So, without going profane, how do atheists express shock/horror?

I've not been to church more than a couple of times in my life (I'm 21 now)....but if something were to seriously surprise me, I think I'd probably swear (f***, most likely), or else I'd say (despite the fact that I'm not religious) Jesus Christ

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"Oh nihlistic forces of the natural world!"

"Oh my Sigmund Freud!"

"Oh my foot!"

"Oh my..."

"...Never slander someone unless you want their job... never cheat unless you need money... never hate unless someone bores you." - C.S. Lewis

I'm an atheist, and if I don't swear I always say 'oh my God'. I can't think of what else I'd say without swearing.

This, pretty much. People who don't believe in it still use the expression, myself included.

Yeah, atheists, including staunch ones, will still use exclamations with the words God or Jesus Christ in. Such, apparently, is the persistent background noise of religion.

I'm a staunch atheist and take the Lord's name in vain all the time, both for good and bad - if something turns out well, I am most likely to say "Praise Baby Jesus!" Which started out as sarcasm, but it's a verbal tic now. It doesn't matter to me - the point isn't to actually invoke a deity, the point is to express an emotion. Our society associates "Oh my God" with surprise/anger/etc, so that's what I use. You probably don't have much of a problem if he doesn't curse anyway. If you want, he could ditch the "my."

Shock/horror can also be expressed by the non-religious swearwords. I'd consider the shock a lot stronger if I used s- or f- in response to it. "Oh my God" to me expresses either absolute robot-mode brain-shutdown shock (repeated, usually) or mild shock about an unimportant thing: not, say, finding a dead body in the closet.

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."
- Oscar Wilde

Some atheists (myself included) would say "Oh gods", implying that there's not just one god that people like to talk about.

I like to say "Oh Godel" myself, which is a pun on mathematician/logician Kurt Godel's name.

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I'm not strictly an atheist, but I do try to profane in interesting ways, so I tend to make up random things on the spot... I think today's cursewords were "Holy Monkey!" "Jeez-Bananas" "Holy Munchkin!" (that one gets used a LOT!). My best friend, the self proclaimed atheist, says "By the gods" ...which I find a little ironic.

Make it about the story, not the word count. (Maybe if I say it enough I'll believe it...)

I say cheesy things when mildly shocked, like "Oh my Maud." but otherwise, when truly shocked, it's usually some variation of blasphemy. Remember, Jesus has a delicious middle name that begins with H.

I've been a "staunch" atheist for 9 years now. for realism sake, does your character consider himself a "scientific atheist" or a Secular Humanist? lots of very serious atheists do (but not all.)

[Placeholder for an answer that will make more sense when the Vicodin is out of my system]

Like the atheists above, I tend to use Jesus Christs/Oh my God a lot despite being raised in a household of staunch heathens.

Other things I might use on a rare occasion include: bugger all/bugger me/buggery; are you serious?; bloody hell; holy crap/holy moly. The later ones are at least... less religious? I don't know. Those are all for fairly mild shock/horror, too. For like... serious shock/horror, I would either be swearing or invoking the lord's name. Also, as proven by the above, I'm sickeningly Australian, so ymmv. *g*

I'm another atheist raised in a family of heathens, and yeah, I do say "Oh (my) God!" and "Jesus (Christ)!" when shocked or horrified - and I don't swear, so that's about as drastic as I get. I have a friend who is quite the militant atheist, and she'll say "Oh my god!" or "Or my gods!" when she doesn't swear (but she usually does swear instead, so it's not that often that you hear something like that from her ^^). Christianity has pervaded Western culture so much that even the staunchest atheist will probably let slip an "Oh my god!" every once in a while.

~toujours~la~douleur~
~je~suis~la~douleur~

Keep in mind that when a person is stunned or shocked, their automatic response will bypass their intellect. In other words, at the moment of impact, so to speak, they aren't going to be thinking about what they *should* say as a staunch atheist. They will respond on "automatic pilot". Sometimes that will mirror how they were raised, and what they heard the people around them saying when they grew up.

So what would your character's automatic response be? Put him into a situation and find out. Let him show you.

Sometimes people won't say anything. They are so shocked that they are stricken speechless, as the saying goes. Or they may scream or cry out, not using any words. They may hold their breath.

Some other ideas:

Holy cow!
Holy Moses!
Shit!
Holy shit!
Christ on a crutch!
Jesus, Mary and Joseph! (If he grew up in an Italian Catholic family ;))
Yikes!
Mercy!
Oh!
Oh no!
No!

I'm an atheist and I refuse to take the Lord's name in vain. It just feels kind of wrong, calling on a god that I don't even believe in. Though, yeah, some of my chosen exclamations do have their roots in various religions.

My alternatives are usually:

"Holy cow!"
"Holy (insert noun pertaining to subject), Batman!"
"Shoot!"
"Jeeze!"

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Huh, as an atheist I say "oh my god" a lot. The society I live in is pretty non-religious and it doesn't even occur to me that there's a religious connection to OMG most of the time. I associate it with surprise and shock, not religion. I also say "Geez" a lot, which is probably a corruption of "Jesus".

Once I stayed with a religious family in the USA, however, and they literally yelled at me and made this giant fuss over me saying OMG (apparently it was "blasphemy"). I was highly offended that they were culling my right to free speech when I don't even *believe* in God, since OMG is about as tame an exclamation as it gets. So I'm actually inclined to think that it's the religious people who won't use OMG, not atheists.

