God and popular expressions - aren't we touchy?

[Oualawouzou]

Hello everybody,

I was just reading this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=84256) (this thread is only an example, my point is more general) and I realized something. Aren't we getting a little touchy about people using popular expressions that have their roots in religion?

I don't know if I can make myself clear in the abstract, so let me use an example instead...

I say "Thank God" when a bad situation turns out surprisingly well. I do not believe in god. But I feel this expression is no longer intimately related to a religious view of the world. Culturally, it has become a way to express satisfaction and relief. How many people who say "Thank God" really are picturing themselves waving to the Big Guy In The Sky? How many say "Thank God" because it's a short and unambiguous (and much less stilted) way to say "I am very glad things turned out as well as they did despite unfavorable odds"?

How many of us use "miracle" to mean "something unexplainable God did", and how many say "miracle" when they mean "an unlikely event that, I'm happy to say, nonetheless came to pass"?

Can't Christmas be called Christmas even if we don't worship Jesus Christ? Hasn't that name firmly implanted itself in our cultural background, independantly (sp?) of the religious dogma behind it?

Aren't we getting a little touchy, treating each and every utterance of a word or expression finding its roots in religion as a blatant embrace of this religion and a negation of what mankind has accomplished on its own?

[Yiab]

I agree. I mean, a gigantic part of language is based in one religion or another. Are we going to stop calling them holidays (holy days), suddenly? That sort of extreme behaviour would get pretty hellish.

[mijopaalmc]

Another good example is "good-bye".

Who uses that to mean "God be with ye" anymore?

[Hokulele]

"God Bless You" after sneezing.

[Tumblehome]

Et le petit mort:

"Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God...!"

I hardly think anyone's mind at that moment is on religion.

[athon]

I've often said that superstition - including religion - has two major components to it. One is the belief that is rooted in reality. The thought that 13 and black cats really are unlucky, that blessing somebody helps them in some way, that dreams can foresee the future. The other component is the one which helps perpetuate the first, but is distinct from it. It is the social behaviour. Such beliefs aren't owned by individuals but rather by communities. Understanding the behaviour and relevant language ties you into the community, helping you bond socially.

Most people don't invest a great deal of belief in the supernatural and superstitious. They don't dismiss it and will entertain the possibility, but that's mostly out of a respect for the social belief and having been raised to praise all opinions as being equal. So using the language and performing the behaviours is partially out of a practice raised in the community.

I will often blaspheme out of such practice, or praise god, not with any real point but as one would use a foreign expression without knowing the meaning of it. It's a social practice rather than any real superstition.

Skeptics should take care that they don't become too voracious in their attacks on such behaviours. Superstitious behaviour as a cultural system is not intrinsically a bad thing; only when those practicing it invest in its reality does it begin to do harm.

Athon

[Brown]

When I hear the word "Christmas," I think about Christ about as much as I think about Thor when I hear the word "Thursday."

(Here's an idea for a bumper sticker: "Put 'Thor' back in 'Thursday.'" You can also do "Put 'Mars' back in 'March'" or "Put 'Saturn' back in 'Saturday.'" Better yet: when someone says to you, "Put Christ back in Christmas," you can immediately reply, "Yeah! And put Thor back in Thursday, too!", and everyone will think you're very witty, except for the guy you topped.)

I used to live near St. Paul, Minnesota. There was never a time when my passage through the city or use of its facilities required me to acknowledge that Paul was actaully a saint.

[Civilized Worm]

This reminds me of Richard Dawkins' response to a question from an Independant reader:


Does your wife ever say "Bless you" after you sneeze, just to annoy you? DOUG MACKENZIE DODDS, Reading

Bless you, I'd have to be dreadfully literal-minded to be annoyed by that. What do you take me for, one of those people who sends Christmas cards to The Archers?

Note for non-brits: The Archers is a popular radio soap opera.

[largeprimenumber]

This thread also contains related discussion of the topic. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=83886)

[Lensman]

Put the Moon back in Month

Put the Wotan back in Wednesday

Put the Freya back in Friday

Put the Tiw back in Tuesday

Put the Janus back in January

...it's quite a list!

[Darth Rotor]

Et le petit mort:

"Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God...!"

I hardly think anyone's mind at that moment is on religion.
I hearby authorize any and all ladies so taken with ecstasy to moan

"Oh Darth, Oh Darth Oh Darth"

as loudly as possible, if they wish to avoid mixing religion and sex like that. (Look what that did for Ted Haggard, and Jimmy Swaggart.)

