Religious Curses and Sayings - Do you use them?

[Eilonnwy]

There's no doubt that practically everywhere you go there are mentions of God. From "God Bless You" when you sneeze to saying "Goddamit" when you bang your knee. I was raised Catholic so I have a tendency to say these things.

I've actually stopped saying "God Bless You" or "Bless you" when people sneeze. However when I'm angry I still can't seem to stop cursing with "Goddamnit" or "Jesus Christ!" in same way I would use any other curse word that's not religious. Similarly, I tend to say "Thank God!" when I'm happy about something. It's something that's been so ingrained in my upbringing. They were swears my parents used so of course I began to use them. I've never been able to stop myself. I wish I would, but habits so deeply ingrained are really hard to abandon.

I guess the sneeze thing was easy for me because I always thought it was kind of silly to say after a normal bodily function and similarly I tend to be a quiet person and I don't like speaking when I'm in certain moods especially to strangers. So I just ignore it. When someone says it me after I sneeze I tend to say nothing. I don't feel obligated to thank someone for blessing me. Maybe it's impolite, but it's my silent objection to God being so prevalent in the world and ignoring the reality that not everyone believes in God. (I know there's "In God We Trust" on money, unfortunately I can't boycott money...*sigh*)

What are your views on sayings like these? Did you use them and abandon them? Do you still use them out of habit? Do you think worrying about sayins like these are trivial and don't really matter in the grand scheme of things?

[StewartP]

In france we say "à vos souhaits" which would translate literally as "at your wishes" and has the sense that sneezing is lucky so make a wish.

[Brick-top]

Whenever I'm frustrated I say:

"Oh for the love of God"

When I'm angry it's the usual:

"Jesus christ"
"God sake"
etc.

And I don't find it offensive when someone says "God bless you" or anything similar.

[Eilonnwy]

I don't find "God Bless you" offensive per se, I just don't respond. It's kind of like a "whatever" response

[Brick-top]

I don't find "God Bless you" offensive per se, I just don't respond. It's kind of like a "whatever" response

I once gave a homeless man some money and he kept saying God bless you. I thought it was very nice.

[Eilonnwy]

I once gave a homeless person a cigarrette and he tried to light it backwards and then tried to join in with some hackysack players.

/random

[Brick-top]

I once gave a homeless person a cigarrette and he tried to light it backwards and then tried to join in with some hackysack players.

/random

This one time at band camp....

[Tiberius]

I posted a short article about this today: http://atheistblogger.com/2008/08/29/ath...blasphemy/

[Alan]

There's no problem with using blasphemy without believing.

In fact, I've heard American Christians argue against the use of Christian "blasphemy" (following a strict interpretation of "Thy shalt not take thy God's name in vain") and for using non-Christian motifs (because if you don't believe in their god, there's no harm in using their names, offensive as it may be to their believers) as stand-ins.

I was raised in Christian traditions, so it's only normal that I would use the same curses and phrases as I was exposed to in my childhood. It's a simple matter of ethno-cultural environments.

As I never WAS a believer to start with (my mother tried her best, but ultimately failed -- my father could never be arsed to care either way), it's almost only my exclamations and swearing which shows a (moderate!) Christian background ("Holy shit!", "Oh my God!", "For Christ's sake!", that kind of stuff) anyway.

But the etymological background of those exclamations is not important for my everyday use. The semantics lie in how I use them, not in what they mean in a word-by-word analysis.

Instead of "Oh my God!" I might as well exclaim "Excitement!", "What a surprise!" or "How unexpected!", but that would be unnatural to me. The literal semantics are not the reason I use the phrase, so why should they become the reason NOT to use the phrase? That's about as asinine as political correctness -- I will use "he" as a generic form including potential females if my aesthetics demand it, no matter whose artificially inflated sensitivities it may hurt.

[Edwardo Piet]

I sometimes substitute the word God: stuff like "for f**ks sake!" and I sometimes use both f**k and God like: "Oh my f**kng God"

But I don't believe in God....It's just a habit I guess I picked up off others....

I don't usually say: "Jesus" or "Jesus Christ"...but I'd like to sometimes say "Jesus-Christ-Monkey-Balls" Like they say in that episode of South Park with Michael Jackson in it. I usually don't get round to it