When taking my family out to public places, someone comments "God has blessed you."and "You're doing god's work.". When they say this it is in the context of a compliment to us.
My question is:
What is the best way to reply to one of these compliments and convey to them that I am an atheist and I will not perpetuate giving god credit for anything. Especially things that I have worked so hard to achieve.
I want to say something in reply that can normalize atheism, and not offend, but make them reflect on the falseness of their own beliefs. Showing them that atheists are good people, and have no reason to hide. Currently I just nod and keep walking.
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Being from the UK, luckily it's not a common occurrence in the slightest... in fact it is rather rare!
However, we do get the odd god botherer knocking on the door on odd occasions and I would imagine that my default setting of rolling my eyes would somewhat give it away.
I know of a friend who does reply, "That's nice of her!"
"Gawd bless you."
"Oh! How nice! Which one?"
I feel for you.
I always get that "I'm praying for you" from friends and family. And of course my grandmother that will see a scientist on the tv showing some new breakthrough of his and she'll simply say, "I'm glad God gave him the idea." (Disregarding all his hard work and dedication) Drives me up the wall, I nearly go insane.
But do I laugh at them? Make funny comments that make them mad? Or just be quiet and nod like usual? I can't decide what's rude or what's polite.
I like CyberLN's comment but yet it still doesn't hit the right beat of not offending. (I would like to be polite to my family)
Personally , I try not to engage believers in public. I live where there are hundreds of fundamentalist churches and no mosques or synagogues. Everyone is a christian. My day is easier if I don't have to deal with any door to door or street epistemology.
In the past, I tried not to mock them in public. I used to say just 'thanks'. But now as Randomhero's friend does, if I have a big day I go with the humourous card when possible. If not, I go with the rolling eyes.
Some not-very-rude answers that I can think of:
"I'll pray for you": Thank you, but there's no need/ don't waste your precious time on me.
"God has blessed you": I guess that's a compliment, so I appreciate it./ I have good luck indeed.
"You're doing God's work": Well, if He/She is not doing it, someone has/should.
If I am out in public, and I am not with theist family and friends, I am not very polite about it, because I see it as they were not polite to me. Most of these people would not consider it polite at all if you said to them "allah praise you." Which is the same thing, in a way, as when christians say god bless you, or I will pray for you etc to an atheist. Even if they did not know. It is not polite to make assumptions about a stranger.
Admittedly it rarely comes up where I live.
It probably helps that I live in a city, and most US cities especially on the coasts and in the north by default are much more liberal, and non religious.
Dan Barker of FFRF suggests "what an interesting thing to say to an atheist"..
"I'm sorry the only thing I would consider calling God is this planet we live on."
Could be a good one if it was something you agreed with.