Why do we say God Bless you when we sneeze?

Question

aichausa
This has what to do with sneezing?

Answer 1

They started saying that as a blessing in the medieval times when someone sneezed because sneezing was a symptom of the plauge, so they used that ejaculation as a blessing for God to protect the person from the plauge. Then the pope made it and official saying so it's gone this far unto this day....

Also your heart skips a beat when you sneeze so it's also used as a blessing.

Answer 2

Because when you sneeze, it is thought that your hearts stops for a second, then saying "bless you" is like saying, "bless that starts pumping again".
But, there are other folktale stories out there too like saying "bless you" keeps you from getting possessed because of belief of demons entering into ones body during sneezing.

Answer 3

In English-speaking countries, it is common for at least one person to say "God bless you" (or just "Bless you") after someone sneezes. This tradition originates from the Middle Ages, when it was believed that when one sneezed, the heart stops, the soul left the body and could be snatched by an evil spirit. Today, it is said mostly in the spirit of good manners

Answer 4

Evolution Explained
by David A. Rizwan
Evolution. Most people have heard of it, but not too many believe that it is possible. However, most people that see it as false do not understand it. I will try to clarify the blurry points in the Modern Evolutionary Theory. Simply put, Evolution is the process through which animals change over time. However, this seems to sum the story up a little too much. Most people that do not believe in Evolution do not fully understand it. Those people believe that the theory says that humans came from monkeys. This is not true. Those people believe that if an animal evolves, there is no prerequisite to the present animal alive. This is not true either.

The Theory of Evolution simply explains how life changes over time. This isn’t a few weeks, years, or even centuries. In most cases, this takes millions of years to be complete. The whole evolution process begins with a mutation. A mutation is any animal that is different from the norm. For instance, an albino garter snake is a mutation. A lucistic alligator is a mutation. Anything that is not normal in a living creature’s DNA is a mutation. It is obvious that some mutations would be more beneficial than others. This is where “Survival of the Fittest” comes into play. For instance, a longer bill on a nectar-feeding bird is beneficial, as it allows the bird to gather nectar much easier. Other mutations, such as an albino snake in a dark green jungle, are actually malicious. It is obvious that this snake will not be able to camouflage from predators while it is still young, making it an easy meal. The snake will never survive to the age to reproduce. The animals that are best matched to their environment will survive more, thus reproduce more.

There are sometimes periods in which the environment changes, such as the Ice Age. During the period of time, most of the world became icy and snow covered. The animals with a gene to have longer hair would usually die of heat exhaustion in the previous era. But now their hair is able to keep heat in their body, allowing them to survive better than the non-haired ones. The without hair began to die out, leaving only the ones with hair. The species had just evolved. As the environment changes, those that are fit to the new environment survive and reproduce, those that aren’t, die off.

Sometimes animals are separated from other animals of their species, such as the Galapagos Islands. These animals have a closed gene pool away from the other animals, and they also live in a different terrain type. This means that two samples of a species can evolve differently. One sample of a bird species may develop a longer bill to allow for easier food gathering, while the other sample develops a shorter bill for more control over the bill, and the final sample of the bird species may remain unchanged. Eventually through these changes and others, the two birds will eventually be so different that they can no longer reproduce. Another new species now exists.

Many believe that there is no evidence to support evolution. On the contrary, there is much more evidence than the other theories for how life came to be. When you compare two cats taxonomically, they are the same species. They can reproduce and produce fertile young. This means that all of the cat species are the same, Felis Domesticus. How did all of these come to be? Selective breeding is the key. Selective breeding is basically forced evolution upon a species. When people saw the first Siamese cat, they decided to make more. By breeding them with another cat, there is a chance to produce more of that mutation. More evidence to prove the existence evolution is homologous structures. These are structures that are made of the same thing, but fill different tasks. If you examine the skeletal structure of a whale flipper, it has the same bones as a human hand. There are many other situations such as this.

In conclusion, Evolution is a rather simple topic if you put time into fully understanding it. To evolve, all a species needs is a beneficial mutation and the death of the original version of the species. When an isolated species evolves away from the original population, it will form a new species. Since the original version is still alive, the species hasn’t evolved, but a new species has formed.


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Answer 5

It was a belief in the middle ages that when you sneezed you were expelling demons or evil spirits from your body so they would say God Bless You so the spirits would not enter them or go back in to the person who sneezed.

Answer 6

Pope Gregory I the Great ascended to the Papacy just in time for the start of the bubonic plague in AD 590 (his successor succumbed to it). To combat the plague, Gregory ordered litanies, processions and unceasing prayer for God's blessing. When someone sneezed (seen as the initial onset of the plague), they were immediately blessed ("God bless you!") in the hope that they would not actually develop the disease.

edit:

Oh yeah, and other superstitious reasons were explained, I only answered with the traditional one

Answer 7

It started during the black plague. People believed that sneezing rid the body of the plague, so they were blessed by god in people eyes.

Answer 8

There used to be a notion that the spirit briefly left the body during a sneeze, and the blessing was intended to aid its return. The notion is nonsense but the custom has stuck.

Answer 9

I have read that because breathing and heartbeat stop for an instant when we sneeze, people used to think that the soul might escape the body during that instant. So, they said "God bless you" so He would prevent that from happening. Don't recall where I read it.

Answer 10

i say it out of sheer habit, as a general wish for health...i think it sounds better than that insipid 'feel better'...FYI, that 'your heart skips a beat when you sneeze' line is an old wives tale...not a bit of truth to it...i can't believe that intelligent people actually fall for that...