"I felt a disturbance in the Force, like a thousand orgasmic ladies moaning . . . "

DR

[TragicMonkey]

When someone sneezes, the blessing they've earned is proportional to the strength of the sneeze. If it's just a little "achoo", then "Bless you" is fine. If it's a prolonged twenty-in-a-row skull-shaking pollen allergy bout, they've earned a ceremonious "May the blessings of holy Heaven fall squarely upon your undeserving head, my child", accompanied with much bishoply crossing. When they look at you blankly, tell them they're supposed to genuflect. If you have water nearby, quickly bless it then sprinkle them with it. And fried chicken grease, when sanctified, becomes holy oil suitable for anointing of foreheads.

[Ladewig]

How many of us use "miracle" to mean "something unexplainable God did", and how many say "miracle" when they mean "an unlikely event that, I'm happy to say, nonetheless came to pass"?

I never use that term to mean "an unlikely event that, I'm happy to say, nonetheless came to pass." I have never heard a single member of this board to use it in that manner. Given the extremely large numbers of people who use the word to mean a divine suspension of natural laws, I think it is appropriate to avoid using it to mean something else.

Can't Christmas be called Christmas even if we don't worship Jesus Christ? Hasn't that name firmly implanted itself in our cultural background, independantly (sp?) of the religious dogma behind it?


Yes, it can be called Christmas. On the other hand, I know of no one who has ever suggested that it not be called Christmas. Professional chucklehead Bill O'Reilly is the only person I have ever heard suggest that atheists hate the word and are trying to remove it from common useage.

[Kilgore Trout]

I'm not sure what I'd say if not for "thank God" or "thank goodness." If someone pushes a baby carriage out of the way of a bus, "fantastic" or "cool" don't quite seem to capture the feeling. I'll also wish someone luck, though more as a hope they have good fortune, not that I'm praying they beat the odds.

However, I actually don't say "bless you" when someone sneezes, if I say anything it's 'gesundheit'. It's a silly superstition anyway. It's a sneeze for crying out loud. People don't say anything about any of my other noisome noisy bodily functions. Well, at least not enough to start a superstition complete with automatic replies.

[Oualawouzou]

I never use that term to mean "an unlikely event that, I'm happy to say, nonetheless came to pass." I have never heard a single member of this board to use it in that manner. Given the extremely large numbers of people who use the word to mean a divine suspension of natural laws, I think it is appropriate to avoid using it to mean something else.


You've never heard expressions such as "a miracle of modern medicine"? Perhaps it's a regional thing.

And I'm not sure this board is representative of society at large. The vast, vast majority of people here have a definite bias against religion (sorry, it's a confrontationnal way to phrase it, but I can't find another way to put it at the moment), so they react strongly (sometimes too strongly, that's my point) to language that relates in some way to religion. I'd wager that the majority of non-believers, people who are simply "meh" about religion, use words such as "miracle" to refer to very real things, without regards to their supernatural angle.

Yes, it can be called Christmas. On the other hand, I know of no one who has ever suggested that it not be called Christmas. Professional chucklehead Bill O'Reilly is the only person I have ever heard suggest that atheists hate the word and are trying to remove it from common useage.

You've been spared the brouhaha of cities trying hard to rename the big trees with lights on them planted before their city hall anything but "Christmas trees"? Lucky you! :)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think that the sailing life of the 19th Century and earlier was quite dangerous and should be frowned upon. Therefore we must remove all sailing-related idioms from our language.

I may be three sheets to the wind, but the cat is out of the bag and there will be the Devil to pay unless, by and large, we batten down the hatches and jury rig, toe the line, listen to the scuttlebutt, and forge head to the bitter end until we're on another tack and have taken the wind out of his sails.

~~ Paul

[The Atheist]

Aren't we getting a little touchy, treating each and every utterance of a word or expression finding its roots in religion as a blatant embrace of this religion and a negation of what mankind has accomplished on its own?

Well put.

I frequently draw ire (which pleases me, so I do it more often) for using expressions like "Christian name" instead of "given" or "first" name and for using the archaic AD & BC instead of the politically correct CE and BCE.

The type of people I mix with wouldn't know what a CE was and I was brought up with AD and BC and putting like that has nothing to do with whether any god was born in the year 1, or at all.

I often thank god for things and "Jesus" is my favourite [verbal] ejaculation.

& excellent sailing metaphors, Paul!

[jesus_freak]

Why is it when someone stubs their toe they take the Lords name in vein and don't shout Mohammed, or when they hit their thumb with a humer scream Buddah? Why the hatred for Christ?

[The Great Hairy One]

Why is it when someone stubs their toe they take the Lords name in vein and don't shout Mohammed, or when they hit their thumb with a humer scream Buddah? Why the hatred for Christ?


