Christians are angered that a California teacher has banned the phrase, “God bless you,” from his class, after one student sneezed and the teacher asked another student why he said the archaic phrase. CBN, Jerry Falwell’s Christian Broadcasting Network, aired this segment, with no explanation as to where the phrase might have come from, allowing the viewers to see this as a secular agenda.
Â
Vacaville high school teacher Steve Cuckovich, delivered as his reasoning that students would interrupt class time to say repeatedly, “God bless you,” and, then, “thank you.”
Noting wrong with trying to keep a class focused. Would people be outraged if applause were banned from speaking events? It happens all the time. One more example of a right wing that is looking for any excuse to push God into the classroom and onto an agenda.
Note in the FOX news video, one young woman uses her religion as a reason to utter the phrase. Expect to see this line of reasoning more and more, as right wing extremists test the limits of the First Amendment.
Few are aware of the possible origins of the phrase, “God bless you.”
Via Wikipedia:
Several possible origins are commonly given. The practice of blessing someone who sneezes, dating as far back as at least AD 77, however, is far older than most specific explanations can account for.
One explanation holds that the custom originally began as an actual blessing. Gregory I became Pope in AD 590 as an outbreak of the bubonic plague was reaching Rome. In hopes of fighting off the disease, he ordered unending prayer and parades of chanters through the streets. At the time, sneezing was thought to be an early symptom of the plague. The blessing (“God bless you!”) became a common effort to halt the disease.
A variant of the Pope Gregory I story places it with Pope Gregory VII, then tells the common story of “Ring Around the Rosey” being connected to the same plague.
A legend holds that it was believed that the heart stops beating and the phrase “bless you” is meant to ensure the return of life or to encourage your heart to continue beating.
Another version says that people used to believe that your soul can be thrown from your body when you sneeze, that sneezing otherwise opened your body to invasion by the Devil or evil spirits, or that sneezing was your body’s effort to force out an invading evil spirit.
Thus, “bless you” or “God bless you” is used as a sort of shield against evil. The Irish Folk story “Master and Man” by T. Crofton Croker, collected by William Butler Yeats, describes this variation.
Alternatively, it may be possible that the phrase began simply as a response for an event that was not well understood at the time.
Another belief is that people used to see sneezing as a sign that God would answer your prayersor an omen of good fortune or good luck. In this case, “Bless you” would be in recognition of that luck.
Tibetan Buddhists believe a sneeze (like meditation, falling asleep, preparing to die) can provide a moment of “clear consciousness,” when people are opened to greater understanding.
http://ktxl.vid.trb.com/player/PaperVideoTest.swf