We've had countless discussions on here about the religious colloquialisms and sayings that others say that we tolerate (e.g. many don't mind something like, ("I hope you get better soon - I'll pray for you", or something as simple as "bless you" after a sneeze). But what about the other end of the spectrum?

 

What are the xian, or religious for that matter, sayings that drive you crazy or get under your skin? For instance, here are a couple of mine...

  • When a religious person sees another who is down on his luck, or has had some tragedy, or is simply "not as good as" the religious person and they say, "There but for the grace of god go I". How pompous and sanctimonious, not to mention cruel and selfiish
  • Sports figures, actors, etc. who go through the histrionics of thanking god when something great happens to them. What, did god hate the other players/competitors?

You get the idea.

 

Can't wait to read your thoughts on this!

Tags: Sayings

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The most simple thing is "God bless you" when I sneeze. I never say thank you. My boyfriend and I got in an argument about this and he said that "bless you" is just sort of something you say after some one sneezes to be nice. I asked him why we needed to do that after someone sneezes and he couldn't give me a reason. He's not religious but I still think he's on the fence. His parents believe and he's such a family oriented person that I think if he were to say he didn't believe, he'd feel that he was disapointing his family. But anyways, I understand saying excuse me after burping but why do you need to say bless you? Just that right there is assuming everyone is religious when it's simply not true. The sad thing is, if someone said bless you to me and I simply said "No thank you" they would start arguing how I'm pushing my atheist ways on them. 

In times long past people believed that when you sneezed your entire body stopped working. So they thought your soul could be stolen by the devil. The God bless you was to save your soul. I don't worry when someone says it to me. They are just doing what they were taught. It's not like they are trying to convert me. Being an atheist does not mean you have to insult people who have a belief.

My general response is "Not recently, but I'm still waiting". 

The saying "It's all part of God's plan." pisses me off something fierce...

I'm pretty relentless with criticising Mormonism, because it's such an obvious example of how a batsh1t crazy cult can be legitimized into a batsh1t crazy 'religion'--an example that I hope makes followers of it's predecessor/brother religions pause to think about the origin of their faith.  Anyway, the other night my dad said to me, 'of all people, I would never have imagined you would become intolerant toward a religion.'  It really pissed me off because you're not likely to be accused of intolerance for criticizing other barbaric cultural institutions.  I feel that is essentially what my jokes and pointed questioning do--challenge cultural institutions which we hold beyond reproach because we call them 'religions.'  Also, it's not like I bite my tongue when Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, etc. come up.  I calls it like I sees it.

When I'm pointing out contradictions and lack of logic in scripture, and am told "you can't comprehend the actual interpretation because you're not a believer," or " Your mind is too limited to ever understand gods nature."

This of course, on the heels of their failed attempts to make any fucking sense at all, explaining their own interpretation.

 

 

"It's 'god's'™ will" when somebody dies.  Well, my friend, you've just removed free will from our equations.

When I was a Christian, I struggled a lot with the fact that God would never speak to me.  I'd never hear his voice, feel his presence, or receive any of the joy, comfort, or guidance that a relationship with God was supposed to bring.  More than once, when I talked to people at church about this, I was told:

 

"Maybe God just wants to teach you to rely on Him."

 

WHAT?!

 

How does that make sense in any way?!  If I reached out to a friend, and this friend simply ignored me, the only lesson I have to learn from that is that I CAN'T rely on them!  How in the hell is that supposed to teach me TO rely on them?  It makes no goddamn sense.

 

As a child I was fascinated by religion. I went to every church with in walking or bus range. Read many versions of the Bible. Had a large collection of different Bibles.  Also read about the old religions with their many gods of different powers.  Hades is considered by most to be like the Biblical hell. Well it wasn't it was were you went when you died, good bad or indifferent. It just had different places for different  people. In your statement you say " how in the hell is that supposed to teach me" hell is a noun not a verb. If you believe  in a hell then what else do you believe in? A good atheist if that term can be used would not use hell in that contexts.

We all analyze that's what got us where we are. I've never thought of hell as being a slang term. Don't use the term myself but have certainly heard others use in mainly crude ways. I guess that if one uses it that way it may be classed as slang. Thanks for enlightening me.

so i ask: "isn't it strange that in the bible people heard so often god's voice, while nowadays god stopped to manifest himself to his believers?"

and i always get this answer: "it's because we are living in bad, selfish times: we are unable to hear god's voice".

don't you agree? :D

Well, now-a-days, if a person hears voices in their head, we have treatments available. Treatments bought to us through Science. No gods. No magic. Just science.

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