Blessings

[triskellian]

Someone in the finance department of the institution I work for always finishes his phone calls with 'bless you'. I just took a message from him for an officemate, and received his blessings along with his thanks, and thus was born a poll:

[Poll #1183424]

I 'bless' people who sneeze, and I accept 'blessings' when I sneeze, but being 'blessed' over the phone by a man I have never met, and whose religious inclinations I know nothing about, makes me uncomfortable.

So now I'm trying to work my way out of the contradiction by changing my response to people sneezing (probably to 'gesundheit' or nothing). I dislike the way Christianity is sometimes seen as the default in this country - this seems to me to do a disservice to the people who genuinely are Christian, as well as to people who are not - and I try not to buy into it with my own actions, but sneezing has been an oversight. So no more dispensing blessings on behalf of a god I do not believe in - feel free to remind me of this if you notice me slipping ;-)

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I dislike the way Christianity is sometimes seen as the default in this country

Likewise, but in a modern context I'm not sure I'd take "bless you" as Christian (particularly since I use it myself as a non-Christian).