of this one.
July 4th, 2006 20:34
Sweet Jesus. This is either J. Rambo’s latest foray into web publishing, or the real secret contest.
Better clear my calendar for the next couple of days just in case…
July 5th, 2006 13:09
Thanks, K. I didn’t look it up before-hand, but at http://www.dictionary.com, the def is:
ag·nos·tic
1.
a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.
This is more consistant with what I was taught as a kid, which was that an agnostic “didn’t believe there was any way to prove the existence of God.”
As far as I’m concerned, there may be certainly be a way to prove or disprove the existence of God — I just don’t care. I figure you live a good life, treat people with respect, etc., and if there’s a God, he’ll probably treat you pretty well, and if there’s not a God, you’ve still lived a good life.
July 24th, 2006 18:12
People used to think it was your soul trying to escape from your body or some moronic crap like that.
July 24th, 2006 19:18
Spinn: I get flooded with spam pretty constantly. I finally ended up setting it to “hold comments until approval/only allow people with previously approved comments to bypass filter”. It’s pretty easy, with the little moderation panel in WordPress.
There are actually some amusing ones in the filter that seem like vulgar poetry. The interesting aspect of those, really, are the selling points of the boobs in question: “fake”, “saggy”, “wrinkled”, etc. It’s a little disturbing.
July 24th, 2006 20:55
Yeah, but I can’t be bothered. I’d rather comments went up right away. Actually, Akimset does a great job of filtering spam–I think about three have gotten through, but it caught 116 in that time.