Bless me father, for I have sneezed

2009 March 8
more by

Podcast: Download

By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1311

Get this man 80cc of religious blessing, STAT

“Oh, excuse me.”

…and that’s all that should have to happen.

Yet, in the United States, if I sneeze, someone around me will inevitably say, “God bless you.” Sometimes they leave out the “god”, and you get the more concise and cooler, “bless you”. I’d like to know: what exactly have I done to warrant such compassion? …Or is it contempt? Why do I need to be blessed?

Why do people say “God bless you” after a sneeze? A sneeze is often caused because I’ve got something up my nose and my body wants it out. So I get a funny twitching in my sniffer, I take a quick breath, and an explosive blast of air shoots out my nostrils. Disgusting? Maybe. But it’s a normal human bodily function. So therefore, why am I not blessed for passing gas? Seems to me that breaking wind or cutting the cheese – or whatever euphemism you want for the expulsion of flatulence – is just as required and is usually as involuntary as a sneeze.

Now, there are problems with blessing someone who’s passed gas, since if you bless me, you’ve just incriminated yourself. After all, as we all learned in preschool, “he who first detected it, ejected it”. And “the next person who speaks” is indeed “the person who reeks”. At least with sneezing, it’s obvious who committed the act.

So we have the aforementioned “God bless you”. What does this mean? Why the blessing? Why is this so necessary? I know several people who aren’t particularly religious, and they’ll casually throw out a blessing after every sneeze. I know several people who are very religious, and after a sneeze they’ll race to see who can first bless the sneezer, like some kind of covert religious competition.

The history of blessing after the sneeze is a little murky, like looking at history through the veil of a few layers of tissue. There are many possible causes why we bless someone after a sneeze. Here are several possibilities:

A common belief about sneezing is that during a sneeze, the heart skips a beat or even temporarily stops. The blessing was meant to insure that the heart continued beating normally. In reality, the heart isn’t affected by a sneeze.

Some used to believe that when a spiritual soul inhabited one’s body, that person was healthy. Sickness was caused by problems with the soul, or from the soul leaving the body. It stands to reason that a powerful enough sneeze could rocket the soul outside of a person’s body. When this happened, bad spirits or demons could enter, and cause disease. So saying “bless you” was a ward against evil disease-spirits, preventing them from entering your body while the soul was temporary out to lunch.

Another common origin of sneeze-blessing started around 590 AD, at the time of the European Great Plague. People noticed that sneezing led to illness, and at the time, that often lead to a horrible death. If you sneezed, you needed a blessing, pronto.

So what’s the point of this article? Why do we care about the origin of saying “bless you” after a sneeze? The answer lies in an examination of tradition and the amazing longevity of some superstitions. Many people do bless others after a sneeze. The majority of blessers probably don’t intend to officially bless someone after such an event. After I sneeze, I’ve never had anyone frantically whip holy water at me. When I go to my doctor, he takes my temperature and gives me some pills. If blessing a disease worked, he’d instead have me kneel while he anointed me with oils and Latin incantations.

People say the words because, well, that’s what you say when someone sneezes. And so the tradition continues, trudging along with its ever-growing burden of unneeded Things To Do In A Given Situation.

Given the length of time sneeze-blessing has been in our culture, it makes me wonder: how many other aspects of our society are pointless, and persist only because of an unneeded, long-outdated belief?

The next time I sneeze, I’ll just excuse myself for spraying germs everywhere. You don’t have to bless me. Don’t say anything. Actually, you could help out in a real way, instead of offering ineffective wishes for my health: I’d really appreciate it if you could just hand me a tissue.


Did you like this article? Want more? Support Digital Bits Skeptic.

Other articles related to this topic:

from → Biology, Healthcare, Religion

13 Comments
2009 March 8
Rob Steenwyk permalink

“After I sneeze, I’ve never had anyone frantically whip holy water at me.”

That is probably for the best, especially given the climate that we live in Andy. If that was typical you’d probably have people dying left and right from pneumonia caused by cold water being thrown on them while they are already somewhat sick :).

But yeah, it does seem like this is one of those things that just sticks around, and no one can really point out why exactly it is socially expected. Reminds me of the argument Richard Dawkins puts forth for why religion was created in the first place, as huge amounts of time and energy are put into religion, for no direct evolutionary benefit. He argues that religion was most likely created because some aspect of our evolution that did benefit us had a secondary side effect that generated a need or desire for religion.

Anyways, very interesting article Andy, I had never even thought of it.

2009 March 9
starlatk permalink

“Given the length of time sneeze-blessing has been in our culture, it makes me wonder: how many other aspects of our society are pointless, and persist only because of an unneeded, long-outdated belief?”

Yes- possibly more than 2,000 years of doing things one way, and we still adamantly hold these behaviors, nearly intact (minus the holy water). Amazing to think about it. What could be these other things that you refer to?

