Is ‘Blessed’ a Big Deal?

Yes. And yes I would call and complain. God’s not a message away; it’s in this one. Bless implies god. What the fuck’s doing the blessing? God. The school should not be endorsing that belief.

I don’t have a cow over every teacher that say bless you when a kid sneezes (mainly because it’s so expected in our society that you have to save that particular battle for the teachers idiotic enough to try and teach your kid to say it) but a public school should not be endorsing that bullshit on a sign.

No. Having been known as the Blessed Atheist for years and having the website the Blessed Atheist Bible Study, I take exception to this. I consider myself quite blessed just not by any deity. I have a wonderful child and wife and love my life. Even though this is all due to random chance and hard work, I prefer to use the word blessed, a kind of stripping the word from them and using it for my purposes.

But deeper than that is the argument that even if the roots of the word are religious we have to reject the very idea of tearing out of public areas every word that has religious connotations. The intent with this sign is not an overtly religious one, and people should not be taken to task for its message. As atheists and people for a strict separation of church and state, we must realize that fighting every battle that even lightly smacks of religion will only turn nearly everyone against us. Standing and fighting against even the merest hint of religious phrasing in public schools doesn’t make us righteous and brave. It makes us assholes. This is how it will be seen and this is will not do our cause any good.

We need to win the war here people, and the only way to do so is by winning the hearts and minds of the general public, not by slapping them whenever they even approach the line. We need to rely more on the carrot than the stick we have currently employed. Although in it’s strictest interpretation, this may be viewed as a endorsement of religion, fighting the word blessed in the public areas will be interpreted as being a dick.

Let’s not be a dick.

Honestly, I’ve never once associated the word ‘blessing’ solely with a god or gods. After all, not too long ago, a suitor would ask his lover’s father for his blessings for the match. Certainly there were no gods involved there!

Of course, it’s perhaps a cultural thing that it implies god in America, and not being American I’m not in a position to know these things?

This is obviously a reference to massive British thespian, Brian Blessed, seen here expressing his disbelief at Flash Gordon’s continued existence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFnmT82yGpk&feature=related

Just remove the letters ess and have a bling new year.

Well, let us look at the definition of blessed. I’d say 4 of the 5 are religious in nature.

Blessed
–adjective
1. consecrated; sacred; holy; sanctified: the Blessed Sacrament.
2. worthy of adoration, reverence, or worship: the Blessed trinity.
3. divinely or supremely favored; fortunate: to be blessed with a strong, healthy body; blessed with an ability to find friends.
4. blissfully happy or contented.
5. Roman Catholic Church . beatified.

I’d say speak up. No way should this be promoted by the school system.

I think the phrasing sounds weird. And it may well be an attempt to “get away with” religion in this case. But that’s hard to prove, and I’m ok with someone wishing me a “Blissfully happy and contented New Year!”, or a “Fortunate New Year” as in some of the definitions of the word.

What you do is you stop in at the school and ask them, “blessed by who?” and when they tell you god or jesus, you report it to the Freedom From Religion Foundation so they can have a staff lawyer send the school a letter telling them to stop it.

I’d let it slide; in fact I do – a religious work colleague always wishes me a blessed weekend. These days the word is used often enough in other non-religious contexts for me to let it slide. I think the wikipedia entry is missing the more secular meaning of bringing happiness and good fortune.

But – I rather like the ‘dark’ meaning described in wikipedia: “a Blood (street gang) initiation rite will involve getting blessed, a process by which a inductee is punched as hard as possible in the forehead”. My blessings will be upon those who say “God bless you this weekend”.

Other Tom, I might just do that.

As for Kevin, there is a big difference between a person wishing someone a blessed whatever and a government entity saying it.

You have to pick our battles. If we can’t even get God off our money we certainly won’t get blessed off a school sign.

@Clint – It’s Indiana. Of course they are pushing their Christian agenda.

People already consider us annoying because we object to “In God We Trust” on our money. No question about the First Amendment violation there.
“Blessed” is a pointless fight, if only because they can say (and they are technically correct) that “blessed” has no necessary religious connotations. We all know what they mean, of course, but they can be coy and we will look silly. Choose your fights wisely.

It seems to me that blessing is a verb and you then need to have something thats the blessor and something thats the blessee. In this case I would think the school district is referring to a god doing the blessing.

Please. I’m all for keeping religion out of public institutions, but it’s not like “blessed” is a hidden code for Jesus. In the context of the message on the board it simply conveys the hope one will have a good year; not “May Jesus/Allah/Buddah/FSM make your year good”, or even “Only my personal saviour can make that your year will be good, so you better repent!”.

