The World's Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities!

What to say when you don't want to invoke god!

We need to put together a dictionary of phrases that express our meanings without invoking god. My reason for doing this is that i don't want people to think I'm religious, so I don't want to say things like "Thank god!" or "I'll pray for you."

So I have a few, but PLEASE add your own -- maybe we can make a document or page about it. Mine are:

(Of Jewish origin) saying BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) instead of BC (before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini = in the year of our Lord -- he ain't MY lord, that's for sure!)

Saying "I'll keep you in my thoughts" instead of "I'll pray for you" because I won't. Even the Quaker "I'll hold you in the light" is better than promising to pray for someone. When I hear that someone is gravely ill, I say "I hope for the best possible outcome" which doesn't specify what that outcome is -- sometimes it's recovery, but sometimes, it's the deliverance of that person from their suffering.

"For goodness' sake!" instead of "For god's sake"

"By all that is in me" instead of "By god!" Because all I have to offer is what is in me and what I have to give.

"I am grateful" rather than "I am blessed" because maybe it's only the uncaring universe that I have to be grateful to, but gratitude is a very human emotion.Even "Thanks to the luck", because luck is a human, but not a deistic concept.

"Gezundheit" (which means "Health!") or just "To your health" instead of "god bless you" when someone sneezes. Or be like the Japanese and say nothing at all -- a sneeze isn't very meaningful in these modern days!

I dunno -- I may think up more, but I'd be VERY interested to see what other people come up with -- I KNOW there are a lot of fertile minds out there! :-)

6 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by mistercliff on July 2, 2011 at 11:31pm

I try to eliminate as many of these as possible, but like with political correctness it reaches a point of reductio ad absurdum. I don't believe in Thor, but I can't be bothered to come up with a new word for Thursday! Frankly, I like leaving some of those vestigial superstitious elements in there as reminders.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on July 2, 2011 at 11:38pm

"yi bai sui" is a Mandarin response. Pronunciation is '"ee bye suey" We started saying this in my workplace. It means "one hundred years" and is a blessing implying "may you live 100 years". Replaces Gesundheit or bless you.

Having grown up Baptist, I was taught that the only appropriate response in for certain moments was "Oh sweet jesus" and still use it. There is also "jesus fucking christ" which I like for it's pure blasphemy.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Joe Swam on July 3, 2011 at 6:39am

When someone sneezes I say "congratulations" since sneezing is often a response to unwanted foreign particles in the nasal cavities. I used to say "congratulations on expelling your particulate". I now go with the shortened version. When I sneeze and someone says "bless you", I say "not necessary" and let them know that my sneezing is a sign that my body is functioning properly. I take pleasure in a friend telling me they were somewhere with a friend who sneezed and instantly thought, "If Joe were here, he would say congratulations." I'm the strange guy in my social circle...and I like it that way.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by dolo724 on July 10, 2011 at 12:26pm

Congratulations! I'm stealing that. thanks.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by New Atheist on September 20, 2011 at 1:58pm

Nice! That's the best response I've heard for sneezing yet!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Joe Swam on September 21, 2011 at 9:05am

Thanks!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by booklover on July 3, 2011 at 7:29am

On an episode of Seinfeld they started saying "You're SO good looking!" when someone sneezed. lol. I don't remember what their reason was. Of course this can't be true in all cases... ;)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Maurisio Santiago on July 6, 2011 at 1:07am

Salud = "Health" when a person sneezes

Question "How you doing?"

Possible answers in place of "Blessed" are:

1. None of your business! ;)

2. None of your "g/d" business!! ;) ;)

2. Terrible

3. Good

4. Very Good

5. Outstanding

If you're feeling devilish (lol) say the following:

6. Very good without the lord in my life (Just watch the looks of shock)

But if you really want to have a little bit of non belief fun, invoke the names of dead gods:

"Thank Zeus, Mercury, Apollo, Babalu, etc...."

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by roland707 on July 6, 2011 at 9:15am

I tend to say "Oh, man!" or "Holy crap, Marie!" instead of OMG. I still say godammit when I'm really mad, and immediately feel stupid for having said it (no god to damn anything). Having come to this realization I try to use the work F*ck instead.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jennie Devlin on July 8, 2011 at 3:22pm

i usually substitute universe for god as in thank the universe! or praise the universe! when writing things out to be snarky. my swearing is usually confined to my head as i have small children around :) but using fuck for everything there seems to work just fine lol i've never been one for the 'goddamnits' or 'jesuschrists' anyway. its funny how often you notice these things and how common they are in everyday speech when you are not a theist lol :)

also anything ron burgundy is the best 'by the beard of zeus'! great odins raven! :)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Matt VDB on July 10, 2011 at 9:49am

Here's some more changes to the atheist dictionairy that I would propose:

First of all, having a week be 7 days doesn't seem very non-religious of us. It is after all based on the Bible and we don't want that! I propose to count our weeks in 12 days, but then again maybe that's a bad idea because 12 is associated with religious symbolism as well. Maybe we should just stop talking about weeks altogether.

And on that same subject, I think we should do away with words like Thursday, because that comes from the word Thor and I don't believe in Thor lol!

And there's much much more we could be changing!

(Or psssssssssssssst, we can recognise that using the word God in an expression isn't the end of the world)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Anne Atheist on September 19, 2011 at 4:11pm

Sorry, I just can't let this slip (or maybe I should be happy to remove a Biblically myth): the 7 days of the week are not based on the Bible, but the 7 heavenly objects that moves between the stars: the Sun, the Moon and the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and the names of the days in different languages refer to the names of the gods related to the objects (there are off course exceptions as the German Mittwoch (the middle of the week) and the Norwegian Lørdag (the day to have a bath)).

And consider this: if the Bible truly was the origin of the week, the names of the days would not have been from non-biblical gods.

And if Uranus had been slightly brighter we might have 8 day weeks :-)

By the wave a look at this thread to get some more input on the (lack of) originality of the Bible.

And, when I'm really pissed off I call for Hell - not the religious place but a realy-realy unplesant place where I want someone or something to go. When I get that angry you'd better stay clear for a minute or two lol!