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Thank God I'm an Atheist!
Religion and Metaphor in Language
Karen Stollznow
A few years ago I was a DJ for a rural radio station. One evening a Christian friend tagged along and grinned as I played the Beach Boy’s God Only Knows. At this inconsequential choice he remarked with sincerity, “I always knew you were a little religious.” Unbeknownst to him, I had just queued up a Black Sabbath song.
God Only Knows, by any other name, would sound as sweet. I just like the song. If you listen to the lyrics, there is nothing faintly religious about the theme. This is hardly gospel music or even Christian rock. The song uses this fixed phrase to get a sentiment across. There is nothing religious about the name either, it’s an emphatic phrase that roughly means, ‘I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else does either’.
Years before this, I was a polling official for a federal election. At one point, I made the mistake of asking a voter for his surname, and then his ‘Christian name’. He bellowed, “I don’t have a Christian name! I am NOT a Christian!” “Sorry”, I replied, “What’s your satanic name then?”
The moral of these stories is that language can be convention. Wishing someone a Merry Christmas, exclaiming Jesus Christ! in frustration, mumbling an exasperated for god’s sake, labelling a hunk as God’s gift to women, or praising Australia as God’s Own Country does not, necessarily, a Christian make. In this same way, wearing a Celtic cross as fashion, or enjoying religious art and architecture is not proof of religiousness. We may not attend church on Palm Sunday, but we still buy the Easter eggs.
Our everyday language is full of fixed phrases with religious etymologies. Some of these are ‘politeness rituals’ that can be classified in Linguistics as speech routines. For example, saying Bless you in reply to a sneeze. It is not an invocation to prevent the sneezer from demonic possession, as was the original intention. Today, this is a politeness formula, similar to asking someone, How are you? whether you actually care, or not. These are linguistic customs, and we are socialised into using them. This sort of language is more of an indicator of cultural background, than it is an indictor of belief.
In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins writes about Einstein’s “misleading” references to ‘god’. Dawkins claims that Einstein’s naturalism has been misinterpreted as religious belief. However, this is metaphorical, in the same way that others talk about ‘Mother Nature’. Dawkins further notes that some describe their awakening to naturalism or atheism as a “spiritual experience”. I recently watched a documentary where the host said of Yellowstone Park, “it’s my church, it’s my cathedral”. A religious experience need not be a religious experience. We have this ‘religious lexicon’ at our disposal, to express ourselves, regardless of our religious affiliations (or lack thereof).
Listen to yourself, and others, and hear how often religion rears its head in our language (in other languages too). Idiom or slang, it is not literal, and is not invariably religious in meaning. Damn you! is an abbreviation of God damn you! but is not a curse. Clapton is god is a different kind of worship. A god forsaken town is just a hole. Thank god is an expression of relief, not in praise of a divine entity. God is Dead is not a claim that ‘god’ ever existed. And you don’t pray to the porcelain god from a pew.
Before a recent holiday, my father’s last words to me were “god bless you”. He is hardly a religious man, and is not even baptised (yet another convention). This was not a reflection of his beliefs but a reflection of his hopes for my safety. Signing off as bless can be as non-religious in intention as take care or yours sincerely.
People use superficially ‘religious’ terms such as Oh my God! and barely assign any religious significance to them (although some might find these ‘blasphemous’). Overall, this phenomenon is not on its way out any time soon. Certainly, screaming out God! is still in the vocabulary of many good skeptics.
Over time, some of these historically religious phrases will become archaic. Clearly, christian name is dropping out of usage and first name is gaining preference. In the United States, where Christianity has a stronghold in some areas, Merry Christmas is slowly being usurped by Happy Holidays. Whether this reflects a growing secularism or is a politically correct nod to diversity, this is linguistic change in our time.
One thing is certain, religious belief, as history, tradition, and culture, will still be reflected in our language for a long time to come.
Stollznow, Karen. 2007. Thank God I’m an Atheist. Australasian Science. Vol.28, No.3.
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I'm Karen Stollznow
...(Cunning) Linguist,
Author, Skeptic and Investigator of the
paranormal and
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