"Bless you."
Nope, not anymore.
Here's why I've stopped saying "bless you" when people sneeze:
I've been in situations lately when people don't say "thank you" when you bless them after they sneeze. At first I thought maybe they didn't hear me when I said "bless you," but when they sneezed again and I blessed them again, there was once again silence.
I began to wonder, does my saying "bless you" when they sneeze offend their delicate atheist sensibilities?
Apparently, for some non-believers, not saying "thank you" when people bless them after they sneeze is a way of making a BIG STATEMENT. It's a way of advertising in big, bold letters: "I'M A NON-BELIEVER AND I DON'T APPRECIATE ANYTHING HAVING TO DO WITH RELIGION."
I'm a Christian and I attend church regularly, but I have a "live and let live" attitude toward life and respect other people's choice to believe or not believe whatever they choose. In my view, saying "bless you" when someone sneezes has no religious connotation, it's simply a social nicety.
Saying "bless you" when someone sneezes and the other person responding with "thank you" is just good manners - in a totally secular way. It's like saying "please" when asking someone to pass the salt at the dinner table or saying "thank you" when someone holds the door open for you.
When I first stopped saying "bless you" when people sneezed, it felt wrong. It felt like I was being intentionally rude and going against everything I was taught growing up about manners and how to function in polite society. But I just began to accept that certain people perceive being "blessed" as being cursed, if you will, so around them, the more polite thing to do is to actually remain silent.
As with anything in life, you have to adapt to each situation. So there are settings in which I still say "bless you": when I'm around people whom I sense will not be offended and will actually appreciate the gesture and around people I'm meeting for the first time, so I don't come across like some kind of manner-less jerk.
I think society should just do away with the whole "bless you" thing. It's an outdated custom that no longer serves any purpose. I mean, is anybody in really in danger of their heart stopping when they sneeze?
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