How should Atheists swear?
One cannot understand English without having a basic knowledge of Christianity; so pervasive is that religion on our culture. Christianity's hold on European civilization has been totalitarian.
I am in favour of a secularization of North America that is so profound that when people swear they do not use religious references.
How many Atheists, when they have an orgasm exclaim "god!" What spoils the mood more: when you say it or when your partner says it?
And why do we use "fuck" as a swear-word. The Atheist comic George Carlin often wondered, why does a word describing the act of procreation merit being turned into a pejorative?
Towards an Atheist Newspeak.
A reason why Christianity dominates the English language and culture is because the theists imposed habits of thinking, altered the meanings of words to suit their world-view and made it as difficult as possible for anyone to think outside the box they built for us. The successful struggle against these efforts is called "The Enlightenment."
Secularists have ended the domination of Christianity - people now enjoy freedom of thought, at least in most countries. The time is overdue for us Atheists to take English over - to make it more likely that people will think secular thoughts and less likely to entertain obscurantist ideas.
Here are two ways we can do this :
1) stop using words that have religious or mystical meanings. The objective is that the words will die out from lack of use;
2) Co-opt the words. change their meaning permanently so that whenever someone uses a given word it can only have a secular interpretation.
In his novel 1984, George Orwell described how a totalitarian government used language to condition people's thinking.
That language can be shaped, controlled and purposively modified is not only an idea that totalitarians can implement- it is a fact that should be appreciated by anyone desiring liberty. We Atheists are partisans in a culture war and the English language is a battlefield we must control.
I therefore submit the following list as an example of words and expressions we should use in place of the current obscurantist terms:
This seems like such a good idea someone must have already proposed it. If you can find out who please let me know. As you can tell by these first four examples, I could use some assistance.
My god - my word
bless you - you are so good looking (Seinfeld)
Jesus! - Darwin!
holy shit - blue screen!
Dave Mann
Tags: 1984, Orwell, Swear, english, language, orgasm, swearing
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dave Mann on -
I have just been reminded by my girlfriend, Zhu Ningyan, that in in the Christian-free culture of China when someone sneezes they say "Your mother is missing you" or "Your wife misses you." That's better than Seinfeld's idea.
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Permalink Reply by Pam on -
Or we could borrow from other languages. The Spanish "salud" and the German "gesundheit" just mean "health".
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Permalink Reply by Amanda Mrakovich on -
I also say gesundheit and sometimes I say "That's funny."
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Permalink Reply by basement kitteh on -
I use gesundheit too.
I've never understood the "bless you" when one sneezes. I find unrequited blessings wrong.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew DeLong on -
i'm a fan of saying "thank you father" when somebody says "bless you" to me when I sneeze.
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Permalink Reply by Tim on -
People used to think that when you sneezed, your soul left your body. With your soull missing, the devil could enter your body in place of your soul. In order to prevent that from happening, people would say "bless you" so that God would get in before the devil could.
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Permalink Reply by Julien on -
In Romania you say Noroc! (Luck) or Sănătate! (Health) when someone sneezes and you feel like opening your mouth. :)
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Permalink Reply by Troy C on -
Interesting, when I was living in China, people just said Blest you. ha
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Permalink Reply by idcollapse Ra on -
lol
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