Boss told me off for exclaiming Jesus Christ

[GloMum]

The other day my boss told me off for exclaiming Jesus Christ when I was surprised during a work meeting. Boss told me it’s rude towards people from different religions and asked me if I’d done my DEI training. I have, and I enjoy friendships with colleagues from varied backgrounds. I feel really stressed now in case I slip again, and embarrassed I should be told off.

YABU - This is an inappropriate exclamation at work
YANBU - It’s just an exclamation and you shouldn’t be told off for that.

They don’t have to, and I’ve never personally told someone not to say it, but you asked why Christians don’t like it

I didn't ask that at all.
I'm just explaining why getting offended is a waste of time. I'm not accountable to christians and they're not accountable to me.

I thought you were the poster I was replying to

Nein.

But surely it does not affect your personal relationship with your god (and that is all religion should be IMO) so ultimately why does it bother you that someone who doesn’t follow your religion would use it in their vernacular?

do you have problem with non religious people celebrating Christmas?

I am not religious but I think this exclamation is unprofessional and inappropriate in a work meeting.

There are plenty of other expressions you can use

Like what? ‘Oh my goodness’? That is blasphemous

@SquashedSquid
I find it hard to believe that a teacher would allow a child in their care to use blasphemy of any religion.

"Use of “oh my gosh” or “goodness” does not reference God and therefore would not be considered to be sinful."

Catholic website

I'm not a catholic but that would be my take on this phrase

I never knew people found oh god and jesus Christ offensive until this thread! I say it all the time even at work 😂. Surprised I've not been told off for it over the years. Oh well.

It's not offensive unless you feel everyone should follow your belief system. Crack on.

Website is incorrect. Gosh is an absolute reference to god, as is goodness. It's all.the same.

You should be delighted anyone references your outdated soon to be dead religion. Shows some vague relevance at least. You want to be so completely irrelevant that noone even uses your fictional figures as an expletive? Bad form. You can't spend millennia forcing your religion into a culture, law and language and then whine when the traces assert themselves afterwards.

It's not blasphemous to me, because it literally means nothing. I don't allow swearing but the odd, "Oh my God" really doesn't register on my care-o-meter.

It is absolutely a euphemism for god.

jeepers/gee/jeez all mean Jesus

you either have to be offended by all words direct or indirect or none at all.

@HipMax - I'm confused - the poster you quoted said they aren't catholic.

Catholicism is growing faster than the world's population, so it doesn't look like it will be dead soon.

@SquashedSquid
As a teacher surely the role is to ensure that pupils are respectfull others regardless of what faith the teacher may have.

Yeah, you’re right that it doesn’t affect my personal relationship with God. But you care if something wrong is happening even it’s not being done to you. If Jesus is real and he’s God, then that’s true regardless of whether someone believes it. So it will always be jarring for me to hear his name used in that way by people he has made.

The Christmas one is an interesting question, I wouldn’t say i have a problem with it, of course I think it would be better if everyone knew of and believed in the real meaning of Christmas though! Which is why we do a lot of outreach events at church at that time of year.

In my classroom, using the names of made up characters as an expression is not disrespectful. If a parent is bothered by it, they're more than welcome to find an alternative classroom.

@SquashedSquid
Well I doubt whether a school would allow that, assuming they knew

Allow what? Children saying book character names? Of course it's allowed. I've heard my TAs use similar expressions many times, as do colleagues. Thankfully we're all grown adults who are intelligent enough to determine that invisible deities don't exist.

If your faith is so weak and tenous that it's threatened by someone using the name of your figurehead, that's very much a you problem.

Your god did not make us. Your interpretation of Christmas is not the real meaning of Christmas. Your religion hijacked all the old elements of pagan and pre Christian religion and imposed your ideals on it, it never made your notions real, and after a fairly brief season in the majority you are very much again in a tiny minority. You hav no claim. It doesn't matter if you are jarred by our using the name of your personal deity in the vernacular. Your people gave it to us, you can't just cancel it now you're on the wrong side of it.

@HipMax

Really?

Which bit?

But absolutely yes, really. All of it.

@HipMax

Is website incorrect?

I've never known anyone take offence to these phrases but the JC one is very different

I think this might be the most surprising thread I've ever come across on here. The poll, the responses, it's just...wow