this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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They do. All the time. Not just at the end, but during the game if they make a good play, they'll point to the sky. It's insane. Sports and religion, especially American football and religion, are deeply intertwined in this country. It's one of the reasons I've never really gotten much into sports.
So I don’t think everytime to do the point to the sky thing it’s religious. I played a lot of sports through high school and in college and I did that but I’m an atheist. For me it was more of a “bless up” type thing. I’m sure a decent amount of it in sports is religious but I don’t thing every single time it is. It’s just a way to celebrate without being overly cocky and being proud of what happened
"Bless up" sounds religious...
right like I don't see how you could write that and not see the obvious religious connotation.
The word up after bless doesn’t make it sound religious I don’t think. Saying bless up is another way of saying having good luck. There is clearly a non religious terminology to it but if you force it to be religious then you can. If you take bless up literally then sure it can be religious but it’s a figure of speech. You could say that it is another way of saying “good on luck”
Please google “bless up” everyone downvoting🙏 hope you find a religious meaning
This is just you not understanding how ingrained religion is in sports. Bless up is literally a shortened version of a prayer you are copying.
What prayer?
I’m getting downvoted but I would love for everyone reading this to just google “bless up” and find the religious meaning in it. If you find it after scrolling through pages of non religious meaning there you go. Not everything with “bless” is religious. It’s just slang
Also it’s not only sports. SO many people in college would say that term in any way where something relatively good happened to them. None of them were religious. People were using it in ways to replace “hell yeah”. So is it that I’m not knowing of a prayer or it’s just where I grew up and everyone used it in different ways to say something good happened and always used it as a figure of speech and never literally?
I’m starting to think this community is just nutcases who want to get butthurt at every single thing they can about religious people. Y’all are really complaining about people pointing to the sky? What if that is just something they picked up along the way growing up but don’t care for a god? What if they have a dead relative and they’re doing that not as a religious thing but as a “that’s for you?”. There’s so many reasons people can be doing that and yet you all are just making fun of them and complaining about it. I’m not religious but cmon, be better than that. You can’t assume every single thing you see that COULD represent some part of religion is 100% it everytime.
People who are saying that they aren’t watching sports anymore due to people being “religious” in it are not better than people religious people lol that’s for sure. Like, who cares if there is religious people in sports? You really are going to take away that could bring you a lot of enjoyment in life just because of them pointing up or what they say after the game? I just feel sorry for you that you allow religion to control your life that much. Ignore it, who cares. But when it does come for something that matters like politicians trying to ban books for stupid ass things, that’s when you fight. Not for people pointing up.
People are going to say “I don’t want this religion shoved down my throats while watching a sport”. Well guess what? There’s also non religious people playing and making good plays but you’re just paying attention to the ones that do religious stuff. You’re also no better than those banning books and trying to force a Christian fascist nation on us. Allow people to have their own beliefs and don’t let it bother you. But when they come like politicians are and those extreme religious folks are trying to change everything, attack and fight back on those people. You’re fighting against the wrong religious people. Not all religious people are bad, it’s not hard to go day by day and not let religious people ruin it. You believe what you believe, they believe what they believe, so what. Also, not everything that could be religious is religious unless you’re trying to force it just to be upset at something
Wow... ~It's literally "All my blessings up to God"...~. After looking some more I can see that this isn't the origin of the Jamaican phrasing, but the Jamaican phrasing is literally defined to mean "have a blessed day" which is unequivocally religious...
We all know English is a weird language how one word can have different meanings in different phrases. Guess what? This is one of em so no, in this phrase it is not religious.
It's crazy to me that you can't admit it's religious...
Edit: and Wiktionary is a terrible source.
I understand the word bless and blessed is religious, but in the way everyone I know uses it or how I use it we don’t use it in a religious way. That definition is literally how we use it and yet you are saying that im not using it how I say I am. Idk why you can’t just admit maybe words can have different meanings in different phrases when that is just how English works.
You do know what slang means right?
If you don’t, here you go
First, I'm saying you don't understand it's connotation if you don't believe it isn religious. You don't get to define what a word means, regardless of how you use it. I don't get to define it either.
Bless up, literally, means to have a blessed day, originates from a religious connotation and most people who use it intend for it to be religious.
You and your friends using it in a different context because you didn't understand it and see other people using it doesn't change it's meaning.
Words absolutely can have different meanings and contexts... But you don't get to choose them individually.
An extreme example of this is racist terms and kids who grow up in racist households... Just because someone has grown up hearing a word used, doesn't mean that they understand the word or it's context and it literally doesn't matter one whit what they think it means when they use it.
Bless up is religious whether you want it to be or not. You think I don't understand your context... But again, you are just wrong.
People don't say "God Bless You" when other people sneeze because they think that persons soul is trying to escape their body, but it would be foolish to think that the phrase isn't religious.
Okay I hear you I see what you mean. I should say though it isn’t just my friend group, it really is my generation and the one prior so it’s more of a widespread. I do see what you’re saying. I had never heard the term ‘bless up’ used in a religious before until now although I knew the term bless or blessed was religious. But the thing is, couldn’t you make this argument against all of slang that uses a word in a different way than it’s original purpose? Putting it this way just basically makes slang completely irrelevant and not usable in any situation if you are using a word that is not from its original definition so that’s where I find pointing this specific term out causes issues due to the multitude of other slang you can attack from this angle. I feel like it’s just knit picking at that point
Yes. Terms do change overtime as entire groups use them, but the change is usually massive or multi-generational.
Slang is just that, slang. The terms still retain their standard meaning and when interpreted still carry the standard connotation.
For example, in the late 90s "Bad" was a "good" thing, but the connotation of the thing that was good was still a "bad" connotation. A "baddie" being used to talk about a person connotes someone you "don't take home to your parents" even though you might be interested in them.
A more modern example is "drip" which historical slang meant a lame/sad/stupid person, like water dripping on you, but the term has changed as the entire zoomer generation started using it to mean clothing... But even that definition comes from its use of "dripping money" which originates from its base usage of to dribble slowly.
Bless/Blessed maybe changing, but the cultural pull on it to relate to a supernaturally endowed luck or divine favor is huge.
Bless up, as a greeting, is just another religious style greeting such as "peace be upon you". They mean basically the same thing. "Hi/good luck/ be blessed/goodbye/etc"... But they are fundamentally religious.
Bless up, as a reaction to a personal achievement, is a shortened mechanism by which religious individuals deny selfishness and/or pride. "Giving thanks to God" means that the individuals achievement shouldn't be held against them in a cultural situation where pride is a deadly sin. It's basically false modesty to avoid being labeled prideful or sinful by their religious congregation, which is 100% what those groups did/do to athletes they wanted to throw under the bus.
That pointing at the sky thing is virtue signaling to the religious right. "I didn't make that touchdown, God did."
Frankly, the fact that you don't know this is amazing... It means you aren't being subjected to the same horrendous shit we were in my generation.
In Portugal it's a common way to dedicate a goal to a decently deceased person. It's not insane at all.
We're not talking about Portugal.
Even if you were it would still hold religious connotation, I would assume the reason they point up for a recently dead person is to imply they are in heaven, what else does it mean? so still religious.
They point up because everyone knows what it means, if they pointed to the ground everyone would be confused. It's really bizarre to classify these gestures as insanity.
Maybe if you put it into Portuguese context it isn't insanity. If you actually hear the very religious statements these American athletes make, it's clear that it's part of insane religious bullshit.
Now we are
Why not?
Because this was about American sports?
Could be about sports and religion in general. Isn't it ok for a discussion to be broader and cover ideas from more than one country?