I want to add that I was extremely pissed off at the religious family for not letting me say OMG. Talk about conservative. They must have been living under a rock if they expected all their acquaintances not to say it.

My atheist friends use God's name a lot.

Also, one of them will use weird substitutions for swear words. "Shi-taki mushrooms!" ""Bun of a sitch!" "You jack-donkey!" and the like. The other one cusses like a sailor, but I don't think that's related to his atheism.

The terms "Oh my god" or "Sweet chocolate Christ on a stick" and whatnot aren't exclusively religious. In fact, they've been used within a nonspecific negative context for so long that they've entered our colloquial canons completely independent of their literal meanings. In fact, I would venture to suggest that even religious people who say "Jesus" when frustrated aren't actually making an attempt to invoke the mercy of their lord and saviour, but are rather just using it in a purely colloquial sense.

Sort of like how the term 'gay' is used these days. Nobody uses it to refer exclusively to happy homosexuals; its meaning in the new colloquial canon is completely divorced from its literal meaning.

The whole world being steeped in some sort of religion, it's natural for many an atheist to blaspheme - to them, it's not blasphemy, of course.

I use Jesus f*cking Christ if really annoyed;
Jesus wept
Christ all F'ing Mighty.

And in polite company - (phonetically) Hay soos christos.

I'll stop if someone was to prove that God exists... LOL

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The "oh my gawd" thing is cultural, not religious. My atheist friends tell me they still shout out to the cultural almighty when coming to climax. But maybe at that particular moment, they become believers, kind of like being in love before the act and kind of getting over it as the sensation wanes. My ex could not get through five minutes without the F word. One of his favourites was "F...k a duck." My stepfather liked "Jeezuz H Christ," really drawn out and markedly exclamatory. My ex would leave out the H and insert "f...kin." A mild sort of astonishment, the kind that might bring on an "omigawd," would be a simple "f...k" properly intoned for the occasion. An odd one I've heard a couple of times: "Great Caeser's Ghost!" Invent something. That would be fun. It's the emphasis that makes it a curse. "Bloody hell" is popular in this part of the world. It is a genuine profanity (based on "God's blood," which is the same as "taking the Lord's name in vain") but not seen as such by many. Another popular one that is actually used in polite company is "bugger all," which sounds so nice but actually means f...k everyone up the bum.

mokkers, word nut

"Oh my God" and "Jesus Christ!" are totally secular to me. Indeed, I think I'm more likely to use them than a true believer might, because for me it's not taking anyone's name in vain / blasphemy. They're just words of exclamation.

The phrase I DO try to avoid is "thank god." Because I don't thank God. But it's such a common phrase, so part of my world (the persistent background noise of religion, as another poster said), that it's incredibly hard to avoid saying. And there's no good secular alternative! "Thank goodness" sounds so contrived and little-old-lady to me, but it's all I've got.

Um, I frequently go for the 'religious' swears, despite my nonbeliever status.
"Good Lord"
"Jesus Christ"
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"

Yeah, I'm an atheist, but I don't make a political statement out of expressing surprise or shock. I say "Oh my God" a lot (though in MSN conversations, I'll often spell it 'gawd') and I'm also known to say:
Jesus H/fuckin' Christ
Oh lord
Holy crap/shit/fuck
Fuckin' hell

"The question is not who will let me, but who is going to stop me." -Ayn Rand

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How about the old comical Futurama Bender quote: "Oh your God!"

i'm atheist, and usually say "oh my god" or "holy crap"

I've got a friend who is an atheist and doesn't use curse words-- she says "Fungus", Oh Fungus!

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My husband uses "jesus wept" a lot, and I thought he was the only one until now *thumbsup*

A friend of mine uses 'oh jesus h. bald-headded christ on a skateboard!" which when said in anger is slightly more startling than anything else I've heard in a while.

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I'm an atheist and I think it actually makes sense to "take the lord's name in vain" since we can without fear of repercussion.

My favorite is: Jesus Christ on a raft! No one knows what it means, but it gets the point across.

When I'm truly upset: Holy Shit, Oh my God, Holy Fuck, Fuckin' Hell, Jesus!

Things heard from my athiest friend this morning:

Gods above
Oh, fiddlesticks.
Well. Just... well.
Oh, me.
What the... trig.

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I've written athiests before. Some would use "oh my god" and "god damn it" just as freely as everyone else. Others would have their own words or phrases. "by the Galaxy" or "by the stars" are common in sci-fi settings. I had one character that used "Jumping fudge monkies" in place of swearing or refrencing gods. A few picked gods out of ancient religions that they liked for whatever reason and used them, such "By Freya" or "Zeus damn it" for example. And one used their favorite movie character in place of god, though I can't remember who that was anymore.

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Same as many above: I'm an atheist, and I invoke God/Jesus to express joy, surprise, pain, annoyance, etc.

Melissa

My partner and I are both atheists... but our families aren't and neither are the people we grew up with so I guess that references to God are more an indication of common vernacular than any actual belief.

Personally, I do tend to use 'Good God!' or 'Jesus Christ!' quite frequently. Other options for me are 'For f*** sake!' and 'Shit!'.

My partner, on the other hand, made a conscious effort several years ago to force herself out of the habit of referencing a God she doesn't believe exists. I can't think the last time I heard her use that kind of language, instead she'll opt for 'My goodness!', 'Sheesh!' or, very rarely, 'Shit!' and 'F**k!'.