Those (and more) are oft urged to be said under life’s common circumstances. But as an atheist who believes with a high degree of certainty that this ‘God’ person is nothing more than a figment of human imagination I feel a sense of guilt whenever I feel the urge. I sometimes replace ‘God’ with ‘Og’ but those outside the dope are unlikely to know who or what ‘og’ is.
I used to know a guy that said “I swear to Rudy” all the time. Then there’s Bill Murrey’s “Mother Puss Bucket!”
Mine are more reseved problems like “I am blessed” or “I am thankful” were I mean I have a lot to be appreciated but not to imply I have some hidden power to be thankful to, as it were.
I sometimes feel someone might feel better if I said “I’ll say a prayer for you” but I can’t in good concience.
I’ll never get why this makes people feel guilty. I dont believe in Santa Clause, but I wouldn’t have any trouble using his name in an expression.
I say “swear to god” “oh god” “pray to god” and all kinds of crap like that. I dont think it implies I believe anything in particular. And I dont think its hypocritical to say “thank god!” when something good just happened, even if I dont believe in god.
When a person says that, is he really praising his holy lord? Or is he just repeating an expression? I think it’s the latter.
Oh, and I always say “bless you” when someone sneezes. Because it’s polite, and not because I am excersising his demons or something.
What should we say when someone sneezes? “FUCK YOU!”?
Then how’bout “prosit?” Germans use it as a toast to health, but Scandinavians use it for sneezes. At least the ones I know do. Apparently it descends from the Latin, so it makes you sound clever too.