{"id":900,"date":"2010-03-12T10:58:23","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T15:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=900"},"modified":"2010-03-12T10:58:23","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T15:58:23","slug":"god-language-in-our-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=900","title":{"rendered":"God Language in our Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Society has been so dominated by Judeo-Christian beliefs that even people who don\u2019t believe in a god are still brainwashed into using God language. How many times have you said, \u201cGod bless you\u201d after someone sneezes?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod Bless you\u201d is just one example and many non-religious people have started to use other phrases instead of this very theistic one. Why do we say anything at all when people sneeze? The idea was that back in the day people believed that an evil spirit might enter the body when someone sneezes. This is of course ridiculous. In fact this is so ridiculous that no modern Christian still believes it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh my God,\u201d I still say that phrase when something surprising or unfortunate happens. It is an unthinking reaction yet I still say it even though don\u2019t believe in a god. Even \u201choly shit,\u201d \u201cGod damn it\u201d and \u201cJesus Christ\u201d are used by most atheists today.<\/p>\n<p>But the number one religious language holdover has got to be \u201cgoodbye.\u201d Most people have no idea where this term comes from. It is short for the phrase, \u201cMay God be with you on your quest.\u201d Of course, now goodbye has lost the religious component and has become a more generic farewell so I don\u2019t really feel bad about continuing to use it. But the other terms and phrases that retain their obvious religious wording is a little embarrassing.<\/p>\n<p>How should a non-theist deal with such things? Should we create and use more secular terminology and train ourselves into using different terms and phrases? Or should be just claim that those terms and phrases no longer have religious meaning to us and move on?<\/p>\n<p>One thing is certain, even after the vast majority of people abandon religious superstitions and ridiculous beliefs, we are still going to be stuck with a lot of reminders of how these ridiculous beliefs have dominated the world.<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border:0\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=900\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Society has been so dominated by Judeo-Christian beliefs that even people who don\u2019t believe in a god are still brainwashed into using God language. How many times have you said, \u201cGod bless you\u201d after someone sneezes? \u201cGod Bless you\u201d is just one example and many non-religious people have started to use other phrases instead of [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,44,488,642,702],"tags":[2215,1113,2267,2214],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":901,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900\/revisions\/901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}