When a person tells you “Have a blessed day” and you don’t like it, here’s what to tell them:
“It’s a bad idea for you to say that to someone like me who doesn’t like it. First, I will try to stay away from as much as possible. Second, I will try to do exactly the opposite of what you have suggested i do. Third, you will have made sure I will never become a Christian. Then when you die eventually, St. Peter at the Pearly Gates will say, ‘You have driven many people away from heaven. You did this because you didn’t care whether they went to heaven. You just care to make yourself look like a swell person, even though you aren’t . I am now dropping you into hell. You will be next to all those people who you caused to go to hell. You will spend the rest of eternity in pain from burning and being told by the people next to you that you caused them to spend the rest of eternity in pain from burning.
If someone unambiguously wishes you well, and your response is that they didn’t phrase it exactly to your liking, that’s 100% a you problem.
Feel however you want, but hopefully you’re not upbraiding people for saying basically “have a nice day” in a mildly pious manner. They’re not trying to convert you, they’re not prying into the state of your salvation, they’re not taking your money to put up a nativity scene. They’re just wishing you well. Accept it and move on.
As I noted a few posts ago, having once been a member of an Evangelical group, I disagree. I’m pretty certain that “have a blessed day” is a mild – and absolutely intentional – form of evangelism.
I’m not offended by people saying it, but I don’t think it’s as innocuous as some people here feel that it is.
Ref that same post I’d ask @HMS_Irruncible generally where they live or have lived. Not out of hostility, but rather a suspicion that their lived experience of this may be very mild just to nonexistent because of where they’ve lived. And for others who’ve lived in Xian Evangelical World, the lived experience is quite different.
In the parts of the country where “blessed day” is rampant they most assuredly are trying to inform you, convert you, and discover whether you’re one of Us or one of Them.
I’m sure most of us here would resent “Have a MAGA day!” no matter how sweetly it was uttered or how sincerely the person saying it believed that sentiment is in our (or their) best interest.
I say “gesundheit” in English. I have for decades. Both that and “bless you” were common in my youth, and i decided i preferred “good health” to “God bless”. I don’t think very hard about what other people say, though.
Never mind, then.
I live in mostly atheist communities in the North East. I have rarely (never?) heard “have a blessed day”. I would find it somewhat jarring. But i would reply, “same to you”.
When i shared news of my husband’s illness, Christian friends wished him blessings, and said they would pray for him. While it’s not how i would express that sentiment, it was a meaningful expression of their concern, and i said " thank you".
When i was helping a Syrian refugee learn English, he sometimes did say
To me. Except, we were talking with Google translate at the time, and he threw in other words, and it came out as someone like “if God is willing”. So again, i said, “thanks”, or just acknowledged the sentiment.
Once, when i went to the office every day, the cashier at the cafeteria, who was dressed in a hijab and looked middle eastern, wished me a Merry Christmas. (I’m Jewish. It was actually Hanukkah.) Feeling slightly silly, i wished her a merry Christmas, too.
I don’t feel it’s worth thinking too hard about random social expressions of goodwill.
If you have to reach into the well of your own personal experience to illuminate what someone really meant when they wished you well, you’re already overreaching.
Mostly in Georgia, in the Atlanta area. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. I walked away from it as a young adult, I’ve seen the full range of evangelism, and “have a blessed day” doesn’t even ping even the lowest register of my Jesus meter.
The people I know who make a habit of saying “have a blessed day” are Black women, church ladies of middle age and up. I think they definitely are expressing that they’re Christian, but it goes no further than that, so calling it “evangelism” is really a stretch. Honestly to me it’s overwhelmingly a Black cultural thing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a white person do this. A white evangelical will be going for a harder sell, if they’re evangelizing.
Just because someone signals their piety doesn’t mean they’re trying to convert you! People are allowed to be mildly religious in your presence! It seems like some of you have never really seen what a hard-sell evangelical culture looks like.
YMMV. I don’t really care to argue with you if you disagree, but to say that my own personal experience has no relevance to this, in order to prove your point, is unnecessarily dismissive.