Getting worked up about stuff like this will only dilute our own message and ressources.

Choosing one’s battles aside, it’s a blatant bitch slap, and by no means ok.

Blessed-
adjective

1. having divine aid, or protection, or other blessing.
2. *’1611:’ King James Bible (Matthew 5:5) – Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
3. In Catholicism, a title indicating the beatification of a person, thus allowing public veneration of those who have lived in sanctity or died as martyrs.
4. Held in veneration; revered.
5. Worthy of worship; holy.

verb

1. A past tense and a past participle of bless.

Bertram Cabot, Jr.,
My how friendly you are, perhaps you’d like to hear chapter and verse how so.

I do think the current damage religion does to the world currently needs to be laid out specifically and completely. That should include it’s damage to physical and mental healthcare, education, alcohol and drug laws, end of life care, hate crimes, political pandering to praise the lord and line some pockets, the whole nine yards. Atheists and god talkers deserve to know the costs to evaluate who’s being friendly and the costs of those crocodile smiles.

@Bertram Cabot, Jr.

“My, how friendly all you atheists are!

And you still don’t have a clue as to why you are the most unpopular group in the US! LOL!”

The majority of the atheists in this thread up to this point have been in favor of letting it slide, including the ones before you made your stupid comment.
Your ignorant statement is further proof that morons such as yourself cannot acknowledge reality, even when it’s staring you in the face.
Go back to your alphabet blocks and finger paints you idiot troll.

Worth lodging a complaint to keep them on their toes.

We need to win the war here people, and the only way to do so is by winning the hearts and minds of the general public, not by slapping them whenever they even approach the line. We need to rely more on the carrot than the stick we have currently employed. Although in it’s strictest interpretation, this may be viewed as a endorsement of religion, fighting the word blessed in the public areas will be interpreted as being a dick.

Let’s not be a dick.

What war are you talking about? The war of separation of church and state? “Blessed” is a very clear statement of Christian intent and if secularists are not willing to stand up for the little points, where does that leave them for the big points? What battle are you possibly reserving your strengths for? What carrot have you been using?

And, btw, telling someone that standing up for something important is “being a dick,” is being a dick. Cut it out.

This post really hits home for me. My daughters 2nd grade teacher signs his letters home with ‘Blessings’.

After some thought, I’ve decided to accept his salutation as a shot across my bow. Ive raised my alert level, and I’m watching his every move for signs of proselytizing to my daughter.

Of course, it’s tempered by the fact that he’s a great teacher.

“Blessings” is a wiggle word. Although, they probably meant “God’s blessings,” it is too vague to raise a stink about it. And who knows, maybe they really didn’t mean ‘bless’ as in ‘God bless you.’ I still say ‘Bless you’ out have a habit, when a person sneezes. Maybe they didn’t have enough letters for ‘good tidings to you.’ or ‘have a year filled with good luck and prosperity.’

However, my guess is that is that if you watch this district, they probably will cross the line in other ways.

Let it slide. You’ve gotta pick your battles. Let them have moments of silence and wishes for “blessed” days. The “under God” in the pledge is a bigger issue.

I think this was almost certainly intended to convey a religious message, but since “blessed” can be interpreted another way, they probably felt sure that no one could challenge it. The phrase doesn’t seem appropriate to me, but I would probably just keep a close eye on the school system. Sooner or later, they might try to sneak in more overt religiosity.

I typically let this one slide and file it under the “choose your battles carefully” category.

thanks for this post; it reminds me why i’m “militant” in my atheism.

the comment by the person mocking atheists tells me all i need to know.

let’s contrast and compare: a bunch of mostly atheists, on an atheist blog that one must choose to visit in order to view, politely debating a public sign using public resources and representing the government and authority possibly or seemingly supporting religious belief in direct contradiction to the Constitution. and the believers? why, they come here and insult us, even though the majority of people here are mostly saying “meh, no big deal” and even though the likelihood of meaningful action to remove it is very unlikely.

everyone here knows the adage “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile?” well, it’s right here in black and white. i doubt a lot of people here troll believer sites and i know i never do; mostly they are too boring to be bother with. but the believers don’t want us to have ANY safe space. they ALWAYS want to silence us, and for us to silence ourselves. we’re supposedly offensive for simply putting up a billboard saying “don’t believe? you’re not alone.” legions of them run screaming and shouting and it’s on the news and in all the papers and OMG the world will end if those mean, rude, hateful atheists are ever allowed to express themselves in the tiniest way. but when they shove their crap not only on us in the form of private billboards, but also ones that our taxdollars pay for? we’re supposed to turn the other cheek, so to speak.

