One of the things I noticed not long after becoming an atheist was how much christianity and religion is soaked into the fabric of society. Here are a few glaring examples:
- Taking Sundays off
- Blue States where they won’t sell alcohol on Sundays
- Saying “bless you” when someone sneezes
- Christmas, Easter, St. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, All Saints Day, etc., etc….
- Common expressions like oh my god, jesus!, jesus christ, damnit, damn, holy anything, etc., etc…
As an atheist, I wonder, is it necessary to remove and de-christianize ourselves as much as possible? My husband sneezed this morning and I said “bless you.” It’s a habit to say it. I apologized and said, “you’re so good looking” instead. (A Seinfeld episode reference.)
If you think about it, saying “bless you” is a very old superstition. Is it really necessary to say it when we are trying to rid ourselves of this woo thinking?
For holidays, I find that it’s a time to get together with family. Since I’ve gone godless, I send holiday cards, not christmas cards, I wish people happy holidays, not merry christmas, and so on. Most people don’t even notice. But for me, I find that it’s important to de-christianize my thoughts, actions and words.
For some things, there’s nothing we can do. Banks will continue to be closed on Sundays, some states will continue to refuse sale of alcohol on Sundays, the big holidays will always have a christian theme to them for most people. For me, I take notice, but I accept that I’m not going to change those laws or change the beliefs of everyone.
But in my mind, I am working towards removing all superstitions, de-christianizing my expressions, and removing religion from the holidays for myself.
It’s not an easy process, as I’ve been saying bless you since I learned to talk. Also, some people are hurt if you don’t say bless you when they sneeze.
Which leads me to the next issue. If it can’t be removed entirely, can it be replaced with god-free alternatives? What would those alternatives be?
- The sneeze “bless you”
- expressions like goddamnit, oh my god, dear god
- expressions like jesus christ!, jesus, sweet baby jesus
- expressions like damnit, damn, holy (anything)
I’ll admit it. I swear. I have no problem with it. I’m polite in mixed company, but otherwise I tend to let my language use the full range of words. But taking religion out of swearing is a serious challenge. One that I have yet to master.
Some of my atheist friends and I came up with a replacement for god: IMITS… Invisible Man In The Sky, and then we needed the devil for other swearing. My husband came up with IMEC… Invisible Man’s Evil Counterpart. This was our way of making fun of religion while replacing christian expressions in our conversations.
Questions: how do you feel about de-christianizing your mind and your life? Do you have any good alternatives for religiously toned expressions?
I was never a Christian in the first place but even I have found it difficult to shake off some of these cultural phenomena. I stopped saying ‘bless you’ some time ago. If I say anything, I might say ‘good health’ or the equivalent in Spanish/French depending on the who the person is (it’s ’salud’/'bonne santeé’ by the way).
Taking Sundays off, though, I think I am okay with
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I was just thinking about this today at work. When I swear it’s usually god dammit or jesus christ.
Very odd to me. Since I never really was a christain.
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I’ve made a conscious effort to remove christian references from my cussing… it’s not easy, but I’m getting there. There are other juicy four letter words out there, anyway.
We’ve made the same choices for most anything else you mention. The holidays (which is something I’ve need an alternative word for), Sundays, etc.. I treat as just part of local culture.
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That’s a good alternative, James. Thanks.
Colleen, we need to think up witty alternatives!
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Hi Ramon!
You’re right, I use those other 4 letters words too. But I say the religious ones too, and I think like I just mentioned to Colleen, I’d really like witty alternatives. But maybe I just need to get rid of them, I just haven’t had luck with that so far.
I agree about holidays and Sundays.. just treat them culturally, instead of as a religious thing, which is how I pretty much handle them already.
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“I wish people happy holidays”
holiday = holy days
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ARGH!!! You’re right! Silly ME! Sheesh… holy days.. sigh.. see? how do you escape it? It’s UBIQUITOUS!
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The “holy days” is right… ‘vacation’ maybe? And many thanks for using ‘ubiquitous’! – not heard it used in anger in a long while!
For swearing I went Irish, “Father Ted Irish” to be precise – probably the funniest comedy to come out of Ireland – ever. It’s about Catholic priests on (the very small) Craggy Island – they use words like ‘feck’, ‘flubben heel’, ‘erse’, ‘ya fecker’, ‘feckin erse’ (you can get quite imaginative after a while) – so as not to upset the holy father with profanity of course ;o)
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Good luck with de-christianizing you lingo
Took me ages to get rid of those religious expressions – and still they sneak in from time to time.
But being aware of them and learning when you usually use those sayings/expressions/words is already half way to a “secular” language.
Btw, how about ‘gesundheit’ instead of ‘bless you’?
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When my g/f sneezes I say, “Cut that out!”
We both chuckle.
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Change one habit at a time. I still say “Merry Christmas” because my family expects it; but I’ve substituted “gesundheit” (good health) for “bless you” and nobody has caught on yet.
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Oh, I thought of another good one for when you sneeze:
“Time for Benadryl!”
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Well for a start Christmas, Easter, St. Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day are not real religious days.
Christmas was originally a pagan mid winter celebration. Easter was the spring one.
St. Valentine’s Day is a marketing exercise and St. Patrick’s Day is an ethnic carnival.
Halloween stopped being a Christian feast decades ago and is now a cultural festival.
Personally I don’t see the harm in keeping these old cultural references providing we accept it as historical myth.
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Well hello all!
