My parents are vaguely-practising pagans, so when I lost my Christian faith I went what I call “culturally pagan”. Yule cards, solstice bread, “Blessed Yule”, the lot. (I also developed a collection of Buddhas, but that’s probably beside the point!) Dor some reason I find it comforting to have traditions and special days to look forward to, as my partner and I are pretty much alone with my cat and I can make up whatever traditions I like

When people sneeze, I too go with “Gesundheit”, or “Yeched”, which is Breton and means health too. It surprises people, and I guess I have an attention-seeking streak that likes that. Ah well…

Slapped around a bit. I did go over the top a bit.

The de conversion monitor is fair though.

I had no right to get so impassioned, but that is me.
Passion is not the issue, but how you present Christ is.

I was wrong.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are notorious for not participating in all that stuff. I visited a Kingdom Hall once. The people were very nice and I found some of their beliefs fascinating, but they were far to regimented and legalistic for my taste.

Speaking of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I was having a conversation with a neighbor over the Witnesses coming to my house periodically. This lady does mission work in Colombia and Brazil. She got really freaked out about the fact that the Witnesses do not believe Jesus is REALLY the son of God and that they don’t believe in hell (they are annihilationists). I guess in her book, they (and I) will be at the front of the line, since God must prove to us that it REALLY does exist.

I have a Wiccan friend who says “Bless You” when people sneeze. Whenever everybody in the group knows his religion, I usually facetiously say “Be careful which blessings you accept!”

Ex. friend says, “Jesus Christ!”
I mumble, “Jesus non-existent Christ.”

Similarly, I put a “ne” in acronyms like “omg”

“OMneG! that’s so stupid!”

But usually I just avoid it all together and try to make my personal diction more fruitful.

As far as sneezes go, one of my favorite things that I’ve heard, but never been in a bad enough mood to do is say “no thank you” when someone tells me “bless you” Then the believer can get pissed off but not do anything because you said it politely lol.

As for christmas goes, I take a step backwards and celebrate yule. Which is the same holiday, but part of my celebrations is telling believers why jesus would hate them for celebrating christmas

I like holidays, for the same reason you do: it’s a time to get together with family. We can still celebrate holidays without having to make it religious. It’s a cultural event, not a religious one.

I get sick pleasure from saying “God dammit” to those who are truly offended by my blasphemy. Aside from that, it’s cultural.

The most anti-religious action I’ve actually taken is using “CE” and “BCE” in dates rather than BC or AD. I’m told Conservapedia was started after Wikipedia mandated the use of CE and BCE in all of its articles. I summarily used CE and BCE once I realized they weren’t Christian. (Common Era for those that miss it.)

I’m way off topic.

As for saying “bless you”, I still do it. I realize that it’s pointless but it just seems like the polite thing to do. “Gesundheit” is a good substitute, as someone else mentioned.

RE: cursing, I do it. Christians HATE terms like “Jesus H Christ” and “goddamnit” because they believe them to be blasphemous. Perhaps it’s immature, but that rather makes me want to say them even more. LOL.