As Tony's cosmetic dentist, I protest!
Posted on 10/02/2011 7:47:11 PM PDT by stolinsky
Now They Want To Ban “Bless You”
David C. Stolinsky
Oct. 3, 2011
High-school teacher lowers student’s grade for saying “Bless you” when a classmate sneezes.
− News item
Theophobia means “fear of God.” This is not a normal fear, as in the biblical “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That type of fear is a magnified version of our feeling for our parents: a mixture of love and respect, tinged with a bit of actual fear. Nor is it a fear of divine punishment.
On the contrary, this is a pathological, neurotic fear. It is not a fear of God Himself, at least not consciously. It is a fear of the very mention of God, even indirectly, even casually, even if it is not in the context of prayer. This type of fear perverts the constitutional freedom of religion into freedom from religion. This type of fear caused the U.S. Supreme Court to rule unconstitutional the New York State Regents’ Prayer said voluntarily by public-school students:
Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.
Now doesn’t that strike fear into your heart? Doesn’t it cause you to tremble for the future of the republic? It doesn’t? Then you don’t have theophobia.
This type of fear causes judges and school officials to forbid a high-school valedictorian to say, “God bless the graduating class.” But oddly, it does not cause school officials to forbid students to go down the corridors loudly cursing “God damn.” This type of fear dreads blessings more that it dreads curses. How revealing.
In one case, graduating students arranged that the speaker would fake a sneeze − and the class shouted, “God bless you.” They assumed that this innocent phrase uttered after a sneeze could not possibly provoke hostility. They were correct at the time, but things have “progressed” since then.
Recently a high-school teacher in California reduced the grade of a student because the student reflexively said “Bless you” when a classmate sneezed. No, the monstrous amounts of class time the school wastes did not concern the teacher, but he felt that the one- or two-second pause for “Bless you” would seriously impair the educational process. He claimed this was “disrespectful and disruptive.”
Not incidentally, the class “disrupted” was health class. Perhaps the teacher feared that a one- or two-second delay would prevent his students from learning how to put a condom on a cucumber. After all, this is a complex task requiring fine hand-eye coordination and many hours of classroom instruction by dedicated, highly trained teachers with master’s degrees.
But that’s what “progressives” do − they “progress.” Note that the student did not say “God bless you,” but merely “Bless you.” The word “God” was inferred by the teacher. That is, we have “progressed” from smiling at the ruse of a fake sneeze to punishing the expression after a real sneeze. We have “progressed” from objecting to mention of the word “God” to punishing even implying that word without mentioning it. Now that’s progress.
But what’s next? Searching a term paper for trace evidence that the student was even thinking about God? Before you dismiss this as paranoia, let me tell you a story.
Some time ago, my wife and I were returning from the airport. The cab driver had white hair and a thick accent. He was a retired colonel in the Soviet Air Force, who could not live on his meager pension and came to America to be with family. I asked whether he attended a Russian Orthodox church. He replied that he did now, but had not done so in the Soviet Union. He added that if he had gone to church one Sunday, the next Monday he would have been called before his commanding officer, and either forcibly retired or transferred to a dead-end job in Siberia.
Obviously, this had nothing to do with whether the colonel was performing his duties as a radar instructor efficiently − it had to do with politically correct beliefs. No, we’re not there yet. But unless we reverse course, that’s where we’re “progressing” toward.
Of course, theophobia involves fear of any mention of the Judeo-Christian God. It does not involve the Muslim God. I’ll bet serious money that the teacher would have said nothing if a girl came to class in a head scarf, or if a Muslim student demanded time away from class for one of his five daily prayers. I’ll bet the teacher wouldn’t call that “disrespectful and disruptive” and grade the student down. I’ll bet that he could distinguish his irrational fear from a real fear. I’ll bet that his liberal version of “multiculturalism” includes respect for all cultures except our own.
Liberals claim to fear Christian conservatives, but they repeatedly insult Christian conservatives with impunity. Liberals claim not to fear extremist Muslims, but they take care to placate extremist Muslims at every opportunity. So whom do liberals really fear, and whom do they merely hold in contempt? Don’t listen to what they say − watch what they do.
Liberals believe that if they abandon Judeo-Christian values, they will be safe from extremist Muslims. They believe that if we destroy our nuclear weapons, we will be safe from nukes in the hands of crazies like Kim Jong-il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And they believe that if law-abiding citizens are forbidden to own guns, they will be safe from armed criminals.