Welcome and thanks for commenting!
FT’s mate: going Irish might be fun. That’s a great idea!
You’re welcome for ubiquitous. 
Sometimes the big words just pop out. I play Scrabble way too much! 
Wahoonie: Thanks, I definitely need something like luck to get rid of them. You’re right, half the battle is even noticing that it’s happening!
CHB: that sneeze reply is definitely “different.”
I think I like your second idea about saying something like “time for Benadryl” 
That’s kinda funny. Do I get paid endorsement fees? Because I can say Claritin just as easily. 
weemaryanne: HA! on sneaking in the gesundheit without them noticing! You’re right, this doesn’t have to be done overnight.
Slatts: Ah, excellent points. This is something I really want to address in the near future, how the big holidays are all stolen from previous “pagan” practices and religions. I just haven’t had a chance to do that yet.
Anyway, I see your point. If they weren’t so christianized I think I’d lean this way as well. But for some reason the heavy religious aspect of the holidays is oppressive to me. That’s just my personal opinion.
For example, last year, my sister in law was totally offended that I refused to say merry christmas, because I was supposed to keep christ in the holidays. It was a bit uncomfortable.
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Hi Gang,
My education and research, especially when I was working on my Milesian project, was that almost all of the celebrations have their roots in Solar events. Over time, many of them were vulnerable to “inaccuracies” found in calendars. Winter Solstice, of course gave birth to Christmas, as has already been stated. But, I found that the winner for the number of religious ceremonies “attached” to it was the Spring Equinox. So far I have been able to identify more than 20 of these events. Before all of these, of course, was the stone-age man’s ability to precisely tell when it occurred, along with, of course, winter solstice. Newgrange in Ireland predates the pyramids and it was used to tell when solar events occurred.
Our history is filled with this “commandeering” of an event. . . what we would call “commercializing” a celebration.
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I tried to “edit” my comment.
Spring Solstice should have been Spring Equinox! Now I see that the change was made. Sorry!
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Hi Anton,
If you ever feel like pointing us in the direction of some more specific information or resources that show this commandeering of holidays and celebrations, I’d love to share that with people! 
That’s basically what I’ve figured, I just don’t have the resources to back up my ideas. Thanks for clarifying!
Yes, commercializing a celebration. I guess it’s a pretty old technique.
Thanks again for commenting
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Hi Neece:
I believe the most obvious case was King Constantine’s edict that decided what day would be as Christ’s birthdate. Stone Age men had been celebrating Winter Solstice for 10,000 years and since the celebration was well in place, it was “co-opted” as a suitable time for Christ’s birth date. It is particularly disturbing that “Happy Yule Time”, which has been a greeting that has been with us in the Scandinavian countries for several thousands of years, is now referred to as how the Fins say “Merry Christmas” in Finnish. They don’t even know their own heritage!
Incidentally, murdering Atheists was acceptable in Finland as late as 1918 and went “unpunished”. When my Atheist grandfather went back to Finland in 1914, he turned around and quickly returned to Canada as he feared for his life. Finnish people do not wish to know this fact from their history.
I would, however, like to make a point. Atheists of today appear to be so involved with the “nitty gritty”, need to know all the details of their particular “persecution”, that they can’t just get on with life. For some reason, they think that “gaining kowledge” is all they have to do. In effect, they are just too comfortable living within a Christian-Judeo culture to develop any culture of their own! Its like complaining that the landlord doesn’t provide enough heat in the winter but they would never think of moving somewhere else. They have got the “complaining” bit down pat. “Moving” might require them to learn how to do things differently.
My Milesian Society celebrates Anemos twice a year at the Equinoxes. Your readers may wish to read about it http://www.milesians.net
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Neece,
All you require is the Internet and some curiousity to search out all the information you may require. Remember, history writing has been influenced by the religious for 2,000 years.
Newgrange is the oldest man-made structure in our world. The reason behind its creation was duplicated in many parts of the world by stone-age men, all to determine the timing of identical solar events, the solstices and the equinoxes.
It is a humbling experience to comprehend that stone-age men had a better idea of the cosmos and astronomy than the religious permitted to exist. My Milesian project goes back to the “thinking” of that time. I have found it refreshing and liberating.
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Thanks for the interesting information, Anton. I always found it interesting that someone as important as christ could have his birthday party moved around to fit in with older traditions.
And not all atheists focus on learning about the history of their persecutions. I just want to be educated about history and science and other good things so that I can make informed decisions about how to view the world.
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Neece, I want to share our (my wife and me) recent de-Christianizing action. Invited to the Baptism of our second Granddaughter (after being excluded from the Baptism of the first one due to our non-Catholic position), we attended the celebration (even though we missed most of the ceremony itself while taking care of the other Granddaughter), and acted always in a very polite way, taking the occasion as a naming ceremony and a family reunion. But the big point was the selection of the present: a silver heart, with a card wishing: “May Love guide your life, always in search of the Truth”. No doubt it was very different to all the crosses, Bibles, rosaries and other religious oriented articles the baby received. We hope, some day it would make a difference.
That action was not only an attempt to de-Christianizing our daily routines, it was an effort to de-Christianize a Christian sacrament and ceremony. Something that should be a family/social celebration but has been appropriated by the Church. You can always hope!
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Neece Reply:
November 10th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Thank you for sharing, Don. I wonder if they noticed the subtle message? I hope they did, and that it planted a seed of reason!
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