I am not a Christian, ( though I was raised a lapsed Catholic!), but like everyone else, grew up with a wide exposure to Christian habits. Like saying grace, or Thanking Jesus. Pretty prevalent in movies, and on TV.
Sometimes, when something I see totally floors me, I blurt out something like, “Oh My God”, or say, “Bless you!”, after a sneeze, or, 'Well, bless your heart!". Or that moment when you’re racing to a hospital because a loved one has had an accident, and you find yourself saying, “Please, dear God, let her be okay!”.
I do all of these things, and more, really without a second thought. Don’t really see it as anything other than a reflection of the predominant culture I was raised among. But then I got to thinking about your more strident atheists, like some here on our board. How do they view such behaviour I wonder? Do they blurt out such things? Does it give them pause, when they do? Do they strive to remove all such references from their dialogue?
I too was raised with the same exposures. I too say OMG, or “Jesus!” when startled. However, that’s about as far as I go. Those words are just burned into my vocabulary.
I think “bless you” is a silly custom, and don’t usually participate in that. However sometimes I will mutter under my breath “Nothing happens when you die”.
I’m kind of agnostic. I still say things like “Oh my God” or “Thank God.” I don’t tend to say “Bless you” when someone sneezes, not to be rude, but because I don’t like it when people do that to me when I sneeze (more for reasons of embarassment than religion.)
I was a Christian from birth to my late twenties so old habits die hard. I have uttered a prayer or two in desperation and I say “bless you” without a second thought.
I stand at the junction of agnostic, atheist, & heathen. I too say things like “jesus christ!” (or more likely ‘jesus h sandal-wearing christ on a cracker!’ ) when I’m pissed, and “thank god” or “thank heavens” for something good. In writing I don’t capitalize god, because I don’t really think there is one god, and there may be many small local spirits instead… may being the operative word.
To me they are just words now though, they’re a habit and a indicator of what I’m feeling rather than a prayer. Sort of like calling any soft paper product that I blow my nose in a kleenex.
I think there’s a lot of language that is theist in a more subtle way that ‘OMG’ (which I try to avoid). For instance, lots of people, without thinking about it (or maybe they do think about it, I don’t know) will say that they are ‘thankful’ or ‘grateful’ for so and so positive thing in their lives. I personally won’t say that; I appreciate a great deal of things in my life but I don’t really think there’s anyone that I need to thank for, say, being in good health or being talented at something; it’s just dumb luck.
I made an effort to scrub expressions like that out of my speech because I didn’t like the idea of saying things that reflect beliefs I rejected. Yes, a lot of them are reflections of your background rather than actual religious beliefs, but I just didn’t like that idea.
Raised Christian in a few very religious homes, did a lot of spiritual seeking and studied lots of different religions in my 20’s, turned atheist in my early 30’s.
I still catch myself saying “Bless you” when someone sneezes, and while I’m saying it I realize there’s nothing there to ‘bless’ them.
I’ve changed “thank god” to “thank goodness”, but still say “Goddamn”. They’re just speech habits.
Put it another way: how you do you feel when someone goes out of their way to signal their refusal to use “cultural artifact” words and phrases? Doesn’t it make you go :rolleyes: at times?
There’s a fine line between appropriate Political Correctness and The Fight to Save Christmas…
I was raised by atheists, and we never used any of those phrases. When I heard someone say them, I felt uncomfortable and definitely like it was something I’d never say, in spite of the fact that the speaker rarely seemed to be making literal reference to an actual god with their exclamations.
Now though, I will break out with a “Jesus Motherf***ing Christ” or similar if the occasion demands it. It’s just a rhetorical expression.
When somebody says f-ck are they really referring to sexual intercourse? When they say c-nt are they really referring to a certain part of the female anatomy? When they say sh-t are they really referring to excrement?
Seems to me in all the above cases the answer is very often no. They are just expletives. Similarly with “Jesus Haploid Christ!” and friends. As such I don’t consider them to be true invocations of the christian diety. I will use them (I am atheist) and I don’t consider other’s use of them to be a reflection of their beliefs. I use gesundheit instead of bless you out of habit, but for the same reason I couldn’t care less if somebody says bless you when I sneeze.
I use ‘oh my god’ all the time - of course, I don’t have a god, so I’m not offending anyone/thing - and those that have one think I mean theirs anyway.
As for how I use the various things in ‘real life’ - depends on the audience - I try hard not to offend people just to offend them - so I pick/tune my use of language accordingly - most of the time I just don’t use these terms.
Religions are very good about brainwashing people almost from birth. If you were exposed to religion at a young age, as I was, those phrases do get burned into your psyche.
Nah, I don’t worry about it. I say ‘jesus christ’ and ‘damn it’ when I’m upset, I say ’ bless you’ if someone sneezes, ‘from your mouth to god’s ear’, ‘lord willing’, and all sorts of phrases like that. I’ve never had someone question my atheism.
The one I struggle with is situations where it would be appropriate to say, "you’re in my prayers’. ‘You’re in my thoughts,’ is ok, but it doesn’t feel quite as supportive. My thoughts could be ‘what a bitch, they deserve their misfortune’ but generally that’s not the sort of prayer one would think.
When you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, “Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!” or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!” - Terry Pratchett
I’m not sure what you mean by a ‘strident’ atheist, but my opinion of it seems to be much along the lines you’ve given. It’s a cultural thing. I occasionally blurt such things out, it doesn’t give me pause.
) when I’m pissed, and “thank god” or “thank heavens” for something good. In writing I don’t capitalize god, because I don’t really think there is one god, and there may be many small local spirits instead… may being the operative word.