it is a War, people, and this is why we’re not winning yet. we’re advancing, but we’ve got to hold the line. our secular Constitution is very, very clear. there is a clear line that separates government and religion, even “vague” religious notions, and it is up to US to maintain it, because the believers never will and would love it if no one ever made that point in public ever again. 4/5 definitions of the word imply religion; in a court of law that’s more than enough to meet the standard.

yes: say something. no: don’t be ashamed or worry about the poor little believers’ feelings when you do. i like the above suggestion: ask them “blessed by whom?” and when they answer some wishy washy way that you just know they will, “oh, we’re trying to be inclusive of all faiths and we don’t really mean xtianity (which of course they do in this part of IN)” bring down the FFRF on them. it’s *never* ok to use my tax dollars to support, promote or legitimate faith. nor yours, nor anyone’s. Never. the people who will be offended by such an action? well, most of them think i should be stoned to death. so i don’t give a f*ck about what they think and i’ll never change their minds anyway. the “moderates” who will cluck and clutch pearls and say, “well, those atheists are so rude sometimes, where’s the harm?” they are a HUGE part of the problem and making them uncomfortable? that’s exactly what we need to do more often. the civil, women’s and gay rights movements didn’t win by being polite. we won’t either.

Never mind the definition of “Blessed”, what about the etymology of it.

“Soaked in blood” is not a aspiration you should be promoting for a school.

I asked for my father-in-law’s “blessing” before I asked his daughter to marry me. There were no religious implications in my request, I was simply asking him to wish us well in our life together.

This is not a fight worth fighting since the meaning of the phrase is ambiguous. “to bless” is just an arbitrary verb.

Now, if it said “May God Bless your New Year”…that would be a different story.

I should clarify that I don’t think fighting this would be wrong b/c of bad PR or hurting believers’ feelings. I actually think it would probably lose legally, if it came to that. Now, a letter from FFRF’s legal dept., that might be worth a few minutes of drafting just to fire a shot across the bow…

I think this comes down to how tall Jefferson’s “wall of separation” is. If you believe, as the courts do, that the constitution forbids the government from endorsing any specific religion over another and, therefore, that the government is permitted to be religious either in a generic sort of way or in an all-inclusive sort of way, then this is probably fine, as most religions (even non-theism, as some of the comments above have shown) have a “blessing” analogue.

But if you believe as I do and as Jefferson did, that the constitutional language creates a “wall of separation between church and state,” that means the government is not permitted to engage in spiritualism of any sort and that this should come down. In other words, I’d fight it.

I slipped and used the old “blessed be” today. Sometimes talking to a new mom makes me homesick for my old goddess worship. Not that I still believe in Santa or anything. Wicca was just a comforting phase that came at a wonderful time in my life. I know I’ll never see things in quite the same way again, but sometimes reaching for a favourite food item, blankie, or teddy bear just feels good. I don’t have to believe the resurrection hype to listen to my long dead buddy’s favourite Elvis tune and fondly remember our last dance.

So as somebody with plenty of experience with the phrases “blessed be”, “bright blessings” and “merry meet and merry part and merry meet again”, I’m telling you, the folks at Vigo County school board are definitely NOT Wiccans. They’re Xtians who tolerate, just like they probably tolerate gays and single mothers. They say “bless you” and what they really mean is “we’re going to make you in our image, or we’re going to make you suffer for not wanting to be like us.” Some blessing! If they really wanted to put a universal message on the board, it would be something like “joyous” or “warm” or “safe”, NOT blessed!

I’m with chicago dyke and Peter Mahoney and the rest. Fight them now so they don’t start flying down that slippery slope into trying to teach creationism as science later on.

What about damn? Do atheist use damn as a curse? Damn you? Damn it all to hell? Get your hands off me your damn dirty ape? Its very meaning is the opposite of blessed, yet it is rarely used or even thought of in a religious manner. What about “Curse”? Lucky? Or the Gregorian calendar? Do you fight to make Easter and Christmas non-bank/gov holidays or do you enjoy the paid days off?

Cause this is just annoying. Really. Wtf is wrong with you if this gets you riled up. This is the very definition of being pedantic. Not just letting it slide or choosing your battles, the idea that alot of you even think this is an issue regardless that you think its not big enough to fight, well, lets just say you need help. Secular, professional help.

This is the equivalent of being short changed a penny, and complaining about it for days.