scene but not herd

When should ideology be set aside or should it ever? I had lunch with my friend Alexis yesterday and she sneezed a couple of times and I said nothing. No "bless you" or anything else. Is that rude? I suppose this is a rather petty topic to discuss, but there are some larger issues involved. I am not a religious person and neither am I superstitious in any way, so basically you will never hear the words "God bless you" or "bless you" coming out of my mouth. I've never read up on the subject, but I imagine there was a time when sneezing was the sign of bad things to come. A common cold could kill the average person so the whole "bless you" thing began as a way/belief to fend off death. Well much time has passed since then and a sneeze is no longer a sign of doom. I simply don't want to perpetuate this ritual because it seems pointless to me. If I sneeze and no one says anything to me that is perfectly fine. The problem with my point of view on this topic is that quite a number of people view it as a hostile act. I was in an office once and a guy sneezed a few times and as usual I didn't say anything. He started to say "bless me" to himself each time he sneezed. I almost started laughing, but it was obvious that he was offended by my "lack of compassion." I think that I'm basically a nice guy. My not saying "bless you" is based solely on principle. If you're coming down with a cold I hope you feel better, but me saying "bless you" is not going to prevent you from getting sick. I've discussed this with my friend Suze and she understands my point of view. If she sneezes I can say nothing or tell her to shut up and it's all just a good laugh. Perhaps I should see this as less of an ideological issue, but rather one of common courtesy. When you acknowledge someone sneezing with a "bless you" there is a certain amount of civility or niceness involved which I do find pleasing, but the whole underlying issue of "ritual" still bothers me. Perhaps I will compromise and just use the Spanish word for health, "salud." My dad always used a Mayan word when he would hear me sneeze and I just assumed it meant "health" or "bless you," but recently I found out that it basically means "white earth." I don't know how to spell the words, but they sound like he is saying "sauce cop" and I kind of like the idea that he just picked some random words to substitute for "bless you." It's like you're participating in this ludicrous ritual, but you're also acknowledging that it is ludicrous. But anyway, to Alexis or anyone else I may have offended... Salud!