You have your religious experience that says one thing, I have my own that says something different. I definitely do dismiss the idea that anyone’s personal experience allows them to read minds. I have no trouble at all dismissing that.
If their evangelism towards me is limited to “have a blessed day” i am okay just ignoring it. And hey, if you believe the Christian story, it’s an act of love to help others find Christianity.
Yes, I’ll be annoyed if someone pushes their religion at me in a way that affects me. But it takes me just about as long to listen to “have a blessed day” as to listen to “have a nice day”. That’s well within my tolerance.
I will argue (as a sort of devil’s advocate, I suppose) that not all people who are religious believe their group superior to other groups. Most, probably, but with notable exceptions. One guess (having no personal experience) is that Quakers/Friends probably don’t feel superior, also Universalist Unitarians; the Baha’i faith has non-superiority as doctrine. Also, religious tolerance is not just tolerance of religion but tolerance of lack of religion.
I agree with your disdain of religions in general, but not with your broad brush about feeling superior.
Of course I do not upbraid them. But I suppose you are injecting some of your preferences and prejudices by presuming that all such “mildly pious” expressions are unambiguous well wishing.
Let’s see - how many zillion ways might we choose to wish someone well without including any reference to some fairy tale? Now tell me how injecting a reference to one’s preferred delusional prejudice makes the well wishing more or less ambiguous?
I would possibly accept that many such expressions are “unthinking.” But I’d suggest that rather than speak unthinkingly, most people would do better keeping their damned mouths shut.
Probably accurate. But I’d suggest that Quakers/UUs/Baha’i might strive to be aware enough to realize that their “blessings” might not be well received. (IME w/ UU, far too many perceive UU as Christianity lite.)
My feelings arise out of being a lifelong atheist and watching this creeping passive aggressive evangelizing over all that time. It gets worse and worse, and I have no doubt @kenobi_65 is right when he expresses how this is a deliberate act on the part of many.
When I was young, no one shoved their religion in my face. People greeted each other in neutral ways. My religious views (or lack of same) never arose, and neither did those of people I encountered. This seemed good for everyone. And this was in Salt Lake City, where being religious is kind of a big deal.
But as time went on, I noticed these little virtue signals cropping up more and more. “Oh, nice to meet you. What church do you belong to?” And the “have a blessed day,” stuff, too, along with other pointed religious comments in everyday communication. “God was protecting us!” e.g., to explain a financial windfall or someone else’s house catching fire. Interesting that the frequency of it increased in lockstep with Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority” and the adoption of confrontational religious language such as evangelicals referring to themselves as “prayer warriors”.
This practice of prying into the religious backgrounds of others has grown and grown throughout the years. I hear the “have a blessed day!” rather regularly here in Oregon, as recently as last Friday at my doctor’s office. (It wasn’t directed at me, so I said nothing.) I find it disturbing.
I also think one reason it has taken hold is because there is seldom pushback. In a society founded as secular, creeping acceptance of a state religion – and I have little doubt this is what is driving most of this introduction of regular Christian language into our national dialogue – is not something I will tolerate without comment. I am not rude. I am not mean. But I try to make my point that assumptions about my religious views are a bit rude.
Years ago, a colleague began holding Bible studies in our jury rooms on our lunch hour. I didn’t make a fuss, just asked the supervisors when I could begin holding my Skeptics meetings in another jury room at lunch. That took care of it. I will not let it go unchallenged. There are great places for people to loudly and proudly express their religious views. They care called churches, mosques, synagogues and temples. Also private homes.
I long for the days when we didn’t wear our faith on our sleeves. I can’t tell you how many times in recent years tradespeople whom I don’t know from a jelly doughnut and are here only to perform a service, have pointedly asked about my beliefs under the guise of casual conversation. These are white people, always men, and there is a vague, confrontational edge to their questioning. I really don’t like it and I won’t passively encourage it.
Of course religious tolerance isn’t wrong, and bootstrapping that comment into such a perspective is disingenuous and ridiculous. But tolerance of the non-religious is also not wrong. Co-opting their reluctant agreement with your beliefs by wearing those beliefs on your shoulder is rude and manipulative.
