Source

Overheard every fucking where in response to the utterance of one or more achoos.

What He Said [Verbatim]

“God bless you.”

What He Really Meant

“I’m an idiot who caters to an ancient superstition by responding to a biological function with the invocation of my god’s name and the presumptuous offering of his blessings. I have no sane excuse for doing this, so I generally hide behind the out of courtesy if my intellect is challenged.”

Classification

Petty Annoyance

Rating

Stupidity:  10
Delusion:  5
Cowardice:  1
Weakness:  1
Crankiness:  1

Post Mortem

Saying “god bless you” when someone sneezes might be a common courtesy generally accepted by a large segment of society, but that doesn’t make it rational, reasonable, or warranted.

I used to ignore all achoo interjections in favor of silence, but our lovely society (the one that all too often caters to stupidity as well as the lowest common denominator) has bullied me into an occasional courteous response. I still ignore all sneezes by strangers even if they’re in close proximity. (Fuck them if they think I’m being rude.) But if it’s someone I know personally and I’m too close to claim ignorance, I grudgingly respond with an insicere “Gesundheit!” (which in German loosely means “to your good health”) and explain why if asked. I encourage you all to do likewise on principle alone.

Addendum

I’ve heard a fair number of backpedaling atheists over the years rationalize that “bless you” (as opposed to “god bless you”) somehow doesn’t qualify as an illogical atheist response to a sneeze because the word “god” is omitted – one specifically arguing that “The blessings come from me.” {sigh}

Okay, aside from the fact that the definition of the word “bless” clearly precludes such a thing, it’s a rather disingenuous argument. It’s arguing that yelling “GONNA KILL YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!” somehow gets you off the hook for making a physical threat because you intentionally left out the contraction “I’M.” Trying to remove god from a “blessing” is like trying to remove god from “spirituality.” It happens only in the highly customized dictionary of your mind. But that’s another rant for another day.
 

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