You probably can tell from reading my posts that I'm not a deeply religious man, but I have to say -- I don't really mind it at all when someone says to me, "God bless you." I suppose my thinking is really just a derivation of Pascal's Wager, but I guess I think at some point it's possible that their saying, "God bless you," could save my ass.
For example, coming out of the store the other day, a rather
weathered-looking fellow citizen asked me if I could spare some change. I
handed him a five-dollar bill. He thanked me and said,
"God bless you," and I liked it.
My hopes are that someday, if I'm surprised to be facing God's judgment outside the pearly gates -- I'm thinking it might be possible for God to say something like, "Well, Dan, when you were alive you bashed me, said I didn't exist and said that even if I did exist I was an evil motherfucker for torturing the fuck out of poor souls for all eternity simply because of what they did or didn't do, believe or didn't believe, while on earth. Having said that, I think I'm going to give you a pass. Remember that time when you were walking out of Safeway and you gave that homeless dude a fiver and he said: 'God bless you'? Well, I'm going to go ahead and do just that. Yours was an act of kindness. And frankly, if I'm honest, I was never all that charitable with that poor schmuck myself. 😟"