Depends where you grew up. I had a friend from Egypt at university, whenever he dropped something, or stubbed his toe, he yelled out "ouch, by allah!" or something like that. The best one was when he dropped a TV set on his foot in college one time, and screamed out something particularly rude with reference to Mohammad and allah. Was very amusing.

Cheers,
TGHO

[The Atheist]

Why is it when someone stubs their toe they take the Lords name in vein and don't shout Mohammed, or when they hit their thumb with a humer scream Buddah? Why the hatred for Christ?

On the other hand, look at how many people shout out the name of your god during sex. real love-hate relationship going on there.

[Ladewig]

Why is it when someone stubs their toe they take the Lords name in vein and don't shout Mohammed, or when they hit their thumb with a humer scream Buddah? Why the hatred for Christ?

For me, the reason is simple. I have known fundamentalist Christians who insist that everything is God's will. If your child dies from cancer, they will show up at the funeral and say that it was God's will. If a bus falls off a bridge while carrying a college basketball team, they say it was God's will. On the other hand, Buddhists never ascribe these events to the will of a divine being. Using the Christians' reasoning, if I drop a hammer on my foot, it was God's will. At that particular moment, I am very interested in determining why Jesus willed the hammer to fall on my foot, so I call out His name to get His attention.

[RUnuts]

I always wondered if a Branch Davidian stubbed his toe did he yell "David Koresh!!!"

[Oualawouzou]

Swearing is a way to break a taboo because you are pissed off. So pissed off in fact that you are telling the world "I JUST DON'T ****** CARE ANYMORE!" Why do you think "mother-effer" is also a strong swear word? Because it breaks incest, a huge taboo still. The Christian religion has imposed loads of taboo on western cultures for the past 2000 years; it only makes sense that breaking those taboos by disrespecting religions in various ways is the most common way to express anger at the Universe At Large. (ETA: So it has nothing to do with hatred for Jesus on a personnal level. Though he may have been a dick, for all I know.)

I bet that if atheism ever becomes the dominant mindset, people will start screaming "Stephen H. Hawkins on a pogo stick!" when they get a nasty paper cut.

[The Great Hairy One]

I bet that if atheism ever becomes the dominant mindset, people will start screaming "Stephen H. Hawkins on a pogo stick!" when they get a nasty paper cut.

More likely "Dawkins!" or "Evo-Devo!". ;)

Cheers,
TGHO

[JoeTheJuggler]

Why is it when someone stubs their toe they take the Lords name in vein and don't shout Mohammed, or when they hit their thumb with a humer scream Buddah? Why the hatred for Christ?

Because, as has been pointed out in this thread, these expletives don't have anything to do with religious beliefs. They're merely culturally inherited words.

In the same way, your using the words "Wednesday" or "Thursday" or "Saturday" has nothing to do with your belief or atheism regarding the gods Odin, Thor and Saturn.

[wolfgirl]

Why is it when someone stubs their toe they take the Lords name in vein and don't shout Mohammed, or when they hit their thumb with a humer scream Buddah? Why the hatred for Christ?It's just a cultural reference that we are all familiar with. (And it's "in vain" not "in vein." Veins are those things through which blood flows through our bodies.)

[Lensman]

I think that the term "motherf****r" is singularly inappropriate, if a man is married & has children, anytime he makes love to his wife he's being a "m**********r".

(BTW, It's not a term I use very often, I also don't use the "C" word much either.)

[Dark Jaguar]

I agree here. It is really pretty stupid to focus on all these little things. I'll bring them up if I notice them but the reality is I don't think it's worth making a fuss over and the majority of people are just using it as an expression. Very few actually rub in the expression as some way of making their religious leanings explicit and in your face (people who forcefully SHOUT "Merry CHRISTMAS" come to mind, but they are the exception, not the rule). Yes, we shouldn't make a big deal of it.

For my part, most of the people I know ARE religious but in fact don't bother saying anything at all when you sneeze, and I prefer it that way. Not for religious reasons, it's just annoying if you are having a sneezing fit to hear someone force out a "bless you" or "excuse you" or "kazuntite" like 5 times in a row. Further, I don't like putting someone else out for something that doesn't benefit either of us. The two friends I have who DO do this out of habbit I've told them a few times it's completely okay to just let it go and I won't feel offended or anything for such neglect. They are the only two that bother with such things though. I think that "nicety" is on it's way out, and good riddance. It can go the way "elbows off the table" went. What else is a table for? :D

[The Grave]

:eek: Whenever I talk to faithers, they invariably say...