2009 March 9
Tim Williams permalink

For me, it’s just an unconscience habit to say “bless you.” But I agree, it’s totally unneccessary. The funny thing about it is how guilty I feel if I don’t say it though. And that about sums up my catholic upbringing. There’s always something for me to feel guilty about no matter how trivial. And that’s just one of many reasons I’m no longer a follower….but, bless you anyway.

2009 March 9
DB Skeptic permalink

What could be these other things that you refer to?

Some goofy / fun ones, off the top of my head:

Throwing pennies in a fountain
The Running of the Bulls
Lifting up your feet when driving over a railroad track
Taking a swig of a drink after a toast
Halloween costumes

And on a more serious note:

Polygamy
Female genital mutilation
Infanticide
Cannibalism
Foot binding

2009 March 9
Rob Steenwyk permalink

Another one I can think of is holding your breath when driving/going by a graveyard. Maybe my family just made it up for fun, anyone else ever heard of doing that? I don’t do it anymore, I wouldn’t want to pass out while driving :P

2009 March 9
Mary permalink

Hi, Mr. Skeptic.
Your article was very entertaining and informative. It’s good to know that no disaster will occur if I should miss the opportunity to send a hasty “God bless you.” upon the heart and nose of friend or foe who emits an unexpected sneeze. However, being a person of faith who believes in the power of blessings, you may have a good point in suggesting that blessings ought to be offered just as generously for any sudden, explosive spiritual or physical personal expression emitted from family, friend, or anyone in my vicinity at the appropriate time.
Can’t wait till our next meeting. Blessings galore!!

2009 March 9
articulett permalink

He who detected it, ejected it?

In my neck of the woods it was “he who smelt it, dealt it.”

2009 March 9
DB Skeptic permalink

Articulett,

Yup, I thought about using that one, but thought that my version sounded funnier. No offense to your woods or neck. :)

Andy

2009 March 10
Rick Smathers permalink

While I agree that blessing someone after they sneeze had it’s origins in superstition and has no real effect, it has become the polite thing to do and requires little effort.

I don’t think I will stop offering the customary response any more that I would stop shaking hands. Society’s polite rituals are part of how people interact and feel comfortable and that benefit far outweighs any concerns about maintaining an old superstition.

Now, if a sacrifice of tangible goods or effort were required, that would be another matter entirely, but offering a customary and expected response costs me nothing.

2009 March 10
DB Skeptic permalink

Rick,

but offering a customary and expected response costs me nothing.

True, but while it costs nothing, it says something about you and what you believe. I fully understand your perspective, and don’t have a problem with it. My own perspective is that I’d rather not have people make such assumptions about me, and I also don’t think someone sneezing is anything bad (as is implied with the blessing).

Andy

2009 March 12
Frank permalink

I am an atheist and had never given this too much thought. I just figured it was the polite thing to do. I’ll try cut it out. It has become a habit. Or just use “Gesundheit”. But, as a German speaker, it sounds strange to use a German word around my English-speaking friends.

Andy, on another note, I have often wondered why you don’t make the MP3 tags more complete for the podcasts. I download them from this website and always have to add the information myself in iTunes. Brian Dunning does this well for Skeptoid. All it needs is the title, the album title “Digital Bits Skeptic”, the episode number in the track number, the name of the author in the “Artist” field, the year it was released, the genre (perhaps “Podcast”) and the “Part of Compilation” field ticked (as there are different authors/artists). You could even add the article ID number in the comments field. Oh, and some nice album art. Is there a reason you don’t do this?

2009 March 12
DB Skeptic permalink

Hi Frank,

“Gesundheit” would work – it’s one of those “could mean anything” words. It actually means “good health”. So the receiver of this comment could take it religiously (in terms of a blessing), or could just assume you’re hoping they don’t get sick.

>I have often wondered why you don’t make the MP3 tags more complete for the podcasts. …Is there a reason you don’t do this?

Ah, so someone noticed!

I don’t do this because it’s a hassle and I didn’t think anyone cared.

In your comment above, you listed nine things that I could add. True, they don’t take that long, but it’s nine more things I have to do every time I publish an article.

I currently use Audacity for my audio editing and MP3 generation, and it doesn’t support album art. Do you have any suggestions? I use Microsoft stuff, so no Mac recommendations, please. I’d be willing to supplement or completely replace Audacity if there’s a good package out there.

Andy

2009 March 13
Frank permalink

Hey Andy

Unfortunately I have no experience with audio editing software, but the guys at TechSupportAlert.com think that Audacity is the best, so I would stick to that.

I am working on a Windows XP PC and use iTunes as my music player. Apparently the latest versions of Windows Media Player, MediaMonkey and WinAmp support album art, so it appears you would have to install another program to do this. It is probably not worth your while if I am the only one that has made a comment about it in 76 episodes.

Comments are closed for this entry.