Such beliefs are irrational and dangerous. They are vestiges of the childish, narcissistic notion that I am the center of the universe, so that whatever I imagine somehow affects the outside world. If I think peaceful thoughts, others will act peacefully. If I don’t fight, bullies will leave me alone. If I close my eyes, the boogeyman can’t see me. But he can. It is narcissistic to believe that the world should revolve around me. It is dangerous and potentially suicidal to believe that it actually does.
The high-school teacher asserted that his anti-bless-you policy “has nothing to do with religion.” Really? Then what does it have to do with − intermediate algebra and the quadratic equation? He claimed that saying “Bless you” is an outdated practice and disrupts class time. By one or two seconds?
After parents complained about students losing points for saying “Bless you," the teacher agreed to stop the practice. But he added that he will just find another way to discipline students for saying “Bless you” in class.
We hear a great deal about religious fanatics. After 9/11 this is to be expected. But we never − literally never − hear about irreligious fanatics like that teacher. Each anti-Judeo-Christian attack is either ignored or treated as an isolated incident. Each Christmas tree removed from a school, each Salvation Army Santa kicked out of a mall, each high-school band forbidden to play Christmas music even without the words, each Easter vacation renamed “spring break,” each anti-Catholic or anti-Evangelical or anti-Israel rant, is seen as separate and unconnected.
But eventually, the “isolated incidents” must add up to a pattern. We condemn intelligence officials for their failure to “connect the dots” before 9/11. But we should not criticize others for what we ourselves are failing to do. We too need to “connect the dots.” We too need an occasional “Bless you.”
Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. Contact: dstol@prodigy.net.
So how many times per class is the kid saying Bless you? If it’s twenty times, that’s too much. It would bother me whether it was Bless you or Gesundheit. (And I wouldn’t want to sit next to the sneezer either.)
I wonder if this fool also wants to ban the word goodbye, which is a shortened version of the old phrase “God be with ye.”
Bless their hearts....
The kids were making an annoying little game out of the “bless you” thing. One would sneeze, sometimes real, sometimes phony then another would say “bless you” the sneezer replies “thank you” and the blesser “
welcome “. Kids being kids, they pushed the game until they got some attention. That being said the teacher was
wrong and should have handled the problem differently.
I think my response would be “F##k you.” Like that better? Freaking libtards. They’re progressive alright, progressively stupid.
If instead, the kid had said “Fu@k you” everytime someone sneezed, they would be defending his free speech rights.
I remember one day when I was in 8th grade, I had to sneeze quite a few times. Every time I sneezed, my math teacher, along with the entire class, said “Bless you” and after a few times I said it was bit too much and he made fun of me for refusing the additional bless yous. I now appreciate what he did.
It doesn’t matter. Why were the kids playing the “annoying bless you game” in the first place? It’s because they knew it bugged that teacher. They were doing what kids do,,, finding the hot button and pushing it.
So how did the kids know it bugged him?
Because the TEACHER had been wasting classtime at some point, making sure the kids knew HIS views on theology. Guess THATS ok. The kids were calling him out.
They want to ban anything and everything they can to destroy our civilization and replace it with some kind of gooey polyglut of barbarianism
My 11th grade neice told me that some of the teachers make their leftwing and atheist views very clear in the first days of class.
Plus some of the homework assignments are clearly leftwing propaganda.
Sometimes people sneeze 3, 5 and even a dozen times in a row. IMHO it is ridiculous to say "Bless you" or "God bless you" after each sneeze, yet that doesn't amount to banning these phrases.
I don't know what started this habit of asking a blessing for a sneezer, but doesn't it seem silly? It would make more sense to say it when someone coughs, and even then it's not necessary. Maybe we do it for superstitious reasons!
“I don’t know what started this habit of asking a blessing for a sneezer, but doesn’t it seem silly? It would make more sense to say it when someone coughs, and even then it’s not necessary. Maybe we do it for superstitious reasons!.”
One day we will wish we had more blessings so let’s count all the blessings we’ve already got.
Me, I choose to say, “Gesundheit, Mein Führer!”
A person’s heart stops momentarily when they sneeze; that’s why we say “Bless you” after someone sneezes. It is indeed a blessing that their heart has started beating again.
Personally, being a serial sneezer myself around allergy season, I only say “Bless you” when I’m fairly certain the other person’s done. Otherwise it does get a bit annoying.
““Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” That type of fear is a magnified version of our feeling for our parents: a mixture of love and respect, tinged with a bit of actual fear.”
Come right out and say it: “Awe!”
Now you can’t use that word “awesome” to describe anything on earth.
Thanks to both of you for your viewpoints and information!
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