You have a christian name
You celebrate christmas
The holy-days you take off..........Bla bla bla......

And I'm sick to the back teeth of IT!

I make every effort not to use these terms....


I never say 'bless you/me' when sneezing. I say excuse me/pardon me...
I always sign cards 'Merry Xmas'. Or season's greetings/happy new year.
I do not have a christian name... I have a first name! And a last name.
Faithers have always tried to own words... and let them have them! I prefer to use better names.

Hopefully MEMES will take over and religious bigotry will be a thing of the past.

The ironic thing about this is that when a faither gets upset about people using a word that 'offends' them; that's o.k. we must respect their religion... :D not.

But if a NON-believer exclaims disapproval for being told they have a christain name, oh, that's not o.k. they must be a lunatic or something....:boggled:

Oh yes that's another thing faithers have going for them... double standards....:rolleyes:

Which btw are supported by {YOU} the most liberal liberalists who like to joke they are atheists!

Protons be with you my friend! Salutations to your gonads!

Griff...

[korenyx]

Having worked with both Christians and Pagans I just say Bless You and they can choose God or Goddess.

One of my co-workers dropped something and said "Mother of God!"
I told her she was still Catholic no matter what she said. I'm a Methodist and it would never cross my mind to say that.

Kore

[kerikiwi]

I always sign cards 'Merry Xmas'. Or season's greetings/happy new year.



What a strange thing to do when someone has suffered a bereavement...

[thatguywhojuggles]

"God Bless You" after sneezing.


I always say "Bless you dammit!"

Love the reactions I get.

[thatguywhojuggles]

...Not for religious reasons, it's just annoying if you are having a sneezing fit to hear someone force out a "bless you" or "excuse you" or "kazuntite" like 5 times in a row. ...


In Bolivia, where I grew up, if a person sneezes once, you say "Salud!" or "Health" if they sneeze a second time you say "Dinero!" or "Money!" and if they sneeze a third time you say, "Amor!" or "Love!"

I never heard of any saying that would come after the fourth and fifth sneeze... but it should probably involve "You should get that checked out."

[JoeEllison]

I usually say something about Satan...

[Safe-Keeper]

Why the hatred for Christ?What is it with Christians and calling every least little annoyance 'hatred'? Pardon me, but I think religious faith has really been sacred for too long if you can't even handle minor things like this.

I say 'lord God' (in Norse) when I get shocked or scared for the same reason I call the third day of the week onsdag (Odin's day). Not because I'm a pagan or Christian, or because I want to bash either of them. I use those words simply because my culture has taught me to do so. Words and habits are contagious.

If you want to talk swear words, though, I can list you some wonderfully salty Norwegian swear words that I use that have little to do with religion:D.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ojalá es una palabra de origen árabe (ua xa Alah o inshallah) que significa "God grant," o "hopefully." (http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/exercises/ojala/cancion.html)Visite este sitio para saber más sobre la influencia árabe. en España.:

[Muslim influence in Spain still felt in daily life - By Habeeb Salloum] (http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01112001/03.htm)


In other words, the word for "I hope so" in Spanish came from saying something akin to "Allah willing".

Insha' Alla (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insha'Allah)The Spanish word ojalá and the Portuguese word oxalá (both meaning "hopefully") are derived from law šaʾ allāh, a similar phrase meaning "if God willed it" or "if God wished it". In šaʾ Allāh is used for the execution of real actions (I'm going to the store if God wills it); law šaʾ allāh is used to express a wish or desire one cannot fulfill (If God wished [Ojalá] that I could go to the store, but I'm busy). They are an example of the many words borrowed from Arabic due to the Muslim rule of the Iberian Peninsula from the eighth to fifteenth centuries.So apparently there is a Portuguese equivalent as well.

[linusrichard]

To the ideas of
"Put the Thor back in Thursday,"
"Put the Saturn back in Saturday," and
"Put the Janus back in January"
(all of which I love), may I add
"Put the Eostre back in Easter"?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Well while we're at it, let's put the Birthday of the Invincible Sun God back in Christmas.

[CapelDodger]

Put the Moon back in Month

Put the Wotan back in Wednesday

Put the Freya back in Friday

Put the Tiw back in Tuesday

Put the Janus back in January

Put the "leave" back in "believer".


...it's quite a list!

Take the "more" out of "moron" :) .

Not quite a list yet, but I'm working on it.

[CapelDodger]

Well while we're at it, let's put the Birthday of the Invincible Sun God back in Christmas.

I feel an affinity with the solstices and equinoxes because they blend science (the big picture) with the human experience (local significance, pattern-matching, and a good focus for a party).